Need helpers for classic Tactical sign-up

Hey all

What I'm looking for, is 10 or so people, depending on popularity. What I'm looking for in these people, is veterans of the game who are fairly good at it, who take a strong interest in tactics. It would involve playing in a game where you were to use ONLY a classic tactic (I.E the W-M, the Pyramid etc) to help the community gain an insight on which country welcomes the classic tactics back in. The countries I have decided to select are:

England

Scotland

Russia

Austria

Hungary

Italy

Germany

Holland

Denmark

You would pick a team from this country, any league structure, and implement any classical tactic of your choice. You would then stick with this tactic, altering it to fit in with your league. After three or four seasons, we would gather together all of the data, and find out which country welcomed back the classical tactics. Obviously I am giving you a creative license here, but there are some rules:

NO use of the editor is permitted

NO scouting utilities

Player naming is ALLOWED

Once you pick your team and tactic, you MUST stick with them.

Only ONE league structure may be loaded, but as many leagues as you want

You MAY retain players from other countries, but please specify which countries and only 3 are allowed

this is the sign-up layout:

Country:

Team:

Tactic:

Nations loaded(only 3 please):

Nations left

England

Scotland

Russia

Austria

Germany

Denmark

France

1: Heathxxx

2: Megafan2005

3: Kawee

4: SnakeXe

5:

6:

7:

8:

9:

10:

also feel free to start whenever you want.

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I can take Italy if you want.

Take it if you want, it's not up to me.

Like the idea and hope it turns out to be an interesting experiment. Unfortunately I've never been a fan of the older style formations.

Will be interesting to see what works out well in the different countries when you get the results back though.

Lol, if anyone ever joins this that is :L

Try double-posting it in the sign-ups side of the forum.

Mind you, you might have a problem with someone crying because you've mentioned the word "tactic"

Country: Holland

Team: Ajax

Tactic: Total Football

Nations loaded(only 3 please): Holland, England, Spain (Y)

Once its confirmed I should start then I will. I assume I could change to a different classical tactic if I so choose yeah?

Tell you what... I'll take Hungary.

Although I'm not a fan of the older systems, post a link to a tactic you would like me to work with, I'll build a team around it and see how it goes eh!

3-3-4

The formation is set out as shown below (Some debate on the actual shape)

The formation is similar to the WW formation and is slightly more defensive.

Recommended Settings:

Mentality: Mixed Attacking

CF: Mixed

Passing Style: Direct

Tempo: Quick

Width: Wide

CD: Whole Pitch

Time Wasting: Rarely

DL: Push Up

Tackling: Hard

FP: Mixed

Tight Marking: Yes

Use TM: No

Use PM: AMC

Offside Trap: Yes

Counter Attack: No

heathxxx thats how the great Hungary team of the 50s played (Y)

I'll take that then and look out for anyone named Puskas!

You never know, there might be a descendent knocking around

I'll take that then and look out for anyone named Puskas!

You never know, there might be a descendent knocking around

Good luck mate (Y) but you will struggle to find anyone half as good in Hungary

I can do Italy 3-4-1-2.

I don't know if that's considered a classic.

If not, I can do 1980s Germany.

Good luck mate (Y) but you will struggle to find anyone half as good in Hungary

Yup, but it's all in the name... right??

Yup, but it's all in the name... right??

Ofcourse

Think I'll start my Hungarian adventure tomorrow using the tactical setup suggested by megafan2005.

For a bit of added spice, I may also see how far I go with all-Hungarian players. Of course, if it all falls flat on it's face, I shall reserve the right to sign plenty of foreign players as quickly as possible

Haha well I am now not sure what tactic to try tbh now so maybe we could try the same and suggest improvements

I think I've got the 50' bug already. Wooly shirts, long shorts and solid leather boots you could bludgeon someone to death with quite easily...

It's definately going to be interesting tactically, because I don't think I've ever played a three at the back formation. Mind you, I've managed to get Hargreaves working from an MC position to be the perfect anchor-man, so I'll have to have a look at some of the positional settings versus individual instructions to see what I can come up with.

Country: Hungary (2 divisions, League I & League II)

Team: Ferencváros (Just happened to spot this legendary Hungarian team are languishing in the League II East, so I couldn't resist!)

Tactic:

3-3-4

The formation is set out as shown below (Some debate on the actual shape)

The formation is similar to the WW formation and is slightly more defensive.

Recommended Settings:

Mentality: Mixed Attacking

CF: Mixed

Passing Style: Direct

Tempo: Quick

Width: Wide

CD: Whole Pitch

Time Wasting: Rarely

DL: Push Up

Tackling: Hard

FP: Mixed

Tight Marking: Yes

Use TM: No

Use PM: AMC

Offside Trap: Yes

Counter Attack: No

Nations loaded(only 3 please): Poland (geographical proximity and quality of players), Romania (geographical proximity and quality of players), Slovakia (Geographical proximity)

NOTE: I've also opted for the "Large" database.

This is going to be fun. I would have thought it will be fairly easy as Ferencváros, as they have some considerable history, a decent facilities and stadium, some finances and are predicted to finish 1st. My aim will be to get them back in the top flight, dominate Hungarian football and see how far I can get into the European competitions.

The most interesting thing will be working with a tactic I've neither used before or ever fancied. Certainly in that respect, my tactical nouse will be well tested as I try to refine it and build a squad around it.

Well... here goes!

Restrictions so far are:

The match squad must have no more than 3 non-EU players.

The match squad must have at least 2 under-21 players.

So, not too restrictive and looking at the existing squad, there's five assorted Africans, an American, two from Jamaica and one from Trinidad, a Slovakian and an Englishman! (James Ashmore, formerly of Sheff Utd and Macclesfield Town).

My immediate preference would be to try and sign the best Hungarians I can get my hands on and build a squad around them. Obviously long-term if I want to succeed in the top division, that policy might have to go by the wayside. It depends on who I can manage to attract to the club I suppose.

I'll let you know how things are going at regular intervals.

Edit: Have just spotted that they have Sheffield United as their parent club. They have Liban Abdi (Somalia), Jason Morrision (Jamaica), Rafe Wolfe (Jamaica), Sam Wedgbury (English) & Matthew Lowton (English) on loan from the Blades. Not sure if I'll keep them though, as they're all pretty dung!

My initial thoughts about this tactic is that it's going to pose an interesting challenge for me defensively. I always use a back four and have an anchor-man who protects the defence, although he's a central midfielder (MCd) rather than a DMC. So, I'll be looking at how I can acheive a similar setup via the individual instructions and only having one centre-back, I may use the MC(L) and MC® as a pair of anchor-men, with the MC playing more of a support role. Most of my systems are build on a solid spine at the back, so that will be my first priority.

Looking additionally at the formation, it seems very top heavy. I'm worried about there being too many players in a tight bunch and not enough space to create good openings against strong defences, so I'll be looking at ways to create good space for attacking play. Mainly, this will probably be focused around a deeper mentality approach than I normally use, but with plenty of through ball and forward run instructions. Hopefully I'll be able to get the good passing and movement I see with other systems I use. The AMC might be my problem area, because I have the feeling that this position is possibly a lot less effective than previous versions of FM, although I have had some success with the perfect player on the perfect individual instructions. My thoughts initially are with the tactic suggesting to use him as the playmaker, that I will have him set to play quite deep with forward runs "rarely" and looking to play in the forward three more.

Finally the last challenge for me is the attacking threesome. I've always had a preference in my own tactics to play down both flanks. I doubt I will be able to do this as well given the shape, but might see if I can incorporate wing play more over time. Initially, I will be looking to get the FL & FR inside and taking chances themselves. Ideally I will be looking for players who can use "either" foot, so that I can add the additional instruction to swap positions from flank to flank. Something that I may also look for could be an AMR/FC that is left-footed and an AML/FC who is right footed. Being opposite footed to the wing they are playing, I expect to see them naturally cut inside to cross and shoot and previous experiments doing this have worked very well in other systems I've tried this approach with.

Insofar as any advice is concerned from those more used to this system, I'll see how I go without it to begin with. This is perhaps my attempt to "put my money where my mouth is". Anyone who has read my lower league thread will know that I've suggested that it's feasable and entirely possible to take any decent tactic, get the right players for each position (attention to player attributes and roles), and be successful. My challenge if you will, is to take a formation that I've never used and never fancied the look of... and do just that!

Maybe dropping MC back a notch to be DMC and having midfield in diamond shape?

Sardaukar - The challenge that I've been set is to use the same formation shown in post #10. So I'm going to try to use individual player settings to get them into both on the ball and off the ball positions. I've done this before with other tactics, so I'll be trying to apply twin anchor-men using the MC(left) and MC(right). The MC(middle) I will hopefully get to sit in the middle of the park and link up play between the defensive unit and the offensive unit, because I'll be using the AMC as a "floater", with high creative freedom and a free-role, so I'll never be able to rely on him defensively.

The "challenge" I'm having at the minute is filtering my squad for players worth keeping. There are one or two good players in the youth team that could get streight into the first team, so I've promoted them already. Not worth mentioning their names as they're "newgens". Overall though, the squad isn't too bad, just that there's one or two decent players that unfortunately won't be any use in this system heh!

Another aspect I'm not used to is the limited number of players I can actually find, given all I've got to work with is the large database, additional player data from Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Wish I had selected France now! Anyhow, it's a challenge because I normally have at least 12 countries leagues running in full detail and lot's of additional country's player data loaded. Lot's of those "hidden" gems I normally look for simply aren't there. Oh well, time to make some new discoveries.

Maybe dropping MC back a notch to be DMC and having midfield in diamond shape?

well you would have to maintain the 3-1 rule ie (3 MCs) and either a DMC or AMC I suppose I believe if my books is to be believed Puskas played kind of in the hole rather than an out and out striker but it is hard to represent in FM (Y)

I was suggesting that since 3-3-4 could also have formation like that, but it's your challenge, of course.

If my memory serves me correctly, didn't Ferenc Puskas actually end up hopping off over to Spain and Real Madrid, where he eventually became a citizen and played for the Spanish national team?

Sardaukar - Sorry if I came across as totally against the idea you mentioned. What I should say is that I'm trying to work within the formation megafan2005 put forward to me. It's entirely workable to get players into positions, without the need to actually move them into a position, if you get my drift.

One of the things I've enjoyed about FM without the "crazy" arrows, is that via the individual player settings, you can actually do just that a lot better, without all those silly arrows getting in the way. In a current Man Utd save I've been tinkering with, I got Owen Hargreaves playing in an anchor-man "position" sat in front of the back four, always central to the two centre-backs, just as you would expect of a DMC, yet he's playing in one of the MC positions of a 4-4-2 formation.

It just seems that you have more control over a players positional sense in FM09 than previous releases, and that gets a big thumbs up from me.

Sardaukar - Sorry if I came across as totally against the idea you mentioned. What I should say is that I'm trying to work within the formation megafan2005 put forward to me. It's entirely workable to get players into positions, without the need to actually move them into a position, if you get my drift.

One of the things I've enjoyed about FM without the "crazy" arrows, is that via the individual player settings, you can actually do just that a lot better, without all those silly arrows getting in the way. In a current Man Utd save I've been tinkering with, I got Owen Hargreaves playing in an anchor-man "position" sat in front of the back four, always central to the two centre-backs, just as you would expect of a DMC, yet he's playing in one of the MC positions of a 4-4-2 formation.

It just seems that you have more control over a players positional sense in FM09 than previous releases, and that gets a big thumbs up from me.

No problem, I think I'll just have to try this 3-3-4 formation myself with some suitable team. I kind of like the idea of diamond in this, that's why I mentioned it.

Sardaukar - Sorry if I came across as totally against the idea you mentioned. What I should say is that I'm trying to work within the formation megafan2005 put forward to me. It's entirely workable to get players into positions, without the need to actually move them into a position, if you get my drift.

One of the things I've enjoyed about FM without the "crazy" arrows, is that via the individual player settings, you can actually do just that a lot better, without all those silly arrows getting in the way. In a current Man Utd save I've been tinkering with, I got Owen Hargreaves playing in an anchor-man "position" sat in front of the back four, always central to the two centre-backs, just as you would expect of a DMC, yet he's playing in one of the MC positions of a 4-4-2 formation.

It just seems that you have more control over a players positional sense in FM09 than previous releases, and that gets a big thumbs up from me.

I presume you mean by tweaking th eplayer mentalities (Y)

Also yes Puskas once he signed for Los Merenguesplayed for the Spanish National team.

I'll try out Holland if you want, if there are no other takers.

I presume you mean by tweaking th eplayer mentalities (Y)

Also yes Puskas once he signed for Los Merenguesplayed for the Spanish National team.

Well, the first thing I will say having watched my first pre-season friendly is that it's certainly a very interesting tactical approach!

If there was a polar opposite to my very organised defensive systems, then this would be it. We won the match against a very poor non-league side 6-0, several players rated over 8.0, but the match stats told a completely different story, suggesting everything was more or less 50/50.

The first thing that stood out for me was how crazy this system is defensively. Against better teams I think I'll be watching tennis scores! Clearly I'm going to have to look at that side of things in great detail. Something about only having one centre-back makes me feel very uncomfortable, especially against two strikers. Admittedly I did opt to play this first match with simple zonal marking, so I will have to look at a tight marking system involving the full-backs and those defensive minded midfielders. But there lies the other problem I noticed. Opposition attacks from width caused a lot of problems, when full-backs were being sucked all over the place trying to cover the spaces. Fortunately in this match my opponents couldn't hit a cow's backside with a banjo!

Definately a good challenge you've given me here!

Second friendly, lost 1-0 but should really have been double figures for my poor quality Czech opponents.

This is really frail defensively and unless I can work out some miraculous overall solution, I don't know how long my patience will last with this tactic. Attacking, it looks like the Charge of the Light Brigade... defensively, it looks like the Italians on the run a Tobruk! I could easily solve all the problems with a second centre-back, but that would defeat the object.

For a laugh, I'm going to try and arrange a friendly against a big club, just to see what cricket score a decent strike force will put past my team lol!

(I'll carry on into the season, but I may have to call it a lost cause if I can't figure out how to fix the defence )

Country: France

Team: Lens (Good Ligue 2 team, nice facilities)

Tactic: WM formation - always fancied giving the box midfield a shot

Nations loaded(only 3 please): Ivory Coast (Typically a lot of African players in the French league), Holland (Geographical proximity), Spain (Geographical Proximity)

heathxxx - Try put closing down on all defenders pretty low but in your MCR and MCL put closing down up higher, with low individual mentalities. Reading your post ''from width caused a lot of problems, when full-backs were being sucked all over the place'' it made me think that if your defensive players just kept their positions then it may help defensively, get the midfielders to do the running for them when the opposition is attacking but because they are in midfield will help out with the attack aswell.

First friendly 0-0 away to Valenciennes, who are in Ligue 1, encouraging start. We had over 60% possession and more shots on goal than them, and I was impressed by how defensively sound we were even with the one centreback taking on two attackers.

Nice to see this thread finally picking up. Unfortunately, the T&T forum seem to be alot more modest than the CSE forum Regular updates would be brilliant, but the bare minimum is a seasonal update at the end stating league position, points, Goals scored, Goals conceded and how well you think it adapted.

Also, if your tactic really isn't working and you want to change, run it by me through here and I will say whether you can change or not

Bhoy - Thanks for the tips, unfortunately that's what I'm already doing

The big problem I'm finding is that overall, I just don't think it suits the modern game, given the type of tactics that I'm coming up against. Defensively it allows two much space for two strikers, if not that, too much space for wingers and even with a static defence and high closing-down midfielders, or even very defensive mentalities, too much space for opponents to play in your final third of the pitch.

I do think that with some superb players, especially featuring high physical and mental attributes, this system could be made to work. As it is though, at a lower level, there just aren't the players capable of playing it effectively, especially against more up to date tactics.

There's clearly a reason why this worked in the 1950's, but isn't around any more. D:

Not sure if I want to continue this save though, as I can't realistically see the job lasting more than 20 games before the axe falls! That in itself isn't a problem. I wouldn't like to try a different formation or historical system because that would defeat the object of this challenge. So, if someone else wants to try the 1950's Puskas era Hungarian approach with the Hungarian league, I'll be happy to hand over the reigns to someone else. I'll also watch with great interest as to how they do.

I wish I had picked Italy and the "Catennaccio", but that wouldn't have been much of a challenge lol!

So, I know when I'm on a hiding to nothing and will gracefully and humbly accept defeat. Whoever takes up the gauntlet in my absence and does well with the system I tried in Hungary, will thenceforth be viewed as THE FM "Guru"... in my mind at least!

Ill take over the rains heath (Y)

Won my first league game 3-1 :O

megafan2005 - What team have you gone? Either way, you get a place on the golden pedestal if you dominate the league with that system. Let's just say it and me got on like chalk and cheese.

If you have a glance through the latter posts of my "Lower League Approach" thread and SFraser's "Less is More" thread, you'll see we're batting some ideas around at the moment. The thing is, I've always had the benefit of an extremely strong defensive setup, always based upon a back-four with an anchor-man. I think it must just be a mental block for me with a three-man defence.

Anyway, good luck and here's to finding Ferenc Puskas' regen great-grandson

I believe Megafan is being Ajax, am I correct? Also it is wonderful to have someone with yours and Megafans Tactical prowess on board Heath

Ill take over the rains heath (Y)

Ferencvaros

But for some reason my documents has gotten corrupted so only my arsenal save that I backed up has survived

Hey heathxx

I don't have too much knowledge about Hungarian football, so I might be wrong here, but I believe that the great Hungarian side: the Hungarian of the 50s with Puskas et all, played a 4-2-4 no? I'm pretty sure they did. What do you think?

Kawee Nope, what megafan posted was right. Unfortunately it didn't agree with me.

megafan2005 - Don't you start making excuses!!