Dilla Dynamic 4-2-3-1 - DNA: Passing, Vision, Technique, Off The Ball

[diLLa88]

Hello Everyone,

I wanted to share this tactic that I have created over the course of a few seasons, bringing my team a lot of success while largely playing with very youthful squad and selling most of my best players.

Background

My current save is played with Famalicao in Portugal, a modest club with a small stadium. In the past 4 seasons I've cemented my spot in the top of the Portugese competition using this tactic while using a smaller wage budget and hardly any experienced players.

Recent carreer milestones:

3x consecutive wins in the Liga Portugal, while not being considered the favourites to win it.

6x Domestic Cup wins

Competitive in the Champions League, reaching the knockout phase

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I play this current save with a feeder club profile, so I constantly sell my best players and replace them with upcoming new players making this a good tactic while building up the team using a core club DNA profile:

 

The Tactic

The goal of this tactic is to have 5 players with a roam from position instruction and lots of technical players with good vision and passing. This will enable the team to constantly create chances from through balls, short passing sequences (one-two's) and crossing. As players roam, lots of spaces will open up that the other teammembers can exploit. The chances created are generally of very high quality.

Data from current season:

Current squad:

As I have had great success with a modest team full of youngsters I'm fairly sure that this will work even better with bigger teams.

Dilla Dynamic 4-2-3-1.fmf

Edited March 13, 2022 by diLLa88

[diLLa88]

Some match examples from current season showing the large involvement of all offensive players in providing goals and assists:

Edited March 13, 2022 by diLLa88

[pilmalm]

Would it affect the tactic to be more symmetrical (shadow striker just behind ST)? 

[diLLa88]

10 minutes ago, pilmalm said:

Would it affect the tactic to be more symmetrical (shadow striker just behind ST)? 

I think it will yes.

I put the SS deliberately somewhat to the right to leave him space to move ahead without conflicting the ST. I have noticed that the ST will move a bit more to the left as soon as the SS is a bit more forward, making it a 2 striker system. AI defense seems to have a hard time dealing with this.

Side effect is that it will also leave more open space for the AML to cut inside and the BBM to move ahead.

[pilmalm]

5 minutes ago, diLLa88 said:

I think it will yes.

I put the SS deliberately somewhat to the right to leave him space to move ahead without conflicting the ST. I have noticed that the ST will move a bit more to the left as soon as the SS is a bit more forward, making it a 2 striker system. AI defense seems to have a hard time dealing with this.

Side effect is that it will also leave more open space for the AML to cut inside and the BBM to move ahead.

Thanks! 

Will try it out on a new save in Swedish top flight division. 

[diLLa88]

11 minutes ago, pilmalm said:

Thanks! 

Will try it out on a new save in Swedish top flight division. 

Nice! Will be interested to see how you will get along.

[Kingie]

Do u have any other versions on this tactic.. like when needing a goal or to defend a lead

[diLLa88]

On 14/03/2022 at 20:55, Kingie said:

Do u have any other versions on this tactic.. like when needing a goal or to defend a lead

Nope, I very much enjoy my tactics plug and play, in the sense that it should work in multiple scenario's.

When defending a lead in final minutes I sometimes do the following changes:

• Change SS to CM/DM to create 3-man midfield block
• Change to Very  Defensive
• Time wasting to max

When playing away or vs. bigger clubs I sometimes use a faster forward to be stronger on the counter.

I don't use different tactics when playing home or away. Just had this game in an away match in the Champions League group stage:

Edited March 15, 2022 by diLLa88

[Kingie]

Do u set any opposition instructions 

[diLLa88]

6 minutes ago, Kingie said:

Do u set any opposition instructions 

Nope, but feel free to try it out.

[diLLa88]

Quick half-season update, using just this tactic:

Edited March 16, 2022 by diLLa88

[Kingie]

Cool.... do u simulate every match or do u play every match 

[diLLa88]

18 minutes ago, Kingie said:

Cool.... do u simulate every match or do u play every match 

I play them all.

[dude1904]

The tactic comes with 2 CM, the screens look like you've switched to DM.
Did you generally switch positions or just ingame?

[Tha Real behanger]

This should have getting more attention. I love this tactic.

Was on a losing streak with my own tactic, switched to this and instant winning.

 

[diLLa88]

13 hours ago, dude1904 said:

The tactic comes with 2 CM, the screens look like you've switched to DM.
Did you generally switch positions or just ingame?

It's always 2 CM, it just appears to be DM on the end of game screenshots. I don't ever change them unless I am struggling to keep the lead and switch the SS to midfield or DM.

[diLLa88]

1 hour ago, Tha Real behanger said:

This should have getting more attention. I love this tactic.

Was on a losing streak with my own tactic, switched to this and instant winning.

 

Nice dude, glad you like it. Which team are you playing with?

[Tha Real behanger]

I am playin with Ajax. First season and the beginning of the second with my own tactic.

[diLLa88]

I ended up becoming champions with ease.

Resende became topscorer with 32 goals. Top-3 in avg. rating and 2 top assisters.

We have had a few collapses against bigger teams which will be something to look at for coming season. Could be due to inexperience of the players, but also something to check for the tactic.

[kopfan1977]

I'm quite liking this right now.. Feel that the midfield 2 can sometimes go missing in games. But currently have  had 5 clean sheets in a row with an ageing squad since starting a little test run

[pilmalm]

14 hours ago, kopfan1977 said:

I'm quite liking this right now.. Feel that the midfield 2 can sometimes go missing in games. But currently have  had 5 clean sheets in a row with an ageing squad since starting a little test run

What team you using?

[kopfan1977]

4 hours ago, pilmalm said:

What team you using?

Charlton Athletic..  7 starters all 30+ and a scattering of youth. One of which is the keeper

[diLLa88]

Well this was painful...

Santa Clara is a midtable team in the league, not great but they did draw vs. Benfica (2x) and Sporting this season.

This game shows how the team ideally lines-up during the game, with lots of passes, connecting all positions:

As you can see, the Shadow Striker plays really close to the striker, which often leads to one-twos and quick through balls to eachother. They also often drag defenders away for eachother leaving them space to run into.

The left side is a bit on its own, where the AML ideally cuts inside and either shoots, crosses or puts in a through ball for the striker and shadow striker. He does however get a bit more support from the box-to-box midfielder who plays a bit higher on the pitch on average compared to the DLP.

Edited April 9, 2022 by diLLa88

[mefirst]

I´ll have to say that this is one of the best tactic I´ve used in fm22. I play with Benfica and this tactic fits for them like a fist in the eye or nose in the head. 

[Superboeren]

On 12/04/2022 at 15:47, mefirst said:

I´ll have to say that this is one of the best tactic I´ve used in fm22. I play with Benfica and this tactic fits for them like a fist in the eye or nose in the head. 

Do you have some results ? 

Edited April 15, 2022 by Superboeren

[Skywalk3r83]

Nice. Will give it a go in a new save this weekend. 

[mefirst]

On 15/04/2022 at 13:35, Superboeren said:

Do you have some results ? 

 

[diLLa88]

I am personally working on a few variations and tweaks depending on specific situations due to a few reasons:

• From my own experience the tactic seems to do extremely well against weaker / even opponents, but can struggle against better opposition and tough away games
• Depending on the types of players available, tweaks in player roles can help better utilize the pros and cons of the team

I am currently using the current main setup:

The tweaks compared to the original version include:

• Removal of Hold Shape in transition to open up a few more counter opportunities
• Change possesion shape to Fairly Narrow -> whenever I do seem to struggle it seems this is mainly caused by the inability for the 2 central midfielders to rotate the ball between them leaving the left and right side seperated, changed to a bit more narrow to reduce the space between the both sides
• Change of AMR to IW(S) due to the player's attributes -> sold my other AMR who was right footed and my current AMR is left footed with the profile of an inside winger/forward
• Slightly changed the fullback roles to wingback instead of fullback -> goal was to provide a bit more support on the left and keep a bit more width after changing to a more narrow setup

These are generally all fairly minor tweaks and does not change the tactic as a whole all that much. Feel free to try these tweaks out if you feel that they might improve your own situation.

Some general observations on possible tweaks from own experience:

•  W(S) and IW(S) on the AMR position are both effective. The W(S) works better with a right footed wingers and crossing abilities, especially in combination with a striker who is strong in the air. The IW(S) provides more dribbling, through passes and passing combinations. You can use either depending on your team's strengths.
• If your AML is a strong finisher and your striker has good passing/vision, you can change the AML to Inside Foward(A) and the striker to Deep Lying Forward(A). This will create more combinations in the final third and more goal scoring possibilities for the AML, AMC and AMR, but less so for the striker. This can also be a good midgame tweak if you notice your striker getting beaten by the opposition defenders, as it will generally also lead to less long balls to the striker and more combinations between the attackers.

I am currently also testing a more conservative variation for the tough (away) games, while maintaing most of the tactic's strengths:

The general idea is that the DLP moves to DM role for more defensive stability and maintain a controlling central role in possesion. The SS moves to CM(A) position for more contribution in the midfield and to maintain some deep runs into the box.

First game seemed promising. Although it ended up being a draw, I was in control for the majority of the game and still created some good chances (just didn't finish them). I will have to test/tweak this more to truly find out if it works.

I have attached the v2 version of the tactic if you feel like using my current own setup without having to apply all the changes.

Dilla Dynamic 4-2-3-1 - v2.fmf

Edited April 19, 2022 by diLLa88

[Azrael]

Do you think this tactic would work with F9 instead of DLF?

[diLLa88]

2 hours ago, Azrael said:

Do you think this tactic would work with F9 instead of DLF?

I tried it for a game and it was not great for me, but feel free to try it out with better suited players.

[kalongtongan]

which is the most stable version, 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3, did you tweak it in the game? i like your setup in 4-3-3 formation with WBd-CMa-IWa how did it go?

Edited April 22, 2022 by kalongtongan

[diLLa88]

On 23/04/2022 at 00:24, kalongtongan said:

which is the most stable version, 4-2-3-1 / 4-3-3, did you tweak it in the game? i like your setup in 4-3-3 formation with WBd-CMa-IWa how did it go?

I've gone back to v1 from the opening post for now. This one seems the best so far in terms of consistent good results against the general level of opposition in the league.

The 4-3-3 formation seems promising, but is not something I've tested all too much. I sometimes switch to it during the game if I notice a lack of control, and so far it seems to have the right effect whenever I switch to it.

[HelloMegaphone]

@diLLa88 have you noticed this tactic being any less effective after the most recent update? I'm not getting anywhere near the same results now. It seems especially bad with the opposition attackers being able to get in behind the defense far too easily. Any tips?

[markv1]

On 31/07/2022 at 22:49, HelloMegaphone said:

@diLLa88 have you noticed this tactic being any less effective after the most recent update? I'm not getting anywhere near the same results now. It seems especially bad with the opposition attackers being able to get in behind the defense far too easily. Any tips?

Match engine is unchanged