Attempting To Create Beauty: An Exploration of 352

[JD nawrat]

Hello all. First T&TD thread in a while for me, but let's give it a shot.

Background

I've been playing FM since 08 and I've always went for the conventional flat back four with many variations in the midfield and attack. But the back four was always permanently used in my various systems. I just don't feel comfortable without it and I've always felt that way. I have never, ever managed with three CBs. Then I decided I wanted change, so that brings me to the 352 (because 532 is uninteresting and essentially does the opposite of what I want (which we'll get to later)). Personally I haven't seen many threads for FM15 centring around the 352 (or any variation containing just three CBs) which is somewhat surprising as in previous versions there has been a frustrating amount of them So I hope to spark some three at the back talk because this is a learning experience for me - I am not coming here with all of the answers; I am asking questions and hoping that, as a group, we can work towards a better system for myself and for the other readers/users of the thread. Anyway - with this crap out of the way, let's got onto the ideas, theories, shape and all that jazz.

What do I want?

First and foremost is to succeed using a formation that contains three Centrebacks and no Fullbacks. Sounds simple, right? No matter what changes I make to my system throughout the thread - be it dropping WMs to WBs, MCs to CAM or DM etc - I will always have three CBs (or two CBs and a SW - but that's probably going to be another thread altogether) and no fullbacks (wingbacks are allowed - is that bending the rules? Pffft.). Not only that, I want to this playing a brand of football that allows us to attack with style but remain staunch in defence and help us dominate our opponent, making us hard to break down and then making it hard to take the ball from us. The beauty of having three defenders means that my midfield is more packed (seven non-defenders instead of a conventional six non-defenders if I play with a flat back four) and, as a result, holding the ball should be easier. So I want to do that.

How do I do it?

Well, there's a few different ways to do it, in theory. I've considered several different ways of doing it. I first tried to go for what I set out to use - the 352. That is, a basic and flat 352.This was the shape:

And these were the instructions I used (no PIs):

The idea was simple - three defenders defending, wide men tracking back, most central mid rarely attacking, both other MCs getting forward and back in equal measure and also contributing to holding the ball. Up front I wanted one man stretching the play with a target man offering a different outlet and supporting said AF. The Highly Structured nature of the system is a preference used to get the players adhering to the Defensive set-up. I wanted my players to get back together and do everything to keep the other team out and then begin a patient and calculated build-up, holding onto possession; Short Passing and Retain Possession both designed to help us keep the ball.

And, to be fair to the team, we did manage that using the flat 352: Example 1 | Example 2 | Example 3 | Example 4 | Example 5 | Example 6

There is one standout problem through those screenshots and that is poor defence - no clean sheets at all - and the ability to ship goals like they were going out of fashion. Unsurprisingly, then, the biggest problem was the defending of the team (21 conceded in 9 games):

Now for a side newly promoted to the division, these are actually very good results, but ultimately it isn't achieving what I want to achieve. The inability to defend was the most common problem (another was failure to take our chances but we were still scoring quite a lot so there wasn't a great need to address that ahead of the more pressing issue of our defending) and forced me into change after just nine games of using the system. Following that defeat to Tours above, I switched the system (I'll get to that just shortly).

A few things to say before I get to the specific problems about my defending:

- I am in the CFN (third tier of French football), yes, so the quality of football is guaranteed to be 'sub-par'. I am not managing the best of the best. Quite the opposite, in fact. I have part-timers at my disposal. All of them. Part-timers. I am a semi-professional club, newly promoted to the CFN.

- You could argue that <60% isn't 'controlling the game' like I want to, but, again, look at the quality I'm playing with. Midfielders with 9 for Passing are not going to be able to dominate the opposition with more than 60% Possession, no matter what I do. Our passing is also consistently in the upper regions of 70%+. This is encouraging.

- We hold the ball well and move it around with purpose and fairly good accuracy. I could honestly take a screenshot of any of my matches through this run and you'll see similar numbers in terms of passes, possession, CCCs.

Identifying The Problems

There is obviously problems with my inability to defend. So I'm going to give some examples of my problems here, accompanied by some (crudely drawn) images done on paint.

So, here we are:

First problem. Back three is a mess - RCB (#23) is on the wrong side of the attacker, leaving a huge gap between the CB (#4) and himself. Offensive attacker (#7) will punish us in a few seconds.

Second problem. The midfield. My MR (#7) should be goal side of their counterpart allowing my (#4) to hold a better position. (#13) is my CM/D. I don't even know how he ends up there. He should be close to opposition (#37) and offering better protection to the defence.

The ball isn't yet at (#37) but it's en route to him and once he gets it, he's got so much time and space to pick out offensive (#7) and give his team a goal.

Different game, same problems.

First. Their man on the ball (#7) is in too much space. Our (#18) should be a lot closer to him to close the ball down. He's not in a terrible position but he's not in a good position either.

Second. My (#7) is wrong side of the attacker, a common problem which is already highlighting the offensive nature of my wide men being too dangerous to the whole system.

Third. The trio of CBs is far too close - (#15) should be a good five yards+ to his right and (#4) should be roughly where (#15) is. Offensive #10 has too much space on that side; coupled with the MR not being in the right position, the problem is clear. The ball goes to their (#10) and then across goal for (#27) to tap it in.

There's a lot to ingest here.

First problem. Both wide men are wrong side of the attacker. Again. Alarm bells ringing. This absolutely must be changed, now.

Second problem. Offensive (#11) is in open space with acres and acres of space to run into and two teammates also in that space (#27) and (#7).

Third problem. (#25) and (#4) are too far spread apart leaving a big gap in behind which can and will be exploited just shortly.

Fourth problem. CM/D (#5) is way out of position. He should be sat near offensive (#27). Our (#31) should also be deeper, probably where my (#5) is, actually.

Same old.

First problem. LCB (#25) is too high up. Needs to be in line with (#4) and (#15). For a change, my ML/R are on the right side of the opposition.

Second problem. MCR (#29) is far too high up the pitch. CM (#18) is not deep enough.

Third problem. Offensive numbers (#7), (#27) and (#13) all have too much space ahead of them and nobody closing down. We concede in a moment.

Same old, unsurprisingly.

First problem. The ML has lost track of his man. (#12), the ML, is actually a LB so hasn't got a leg to stand on here. He's lost his man, given them far too much space.

Second problem. Defensive (#2) is too close to his man and is about to get burned for pace in order to give them an easy tap in.

I'm going to stop with that for now I could honestly continue going on and on - I took a total of 16 screenshots from the first nine games, all of which were just around our goals. I haven't shown any screenshots here from opportunities the opponents have missed. So yes, the problem is obvious and prevalent.

You may be sitting here and asking yourself why I persisted with a clearly faulted tactic for so long, and it's a good question, but my pre-season consisted of three (yes, just three) games, taking on SC Freiburg of the Bundesliga, Club Brugge of the Jupiler Pro in Belgium and Leeds United of the Championship. In those three games - and yes, they're just friendlies and I shouldn't base everything off of them - I managed to topple Freiburg 2-1 by dominating them, I bossed Brugge 4-1 and I got a solid 0-0 against Leeds. These facts coupled with the further fact that my players only truly became fully competent in the original shape laid out above after about 6/7 games in the league, meant that I wasn't going to rush into discarding the tactic or making any major changes. I had to make sure that these problems were real and not just mistakes through us getting used to the system.

So, to summarize - before moving to the next part - these are what I believe to be the problems:

Well, first I should probably you show what I was doing to ship goals like there was no tomorrow, so that's what I'll do. The problems:

1. Flat midfield. If the opposition found themselves wedged between my three and my five, we were highly exposed.

2. Lack of defensive wide men. The players at MR/L are offensive wingers, not defensive in any sense.

3. Disorganised back three. Probably a result of them having no immediate protection from the midfield.

The Evolution

As with any tactic, when there are problems they must be addressed. So that's what I did, of course...eventually. Considering the problems I highlighted above, I had a few options to go through. My ultimate decisions happened to be the following (each number below corresponds with the same number above):

1. Drop the MC into the DM position to give a more immediate and defensive shield to the back three. I considered a BWM/D but feared that the CM would then end up halfway up the pitch. I want him going backwards, not forwards.

2. Drop the MR/L into R/LWB. I consider this to be a bit of a gray area. Am I still using a 352? I'm not sure. I do not consider RWB/LWB along with 3 CBs to be a back five, I would call it a back three. But then, are those players midfielders? I'm not sure. I don't think so. However, I went ahead with this change, anyway. This solution to the problem was not ideal - and, indeed, in the future I would like to go back to MR/Ls - but without the ability to bring in truly quality wide midfielders for this level, moving my wingers deeper down the pitch would hopefully at least give the illusion of a defence, whereas before they breezed down the flanks.

3. I wasn't sure what to do about this - I could have went down one of two routes: 1. Just stick with the back three as is and allow the new defensively positioned players (DM and WBs) to hopefully improve my back three or; 2. Make (a) change(s) at the back to try and help the team out. So what I did was change the two outside players from CD/D to CD/X, with the theory behind this being we can press hard when the ball gets to our defence and prevents us from making mistakes. It has the possible downside of dragging my defenders out of position more/easily and that could in turn provide another big problem, of course, but we'll see how it goes.

And an additional change I saw fit, which I didn't really consider a problem before, was to change the team's base mentality from Defensive to Attacking. My thought process behind this was that the Defensive setting was asking my players to drop deep - too deep, for my liking - and it left us playing slow football which, if countered, left us exposed. A lot of the goals we concede are through counters.

So, all things considered, this is the set-up I am now playing with:

So, as you can see, changes were had. I would be lying if I said I went straight to this system; I didn't. I first used a DM/S and I actually had a CD/C at the centre of the trio with two standards CD/Ds, but I felt the team looked just as shaky defensively with these systems so I changes to CD/D at the heart and CD/X at the sides and then, still unhappy, I changed the DM/S. I could have made it a DM/D but I don't want a pure anchor, so I went for DLP/D. Simple, really. A DM/D would have me dangerously close to just having a back four, in all honesty. At least a DLP/D offers something different from the three defenders.

You will also notice that I made changes to the instructions that I use. I added in: Hit Early Crosses (perfect for Wingbacks in my opinion as they start off deeper by default and so they can make good use of the early cross, whereas I feel it is probably a bit more wasted on ML/Rs), Low Crosses (I possess good speed up front and low crosses suit this) and Pass Into Space (With so many men deeper in the field, passing into space became more important to take advantage of what was available to us - sticking to short retention passes wouldn't get us far because too many men are behind the ball).

Is it working? Well, yeah. Results since switching:

Quite a stark contrast, isn't it? Few pointers:

Setup #1: P9, W5, D1, L3, Goals For - 22, Goals Against - 21, Clean Sheets - 0

Setup #2: P9, W6, D1, L2, Goals For - 9, Goals Against - 4, Clean Sheets - 5

So, basing on stats alone, what's changed?

- Scoring an average of 1.0 GPG now compared to 2.44 GPG before.

- Conceding an average of 0.44 GPG now compared to 2.33 GPG before.

This thread is still a work in progress, obviously, so I have yet to find a solution to my attacking problems. In fact, I'm not even sure if I can identify my attacking problems. We have managed just 19 CCCs in 9 games; from the few examples I listed earlier to show my stats, there was something like 25 CCCs in 6 games. We are less potent offensively and I need to try and figure out why that is.

Despite all of this, I am deeply encouraged by what has happened thus far. I have gone from not even coming close to a clean sheet to five in nine games almost immediately. I have addressed the major problems with my defence and perhaps it is at the risk of my offensive effectiveness. But we are still getting results and things are moving in the right direction.

You could be sitting there wondering if I have truly addressed the problems, for all you know I've just got lucky with profligacy from the other team. But of the goals I have conceded, three have been from setpieces (one throw-in, two freekicks (one direct, one indirect)) and the fourth was a mistake from the CB (won the ball but misplaced the pass directly to their final man who waltzed past and scored).

I am aware that to end the thread now would be to end it prematurely, but I think that is appropriate, for I am still in the early stages of working on this shape and getting precisely what I want from it. I will of course be updating this thread with progress and changes, analysis of why I need (or feel the need, I should say) to make changes etc. But now, this is the point where I open the floor to you guys for feedback, criticism and advice... anything you care to offer, basically.

If you want to read more about the save I have going on - it's part of the Big Euro Challenge - then check out this thread, which is my FMCU thread based around my career with Martigues

Thanks for reading.

[sqirg]

Great thread!

"I want to this playing a brand of football that allows us to attack with style but remain staunch in defence and help us dominate our opponent, making us hard to break down and then making it hard to take the ball from us. The beauty of having three defenders means that my midfield is more packed (seven non-defenders instead of a conventional six non-defenders if I play with a flat back four) and, as a result, holding the ball should be easier." - It sounds like what you're going for is something that I've long been trying to replicate on every version of FM (although I'm still playing FM2014).

My perfect 'vision' of the game is the 3-4-3 diamond, used occasionally by Pep at Barca (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/08/29/barcelona-5-0-villarreal-tactics/), by Cruyff at Barca (with the 'Dream Team') and by Van Gaal at Ajax (when they won the European Cup).

The way I've got my team up is very similar to yours, although instead of using wingbacks or wide midfielders, I use an AML and AMR. At the moment I've got them set up as Wingers on Support duty and set to Stay Wider and Roam from position (in an attempt to get them to show for the ball more when we're playing out from the back).

The advantage of having these players playing as wingers is that you can press the opposition's defence with effectively 4 men (I play with a STR and AMC instead 2x STR, although 2x STR is something I'm looking to try soon). I set my wingers to man-mark the opposition's fullbacks and really stop them playing out from the back.

Since I'm currently managing Liverpool FC, my team obviously has players with much greater abilities than your team currently does, but as I eluded to earlier, I liked to play with a Complete Forward on Support Duty and an Advanced Playmaker behind him on Attack Duty. What do I want from my forward? I want him to run in behind, latch on to through balls and stretch the defence. I also want him to come deep and pull defenders out of position for the AP(A), W(S) and the CM(A) (playing in centre midfield) to run into.

I'm still experimenting with which striker role is best for this. I would like to try the DLF(S) but I'm concerned he won't run in behind enough, and the AF(A) won't come deep enough. Playing a Trequartista could work well, but I'm concerned he won't press the defence when out of possession.

I am currently playing 'Attacking' and 'Very Fluid'. I have the TI's Exploit the Middle (the idea is that the wingers stretch the pitch - and the defence - and make gaps for the central players to run into), Retain Possession (but crucially, I DON'T use the Shorter Passing TI, as I don't want to prohibit my players from making a scything cross-field pass if it's on).

In my most recent season I probably averaged over 60% possession in most games (don't have the stats to hand) and Quintero (playing AMC) averaged an assist a game.

So what is there to improve upon? In those tough games, against teams who play 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 we can really struggle. First of all, a lack of a spare man at the back (ie. 3 vs 3) means we can get hit on the counter if the ball gets switch from one flank to the other. Secondly, if they decide to press us it can be difficult to play out from the back.

Hope that helps! Looking forward to see how your tactic evolves.

[kingjericho]

Great OP

Couple questions though:

1) what is the reasoning to choose an attacking strategy? I usually go a by a rule of thumb where for aggressive play, more attacking strategies are best suited, and vice-versa. You use an attacking strategy with short passing TIs, does that work?

2) Are the 3 more attacking players providing you with enough creativity? You have a CM(a), DF(s), and AF(a), do they make key passes or just lay the ball back to the AP or play simple short passes?

3) Did you try other combinations for the CBs, like 'defend-cover-defend', 'stopper-cover-stopper', or a plain 'defend-defend-defend'?

[JD nawrat]

Great thread!

"I want to this playing a brand of football that allows us to attack with style but remain staunch in defence and help us dominate our opponent, making us hard to break down and then making it hard to take the ball from us. The beauty of having three defenders means that my midfield is more packed (seven non-defenders instead of a conventional six non-defenders if I play with a flat back four) and, as a result, holding the ball should be easier." - It sounds like what you're going for is something that I've long been trying to replicate on every version of FM (although I'm still playing FM2014).

My perfect 'vision' of the game is the 3-4-3 diamond, used occasionally by Pep at Barca (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/08/29/barcelona-5-0-villarreal-tactics/), by Cruyff at Barca (with the 'Dream Team') and by Van Gaal at Ajax (when they won the European Cup).

The way I've got my team up is very similar to yours, although instead of using wingbacks or wide midfielders, I use an AML and AMR. At the moment I've got them set up as Wingers on Support duty and set to Stay Wider and Roam from position (in an attempt to get them to show for the ball more when we're playing out from the back).

The advantage of having these players playing as wingers is that you can press the opposition's defence with effectively 4 men (I play with a STR and AMC instead 2x STR, although 2x STR is something I'm looking to try soon). I set my wingers to man-mark the opposition's fullbacks and really stop them playing out from the back.

Since I'm currently managing Liverpool FC, my team obviously has players with much greater abilities than your team currently does, but as I eluded to earlier, I liked to play with a Complete Forward on Support Duty and an Advanced Playmaker behind him on Attack Duty. What do I want from my forward? I want him to run in behind, latch on to through balls and stretch the defence. I also want him to come deep and pull defenders out of position for the AP(A), W(S) and the CM(A) (playing in centre midfield) to run into.

I'm still experimenting with which striker role is best for this. I would like to try the DLF(S) but I'm concerned he won't run in behind enough, and the AF(A) won't come deep enough. Playing a Trequartista could work well, but I'm concerned he won't press the defence when out of possession.

I am currently playing 'Attacking' and 'Very Fluid'. I have the TI's Exploit the Middle (the idea is that the wingers stretch the pitch - and the defence - and make gaps for the central players to run into), Retain Possession (but crucially, I DON'T use the Shorter Passing TI, as I don't want to prohibit my players from making a scything cross-field pass if it's on).

In my most recent season I probably averaged over 60% possession in most games (don't have the stats to hand) and Quintero (playing AMC) averaged an assist a game.

So what is there to improve upon? In those tough games, against teams who play 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 we can really struggle. First of all, a lack of a spare man at the back (ie. 3 vs 3) means we can get hit on the counter if the ball gets switch from one flank to the other. Secondly, if they decide to press us it can be difficult to play out from the back.

Hope that helps! Looking forward to see how your tactic evolves.

Certainly gives me much to think of, thanks!

In my most recent game I got my AF/A to score twice and take MotM in a strong performance, but the DF/S (my top scorer this season with 15 goals in 19 appearances) got a miserable 6.3... I subbed him around the 60th minute and his replacement scored the third goal of the game. It's a tough balancing act I've got going on. It seems to be difficult to get both strikers playing well together but at times it definitely does happen. I'm thinking that a DLF/A alongside a DF/S might be the answer. It's just going to take a lot of tweaking and experimenting.

Great OP

Couple questions though:

1) what is the reasoning to choose an attacking strategy? I usually go a by a rule of thumb where for aggressive play, more attacking strategies are best suited, and vice-versa. You use an attacking strategy with short passing TIs, does that work?

2) Are the 3 more attacking players providing you with enough creativity? You have a CM(a), DF(s), and AF(a), do they make key passes or just lay the ball back to the AP or play simple short passes?

3) Did you try other combinations for the CBs, like 'defend-cover-defend', 'stopper-cover-stopper', or a plain 'defend-defend-defend'?

1. Attacking Strategy is an attempt to encourage the WBs to get forward more whilst also asking the MCs to get higher up the pitch, too. I fear that if we play Defensive with all of those players in my own half (every bar the two strikers, almost) then it will leave us passing backwards only. Short Passing with an Attacking strategy can and does work, yeah. I've used it for a few seasons with my Torino side now. It encourages quick passing but coupled with Retain Possession the players move the ball quickly in short, simple passes.

2. The CM/A is my highest average rated player (7.13), top assister (6) and second top goalscorer (6). In the last 20 games he has 22 key passes, so he is definitely getting involved creatively. The DF/S is my top scorer, perhaps surprisingly. He's only got the two assists but he averages 83% passing from about 40-50 passes per game. He's made 13 key passes in the last 18 games. The AF/A is harder to judge because I rotate three players between that position. My first choice, Sylla, has had about 20-30 passes per game so far in his short career with me, scored 4 goals in 7 games (1 assist) and 85% Passing is his average. In those 7 games he has 3 key passes so he is definitely less creative than the two you asked about.

3. I tried D-C-D yeah, and the side just didn't seem much safer. We kept clean sheets but we didn't look strong at the back, it was almost as if we were just inviting the pressure from the opposition. D-D-D was what I was going with to begin with and it left us highly exposed. I didn't like it at all but I think that I will use D-D-D eventually, when I have proper quality. X-D-X is so far the most solid back three partnership I've tried out.

[declanelcocks]

Have you played around with a sweeper out of curiosity? I have had some success with a sweeper in a back 3, and I remember the defensive diamond of a SW, CB, CB, DM used to work quite well sometimes in FM14. I like the sound of that 3-4-3 tactic, sounds like it could score a hell of a lot of goals

[higgins]

Did you try to use defensive wingers on defensive duties instead of WM's?

[Dr. Hook]

I've been using this formation (the flat midfield 5) for the past couple seasons as an alternate, and have enjoyed it, so glad to see a thread about it. I adopted it to string five men across the midfield and press the opponent when I ran into formations that ate my 4-4-2 for lunch. It works pretty well.

[nickdc]

Ever since CM00/01 I wanted my own formation to make the game 'unique' to me and the 3322 was it. Essentially its your last formation but with the midfielders shifted forward a space.

3 CBs (used to go with middle CB as stopper, but now cover for '15, though may look to see how sweeper works)

L/R Wide midfield on support.

CM - DLP support.

2 AMCs (Treq and attacking midfielder on attack)

2 CFs (Poacher, advanced forward, though target-man works better initially in the lower leagues, where I start).

Its definitely a tricky one to get right, but when you do the football is sublime. When the front four click they can be unstoppable and will, as the post above says, eat away most 442s.

I play though the middle, flexible, quick short passing game, control, lots of creative freedom, retain possession, and the front 4 on roam.

The wide men in possession are simply an outlet to enable possession to be retained, who rarely score or get an assist. The frailties are the FB position remain the domain of the opposing winger, especially when facing the nemesis that is the 4231. But when the defence is working, wingers are shut down by that side's CB doubling up with the wide midfielder, the two remaining CBs shift over and are joined by the wide midfielder from the opposite flank to retain three at the back. Its a thing of beauty. The benefit of the two AMCs is that the full complement of opposing midfielders can't risk joining attack... and if they do, fine by me.

My problem with FM '15 , as opposed to my last big save on FM'11, is that the AMC positions on attack make a flat front four with the strikers, or if on support are not close enough to allow great interplay, even with the get further forward instruction. Though this may have to do with my team not having natural AMCs, but a few feet closer would make all the difference.

Criticism of Van Gaal at Utd is that 3 at the back makes it difficult for the team to build up an attack. With the 3322, the team is naturally set. The two AMCs push the opposing midfielders back leaving the CM more room that you might imagine, and it is he who controls the tempo of the game. This really is the key position. But a simple pass to any AMC and the attack is on.

There are differences to the wide players the higher up the leagues you go. I try to stay clear of attacking players to begin with as only three defensive players on the park make set pieces very problematic. Higher up the league they will naturally be better and not succumb to the lumbering hulks that dominate lower league set pieces.

Finally, its not a formation where you take into account what the opposition are doing. Its prepare the team and hope for the best, choosing when its right to go direct, or counter etc. Tactically, you may choose to put the wide midfielders on defensive against a 4231 but that's it. Its the archetypal what ever you score, we'll score more.