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Football formations in different countries


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This is either really nerdy or very interesting, depending upon your perspective! :D

Basically, what I have done is gone through the excellent website at www.football-lineups.com and made up a list of the most popular formations used in different countries.

When I move around in the FM world, I like to try to adopt a playing system that is 'traditional' for the country that I am playing in. Some of these are very obvious. In British football it's 4-4-2, in Spanish the 4-2-3-1, in Italian the 4-3-1-2/diamond and in Dutch football the 4-3-3. I was curious about other countries though and so came the following list:

Europe

Austia - 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1

Belarus - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Belgian - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Bulgarian - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Cyprus - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Czech Rep - 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1

Denmark - 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2

England - 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1

France - 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 or 4-4-2

Germany - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Greece - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Hungary - 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3

Ireland - 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 4-5-1

Italy - 4-3-1-2, 4-4-2 or 4-3-3

Israel - 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-3-2

Netherlands - 4-3-3 or 4-5-1

Northern Ireland - 4-4-2

Norway - 4-4-2 or 4-3-3

Portugal - 4-3-3, 4-2-3-1

Romania - 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1

Russia - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Scotland - 4-4-2, 4-4-1-1 or 4-2-3-1

Slovakia - 4-4-2 or 4-1-3-2

Spain - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Sweden - 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1

Swiss - 4-1-4-1, 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1

Turkey - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Ukraine - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

Americas

Argentina - 4-4-2, 4-3-1-2 or 3-4-1-2

Brazil - 4-2-2-2, 4-3-1-2 or 3-4-1-2

Mexico - 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2

USA - 4-1-3-2 or 4-4-2

Asia

Australia - 4-2-3-1, 4-3-1-2 or 4-4-2

Japan - 4-2-2-2, 4-4-2 or 4-3-3

South Korea - 3-4-1-2, 4-2-1-3 or 4-4-2

Africa

South Africa - 4-4-2 or 4-5-1

The formations listed next to each country are the two or three most popular formations and they are listed in order of their popularity. The stats are only considered from the top flight leagues of each country.

What's interesting to me is the proliferation of 4-4-2 in Northern Europe, 4-2-3-1 on the continent and in the major European leagues, and the range of formations used in some countries like Italy in Brazil. It's also interesting to see that in South America and Asia, there are more likely to be playing systems in use in the top flights of these countries that we consider very rare over here in Europe (e.g. the wingback system, three at the back and so on).

Anyway, just thought I would share. If you are even in doubt as to what playing system to use, you could always give something 'traditional' from your country's league a go. Feel free to comment or ignore as takes your fancy. :p

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This is based on the records at Football-Lineups Doctor Who, which list 4-4-1-1 and 4-4-2 for the last couple of seasons. 4-2-3-1 is lower down the list but not as popular as the other two.

I think that it's easy to mix the 4-4-1-1 and the 4-2-3-1 up as it's all about the position and the role of the wingers.

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  • 1 month later...

I tend to just stick with whatever suits the team I have, if my team is best suited to a 3-1-4-1-1 formation, then I'll play that. I like to be a bit different when I do things, doesn't always work though :(

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