Tactics for Scandinavia

[oobro]

Hello all,

After some careers with SC Heerenveen, Manu, I was goin to give it a try in Scandinavia. I started a career at the small club of Utsiktens BK. After two good seasons, things start to decline.

I used Heaths LLM tactics to create some tactics of my own, but despite the fact the results where good, I never managed to dominate matches.

Does any of you have experiences with tactics working well in scandinavia? Most of the teams in Sweden are playing on a narrow field in a 4-4-2 system. The scouting report (almost) always says the team will sit back and lurk for an outbreak.

My currect tactic:

GK - Goalkeeper - Defend

DR/L - Full Back - Automatic

DC - Central Defender - Stopper

DC - Central Defender - Cover

MC - Ball Wining Midfielder - Defend

MC - Deep Lying Playmaker - Support

AMR/L - Winger - Attack

SCR - Poacher - Attack

SCL - TGM - Attack

The best players of my teams appear to be the strikers, the left winger and the two center midfielders. The rest is ok, but not great. Despite the fact my offensive players seem good, I have large problems creating good chances.

Philosphy - Standard

Strategy – Control

Passing – Short

Roaming – Stick To Position

Creative Freedom – Standard

Pressing – All over the pitch

Crossing – Standard

But I want to hear some experiences you had in Scandinavia? Maybe it has been discussed, but most of the tactics seem to be focussed on UK teams.

[goodyboy]

Scandinavian football is pretty similar to UK football in terms of tactics and style of play. Direct quick football and 4-4-2 are all popular in Scandinavian countries but there is more room for European continental style I think, particularly in the higher/professional leagues. If the team has some time and space available, possession football would be more encouraged. Also 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 are just as popular as 4-4-2. However this is only as I see it, opinions will vary.

My last club I managed was Mjondalen in Norway. I used a cross between 4-4-2 and 4-3-3. You could call it a lop-sided 4-3-3 with a flat back four, two MCs, one ML, one AMR and two FCs. However I did use 4-1-4-1 when playing against teams with 4 midfielders in a central diamond.

I also used direct passing and focus passing down both flanks.

Always handy to have a striker with good off the ball, work rate and stamina to track any extra midfielders the opposition might play if using two MCs and also someone that can play in a defensive midfield position in case you're faced with a central midfield diamond so that you have the option to change formation to accommodate.

You'll find that tactics are simple really and this is more true the lower down the league ladders you go.

[Rocka]

Agreed!

Keep it as simple as possible is my advice too. Having too many different advanced player roles and trying to pass the ball a lá tika taka is a sure way to make your team to perform badly if you havn't got the quality to do so.

I'm currently coaching IK Oddevold in the Swedish 3:d division( Division 1 south). Though the odds were that we should fight against relegation, we managed to end up in the middle of the table 2 seasons in a row and now after the 3:d season we won the league.

I played a simple 4-4-2 nothing advanced, since we had no funds and all we could get was free transfers.

This is the way we played (for most matches):

Philosophy: Rigid

Strategy: Standard (at home) and counter or def. away depending on the opposition strength.

Freedom: More expressive (to balance up the rigid style)

Marking: Man (except on the supportive inner midf. I chose to have him on zonal marking so he could help wherever was needed)

Roaming: More Roaming (To balance up the rigid style)

Rest on default.

The only thing I changed from the TC was that I put one of the wide midfielders as: Winger - Attack.

That's about it. Simple but effective.

Though you could argue about giving too much freedom to such low quality players, but when you play with a rigid style, the team tends to get a bit too stationary sometimes and this helps them be more creative in the attack.

Good luck and hope it helped you in one way or the other.

[heathxxx]

Whatever tactical approach you use, try not to preoccupy yourself with "dominance".

I've read a lot of posts where people are looking to dominate possession, for example. Simply put, if you're results orientated, what's the point of dominating possession if your team has no cutting edge or can't apply an end product to periods of controlling play?

With the right combination of tactical instruction and perhaps just as important, if not more so, the right combination of suitable players, you can dominate possession, overall play and get convincing results. That said though, I often find that my highest victories come in matches where possession has been fairly even, but my team has had more cutting edge, been more clinical in what it actually does with the ball, rather than just pass it around beautifully.

I'm as much a fan of good football as the next man (or woman), but it's not going to win any trophies unless there's an end product.

In the Scandinavian lower leagues, you're going to encounter similar pitch and weather conditions to those in the English lower leagues. This will mean that you'll have to adapt your tactics to suit those conditions, to get results. With poorer pitch and weather conditions, I tend to ask my team to play more direct, though that doesn't imply that I play long-ball. More direct is simply getting the ball from the defence to the forwards in the most efficient way possible, with less emphasis on holding the ball at the back or in the middle, but getting it quickly to the attacking third. This can be via both longer or shorter passing, depending on circumstances and opportunities during the game.

[oobro]

Thank for the information.

I already used much information from your thread about LLM and that was very good to work with!

As I looked at my tactics, I saw I had put in alot of details, and in the end, all those little changes, changed the tactics alot!

So I went back to 4-4-2, no wingers. I gave simple instructions to my defence and only gave my MC's advanced roles (DLP & BWM).

I went from standard to rigid to get my low quality players to focus on their main task and not let them do to much thinking by themselves. Since I had great forwards and wingers, I gave them a bit more creative freedom (looking at their mental and technical stats).

I tried a few matches now, and though I loose my share of the matches, I am more happy about the games. There hasen't been a game where I have been whiped away. Usually I stood my ground.

Thanks!