The Possession Challenge

Thus far, I have failed - on 9.3 at least anyway.

I love Barcelona and how they play in real life.

Every single match, home or away, the dominate possession, usually 60-40.

They are astonishingly good at keeping the ball, allowed to do so, they will even get up to 70-30 possesion in their favour.

So, I've been trying to replicate this in FM for years.

I just cannot do it. The game will not allow you to dominate in such a way, even with the best players from around the world in the 11.

What I seem to have discovered is that no matter what you do to your tactics, it is all down to FORMATIONS - which is extremely annoying, to say the least.

4141 appears to be the hardest to win possession from.

I've tried all sorts, from being attack minded and high closing down, to direct passing and defensive line dropped right back - nothing is consistant.

Don't get me wrong, I have created my own tactic which results wise is very good and does dominate more often than not, but just not at the 90-95% of games rate I want it at.

In matches where I don't dominate possession, I struggle to see why. I always have high closing down and never change my tactics, that would defeat what I'm trying to achieve in a sense.

What I mean is, the basics are kept the same but I do 'tweak'.

From my observations, it appears that possession is (in FM) too often purely down to what formations the teams are playing and my annoyance is that no matter what formation the real life Barcelona team faces, they always dominate possession - because they are good enough to keep possession...

Why is it not like that in FM?

Surely, if I have a team full of players with 16-20 for passing (which I do) then why wont they keep the ball like the Barcelona team does in real life?

Hopefully, someone else out there, bored and frustrated, who is also a reader of this forum, takes up this challenge or better still, already has and can offer some much needed advice...

Thank you in advance.

Aks Cruyff.....oh no wait! I have better solution. One forum member is great in creating Ajax System (in terms of possession this is what you want), his name is Marz.

I am keeping 60-65% possession in most of my matches in the Championship with Bristol City. Check out the W-M thread by magman.

cheers guys. Jazz, do you have a link for that thread? I cant seem to find it.

geez, talk about on the end of my nose! Jazz, I found it, two below this one! **** = me.

Short passing and slow tempo always gives me around 60% possession.

Well, it does'nt for me.

Possession seems to depend far too much on formations.

E.G. - a 442 with 2 x DM's - they'll just pass to each other all day while no matter how high you push your own team or your two midfielders, you always end up with about 49% possession, no more.

The challenge remains - create a tactic, like that of the real-life Barcelona, which you can dominate the opposition %-wise in 99% of the games you play.

In FM, I tell you, it cannot be done!

You cannot replicate everything in real life in FM.

There is always a way to replicate real life tactics, but you have to realise that in real life there is no sliders and notches.

If you are playing too wide, then your short range passing won't work, because the distance between players will be too great, leaving your players firing too many long balls. Also if you are too attacking your team will not take long to move the ball from one end of the pitch to the other and will attempt this as quickly as possible.

I find that, regardless of results and the final outcome, the 41221 gives me the most possession. Escpecially if assigning my DMC as Playmaker( this will be my next set that will be published in my thread)http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=108670

I'm definitely onto something with a new tactic I've created.

Still working on it/testing it in pre-season but getting massive amounts of possession in every game all through the game and a great deal of shots too.

It's looking good - i'll update again soon.

It's a 4-5-1 variation btw.