FM10: Classic Brazil / Dunga's Brazil Hybrid 4-2-2-2 Box tactic

Firstly, i have always admired and been interested in the way Brazil play the game of football and have read man articles and threads on this.

An excellent insight into this can be found here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=189194 , Many Thanks to Uncle Sam for what is an exceptional thread that has proved both informative as well as inspiring.

I have created a tactic that uses a 4-2-2-2 box system like Brazil have pioneered over the years and infact still use today.

Whilst this is not identical to the classic Brazil box midfield of yesteryear, and also not identical to the way Dunga sets up his Brazil side today, it is however a middle ground between the two. It utilises aspects of both, so i see this as somewhat of a hybrid tactic of the two systems.

I have found this tactic to be very good at keeping posession, completing passes and creating chances on a consistant basis and additionally plays some great football at times.

The tactic employs a short passing, quick tempo setup.

The issue with a box midfield setup is that you have a lack of width higher up the pitch leaving your flanks exposed. I have however found a way of countering this.

I have set the team to maximum width, with the play through middle instruction. Also in my AMC slots i use two trequartista's and have set them to move into the channels, ala Robinho or Elano of todays Brazil team. I prefer to have highly creative players here, one is set as your playmaker after all.

What i have found that compliments the Trequartistas is the way my two MC's are setup. In a classic Brazil system, these would be deep lying playmakers but in Dungas system these are strong holdng midfielders who rarely venture forward (Gilberto Silva & Melo). I can see the benefit of both setups but i had to choose which setup to go for. Or did I?

One of my favourite player roles in FM10 is the box to box midfielder, they contribute to all phases of play, sitting when defending and offering support when attacking. This i feel is a happy medium between the two systems and quite frankly too good to pass up IMO. Set them up with runs from deep and chooses a creative type central midfielder with good defensive stats (Sissokho) to compliment the trequartistas nicely. The trequartistas drift out wide when the box to box midfielders support the attack creating what at times looks like four attacking midfielders behind a front two, thats four creative players able to thread throughballs into the front two strikers = AWESOME.

That brings me onto the front two nicely, i'm using an advanced forward / complete forward combination. my most creative forward is my complete forward who has a support duty, the advanced forward will be my main goalscorer and is also set as target man with attack instruction.

Every Brazil side has bombarding attacking fullbacks/wingbacks (Fulcrums) right? well this tactic is no different, My fullbacks have a support duty and provide width high up the pitch when attacking, getting in plenty of crosses. Naturally they should have very high fitness and stamina as well as good crossing ability.

I use a traditional stopper + cover centre back pairing. I do use a very high defensive line so my goalkeeper is set as a sweeper keeper with attack duty.

So to summarise, my team lineup is as follows:

GK - SWEEPER KEEPER - ATTACK

LB - FULL BACK - SUPPORT

RB - FULL BACK - SUPPORT

CB - BALL PLAYING DEFENDER - COVER

CB - BALL PLAYING DEFENDER - STOPPER

MC - BOX TO BOX - SUPPORT

MC - BOX TO BOX - SUPPORT

AMC - TREQUARTISTA - ATTACK

AMC - TREQUARTISTA - ATTACK

STR - COMPLETE FORWARD - SUPPORT

STR - ADVANCED FORWARD - ATTACK

I have tweaked some of their instructions a bit.

My team instructions are as follows:

REMEMBER: to set your playmaker as one of your AMC's (i prefer the right sided one), and your target man as your left striker. Your most creative forward (all round good stats) should be your right striker (complete forward).

Your cover defender should have good pace, whilst your stopper hould be physically strong and good in the air.

Good passing throughout the team is a MUST.

In regards Training, i recommend Tugs training schedules.

This is a nicely balanced tactic i feel, it is solid defensively,good in atack, plenty of players in the middle plus good width.

Download link here: http://www.filefront.com/16525015/CLASSIC%20DUNGA%20BRAZIL%20HYBRID%20TACTIC.tac

This tactic like every other tactic requires a good grasp of effective teamtalks, players that are fully fit and confidence is also vital.

I would like people to test it and give feedback please, this is still very much a working progress and your views are vital in evolving this tactic to make it even better.

THE FLEXIBILITY OF A BOX MIDFIELD

What is so great about the box midfield is the sheer flexibility of it with only minor alterations to the system.

I have suggested above a combination of two box to box midfielders and two trequartista's which works well but other combinations work well too within the tactic's framework.

I also use a combination of a box to box midfielder, deep lying playmaker (be sure to set as primary playmaker in team settings) in MC positions, and two attacking midfielders (one on support, one on attack) to good effect. Particulaly useful if your AMC playmaker is being snuffed out of the game by one or two oppositions DMC's.

The potential combinations are vast, if you need to stop an opposition AMC from dictating play stick a ball winning midfelder in MC position and give him marking duty alongside, if you need to go ultra defensive have two.

Another combination i quite like the thought of is two deep lying playmakers in MC positions, this is more like Classic Brazil though.

These are just a few options, and thats without going into all the different role combinations of the AMC's or even the two forwards, all without changing the shape of the formation.

It is because of this flexibility I feel that the 4-2-2-2 box midfield has an answer for pretty much any given situation or scenario.

With minor alterations to the formation setup the options are almost unlimited.

Against Real Madrid in the Champions League semi final i was 3-0 from the first home leg, in the second leg it was obvious they would come out all guns blazing, and they certainly did. My answer to that was to bring back my MC's to DMC positions, set one as defensive midfielder (defend), one as anchorman, I also brought back my AMC's into MC positions, set one as ball winning midfielder defend and one as deep lying playmaker (support). This enabled me to soak up everything they threw at me and i would catch them with fast counter attacks. I won that game 3-1 for an aggregate of 6-1.

A further option would me to mirror the way the current Brazil team sometimes play by bringing up the RB to RWB position, give him runs from deep often etc, have a defensive minded DMC or MC covering him, have the right side AMC stay central and dictate play from there, whilst the left AMC will still drift out wide as normal. The right striker could be moved to the wide right striker position. By doing this you pretty much mimic the way Dunga sometimes lines Brazil up today.

My point to this thread is to state that my 4-2-2-2 is a great base tactic to use, it can be varied and altered without having to change anything much apart from player positions for alll these options and variations on the shape i mentioned above to work. It's so flexible. Maybe you need to change to suit the players you have or to counter the opposition effectively or stop them playing, or to take advantage of where you think the opposition is at it's weakest. My 4-2-2-2 gives you that option with mininal changes and fuss.

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I'll give it a go and post back results, first glance looks interesting

Thanks G Baber, i'm looking forward to getting your feedback.

Nobody interested in such a tactic then?

I'm curious as to your set up, in particular does 2 b2b midfielders not run the risk of leaving the CB's exposed?

I'm curious as to your set up, in particular does 2 b2b midfielders not run the risk of leaving the CB's exposed?

I have not been caught out too often, maybe slightly prone to fast counter attacking though.

I have toyed with the idea of moving my 2xdmc's to a mc role in my own box formation but haven't found the right formula yet. Its nice to see the box formation become more and more popular its been my favourite for a few editions of FM now.

GD

What success have you had with this tactic?

Steve

Champions league twice in a row with Shakhtar, beating real madrid and man city over two legs, beating lazio twice in the group stage also in the latest campaign. Starting third season now.

Any recommended shouts?

Any recommended shouts?

I do not use the shouts or OI instructions

Well I'm currently playing with Brazil, so I'll give this a whirl.

I do like the idea of using a box formation with Brazil, but I've never been able to create one. At the same time, as hard as I try, I'm finding it hard to implement wingers into the Brazil squad (they seem to only have average wingers). My current stab at it is putting Carlos Eduardo out wide on the Lw, having Kaka playing the RAMC trequartista role with a 'move into channels' wide play. Not been able to test it out yet but seeing as I have 2 friendlies coming up I'll your tactic a go and then my mine in the other game.

I had been using Uncle Sams, 4-2-2-2 for my Brazil save which has lasted up till 2017. I had achieved satisfactory results, No World Cup wins though. I plug this one in and whip Argentina 4-1. THIS TACTIC IS MERK.

I had been using Uncle Sams, 4-2-2-2 for my Brazil save which has lasted up till 2017. I had achieved satisfactory results, No World Cup wins though. I plug this one in and whip Argentina 4-1. THIS TACTIC IS MERK.

Very good result.

Pity interest in this tactic seems almost non-existant.

Sorry I'm so late with a reply from my earlier post.

However, this tactic is extremely good. It blew my own Brazil tactic out of the water. With my tactic, I scrape past Australia at home 2-1, switch to yours for the final warm up game before the Copa America, play Cameroon away and smash them 5-0.

I've kept with it through the CA so far, and it has kept with me. Beat Mexico 3-1, shouldn't have conceded, it was a scrappy goal and them slammed Bolivia 5-0 with Kaka and Dani Alves running the show from LAMC and RB respectively.

Not sure if I'll get to test it out against the big boys that are Argentina though, they lost their first game and then drew their second, all comes down to their third and final group game.

I think the lack of interest may be down to 1) people believing this tactic is only for the Brazil national team or 2) A lot of people believe in the use of wingers, I still do, I use my own wider tactic at Utd. However the results I'm getting and the football the team is playing is seriously making me consider shelving my Utd tactic for a while and using this one.

I didnt use it exclusively in my second premierleague season with Cardiff, but as far as I remember I used it in all knockout games in the Euro League and it brought me the win (won away at Juventus, AS Rom) so I am definitly looking forward to go in another season with it

Hope you have success with it Dinu, take into account my second post regarding the variation of different player roles you can use within the system.

Hi,

I'm playing with Santos in Brazil, 10 matches into the league in the first season. And even though im leading the league (with media prediction 12th), I'm not happy with the way my team is playing. Only scored 16 goals, and creating very few CCC's. So I'll try out your tactic and see if it can improve my teams performance!

Yeah, I switched to two advanced midfielder and a ball winning midfielder/ deep lying playmaker pair.

This season my defenders finally realized what their job is. We conceded 64 the season before, now its 17 after 28 games. And I have at least (10 points atm but I played two games more) 4 points advantage on ManCity who is second.

Will post a few screenies and my modified version of your tactic when the season is over.

The way im using this tactic has evolved yet further, slight tweaking though maintaining the same principles.

Recently i've been using the following setup with positive performances:

Left MC: Ball Winning Midfielder - defend

Right MC: Box to Box midfielder - support

Left AMC: Attacking Midfielder - support - roam from position no, wideplay normal

Right AMC: Attacking Midfielder - Attack - roam from position yes, wideplay moves into channels

Left STR: Complete Forward - Attack - roam from position yes, moves into channels

Right STR: Advanced Forward - Attack - roam from position no, wideplay normal

Looks like this one is working in FM11 too, just preseason so far with Cardiff, but besides the games against weaker opponent I was able to snatch a win over Chelsea and a mexican team with higher reputation and only lost to Lille because my boys weren't able to score their top chances. Only Napoli destroyed me, so I'd say if you have a half decent team you should be able to accomplish something with this tactic

the link to the tactic is not working can you please add a new link?

Wow, a tactic designed for the the game on fm09 initially works on fm11, thats very cool.

Not sure i have this tactic anymore, maybe Dinu can repost?

What version do you have and are using Dinu?

http://www.mediafire.com/?lfg6i5hwflt8cqq

Guess this is the original one. I was tweaking around a bit, especially in the midfield positions but I am not that satisfied that I would recommend my current setup, the one I uploaded did better for me and I am moving back to that one now

Will that work on FM11 ?