Mr. Longo Bardi (or how I learned to stop worrying and love the match engine joke)

[Chandaman]

Bored out of my skull, I fired up FM2009. Wanted to try something I always wanted to, but never really had the time: A career game in which I purposely do everything (or at least most things) just plain wrong. To really go against the grain of common FM wisdom in most areas and see what happens.

So, meet Mr. Longo Bardi. 49 caps/11 goals for Argentina, and we don't know how this happened, for reasons you'll soon see. Mr. Bardi is one of the most incompetent managers around. He has no idea about football other than "kick the ball", but we're told around the time of his 30th. cap he finally learned the other part of that important lesson "... and make sure to give it to a team mate". His knowledge of football and tactics is appalling. He tells his teams to play 4-4-2 for no reason other than it reminds him of his old house phone number in the small village of Shehaditcoming. The only thing arguably worse than his knowledge of football is his man management. He is a tomb. He does not speak to his players. At all. He prefers silence to be the best teacher. Does not motivate them, and does not mark any mistakes. He lets his also quite incompetent assistant manager set up the starting XI and attend all press conferences. He does not congratulate upon a win, nor does he get angry after a defeat.

Longo Bardi has been given control of River Plate, in the Argentine Premier Division. A good team on paper, always up there trying to challenge for the top spot and one of the "big ones" historically in the country. A good team with a reasonably good squad, but seriously lacking in depth. Of course Longo Bardi does not address this. He does not even touch the transfer market. We believe it is because he does not understand the concept. What team he has is the team he'll make it or break it with. Squad depth, he says, is only something that sea-based teams should be worried about and River Plate, he is told, is land-locked.

How does Mr. Longo Bardi approach such a crucial area as training? He doesn't. He does not believe in training. He does not want to risk injuries before a game, and much prefers to "let the chips fall where they may" during the actual match. So he simply lets his (quite poor) staff come up with a basic routine so players "have something to do during the week at the club" and goes off to watch TV in his office all day long. On match day, an associate comes to clean him up and get him ready for the event a couple of hours before the game.

Some have hailed him as a tactical genius due to his philosophy regarding tactics. He believes in confusing the rival so their plan cannot come into fruition. Of course, this has the rather inconvenient side effect of confusing his own teams as well, but as he puts it "It is a small price to pay for the benefit of constant misdirection". The way in which he sets up his team is -all wrong-.

It even looks nasty like this.

How about his team instructions? The general approach?

He tells his players to pass short (because he heard it was good in an old Brazil '70 VHS), but he also tells them to play very wide as to make sure they have troubles finding one another. He also tells his defensive line to play deep, but remain passing the ball short, to further compound this problem. He tells them to play with target man and playmaker, although he does not bother to select any players for these functions. Wants them to counter-attack and play the offside trap with a deep lying defensive line, all at the same time. He tells everyone to tight mark, except his defense, as we will see.

This is how he sets up his back line. Attacking mentality, lots of creative freedom, pressing quite high up the pitch and short passing. The FBs are supposed to attack, but lunge forward when they want to, however once they get there they are not supposed to cross the ball. He encourages long shots from the FBs, even from the awkward positions they find themselves into, just to "catch them unaware". The DCs are told to get forward as often as they can, press a lot and run with the ball. He knows they usually can't dribble, but he counts on the demoralizing effect on the opposition upon seeing this. They are told to get out of position and cross the ball often.

Everybody in the back line is given free roles and told to hold up the ball. For some reason.

(continues soon)

[Chandaman]

It's quite clear he has no idea about what he wants from his wingers, other than he doesn't want them to cross the ball and they should also try long shots from difficult positions. He also wants them to mark. The rest is up to them. He feels wingers are primadonnas and not necessary to any team, however, he is forced by the rules to field 11 players. He made a note to talk to Blatter about this.

The defensive midfielder is treated by Longo Bardi much like an attacking, creative midfielder: Mentality, creative freedom, passing, running with ball. He does this to shake the usual MCd from his state of midfield angst and to create a true Jungian gestalt in the middle of the field. "We are not what we are", Bardi says, "but who we want to be". This creates an urge in the MCd to use long forgotten skills, and to play in positions he is not used to. To reinforce this, as a central player, he is also asked to cross the ball a lot.

Conversely, Mr. Bardi's dislike for star-player AMCs is legendary. He forces them to play defensively, uses them to mark and limits their creativity enormously. They should be subjects to the team, and not the other way around. He still tells them to go ahead and cross the ball a lot.

"The best attack is a good defense", Longo Bardi says, and this is reflected in the instructions he gives to his front line. They should be the first defensive players up the field. They should be the reference in defense, way up the pitch. Play it safe, don't go forward, make sure to slow down play and don't try any fancy stuff like through balls, crossing, running with ball or anything involving a minimum of creativity. Nothing that could catch the opposition unaware and turn a game around. Bardi believes in tough work, not flashes of genius.

---

I've got the first pre-season friendlies already set up. We'll see how it goes.

[L.McDaDe]

Interseting read i'll keep following this see how it goes,

[Chandaman]

Longo Bardi's first friendly is against Defensores, which happens to be River Plate's feeder club. No one expects much of a challenge at all, but the thing to watch is Bardi's team performance. Will it work? Will Bardi's tough lessons in... what some call 'football'... take hold in the player's minds? Or will it all come crumbling down, even against much weaker opposition? The press in anxiously awaiting at the gates like blood hounds.

It was in the end a very comfortable 2-1 victory in which many chances were created. Had a cushy lead in the scoreline and performance at halftime, and it remained that way. Defensores' goal came from lack of attention in defense; a large hole was left there which was skillfully used by an opposition player to run pretty much straight on goal. Created lots of chances, but that's to be expected against lesser opposition.

Did not really play badly at all. We can already see all of Bardi's psychological work on the MCd, allowing him to take the prize of MoM. A correct performance to kick things off. A promising start.

[Chandaman]

Our next couple of friendlies take us to Uruguay, and for some reason back to Argentina. First we square against Danubio, an okay-ish side from across the river.

... and it's a rout. Once again, but this time against better opposition, we create lots of chances while managing to contain them admirably.

Our star "defensive" player up there in the pitch, Falcao, manages to pick up a nice hat trick. Our other "defensive" player gets on the scoresheet as well. The team seems to be playing well.

----

Couple of days later we come back to play Quilmes, one of the big second division sides, habitually promoted to first. Again, lesser opposition, but these are friendlies in which we can take this luxury.

Yes, we manage to pick up a win, but Quilmes fought for it all game long almost creating as many chances as we did. A rather even game in which the difference was in the performance of the defensive players.

As stated previously, Andres Rios gets a couple of nice goals for him and that's pretty much the difference right there. Quite good for a player told to play defensively.

[blomqvist23]

great idea bro very interesting experiment.

if you can upload tha tactic i would be very curious to try it.

[Chandaman]

Our friendlies are finally over:

We walked over the lesser opposition as we have been doing until now. Then we went down to Villareal 0-1. Now, Villareal is the better team, line per line. An opponent of more stature, but Mr. Bardi is still quite happy at the performance. As you can see:

It was a really tight affair which could have gone either way. Villareal's goal came from a low cross into our box, and Joseba Llorente anticipating two defenders to slot it in with power really close to goal. That was our mistake, and we paid for it. We were pretty much on even terms with superior opposition at all times.

And now the league begins. We'll see what happens when actual points are in play. Overall, despite Mr. Bardi's best efforts, the team seems to be working just fine.

[Chandaman]

And here is the tactic for whoever is interested:

http://www.filefront.com/14595233/Allwrong.tac

[shrekiejai]

Very interesting, I bet you'll win the league with this tactic

[ZdlR]

Put a PKM up, while you're at it.

[Chandaman]

Argentine Premier Division - August 2008:

2 wins, 2 draws. Curiously, Bardi manages to win the tougher games and only draw the easier ones. The games against Estudiantes and the derby versus Independiente were interesting because in both games the teams were tied at half time (1-1 and 2-2). Bardi solved the problem during the break. River needed goals to break the tie so, naturally, he instructed the team to play more defensively. Then the goals came. Against Estudiantes, an agonic point-blank header. Against Independiente, seizing on a keeper's mistake.

Also to note is one of Bardi's tactical insights during the game against Independiente; Andres Rios is replaced by Rodrigo Archubi, and the latter is told to go play in the AMC position... despite him being a DL/ML. Still, he didn't do too badly. And neither did the team. Told to play defensively and replacing a striker with a AMC with no AMC skills nets the team 2 goals in the second half.

And here's a pkm of that intense game: http://www.filefront.com/14597633/River%20v%20Independiente.pkm

Sitting pretty on the top half of the table, waiting for September to come.

[taylorsmen]

Really enjoyed reading this,and love the name of the tactic "all wrong"

I think for a bit of fun i'm going to try your tactic for a season.

[mlyons]

A lot of the "wrong" details in your tactic are simply unconventional. Apart from asking central defenders to cross often, I think I've incorporated everything you've done here into one tactic or another, and it's generally been successful.

[KrisL]

just to say i'm in the process of using your tactic with hull and in 4 games I have won 3 of them including away win at fulham, a comeback at blackburn after going a man down and beating man city in the league cup 3rd round

[JackSparrow]

Longo Bardi is Walter Smith?

[JackDavies]

Longo Bardi is Phil Brown?

[dimartino]

Longo Bardi is Jesualdo Ferreira?

[artest]

Longo Bardi is Kanu.

[OrangeBurn]

Longo Bardi is Walter Smith?

Can't be, he just masterminded A Victory against Celtic.

[SSJ3-BROLLY]

Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained?

Chants : Longo.....Longo.........Longo