Articulating “How I want my team to play”

[jjtile]

There's always a lot of talk around here of deciding how you want your team to play before designing a tactic. This seems like a sensible approach to guide pulling something together and then a benchmark to judge the tactic against on-screen.

However, as someone who doesn't know any more than the bear minimum about football tactics (a few Jonathan Wilson articles and a read-through of Inverting the Pyramid) I'm not even sure how I'd go about articulating any answer to "How do you want your team to play?"

Not even sure what options I'd be choosing from. Any advice?

[Dr. Hook]

When thinking of a style to play, you are basically looking for such things as : a counter attack style, where we sit deep and hope to win the ball back in our third and then launch a quick counterstrike; a fast attacking system that uses direct passing in an effort to move the ball forward quickly; a patient passing game where you control possession and look for openings to get quality chances; a long ball game where you look to bomb it up field toward the box. There are thousands of variations, honestly, These are some of the tactical styles you might want, but first . . .

If you are starting almost completely from scratch, my advice is to take stock of your players. Get an idea of what your strengths and weaknesses are as a club, and what types of individual players you have also. This will help you define the roles you might want to use. Use the team comparison screens to see how you match up with other clubs in your division and get a sense of where you fit- mid-table, relegation fighters, etc.

The main thing will be to set up a style that plays to the strength of your squad. If you have a strong midfield of passers and creative players, then you want to build your tactic around that. If you have a speedy team with wingers and fast forwards, you will want to play to that. If you have slow defenders, that will help you think about how to set your defensive line. Your formation will to some extent be self-selecting based on the players you have. If you don't have any decent attacking mids, for example, then you won't use a formation that employs one.

I guess what I am really getting at here is to go step by step until you get more comfortable and familiar with the tactical options you have. One way to get some help is to get a basic setup around the ideas I posted above, then post your tactic up here in the forum and you will get some more specific advice, or have a set of questions that can be specifically answered. In my own case, I knew almost nothing about football/soccer when I joined the forums but after a little while it started to make more sense.

[jjtile]

Thanks for the reply @Dr. Hook. Just what I was looking for. Would you mind if I asked a quick follow up question?

I tend to think about things in broad categories when I first start learning about stuff and then learn the intricacies, exceptions etc. once I've got those broad categories straight in my head. You mentioned a four examples of broad ways of approaching the game - counter attack style, fast attacking system, patient passing game, a long ball game - and that there are, of course, thousands of variations of "how to do I want me team to play". My question is: would it be right to think that the vast majority of those thousands of variations (with exceptions of course - there are always exceptions) are variations that sit within one of those four categories? 

[Dr. Hook]

More or less, though I think you could probably define more broad play styles and then there are hybrid styles also. But to keep it simple, you can start with these four and go from there.

The important thing is to select a play style that matches your personnel. One thing that can really help is figuring out who your playmakers/ball distributors are and who you want scoring your goals. This goes a long way to sorting out what style to play. 

[jjtile]

Thank you. That incredibly helpful. Any tips on how you personally go about figuring out who your playmakers/ball distributors are? (Think I've got a good handle on working out who i want to score goals and how).

[Dr. Hook]

41 minutes ago, jjtile said:

Thank you. That incredibly helpful. Any tips on how you personally go about figuring out who your playmakers/ball distributors are? (Think I've got a good handle on working out who i want to score goals and how).

Look at your players- do you have a good passer in your midfield (look for attributes of passing, vision, decisions for starters). If you have a player like this, you have a potential playmaker and so you would want to funnel the ball through him to get it where you need it to go. If you lack a good midfield playmaker, you might have a creative type with the same attributes on the wing for a wide playmaker role, or if you have speedy, good crossing wingers, you might look to get the ball out wide to them to send it in. Your creative force could be a forward you could use in a deep lying forward role, or as a Trequartista (See the role descriptions for a basic idea of what it does). Again, knowing your players a bit will help sort this out for you.

[jjtile]

That's all really useful. Thank you.