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Teaser Thread No 1: Managerial Type and Mentality Systems


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The two primary tactical instructions (mentality and creative freedom) are the most difficult to translate into real world footballing language. It is difficult to imagine a manager specifying exactly how attacking each player should be or how much he is allowed to deviate from managerial instructions to the degree the sliders allow. Such levels of precision have traditionally caused much angst and argument among FM managers and have often been heavily criticised as being too complex. In attempting to unravel these complexities, we’d like to offer a new conceptualisation of these sliders as determining manager type as much as the tactics of the team.

The two polarities of managerial type are the Authoritarian and the Libertarian manager. The Authoritarian determines every aspect of the team’s play and expects each player to follow his instructions to the letter. Mentality structure will be individually tailored to the players and creative freedom will be close to non-existent. The team will play very precise, controlled football with little flair or creativity and heavily rely on set pieces and set moves to score. On the other hand, the Libertarian manager has a rough idea of how attacking or defensive his team should be for each match and gives players their heads. The mentality structure will be very generic and creative freedom will be high. The team will play free-flowing football and goals will come from all types of open-play moves.

As in real life, these two managerial stereotypes, although potentially successful short-term, are likely to fail in the long run as they are too one-dimensional in approach. The overly structured manager can take his highly controlled style of football to the top level but is often too regimented to remain there, with his teams failing to offer enough flair and creativity to break down high-class defences. However, he should be able to keep a poor squad up simply by playing percentage football. The flair and creativity focused manager will do very well with a squad full of players who can operate at the higher end of the divisional level but will fail to bring enough tactical acumen to the table to win really big matches and titles. With a poor squad, he is likely to be an unmitigated disaster, as he will ask his players to do things of which they are not capable.

As with real life managers, the successful FM09 manager will need to learn how to balance a systematic approach to formation structure with a trust in which players can be allowed the creative freedom to express themselves without disrupting his overall tactical vision. Knowing which type of manager you are will then enable you to choose or design a mentality system that best suits your style. Some systems better suit a manager at the Authoritarian end of the scale, as they can do well with restricted creative freedom, whereas others are friendlier to the Libertarian axis, requiring a lot of creativity and flair to flourish.

No matter which one you choose it is likely that they will need to be tweaked further to suit your own playing preference, managerial style and the ability of the individual players at your disposal. You might be an aggressive manager that tries to impose his particular style of play on the opposition and thus veer towards an attacking framework with low creative freedom. You might examine your opponent’s strategy in fine detail and assign the majority of players to counter it whilst relying on an elite few to do the creative stuff. There is no ‘best way’ to play or manage. However, somewhere there will be a style of play that best suits your temperament and vision. Although the full document outlines eight mentality systems, we’ll restrict ourselves to two here, an extremely Authoritarian system in the style of José Mourinho and a slightly freer one in the style of Alex Ferguson.

The Nike Defence

Manager Type: José Mourinho

Although this mentality structure is basically an adaption of the Rule of One, it is ideally suited to those that wish to play the Mourinho way. It is exceedingly control-orientated and specifies more individual mentality settings than any other system. It closely mirrors Mourinho’s tactics in two ways. Firstly, it employs an athletic covering DC to support a powerful destroyer in the manner of the Carvalho/Terry Chelsea partnership. Secondly, the MCd sits slightly deeper than he would in the Rule of One, which equates to how Mourinho employed Makelele. Like all Rule of One tactics, it suits the Mourinho-type manager as it can do well without excessive creative freedom.

GK: 7

DCd: 6

DC: 8

FB: 10

MCd: 9

ML/R: 11

MCa: 12

FC: 13

Credit: Justified

Bands of Two

Manager Type: Alex Ferguson

Sir Alex is the first manager that deviates from a very tight control methodology. Manchester Utd’s system, most especially in the Queiroz years, operates through four bands of play. While the central defenders are predominantly instructed to defend (unlike when playing for Capello, Ferdinand stays back) the full backs and defensive midfielder offer deep support for the front line alongside their defensive duties. The attacking midfielder and wingers have become virtually interchangeable, switching roles in the high support band, and are usually allowed their creative heads. The final band is the spearhead forward, ideally a complete player who is comfortable playing with the ball at his feet or in the air.

GK: 8

DC: 8

FB: 10

MCd: 10

ML/R: 12

MCa: 12

FC: 14

Credit: wwfan & Millie

Please note due to uploading restrictions at SI Games I cannot support the thread with any tactical upload here. However, the equivalent thread at FM-Britain has a set of 4-4-2s available for download at the bottom of the opening post.

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Before anyone says it - I'm Millie and I helped write the guide this year. I know (pretty much with regards to the guide, perhaps not so much with the game mechanics ;) ) as much about TT&F as wwfan does. So, if I may, I'll try and pop in as often as possible and give my thoughts to questions and feedback. OK...

Teaser thread or rehash thread? :)

I'd much rather read about how you think the match engine is different in FM2009.

It's a complete rewrite. Very, very little survives from TT&F 08. While we may not go into specifics about the differences from '08 throughout the document, rest assured that we completely started afresh this year and are providing you with completely new material. :thup:

I may be being thick but do the numbers provided for each position relate to mentality or creative freedom (or both)?

The numbers relate to the mentality. Creative freedom will be covered in a later installment.

wwfan would it work having a home tactic using the attacking band of two and an away tactic using the nike defence or should you pick a system and just stick to it?

Personally I would use one system. To go away from home, I'd lower mentality across the board by three or four clicks (or more, if you like), make my shape narrower and do all the things I would have done last year to tighten up a tactic. We'll be covering match strategy (incluing defensive tactics, attacking tactics, home and away settings etc.) in a later installment.

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Personally I would use one system. To go away from home, I'd lower mentality across the board by three or four clicks (or more, if you like), make my shape narrower and do all the things I would have done last year to tighten up a tactic. We'll be covering match strategy (incluing defensive tactics, attacking tactics, home and away settings etc.) in a later installment.

what do you mean by one system?

have one tactic and tweak it each match, or stick to one 'system' but have home tactic, awey, control...?

does having more tactics influences on squad gelling?

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what do you mean by one system?

have one tactic and tweak it each match, or stick to one 'system' but have home tactic, awey, control...?

does having more tactics influences on squad gelling?

No, I mean having one mentality framework, as in - choose Nike, or Bands of Two (or any of the other systems you can think of), but simply move that to be more attacking or more defensive depending on what you want it to do.

You can create home tactics, away tactics, etc., but for the sake of simplicity, personally I would prefer to have one mentality system so I knew the roles my players were being asked to perform.

There's nothing to stop you using a mix of all of the frameworks if you want, but I think as you'll see from the rest of the guide, making new tactics and making tactic sets is much, much easier if you stick to one.

You're by no means tied in though.

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When Millie said one system he (I believe) meant you use one of the mentality frameworks across the set of tactics.

In FM08 it did take longer for players to adapt to a set of tactics rather than a single tactic, but as long as they were all the same formation, it wasn't a massive difference and the better results, long term, more than made up for it.

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That's a really interesting read :thup: It's great that you would give up so much of your own time to help others enjoy the game, kudos to you :)

What do you look for in a squad to determine whether they can play a tactic with lots of creative freedom? Is it an absolute thing, or is it important to consider the quality of the opponents? For example, would you ever be able to play a high creative freedom tactic in the lower leagues sucessfully?

Oh, and when's the final document out? :D

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What do you look for in a squad to determine whether they can play a tactic with lots of creative freedom? Is it an absolute thing, or is it important to consider the quality of the opponents? For example, would you ever be able to play a high creative freedom tactic in the lower leagues sucessfully?

I find that creative freedom and mentality go hand in hand.

If you do however want to set up creative freedom regardless of mentality, then the stat to look for is decisions. Players with a high decision stat are more likely to do the right thing when given free reign. There aren’t many of those players in the lower leagues.

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Around the time the game comes out, according to WWFan :). There will apparently be some more teasers throught the next couple of weeks however.

Indeed. One every couple of days. The whole thing (with lots of sweet extras) will be available on release day.

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Personally I would use one system. To go away from home, I'd lower mentality across the board by three or four clicks (or more, if you like), make my shape narrower and do all the things I would have done last year to tighten up a tactic. We'll be covering match strategy (incluing defensive tactics, attacking tactics, home and away settings etc.) in a later installment.

When you say lower mentality do you mean on the team instructions or the Player instructions r both?

I am just getting my head around this stuff and it is a superb read what with you, wwfan, cleon and rashidi and a few other (apologies for not mentioning them) making the game experience a lot richer.

thanks

K:)

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No, I mean having one mentality framework, as in - choose Nike, or Bands of Two (or any of the other systems you can think of), but simply move that to be more attacking or more defensive depending on what you want it to do.

You can create home tactics, away tactics, etc., but for the sake of simplicity, personally I would prefer to have one mentality system so I knew the roles my players were being asked to perform.

There's nothing to stop you using a mix of all of the frameworks if you want, but I think as you'll see from the rest of the guide, making new tactics and making tactic sets is much, much easier if you stick to one.

You're by no means tied in though.

Millie, could you read my latest post,please? The reason being, that I thought that it is possible to use only the one basic "system/tactic" and play wider, narrower, slower etc, depending upon who you are playing and whether or not you are at home. However, when posted about this way of playing some time ago, the general consencus of replies were against it working. That is, that to have some success you need more than one tactic. If I have interperated correctly, it would appear that one "system/tactic" can be successful by the means that I have stated. Am I on the right track? Kind regards.

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I use a set of tactics. TT&F as it explains more will also advocate this sort of approach - a set of game plans to be used in certain situations. So far, we've only discussed mentality frameworks, and this will get easier to understand as we release more information. At the moment, we've made the conscious decision to release the guide in bits so as not to overwhelm people with the whole thing in one go (it's over 40 pages long this year).

When I use the word "system", I'm only referring to the mentality framework - that is, the numbers which are referred to in wwfan's opening post. What I would say is choose one of these "systems" which best fits what you like to see your players do, and then use that to create your tactics.

A "tactic" is an individual file. So, I would have an attacking "tactic", a defensive "tactic", a control "tactic" etc.

A "set" is a bunch of these "tactics" based around the same basic "system".

Personally (that word again), I use sets. But if you're a fan of using one tactic and tweaking it to the situation, then those ideas I said would help you tighten it up defensively to hold onto a result.

I hope I'm not being too confusing here. Basically, I'm saying what you can do. It's not the way I choose to play, but if people want to tweak one "tactic", that's entirely their own choice. This guide is about clarifying how the game works, not necessarily saying "this is how you must do it!"

Kazza

When you say lower mentality do you mean on the team instructions or the Player instructions r both?

I am just getting my head around this stuff and it is a superb read what with you, wwfan, cleon and rashidi and a few other (apologies for not mentioning them) making the game experience a lot richer.

Lower individual mentalities. Individual always overrides team, so changing the team mentalities won't make a jot of difference. :)

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Millie, Like a "million" others I am looking forward to this years "bible". I got halfway through printing out the first part and ran out of flipping ink! Rats!!!! I have not had the best of success with my own tactics in the past. However, am I the only one who seems to be of the opinion that the way the "in game" tactics sets are set out, makes it easier to TRY!!! to make my own. If for the only reason that there are already tactical sets to get me on the right road?

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Ah, it's so so nice to be a mentality system contributor and have an advanced copy sitting right here in front of me.

I can just imagine the pain of waiting until November 14th for everybody else (respectively).

:D

And I will try to contribute myself in this thread like Millie and wwfan are doing to try to answer any questions/comments/feedback.

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do you guys have a system with global mentality? what are good things about it and what are downsides?

the one thing that bothers me in 'increasing mentality system' is that I believe it should be decreasing. the thinking is that defenders are those who should pass the ball forward as soon as posibile and that strikers should look to pass sideways or back more often then defnders or DM's.

it's not hard to recreate that with defenders - you just set their passing to more direct. but how can we achieve our strikers or wingers to be more cautious about their play, other then to lower the mentality and passing style?

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do you guys have a system with global mentality? what are good things about it and what are downsides?

the one thing that bothers me in 'increasing mentality system' is that I believe it should be decreasing. the thinking is that defenders are those who should pass the ball forward as soon as posibile and that strikers should look to pass sideways or back more often then defnders or DM's.

it's not hard to recreate that with defenders - you just set their passing to more direct. but how can we achieve our strikers or wingers to be more cautious about their play, other then to lower the mentality and passing style?

Slower tempo, lower CF, no TTB'S, no RWB's are all other things you can change too:thup:

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Slower tempo, lower CF, no TTB'S, no RWB's are all other things you can change too:thup:

that's true. but tempo would affect whole team. how is a striker playing with RWB rarely? he imediatly passes the ball...interesting but does he try to run with ball when it's needed?

i noticed in both sets of mentality, strikers are on the same mentality. so FR are being used to determine STa and STd. what alse? also, what is the basic idea of having 'increasing mentality system'?

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that's true. but tempo would affect whole team. how is a striker playing with RWB rarely? he imediatly passes the ball...interesting but does he try to run with ball when it's needed?

If he has nothing else on, then he could possibly but only if long shots are rarely too, if not he'll just take a shot.

I like to use a deep striker at all times if I use 2 strikers up top. This way I can get them playing like Rooney does IRL and he sees lots of the ball and dictates play. I have them rather deep though same settings as my defenders actually and its the most productive I've seen a striker. Its somehing I do on FML and FM09 often. I think I had 2 strikers score 116 goals in 103 apperances and 134 in 118 apperances. If Ackter has the screenshots I'll get him to upload them.

Sorry wwfan, I taking your thread into a different direction, my apologies:(

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Good stuff here wwfan.

Can I just ask about the 442 standard tactic I've just downloaded??

Noticed both strikers are set to have a free role. What's the thinking behind that?

Also, FB's are set to long shots often. Again, what's the thinking?

Would you recommend this for a lower league team??

Thanks.

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do you guys have a system with global mentality? what are good things about it and what are downsides?

We do. It's linked to "Kevin Keegan". I think the upsides are the possibility for free flowing football between players. The downsides are, in my opinion, that you need to be far more precise with other instructions once "plan A" stops working.

the one thing that bothers me in 'increasing mentality system' is that I believe it should be decreasing. the thinking is that defenders are those who should pass the ball forward as soon as posibile and that strikers should look to pass sideways or back more often then defnders or DM's.

Ah. You believe the defenders should have a higher mentality than strikers? That's not our thinking at all, but if you can use the rest of our ideas to make it work, we'd love to see it. May even add it to the list. ;)

it's not hard to recreate that with defenders - you just set their passing to more direct. but how can we achieve our strikers or wingers to be more cautious about their play, other then to lower the mentality and passing style?

Cleon seems to have hit the nail on the head with how you can achieve this.

i noticed in both sets of mentality, strikers are on the same mentality. so FR are being used to determine STa and STd. what alse? also, what is the basic idea of having 'increasing mentality system'?
First, there will be 8 sets in the full guide. Second, the full guide makes it explicit that you will need a FCd and a FCa. The downloadable tactics show this too, if you want to take a look at them. You'll be interested to see what we do with passing in them too, since it should give you a few ideas based around your other questions.

The tactics are meant as "defaults" to be played around with. Experiment. It's the best way to learn.

If he has nothing else on, then he could possibly but only if long shots are rarely too, if not he'll just take a shot.

I like to use a deep striker at all times if I use 2 strikers up top. This way I can get them playing like Rooney does IRL and he sees lots of the ball and dictates play. I have them rather deep though same settings as my defenders actually and its the most productive I've seen a striker. Its somehing I do on FML and FM09 often. I think I had 2 strikers score 116 goals in 103 apperances and 134 in 118 apperances. If Ackter has the screenshots I'll get him to upload them.

Sorry wwfan, I taking your thread into a different direction, my apologies:(

That's exactly our thinking in the full guide. To the extent where we even employ a high-playing midfielder in lone-striker formations to re-create this effect. More on that to come. ;)

Good stuff here wwfan.

Can I just ask about the 442 standard tactic I've just downloaded??

Noticed both strikers are set to have a free role. What's the thinking behind that?

The "pattern" we use says - Defensive: 1 free role; Standard: 2 FRs; Attacking: 3 FRs

In a 4-4-2 the most logical people to put on FRs were the two strikers. If you find this isn't to your liking, perhaps try putting the FR on the MCa instead. Fabregas-type players LOVE this instruction and regularly bomb forward to help out the attackers.

Also, FB's are set to long shots often. Again, what's the thinking?

We will come to a theory we call "player roles" later on in the guide. Simply put, players with a particular role always carry the same instructions. We wouldn't normally do this in our normal play, but in order to create the default formations (there are a lot of them, and we'll be releasing more with each part of the guide) it was easiest to just put everybody on the same system.

In the standard formation, fullbacks are counted as "support" players. By our pattern, all support players are set to shoot long and play many through balls, since most "support" players will be deep lying strikers and midfielders. The fullbacks simply carry the same instructions. If it doesn't work for you, by all means change it. It's solely there as a default setting, and is meant to be played around with.

Would you recommend this for a lower league team??

Honestly? Yes, with a "but". :)

With poor teams (and even good ones to an extent) I tend to play narrower and I tend to reduce closing down in the "attack" and "standard" tactics. However, with stuff like long shots and through balls I find it best to watch the game and judge for yourself whether it works with your particular playing staff.

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Millie if i used the same settings as the FCd in the systems for an AMC would they be ideal? i prefer to play 4-4-1-1

A 4-4-1-1 will be released in time (we thought ahead ;)).

What I would do is make the FCd the FC and make the FCa the AMC. Basically, just change the 4-4-2 we've got and put the one with the higher mentality in the AMC position (and give him FWR often if he doesn't already). :thup:

That's what I did when making the TT&F Defaults, anyway. :D

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A 4-4-1-1 will be released in time (we thought ahead ;)).

What I would do is make the FCd the FC and make the FCa the AMC. Basically, just change the 4-4-2 we've got and put the one with the higher mentality in the AMC position (and give him FWR often if he doesn't already). :thup:

That's what I did when making the TT&F Defaults, anyway. :D

good stuff cheers.

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The "pattern" we use says - Defensive: 1 free role; Standard: 2 FRs; Attacking: 3 FRs

We did!?! It's not what I wrote!! However, I can see the logic in it and can fix it easily enough. Did you follow that pattern throughout the tactics?

is this for whole team mentality or do i have to set them individually?

Just ignore the team mentality slider and do it all individually. Download the tactical set in the FM-Britain version of this thread so you can see how it is done.

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We did!?! It's not what I wrote!! However, I can see the logic in it and can fix it easily enough. Did you follow that pattern throughout the tactics?

Ah. It says at least one free role on Standard, and three on Attacking. Looks like I've extrapolated. ;)

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a couple of questions,

does creative freedom attribute a player has (at least had in 08) metter when you assign him with free role?

can you play with 5 players on FRs in attacking tactics? is it too much?

question that i'm most courious is why are having strikers their metality so high? what if i play 442 against a team which plays 451 and i want one of my strikers to drop very deep to help the midfield? it's smth that real managers are using quite often. would lowering his mentality unbalance the tactics? what would you suggest?

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a couple of questions,

does creative freedom attribute a player has (at least had in 08) metter when you assign him with free role?

I would tend to give a player with a free role a higer creative freedom setting, if that's what you mean.

can you play with 5 players on FRs in attacking tactics? is it too much?

Try it and see. :) To me, that would be far too many. I would use 4 maximum, but I've not tried it. So, please, try it and come back with your findings.

question that i'm most courious is why are having strikers their metality so high? what if i play 442 against a team which plays 451 and i want one of my strikers to drop very deep to help the midfield? it's smth that real managers are using quite often. would lowering his mentality unbalance the tactics? what would you suggest?
The 4-4-2 tactics we have all have a forward who drops back. In the other tactics we created the same applies. There is an FCd and an FCa. The FCd will drop back and play "in the hole", while the attacking player looks to go on ahead of him.

The FCd is a link player. When you get the tactics, you'll see what I mean. We'll also be covering player roles in future installments.

Would you treat Free Roles and Creative Freedom the same way with weak teams (I'm talking semi-pro) as you do with world class teams?
i would, since the standard of players you are going to be facing will be similar to your own.

A think that pretty much sums it up. As with all things, if you find it isn't working for you, knock it down a bit.

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