How to score against much better team?

[friend0]

Hi. I have not much experience in tactics but not a newbie. Takinig outsider in the lowest league I managed to get quite a nice players and tactics so I won almost all games in my league without problem. But now I try to defeat much stronger team (I'm VCS they are L1 outsiders) in a cup. My first priority is learning at a time, so yes I'm save-scumming to see how different tactics work.

So I have a nice balanced team and they have team with every player better than mine. I do pretty nice in defence (sure I get some balls in but it's understandable), but attack is something horrible. If I try long passes - they are intercepted. If I try pass into space - their defenders are faster than my forward, so they grab a ball. With lower tempo and narrow short passing I sometimes can get to their penalty area (sometimes losing a ball but quicky retaking it with nearby teammates). But in the penalty area almost all players pack near the center so forward can't neither shoot nor pass, and after sometime they win the ball and send it away. Shooting from distance is also not good because I'm not that good with long shots and they have good keeper and press a lot.

So I don't know what to try else. I think maybe it's possible to somehow trick them, so they all mark my STCs, Ms, AMs and my DL will move to penalty area, get a pass and shoot (he is quite good finisher)... But I don't know what orders should I give to DL moving to penalty area with haste (he already has attack task) and orders to all other to keep ball without entering 5vs5 fight in a square meter, and then pass to DL.

[herne79]

You are trying to beat a "much stronger team" by "save scumming" (whatever that is - reloading I guess?). I seriously doubt you will learn anything from that.

Sometimes you just have to accept defeat and move on.

[friend0]

You are trying to beat a "much stronger team" by "save scumming" (whatever that is - reloading I guess?). I seriously doubt you will learn anything from that.

Sometimes you just have to accept defeat and move on.

I think it's much easier to learn when you try many different tactics in one hard situation. If you try many different tactics in many various situations you can almost never decide if it is tactic, RND, or different situation. To win a games against same level teams is not a challenge - it's boring, winning much better team without right tactic is impossible even with 100 reloads.

[RTHerringbone]

I think it's much easier to learn when you try many different tactics in one hard situation.

If this were true, then you wouldn't be reloading so often as you'd have already learned how to approach this match

It's genuinely the worst way to "learn". All that will happen is eventually you'll stumble on a combination that nicks a win, but what does it tell you? Nothing. The AI team might have performed badly in that game and it becomes less about what you did and more about what they didn't in that scenario. Even if it was purely tactical, how would you be able to identify the next AI team playing in the exact same manner, and be able to use that tactical combination again?

You are an inferior team so losing is more than acceptable. Everyone can play how they want, but I'd rather organically grow as a team over time and allow the margins between player quality narrow in that way.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

Hi. I have not much experience in tactics but not a newbie. Takinig outsider in the lowest league I managed to get quite a nice players and tactics so I won almost all games in my league without problem. But now I try to defeat much stronger team (I'm VCS they are L1 outsiders) in a cup. My first priority is learning at a time, so yes I'm save-scumming to see how different tactics work.

So I have a nice balanced team and they have team with every player better than mine. I do pretty nice in defence (sure I get some balls in but it's understandable), but attack is something horrible. If I try long passes - they are intercepted. If I try pass into space - their defenders are faster than my forward, so they grab a ball. With lower tempo and narrow short passing I sometimes can get to their penalty area (sometimes losing a ball but quicky retaking it with nearby teammates). But in the penalty area almost all players pack near the center so forward can't neither shoot nor pass, and after sometime they win the ball and send it away. Shooting from distance is also not good because I'm not that good with long shots and they have good keeper and press a lot.

So I don't know what to try else. I think maybe it's possible to somehow trick them, so they all mark my STCs, Ms, AMs and my DL will move to penalty area, get a pass and shoot (he is quite good finisher)... But I don't know what orders should I give to DL moving to penalty area with haste (he already has attack task) and orders to all other to keep ball without entering 5vs5 fight in a square meter, and then pass to DL.

The flaw here is that as wwfan pointed out a long time ago, by save-scumming you're *not* changing the events that happened before the game.

The pre-match press conference, the previous match, the run of form you're in, the run of form the opposition is in. These all adjust how a player reacts on the day, along with team talks and tactics.

The thing is, you can have the best tactic in the world and still lose, that's football. I played a 4-5-1 vs Manchester United as Aston Villa, within 60 minutes I was 1-0 up and had 4 clear cut chances and 4 half chances. I went on to lose 1-2 as they scored both their clear cut chances late on. That's just the difference in player quality, my players weren't clinical enough.

The best thing you can do is listen to Sir Alex Ferguson; "Accept defeat, don't have a problem with it!" just use it as a learning experience, identify 'why' and 'how' you lost, was it just player quality? Was it mistakes? Or was it an actual tactical flaw. If you think it's a tactical flaw, look for the same issue to occur when you play against another big team and more importantly, look for it to be happening against similar teams, who might not quite have the quality to pull it off against you.

[friend0]

Maybe I was not spelling correct all the time, but the goal is not to win a match, but to find out possible tactic to score. So I will lose not 0-2, but 1-3 for example. And this 1 is not just luck, but a result of dangerous attack movements.

I don't want a supertactic that always win. I just want to learn how different instructions work to consider options. Sure it would be better to have specific learning simulator where players do only what is commanded without RND, but we have what we have so only repeating over and over can give you average estimaton of your orders and player abilities.

Like in any other game: if you win 100 games on easy - you will not be able to win on hard (if hard is really hard and not just a name). But if you retry 10 games on hard on 11th attempt you can win honestly.

And in real life I also hate word "impossible", i always want to know "How can it be possible" to consider "does it worth it".

[herne79]

There is no generic "this is how you score" or "this is how you get dangerous attacking movement". You can get all of that from a Defensive mentality or an Attacking mentality, and everything else in between. Equally, you could get that in one match but come up against different opposition and it all falls apart.

Is it possible to have a single successful tactic for your team? Yes, absolutely - but what works for one person/team may not work for someone else.

If you want to learn how different instructions work together, then you are best off reading through the stickied threads. Nobody can tell you "this is what you do", as there are many many different ways of doing things, and what works for one person won't work for someone else.

Alternatively, if you are after help for your own specific set of circumstances, try posting all of your tactical details, your team, what you see in matches etc., and someone may be help to offer specific advice.

[RTHerringbone]

Exactly what herne79 says. The key is that there is no formulaic answer. You can't say "In situation x, take action y", because it is a dynamic game with literally millions of calculations going on in a match. No two matches are the same, so you can take a broad template approach, but it can be the tiny details that make the differences. A pragmatic and sensible approach is to make sure you get the higher level concepts right, and then learn to roll with the punches if you don't score, you draw or you lose. It happens and isn't worth over thinking.