Question: Passing and Tempo did I understand them wrong?

[robot_9x3]

Hello Community,

For me Passing so: "Much Shorter", "Shorter", "Standard", "More Direct", "Extreme Direct"
always was like the game states "how fast we transition from defence to attack", e.g. if you have an option further up on "more direct" prefer that option. On shorter passing build up with patience.
So Passing would look like that

Shorter Passing:

Image: 4-4-2 drawn with a few short passes until it reaches the forward (created with tactical-board dot com)

Direct Passing:

Image: 4-4-2 drawn with a few direct passes until it reaches the forward (created with tactical-board dot com)

While tempo for me was, well... the tempo... how fast we play, how fast we run into positions to receive and such, which seems absolutely stupid after I stumbled upon this old discussion from 2013:

If I understand that correct tempo means "how much the team tries to force it".
So the "intensity of approach" and "moving the ball decisively" translates to play it even though the situation is  bad aka. force it.

Would that mean playing direct with low tempo prefers this pass:

Image: 4-4-2 with opposition low tempo direct passing idea, less risky pass open receiver (created with tactical-board dot com)

While playing direct with high tempo prefers this pass:

Image: 4-4-2 with opposition high tempo direct passing idea, risky pass receiver is marked (created with tactical-board dot com)

Could someone please enlighten me?
What would "high tempo short passing" and "low tempo short passing" do?
If my understanding now is right:
high tempo short passing will more readily try to score/play a pass that risks loosing the ball to get into position to score.
low tempo short passing will try to keep possession way instead of trying to get into scoring position (e.g. Guardiolas Man City in minute 85+ when leading five to nothing)
 

That would mean tempo = "how much do we want to force it"
Neatly tying it to Mentatlity
Defensive = low tempo -> no risks, kill the game
Attacking = hight tempo -> risk it, we need a goal
 

[HUNT3R]

Tempo is the amount of time a player has on the ball before needing to make a decision to pass, run, cross, shoot etc.

[pileto]

So here's another question: would you rather have a player with good decision making spend much or less time on the ball? Same for a player with average/below average decision making? I know that it depends on the style of play, formation and all that, but just curious to get different perspectives.

[Tsuru]

2 horas atrás, pileto disse:

So here's another question: would you rather have a player with good decision making spend much or less time on the ball? Same for a player with average/below average decision making? I know that it depends on the style of play, formation and all that, but just curious to get different perspectives.

I believe that if a player has a bad decision making he will do more mistakes with more or less time on the ball. Because if he has less time, he may rush things too much and try a difficult pass on the wrong time. If he has more time on the ball and low decision attributes, he may hold the ball too much and invite pressure from an opponent, or maybe he will try a difficult pass ahead when the best option would be pass the ball back and wait for space to open.

I think the most important thing is to find a way of playing that suits your players and then insist on it, doing the necessary adjustments.

[DarJ]

15 minutes ago, Tsuru said:

think the most important thing is to find a way of playing that suits your players and then insist on it, doing the necessary adjustments

I would say find a way of playing that suits the entire team and stop thinking about it on a player by player bases because each player will make a decision based on what's happening around him

[Tsuru]

42 minutos atrás, DarJ disse:

I would say find a way of playing that suits the entire team and stop thinking about it on a player by player bases because each player will make a decision based on what's happening around him

Yes, as a bad decision attribute from a player can be compensated for the good ones of his teammates. But the hardest part normally is exactly finding a way of playing that suits the entire team.

[CARRERA]

There is no direct correlation between tempo and passing directness. 

Tempo is the time a player has to make his decision.

A high tempo can lead to more mistakes, but can also help you to break through the defense.

A low tempo can help you to maintain possession or prevent mistakes, but will also allow the defense to get in position and prepare for the attack.

You did explain passing well. 

[robot_9x3]

@HUNT3R
That is the "take their time on the ball" part of the instruction description on "lower tempo", which than would again fit into my first assumption the instruction is "how fast do we play" if the ball carrier has 1 second on the ball, everyone  around him has to get into position for him as fast so the system works.
But what about the "often retaining possession in order to preserve control of the game" that sentence fits my new second assumption that tempo at least slightly influences risk in decision making.

Sure if a player has 1 decision, his decision will be crap all the time, but I think the tactical style instructions should create a style no matter the attributes a player has. It might not play well if the players suck/are not suited to the style of play but the style should be somewhat visible still.

Just to have something to compare, I started a save with two managers at two ~equal teams. Trained a bit so that tempo is fluid.

What I am seeing (again everything is middle of the line, mentality balanced, Formation just the default 4-2-3-1, except for Tempo)

Highest Tempo Team = way more likely to play a pass forward (so going for it taking risks getting forward)
Not in a direct manner e.g. try to skip the midfield transition.

Lowest Tempo Team = way more sideways but still going for goal.

What I am not seeing although it could probably be there:
lowest tempo players holding onto the ball just to hold on to it. e.g. taking a lot more time to make a decision. But when they get the ball they are at least in 2D more likely to turn facing back.
highest tempo team players passing/dribbling just to have a decision done. but the striker is more trigger happy with his shooting. But that could be the "risk it, go for it" as well as timer is up decide what to do"Passing options: 0", "in shooting position", "dribble" so he shot

So my Eyetest was disproven by looking at the stats.

Low Tempo Team - High Tempo Team
More shots(11) - Less Shots(9)
0,96xG - 1,00xG

Passes (I understood passes and tempo are only lightly correlated but I wanted to check if a high tempo team really plays more and my second assumption plays more forward(risks more)
I know as prove my Dataset of 1 friendly game is not good enough, but I do not have the editor or something else where I could create a 2 Team league let them play 30 times and compare the stats afterwards.

LOW TEMPO	48% POSSESSION	Complete	Incomplete	% Forward	% Lost
Ingesamt		365	70	26,6	16,1	Passes Complete GAME 84%
Forwards		97	37
	Long	16	32
	Middle	26	3
	Short	55	2
Sideways		190	30	50,6
	Long	5	4
	Middle	39	14
	Short	146	12
Backwards		78	3	18,6
	Long	2	0
	Middle	17	0
	Short	59	3
HIGH TEMPO	52% POSSESSION
Ingesamt		452	62	24,1	12,1	Passes Complete GAME 88%
Forwards		109	36
	Long	19	22
	Middle	29	6
	Short	61	8
Sideways		249	21	52,5
	Long	10	4
	Middle	72	10
	Short	167	7
Backwards		94	5	19,3
	Long	3	0
	Middle	22	2
	Short	69	3

 

What we can see here as you( @HUNT3R)  said it's the tempo, so high tempo was forced to make a decision earlier, which lead to 100 more passes.
What disproves my theory about the tooltip wording "tries to retain possession" is that high tempo played a little bit more backwards and sideways passes. But its in an 1-2% difference, forgetable differences really.
I would have expected Low Tempo to more eagerly play a "security" pass. Thus keeping possession.

If I remember correctly FM does not do the TV Stations trick which calculates possession percentage by passes e.g. Team1 played 700 passes Team2 played 300 so Team 1 had 70% Possession, rather the FM really takes the time you are in possession to calculate the stat right? Low Tempo probably really build possession by players just holding on to the ball that one extra second.

Where did my Eyetest probably fail? Well I have seen more forward passes by High Tempo Team, because they just played more passes overall which I did not take into account while watching the game.

 

Thank you all for your Input.

Special Thanks to @HUNT3Rfor the more than quick answer and to @Rashidi for quickly backing it up with a upvote.

[HUNT3R]

10 minutes ago, robot_9x3 said:

But what about the "often retaining possession in order to preserve control of the game" that sentence fits my new second assumption that tempo at least slightly influences risk in decision making.

Risk taking is Mentality. That's simple.

Tempo doesn't directly affect risk taking. It can be see as more risky to move the ball quicker as you need better mental and technical attributes to adapt to the pace. Obviously it's the reverse for a lower tempo.

You could see safer passes with a lower tempo, because with a lower tempo you're moving the ball slower so there's more time for the defense to get into position so possibly (huge number of variables here) not enough opportunities to play a risky pass as it's already covered by the defense.

15 minutes ago, robot_9x3 said:

If I remember correctly FM does not do the TV Stations trick which calculates possession percentage by passes e.g. Team1 played 700 passes Team2 played 300 so Team 1 had 70% Possession, rather the FM really takes the time you are in possession to calculate the stat right? Low Tempo probably really build possession by players just holding on to the ball that one extra second.

Yes. It's called the chess clock method. 

---

18 minutes ago, robot_9x3 said:

What we can see here as you( @HUNT3R)  said it's the tempo, so high tempo was forced to make a decision earlier, which lead to 100 more passes.
What disproves my theory about the tooltip wording "tries to retain possession" is that high tempo played a little bit more backwards and sideways passes. But its in an 1-2% difference, forgetable differences really.
I would have expected Low Tempo to more eagerly play a "security" pass. Thus keeping possession.

Tempo doesn't affect the type of pass. You have your passing instructions + Mentality for that. It just affects how long a player has to make a decision. 

The high tempo team my have played it forward quickly, but then got to a point where it's 2 forwards vs 5 defenders and then played it sideways or backwards. Stats only tell you so much.

---

It's difficult to make a comparison like you have. It's 1 match which is close to a good sample size. Not sure how different the players and tactics were, but that will also have an influence.

[robot_9x3]

@HUNT3Rcompletely agree with you. Did before, was just doubtful after I read the linked post.
And again the stats seem to show exactly what you are saying.
Passing Style(direction, riskyness) unaffected, both teams percentage-wise played the same kind of passes.
One team just played more in total amount, because they were asked to perform actions quicker( although I think actions(e.g. Shooting, passing, dribbling) includes "waiting".
As I said it did not look like highest Tempo team just always did something, if necessary they will wait a moment. (Obviously this is affected by tactical freedom and player attributes to do what is right in the situation)

Teams were projected to be 4-5 in Bundesliga (FM21 Leverkusen and Gladbach)
Tactics: default empty slate, with default 4-2-3-1 nothing changed no role no duty, except one team played highest Tempo the other lowest Tempo. I played a bit of preseasons with training and friendlies to have both teams familiar with the tactic. I used the quick pick to set the starting eleven. That's that.
Than I watched the Game fully taking notes. Afterwards checking the stats. And than writing my second-post, what I expected, what I believed to have seen, what really happend(stats).
Confirming what you said.

[HUNT3R]

No worries @robot_9x3. It's an interesting discussion. They're still different teams with different players (who have different player traits) so picking 2 other teams should throw up slightly different stats. I am glad that you're not just going off stats though and using the eye test and analysis to compare to the stats.

19 minutes ago, robot_9x3 said:

As I said it did not look like highest Tempo team just always did something, if necessary they will wait a moment. (Obviously this is affected by tactical freedom and player attributes to do what is right in the situation)

This is why I love the player trait "Dictates Tempo". I usually use either Positive or Balanced as a Mentality and since I leave the tempo on default, it's either a fairly high or balanced/medium tempo, which isn't worlds apart. It's great to see my player (or sometimes I have 2 on the pitch) with Dictates Tempo suddenly kick things into gear with a quick pass to open things up. Not that I don't appreciate when they slow it down when it's more sensible to do so, but when they increase the tempo it's just brilliant.

[Rashidi]

To take this further, one could do a simple experiment. A lot of people are uncomfortable playing on lower mentalities. I am not. If one were to play on a specific mentality, one needs to remember this influences risk and to some part slight adjustments to all the team sliders.

If you were to take a team, and take exactly the same tactic and play them on cautious and then on attacking mentality. Chances are without any other changes, the attacking mentality tactic would do better.

One would need to look at just the team instructions and tempo along with it to understand why. On lower mentalities, players are naturally more risk averse. If you were to ask your tempo to "rush" their decision making would players move into their attack positions earlier or faster? What happens when you defend? Would playing on different lines affect your cautious system. Yes.

Every mentality influences risk, when we change mentalities drastically, say go from attacking to cautious, we need to understand how it impacts the team. And to do so we need to look at all the team instructions and the roles we have chosen. I will be releasing a way for people to test their tactics under different conditions soon. And you could find it interesting seeing how your tactic does against different kinds of opposition.  

I find that tempo is just one small piece of the equation, but its also a very important piece. In a lot of situations I tell people to leave it on default to match the mentality they are playing on, but on low mentalities matching it alone isn't enough we need to see the rest of the tactic. @Hunterexplanation is so far the best I've seen yet. 

Sometimes I go cautious, drop tempo to standard, then drop my pressing intensity to low before drawing teams into a static block,  I dont want us to aimlessly hoof the ball. Other times I do the same thing but my tempo is very high because i might have two strikers I want to see latch on to the breakaway ball. So you see, tempo in itself is just a piece of the puzzle.

[yonko]

@Rashidi

Interesting post. How about using higher team mentality but with lower tempo? Does that help players move better off the ball and creating combination plays to unlock defenses?

Btw, I sent you a message about a question I had for the Liquid 433.  

[robot_9x3]

@Rashidi correct me If this is wrong

@yonko
If I understand it right if you play lower tempo you try to move the opposition out of position by him closing you down, because your player keeps the ball that little bit longer. Creating holes by moving the opposition not yourself(Obviously not to the extreme that you are a static block it’s still football)

While high tempo means the player himself and those around him must be quick enough (probably really in the literal sense so mental and physical), so that the oppositions defensive shape can’t cover fast enough. You move yourself fast enough to create holes in the opposition.

So both approaches can be successful if your players and the opposition allow for it.

[De Nile]

Also you need to be aware of the counter in-transition instruction, if you choose to counter sometimes players will look to play someone who is in space, up front or to a ball-magnet usually the passing style can influence to type of counter that will occur although counter-attacking transition will install a sense of urgency in players and will abandon the passing style if they can pick out a player making a run or if they see an player further up the field. Sometimes your team can play really well but a long ball or a player who is bad at making long passes or lack of passing options can cause easy turnovers and opposition counter-attacks; despite saying asking for short-passing or mixed-passing counter attack instruction usually override the passing instruction. 

I saw this quite a lot in the forums and in my game but correct me if I have made a mistake.

[Aoyao]

Interesting post. 

[Aoyao]

Here is a clips about tempo.

The different way to explain.

https://youtu.be/36KjMZy_Alc

 

On 13/05/2020 at 00:53, Jack Joyce said:

@ScoreMore (Mico)

Think of Tempo as "how hard do I want my team to try and force the issue?". As Rashidi says above, lower tempo will mean your team are more patient when they get into the opposition's half and wait for a better opportunity. Higher tempo can lead to more rushed shots/killer balls as your players look to build attacks quicker to unsettle defences.

• Low tempo - patiently wait for an opening in the opposition defence then exploit it.
• High tempo - try and force an opening with quick attacks that look to get at the opposition defence before they've had a chance to regain shape, or to ask more questions of them.

If you find that you're racking up a lot of shots against defensive sides without creating many actual good chances, that's usually a sign that your tempo is too high.

There's crossover here with how your team reacts in a transition, teams that look to counter will play with a high tempo in the transition in order to try and capitalise on the opposition being out of shape. This effect however is temporary and only happens in certain situations shortly after a turnover in possession.

In terms of dribbling, there's many factors that come in to a dribbling decision specifically. But in certain cases it could be possible that it leads to more, for example imagine a low-vision wide player that can't see a good passing option quickly. To avoid slowing down the tempo of your team's play they may look to take on their man. It's very situational based on attributes, PPMs and the position of teammates, but generally you're asking your players to make decisions quickly which can lead to more low % shots or dribbles if the player in question doesn't have great decision-making or vision.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Aoyao

[Rashidi]

Easiest way to explain tempo:

Higher tempo, quickly look for chances to launch an attack, whether its a good idea or not, or even if players are in ideal positions.
Lower tempo, be more patient, wait for players to be in good positions before unlocking a team.

Higher tempo suits systems which seek to hit teams on the break where players are already ideally placed for attacking key areas. Example: you could have an AF and a Winger on attack, and the opposition are playing with wingbacks. You are playing a mid block. And you have a good ball distributor in defensive midfield. Here you could play a higher tempo system because you don't want to wait for more players to support the attack. Those 2 are good enough. 

You add work ball into box, now as the ball moves wide, they reach the final third and then instead of playing the cross the winger does a pass back looking for others. Here the WBIB TI could run counter to your plans

Lower tempo, you have decent players on the ball, but you could also be an average side, you play narrower, shorter passing, and a lower tempo, but you keep your defensive line on standard.  You could be playing to wait for a better chance, you are narrow and want to keep the ball by having players closer together. Perhaps even a draw could be enough, since your strategy is to move the ball around and hope that a really good chance presents itself because you want to make it count.

You add work ball into box, your average team tries to out maneuver the  opposition by patiently working the ball around their area, then loses the ball because your players have lower composure. You turn over the ball and this leads to a quick counter. But you kept your defenisve line on standard. THe AI fails to play the ball over the top, because your DM is suitably placed.

Tempo is one part of the equation, not the only part. I am playing with Birmingham a relegation candidate in the Championship, but we are playing high possession football against plenty of sides. Tempo can help but you need to see how that fits into your overall vision. Tempo asks players to rush their decision making process, so you need a well thought out plan,