Being Boca: The Last Hurrah of the Enganche

[Moose-Stuff-For-Money]

A little context

Ok so I have been giving FM14 a lot of thought recently and thinking about my side (Boca) and how I want to play. So I have spent a couple of week, and some many more hours, reading up on tactics for FM14, but not just FM14but some real world stuff also to try and garner some modicum of inspiration. Thus an attempt to kindle a classic Argentine way of play resting heavily on the influence and sublime skill of Argentina's most revered of talents; 'The Enganche'.

So as would be most prudent, I will begin at the start. The Enganche, is the playmaker of the side, we Europeans would most recognise them as a '10' but in Argentina they are the Enganche, translated to 'the Hook'. This player plays a vital role, he is essentially the pivot for which most attacks flow through. His primary role is to receive the ball and pick out passes, whether they be through balls for the forwards to run on to, possession passes back to the midfield to keep hold of the ball until a clearer move becomes apparent, or passes to on rushing, fullbacks/ wingers on the flanks to supply dangerous crosses. He also however has another function. Unlike the Trequartista the Enganche will rarely roam from his position in the hole behind the strikers, he will hardly ever move laterally across the pitch and will only occasionally drop deep to midfield, and even less occasionally break beyond a front line. This has a tactical reason and isn't just down to the classical lack of speed, it is because in his more stationary role, he offers a different problem to defenders and midfielders. As the sides most creative force he can't be left unchecked, but who picks him up? And this is the point, defenders might step up, but risk a forward spinning in behind them for a simple pass, midfielders might drop deep, but they will leave a free man able to break forward or dominate the centre of the park. So as I hope i have explained in a roundabout way a dilemma is conceived.

Putting it in FM

Here is a basic overview of the set up I have in mind;

The two CB's are solely there to defend, I don't want them stepping up to play the ball, I would rather them supply the DM so he can get things going.

The two wingbacks are the only out and out source of width and their job is vital, the need to be solid at the back but be free to get forward and offer wide options for out balls and whip crosses in.

The DM is an interesting one. AS my wingbacks will push on its his job to support the defence, but how I want him to do that I haven't decided. I had thought a Half back to pretty much make a back 3 at times, but feared the gap between the defence and midfield would get to big. I am torn between an Anchor man or a DLPd, the A will be more resolute defensively, but the DLP will be more able to pick the right or most effective pass. For now at least I think I will use the A, as I don't want the side to be too cavalier and open to attack.

The CM are a combo of CMauto and a DLPs, the CM is there to support attacks and defence, but I have left it to him to decide when the time is right for both as I have faith in the players available for that position. The DLPs is one of my sides most creative players and will act as another outlet, if everything goes to the EN then shutting him down somehow will be the easiest way to nullify my side, so someone else has to have at least some creative responsibility, and as I have Gago here he will be perfect.

The Enganche, is really 'THE' Enganche, its Juan Roman Riquelme, and he is one of the best players in the game for this role, not physically great, but that's not an issue he is a mental beast, and as far as passing goes he is one of the best. His job is to orchestrate the attacking verve of my side, and also be my main set piece threat.

Forwards, again difficult. The only thing I know I want is a Poacher, someone looking o slip behind and take advantage of the passing ability behind him, I have a player in Martinez who, although a mediocre finisher, is fast and skilful enough to do damage in this role. It's the partner I struggle with, I knew I wanted a foil to the Poacher, but what kind? A TMs was my first thought, holding up the ball and roughing up defenders, but I am not 100%. A TM may not have the required movement to open up gaps for midfielders or his partner to take advantage of and, with EN sitting where he does, leaving another player without a bigger range of mobility may make it easier for defenders, ie if my forward spins to the flank or drops deep what do you do? Follow? wouldn't that leave the EN with one less player to worry about? These are the questions I want to pose to opponents. Maybe a hassling Defensive forward may be the way to go, or a CFs with instructions to move wide, I will stick with the TM for the first couple of games and see what happens.

Telling them what to do

Before I look at instructions lets have look at the comparison page;

So according to this, Overall I am the worst team in the league for passing. Right, well actually, maybe not. Overall I may suck, but that may be misleading as we can see as far as the midfield comparison goes, I'm the most technical and creative in the league, so decisions decisions.

What I want to formulate is Space, space for the EN to do damage space for forwards to exploit. So here is the idea I am going to utilise a shorter passing game, even though we aren't amazing as a collective in that area, this is because I'm also going to drop a little deeper. Theoretically what I want is to keep the ball and frustrate the opponents into leaving position to win possession, that gives the EN time and space to pick out a pass and set attacks off. I also want them to be a bit more expressive not afraid to try things, and be given license to instinctively react to a situation be it opportunities to counter attack and the like. At first I won't look to exploit an area, I don't want the middle to get congested but also I don't want to flanks to be used to much and starve the creative players of the ball.

So this is the first draft as it were at Being Boca, hopefully the theory will work in practice.

Further Reading

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2010/aug/18/what-is-a-playmakers-role-in-modern-game Article on playmakers.

http://footballmanageranalysis.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/mechanising-the-play-using-the-enganche/ Great article relating to the Enganch and FM

http://morethanjustagame.wordpress.com/2011/08/19/argentina-amf-and-the-enganche-position/ Little look at the Enganche and its attributes in the real world.

[ModernLefty]

All hail Riquelme, it looks good so far. Hopefully all should fair well in practice and you'll have a chance to write up some positive match analysis.

Hopefully if and when they fix the lower league contract issue, and I get round to giving the dafuge challenge another go with Truro. I can contribute abit to the thread, however until my skrill south, poundland quality Riquelme-esque playmaker by the name of Jared Sams decides to resign a contract as opposed to pointlessly sitting out an entire season and not playing football it's all a bit of a non starter.

[Ifail]

lookingforward where this thread goes as Im having problem with coutinho behind SAS at Liverpool

[Letissier1980]

Good luck. I tried something similar on the beta but with defensive wingers instead of wing backs and a libero instead of an anchor man with spurs.

I will be interested to see how you end up with your roles for the front 2. I love the idea with 2 up top to keep the cd,s honest and creating space for the engache.

Beware of teams playing a dm he could hamper engache,s space. Have you an plan just in case he does get marked out of the game due to his lack of mobility?

Hope you do well with this one mate.

[madmufc]

I've been playing around with the same idea with my Benfica side, trying to get an Enganche working, I went with a the same formation except my wing backs start in the full back spot on attack duty. In midfield I went with the half-back to drop in and form a back three at times, what I see from him is he drops in when the backs are in possession and then as the ball goes forward he pushes up to support and is always there to swing the ball. The other midfield roles I've chopped and changed trying different combinations. Right now I'm playing two box to box midfielders, they do a great job of playing underneath the Enganche giving him a backwards or sideways pass when he he is getting pressured from behind. They also do a great job of helping maintain possession and laying the ball in for the forwards. Having Cardoza I went with a target man, though on attack duty to open up space for the Enganche to operate in. Partnering him is a defensive forward who helps win the ball then bursts forward opening up space, and getting on the end of a few crosses as well. I'd read the same articles as you when trying to get the most out of the player and went with roles around him that would be constantly running and providing the movement to allow him space to operate. While I don't have a player as capable as Riquelme yet I am starting to see the results that I want. Looking forward to see how this thread develops and how others get on.

[Cleon]

I'm really looking forward to this. For me whenever I hear the word enganche I always think of Boca and Riquelme. It would be rude to use anything but when managing Boca

[peleJunior]

Riquelme, Riquelme, Riquelme!! All FM'ers love Riquelme, it must be some kind of nostalgic thing going back about 10 years when he was a must have. Also watching any clips of him on youtube is likely to result in some serious man love Really looking forward to this thread, subscribed!

[Moose-Stuff-For-Money]

First Game Analysis

So our first pre-season game was against rivals Indipendiente. Final result was 3-2 to me.

Brief 1st Half Recap;

Pretty perfect from my point of view we absolutely dominated the ball holding possession very well, with the midfield three of Mendez, Ledesma and in particular Gago shining. Riquelme was at the heart of most things but was starved of room too much for my liking. The only goal came from a passing move in which the ball was finally laid out wide for Marin who whipped in a great ball for a simple tap in by Gigliotti.

Brief 2nd Half Recap;

Erm, a little funny. After maintaining dominance, a simple through ball baffles my defence and for some reason Orion in goal moves out of the way to leave the net empty, not really thinking too much about this one tactically, more down to some odd keeper movements which I understand is known to SI. Following this Assman, Independiente's keeper is sent off for handling outside the box. We didn't drop our heads though and kept plugging away, even after a raft of subs to give everyone a run out. Eventually we won a free kick and Riquelme being a genius spots a beautiful little through ball for Castillo to coolly slot one home for 1-2. About 5 minutes later Independiente get a corner and its 2-2, not much I can do, good delivery, good header. Blandi then has one dubiously called offside after converting a Erbes shot which hit the bar. But eventually my dominance paid off as Castillo whips in a dangerous ball and under pressure the CB fumbles into his own net. And we keep the ball for a deserved victory.

Match stats

So at first glance it would seem that although we dominated possession, we conceded to many shots and they had a slight edge in CCC's. But if we look close we see over 50% of their shots were from long range, compared to less than 30% of mine. Their shots on target percentage was around 20% compared to over 50% for me. Our pass completion is 87% compared to 75% which shows that we did well in keeping the ball, 87% for a team not collectively great at passing is pretty good in my opinion.

Passing

Here are my passing stats;

As you can see a high percentage of completion especially for Gago, and some key passes from Riquelme added up to a highly successful battle in the middle of the park, we kept the ball well, but maybes should be doing better with passes in the final third.

Positional Analysis;

Heat maps for both sides are as follows.

Boca on the right Independiente on the left.

So from first glance we kept our shape well and the team was fairly compact without any great concern of big gaps appearing between players, if anything my concern is that the A and DLPs are too close, and my be in one another's way, something to keep an eye on. The second half show Independiente being more adventurous and pushing further forward which admittedly caused a few problems as you can see we are ever so slightly further back, maybe reverting to a counter strategy would help here to shore up the back and try and get in behind them.

Concerns;

Front combo definitely. I said earlier I definitely wanted a Poacher but I am not so sure now, he was the least effective player on the park, only running 4.8km in the 1st half the least of any outfield player and constantly running down blind alleys and offering no wide support for my WB, I am thinking an AF with instructions to move out wide may pull defenders about and create some more space centrally, as Martinez' strengths seem to be running with the ball and he isn't doing that. TMs, this one is tricky. He scored the goal, had all his shots on target, good pass rate and generally performed at a steady level, problem is he only ran 5.3km third worst in the side only a hundred metres more than my CB. AS madmufc has pointed out mobility is a huge bonus for creating space for the EN. What to do with him I don't know, DF would be good but where do we draw the line with having players moving opponents about and getting them into scoring positions? Any ideas here are welcome.

[peleJunior]

I would personally use the Anchor as a Deep Playmaker, and your two central midfielders as runners. Gago seen alot of the ball, the kind of ball you want Riquelme seeing. The DLP in DMC position can be your recycle ball and can play in the wing backs from a deeper position. The two runners around Riquelme gives him all the movement you want around him.

[peleJunior]

Well that went well

Formation and roles (had to play Alberto as the Enganche as Coutinho wasn't quite match fit) Henerson as CM (A) was a revelation!

Team Instructions (Also the wing backs are told to stay wider and run wide with the ball - to offer width)

[Auqakuh]

Riquelme, Riquelme, Riquelme!! All FM'ers love Riquelme, it must be some kind of nostalgic thing going back about 10 years when he was a must have. Also watching any clips of him on youtube is likely to result in some serious man love Really looking forward to this thread, subscribed!

Like a stripper with tassles on.

[Moose-Stuff-For-Money]

Second Match Analysis;

D.C United 0-1 Boca Juniors

1st Half Recap.

Basically a procession of dominant passing, almost tiki-taki like, problem being it had very little end product with WB's not getting into good enough attacking positions and huge issues with the forwards refusing to spin in behind, they both preferred to collect the ball and wait to be tackled which was frustrating. Riquelme had a quiet game failing to make an impact and, presumably because the forwards wouldn't move, not threading many balls in behind. Finished the half a dull 0-0 with one stand out chance that Martinez should have buried but instead of taking the ball round an advancing keeper for an easy finish, he shot from 20 yards.

2nd Half Recap.

Conceded a little more of the ball, but had more attacking purpose so silver linings and all that. Made a host of subs, including bringing off Roman for 16yr old wonder talent Guido Vadala, who had an immediate impact with a more aggressive passing game and after a lovely multiple pass move, coolly finished into the bottom corner from outside the box. Rest of the half was basically me keeping the ball but having very little in the final third.

Match Stats

So getting shots away was difficult most of the 8 I had coming from distance, as a stubborn D.C United aimed to play dirty and keep compact. on the plus side we kept the ball well and had a great pass completion rate. The big thing which I think sort of puts this performance in perspective is how stop start it was for my side. DC committed 23 fouls!!(no bookings however)which meant any attempt at rhythm was brutally halted.

Issues.

Forwards. My starting 2 managed an off target shot each in 45 minutes, lacked mobility and kept to close to the Enganche.

Solutions;

The heat map below shows some issues, namely it's all a little to restricted, defensively its solid as a rock but the sacrifice seems too much in an attacking sense. It also shows how little Martinez ran, and if he isn't moving its easy to mark him out the game and for him as an outlet to be negated.

I tinkered which probably was the root of the problem, I gave Gigliotti a DFs role to hope he would hassle players further forward and Martinez a AF role with instructions to move out wide, which he didn't. I have decide to move Gigliotti to a TMa to try and keep defenders busy higher up, and Martinez back to a Poacher with instructions to move out wide and try and drag players with him. The other changes are to the midfield with Gago dropping to the DM position as a DLPd and Mendez moving to a CMa to try and break forward and offer another dimension in the final third.

So where I am at at the minute is;

As a side note, don't worry I won't be looking into every game like this I just thought it may be helpful to see the process from pre-season to season

Next up Chivas USA.

[madmufc]

On a side note, anyone know what difference it makes playing your wingbacks in the fullback position or the normal wingback position?