Strategy: Taking the Long Look

[Auqakuh]

Pre-amble

Often, tactical threads focus on what to do today, now, in this match, in this minute. How to respond to this, or that, or which player should get which duty; is this tactic fluid? Is it balanced? Should I be more rigid? Specialisation or individualism?

This post is none of those things, although it will touch all of them.

As the title says, this thread is about strategy. Any good manager must have one; it is not enough to arrive and look at your squad and decide how to squeeze the best out of them if that best bears no relation to the next squad, the next team, that you'll have to be building from the first day you arrive. Unless you're Jose Mourinho and you're leaving in three years time, you need to think about not just tomorrow, but the next three-year cycle.

It has frequently been noted that great teams rarely last more than three years, or, in international football, perhaps we could see three top tournaments - how well Spain do in Brazil next summer is one of the most interesting questions in world football. And it is partly on that that this thread touches.

The Spanish success story is based on continuity; on establishing a style of play, a philosophy, an approach, not just on the pitch but off it as well. A focus on building partnerships and friendships has served the Spanish very well, allowing them to build a core group of players and carry them through various levels, together, through the youth structure and into the senior side. This is repeating again, too, with players such as Isco and Inigo Martinez et al., and, I suspect, the Spain success story is far from over.

But away from the real world - can we replicate this in Football Manager?

The answer is yes, and this thread is about how to think about achieving that. What do you have to do to build a strategy?

The Philosophy

Firstly, you need an attainable goal. We'll call this the philosophy. Your philosophy might be individualism; you might love the Ronaldinho, Riquelme, and so on, the players who seem to need a match plan much less than just enough touches to change a game with the wonderful talent in their feet and in their heads. You might prefer the system - the notion that any group of components will be greater than their sum when combined together in just the right way, to produce something greater in whole than in just the addition of parts.

It doesn't really matter what you believe beyond finding a way to think about how to take your squad from where it is today to where it will have to be to attain the goal your philosophy demands of you. If you want to worship the individual and creativity, then you need to create an environment where it can flourish; if the system is god and the players must worship at the chalkboard altar day after day, training session after training session, then likewise, you must build it.

It is not enough to simply command it be done. Not even in FM.

The first step, then, is determining what that philosophy is, and what is needed. If you need great individuals, then you need to think about how to get them. Are you going to buy them? Produce them? Buy them young and bring them through? How many years will that take? What age should players bought to fill the gaps today be in order to ensure that no playing time is lost for youngsters when the time comes to draw them into the fold and begin their rotation into the side?

You need to ask questions, first and foremost. Your philosophy determines those questions. I can't ask all of them, because my philosophy is mine, and possibly not yours. I'll be interested, though, to hear about your questions in replies to this post.

But for now, onto the next part...

Building with Questions: The Goal Tactic

The Goal Tactic is what I'll be calling the end product; the team built in x years time that will breathe and live the style of play you want to play.

There are two ways to go about defining this tactic. You can either do what I do, and just have a vague notion in your head of it, or you can use the tactic creator to actually build it from the off - and then not use it. You can't use it, yet, because in all likelihood your squad is not capable of playing it to maximum potential. Tomorrow counts, but so does now, and if you want to build your team, you have to win, win, win.

You don't, therefore, start with the finish and work backwards. You start at the beginning.

The usual things apply; assessing your squad, determining your strengths in comparison to your league. But you don't have to only play to those strengths; you can also try to incorporate parts of your future tactic.

For example, taking over Manchester United in my most recent save, I decided to go down the route of ball retention, of slow, probing play, with quick attacks built out of that slow possession. The perfect goal would involve all attacking players, each getting at least one touch, and the finish would be a tap-in; no need for great finishing, because the passing would disrupt to the extent that no great finish would be necessary.

Of course, perfection isn't often possible. But you can always build towards it.

With that in mind, my first tactic with United was a 4-2-3-1. Rooney did not fit the strategy, and was immediately offloaded, without replacement. The first season we played fairly dull, sterile football; keep the ball for as long as possible, run as little as possible, and then attack relentlessly for the last 30 minutes. 90% of all goals scored came in those last 30 minutes, throughout the season. Opposing teams were made to press us or sit back - it didn't matter. If they sat back, we'd widen the playing area, slow the tempo even further, and just pass back and forth in front of them, making them move side to side to side to side to side until they were frustrated and began to press... and tire.

This is the essence of the philosophy. The Goal Tactic is, in essence, distilled down, simply this: if you have the ball, it takes much less effort to play than if you do not have the ball. Defending is more difficult than attacking. It takes more running, by far, to defend. This isn't a new notion. It's also how Spain play.

That, then, is what you need to do: find the core principle of your philosophy and incorporate that into your first tactic, with everything else about your tactic geared purely towards maximising performances. It doesn't matter if you play the long ball but want to play a short passing game; start with those players who can do it, and let them play it short, and everyone else can go as direct as they please. You can build on it. It doesn't have to happen today.

You Can't Build A Castle With Cats

The subtitle is a little crazy, but true; you wouldn't build a castle with cats. You'd use stone.

You wouldn't build a bridge out of cabbage; you'd use stone.

Likewise, you cannot build Barcelona out of Peter Crouches. Nor can you build Stoke with Iniestas.

Once you have identified your philosophy and your "Goal Tactic", you need to understand how that tactic really works, and which attributes are needed throughout the team to establish it. You may also need specific PPMs; for example, every single player in my midfield and attack has the "sets tempo" PPM. All of my defensive midfield players and almost all of my defenders have "plays short simple passes". All of my wide players have "likes to switch play to the other flank". And, most critically of all, perhaps, to my own brand of football, all of my wide players have "comes deep" - as do all of my strikers.

No matter who plays, we are tactically consistent, regardless of the smaller tweaks to approach depending on opposition.

Likewise, there is no player in the entire squad with teamwork below 14. No player with composure below 12. No player with aggression above 15, or bravery below 12. No player with determination under 12; no player outside of defence with technique below 15, and few with first touch below 13 across the entire team... some of these are required before I'll even think about putting a youngster in the first team.

PPMs and attributes define squad personality, in playing terms. Make sure you know exactly which ones you need, and set limits and guidelines based on your playing style - both now and to the future.

Think about how to transition from what you have to what you want. You need the right building blocks to lay the foundations, and then you need the right parts to build the house on top, too. And you can't build a house without blueprints.

If it helps, you can think of it this way:

Tactic 1: Winning today. Above all else, win the damn match. Your core philosophy is visible if you look closely, but it's not that important, and sometimes it might not be around at all, if winning is proving too hard.

Tactic 2: Winning tomorrow, but more stylishly. Your old team is still in place, but they're wise enough due to training to implement the key facets of your style.

Tactic 3: Team in transition! Some remnants of your old style remain, but players are either trained coherently in the new style, with new emphasis on important attributes, or new players - signed or developed through the youth system - are increasingly important to the first team.

Tactic 4: Transition to style

Tactic 5: KNEEL BEFORE US, MORTALS.

It might take five seasons. It might take three. But this post is just about saying: you don't have to do it all at once.

Attributes and Tactics: The Right Stuff

Building on the notion of building towards something, it's important to know not just your chosen style, but also what it takes to make it tick.

Certain attributes will come to be universal when you come to look for a player to sign, or look at specific players to develop; having a head-start in these particular attributes will be particularly critical when looking to develop or sign players not for the first team, but for the fringes of your squad. The first team players will, of course, need them as well - but they should have the flexibility in terms of ability to be able to do more at once very well (even at lower levels - it's just a case of different levels of talent; it's worth remembering that a player with 1 in Finishing is probably still better at putting the ball in the back of the net than your average Sunday League player).

I've mentioned my own Manchester United save before, and this is where we can neatly bring some of that in; currently, I'm about 80% of the way towards my eventual "Goal Tactic". My "tactic" actually is a strategy, since it consists of two different, flexible match plans.

These are those, with the current team:

4-3-3 2017 Formation

4-3-3 2017 Team Instructions

First of all, a shout to TokyoBlade, whose excellent contributions to a thread on how to get the best out of Leo Messi was the inspiration for this initial formation; it no longer entirely resembles what it began as, but it did begin with the idea of trying to get the absolute maximum out of a striker who likes to drop deep, who can dribble, and who has great creativity as well as finishing.

Back on track: this tactic is the main team "ethos", and all attribute priorities are based on this, for player development and signings - although I've not made any meaningful signings for two years, having bought the bulk of my "next gen team" en masse more than three seasons ago.

The notion is to play slow, controlled football, high up the pitch. Essentially, we play in their half so they can't play in ours. The football is largely low-risk, but certain players have PPMs which reduce the sterility (dictates tempo and players killer balls often; in this particular line-up, Januzaj, Rautio, and Boone possess those PPMs). Crosses are notably rare; they are only played into the box either when Boone makes an attacking run to the near post, is completely free in the middle, or when, in the case of this lineup, Brandt is free on the far post.

Let's break that down and state attributes needed and why.

Slow build-up: firstly, Composure and Concentration, and the more the better. Particularly, one defender needs both of these attributes and all three central midfielders as well; Passing must also be relatively good, but for keeping the ball with short passes, it doesn't actually need to be that fantastic. Players need to be calm when playing a short passing game, and never rushed into silly direct balls when those balls are not on. Thus, they also need Decisions. This one is important for absolutely everyone.

Reducing sterility: a slow build-up approach like this has great potential... to be amazingly dull and get absolutely nowhere. So you need players who, having great Decisions, also have the required attributes to be able to break the mould and get creative when their decision-making tells them the moment is right. But they also need excellent Teamwork, to only do this when it is good for the team - not because they want personal glory. It doesn't matter if it's a sweet through-ball, a great dribble, or taking a long-range effort - it must be because it suits the team, not because it suits them.

<Second tactic in the strategy will be described here soon, along with info on attributes and how it's put into practice.>

Several of these players are from that "nextgen team" mentioned before - Boone (already club captain and a 50 goal a season striker), Rautio (new in the first team this year), Brandt (an excellent real youngster and already good enough to use in rotation with Mesut Ozil), and Gonzalez and Cabieces, both new to the first team this season and surprisingly solid for 19 year olds (enough so, in fact, to partly displace Phil Jones and Chris Smalling).

I'll be adding more to this soon, in depth, on how I actually approached doing this in my current Manchester United save, and how it's actually progressed, along with in-depth looks at how the attributes of players affect how they carry out instructions, along with how PPMs influence those things too - and how to get the most out of training to ensure players who fit the exact moulds you want.

[Auqakuh]

(Reserved)

[Sean1967]

This is a very good post mate. Looking forward to the follow up.

[Sanford&Son]

very enjoyable read!! Thank you!!

[wwfan]

Great OP. You've summed up my long-term strategy beautifully as well.

[Cleon]

I've only just seen this thread, great work. I love threads like this that offer a different look at the game. I did something very similar on FM13 but the images are no longer in the thread sadly . I always tend to plan long term and have a goal of some kind about what style I want to play long term and then I squad build around this.

Can't wait for more posts, a really good job

[tennisball]

Great thread Auqakuh, really looking forward to the discussion around it.

[MeesterCat]

Great thread, I look forward to seeing it evolve.

It's actually something that's been on my mind lately. I normally pick a team that is near the middle of the Premier league and my goal is usually get them into Europe before I tire of the save. This time I'm starting in League 2 and looking to build a legacy. Now as things stand, I'm having to make do with what I have (finances, reputation, etc) but I don't want that; I want to build things my way. I appreciate this is a 20 year project, but it's one that I'm excited by and will be looking to this thread for ideas (and hopefully providing some of my own).

[MeesterCat]

Duplicate post.

[llama3]

Seeing as I play as Arsenal, I can generally achieve what I want to immediately, the squad is built for how I like to play. However I do like to be adaptable and change styles at times, so making sure I build my new additions around keeping the options and adaptability is my main challenge.

[jdiogocf]

I'm a fan of this type of approach to the game. To be honest most of us loose a lot of time looking for the best tactic that will work on the short-time. We lack Vision. Football Manager is based on a lot of mangement, but every company manager needs to have a vision specially nowadays. I dont really agree with you about José Mourinho. I think Mourinho made his team's arrounds his vision, and that can be proved by his 4-2-3-1 wich was always implemented in every team he coached.

I dunno if you gonna put it or not, but I think it's important a Financial Strategy, special if you are trainning very small teams. I can help with that if you want.

Anyways, amazing subject I wish you the best of luck with this threath.

[Auqakuh]

Thanks for the kind words, one and all.

I just stupidly did a huge edit and... then posting it failed before I got around to copy/pasting it all out elsewhere. Le sigh.

ETA: thank goodness for auto-save. Though still lost a chunk. Will re-write soonest.

[phnompenhandy]

I've maintained the same long-term strategy with FM for years - still never got anywhere near the end-game but there's always next year! Basically I take a club in the lowest playable league, recruit the right youths (mainly 16-17 year olds) and mould them over the years to play a particular style, Barcelona-esque.

This year's FM has managerial philosophy added, which is a nice touch. I persuaded the chairman to let me focus on bringing youths into the first team. I look for kids with high determination and are ambitious, with high potential, of course. My scouts flag up hundreds every season, of whom one or two might fit my bill AND be successfully recruited to go with the one (maybe) from my academy who make the grade.

The received wisdom about lower league football is to get strong and quick cloggers and play direct balls. My kids are habitually the weakest, shortest, and have least stamina in the division. They keep getting musceled off the ball. Nevertheless, I persist with short passing possession-based tactics with the same small squad until we get to the point where post-match comments come out with the "brains are better than brawn" cliches.

A post above mentioned financial strategy - for me it's an easy one; I have no money and don't need it given the focus on developing my own youths. I've never yet got beyond League Two with this approach, but I'm hopeful to reach the top this year!