What does "direct" passing exactly mean?

[Aoyao]

Does that mean he's going to try to put the player through on goal?

ie. should players with high passing/creativity only play direct?

Does that mean he's going to play long passes that will favour bigger players?

ie. should you avoid playing (for example if I have beckham in central midfield and Owen up front) 'direct' to smaller strikers?

Does "direct" (from midfield) mean high/long passes is basically what i'm asking?

TYPE OR RANGE

[Adonalsium]

Directness of passing directly correlates to the average distance of each pass. If you ask someone to play more direct, you're asking them to operate with a more expansive passing range, basically. So that logically means you probably don't want anyone who isn't an elite passer and decision maker in your own team's context to do that constantly.

Edited September 11, 2023 by Adonalsium

[silentwars]

35 minutes ago, Adonalsium said:

Directness of passing directly correlates to the average distance of each pass. If you ask someone to play more direct, you're asking them to operate with a more expansive passing range, basically. So that logically means you probably don't want anyone who isn't an elite passer and decision maker in your own team's context to do that constantly.

It's quite common for teams poor technically to go much more direct as it's low risk as the ball will be in the opposing half. If you have players with elite passing teams generally play shorter and work there way up field - I would say in this case pass into space would be a better option than asking them to go direct as they're unlikely to give the ball away and should have the ability to create chances in the final third. If you have players who are poor at passing and you ask them to go short, then you will end up giving the ball away in dangerous areas of the pitch. 

Edited September 11, 2023 by silentwars

[silentwars]

10 hours ago, Aoyao said:

Does that mean he's going to try to put the player through on goal?

ie. should players with high passing/creativity only play direct?

Does that mean he's going to play long passes that will favour bigger players?

ie. should you avoid playing (for example if I have beckham in central midfield and Owen up front) 'direct' to smaller strikers?

Does "direct" (from midfield) mean high/long passes is basically what i'm asking?

TYPE OR RANGE

The player will simply pump the ball forward more often than not.  If your forward is small like Owen then playing direct would be nonsensical as he won't win the ball more often than not in the air. If you have players with good passing and read the game well - then tell them to 'take more risks' they will then play the ball through if the chance is there, even if your teams passing is set to shorter. 

[CARRERA]

11 hours ago, Aoyao said:

Does that mean he's going to try to put the player through on goal?

ie. should players with high passing/creativity only play direct?

Does that mean he's going to play long passes that will favour bigger players?

ie. should you avoid playing (for example if I have beckham in central midfield and Owen up front) 'direct' to smaller strikers?

Does "direct" (from midfield) mean high/long passes is basically what i'm asking?

TYPE OR RANGE

Direct passing is about the urgency on how quickly you want to progress the ball towards the goal. Usually your team will have only a few touches before creating an opportunity or loosing possession. It's considered a high risk passing style as the ball is played through or behind the lines.
Its effective for quick transition styles and penetrating space in the opposition half. The height of your striker doesn't really matter, both a tall and a small striker can benefit from direct play. Good passers will play direct passes more accurately, but even "bad" passers will hit the direct ball now and then. Also remember, that instructions in football manager are never "do or don't" instructions, they are tendencies.

Spoiler

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by CARRERA

[dzek]

So from all the above answers, which is the correct one? 

[Adonalsium]

They're all correct. The Match Engine is a bit of an enigma at the best of times. Any instructions you put in are more like guidelines than rules.

[dzek]

5 hours ago, Adonalsium said:

They're all correct. The Match Engine is a bit of an enigma at the best of times. Any instructions you put in are more like guidelines than rules.

It's true. FM tends to simulate football irl or at least that's SI's approach but I, as a manager shouldn't I know exactly what I'm asking my players to do?

They certainly won't do it 100% and at all times because a given instruction is a tendency but it makes it even harder to actually understand some instructions in the game.

More Direct Passing can mean one of the things written above or all of them. Except that the description is almost the same as Take More Risks which this instruction is not just about passing but is about the general risk the player takes in certain or all situations within the match.

[bosque]

54 minutes ago, dzek said:

It's true. FM tends to simulate football irl or at least that's SI's approach but I, as a manager shouldn't I know exactly what I'm asking my players to do?

They certainly won't do it 100% and at all times because a given instruction is a tendency but it makes it even harder to actually understand some instructions in the game.

More Direct Passing can mean one of the things written above or all of them. Except that the description is almost the same as Take More Risks which this instruction is not just about passing but is about the general risk the player takes in certain or all situations within the match.

And then you add Tempo to the mix and it gets more confusing and ambiguous.

[Aoyao]

11 hours ago, bosque said:

And then you add Tempo to the mix and it gets more confusing and ambiguous.

U got it.

[Dotsworthy]

More direct passing is asking your players to move the ball to the final third as quickly as possible, eschewing build up. It doesn't necessarily mean they will hoof it or attempt to play the striker in from centre half.

Pass into space and the PI take more risks would make playing in the striker more likely.

Tempo is allowing set amount of time on the ball before making a decision. So combining the two your players would be more likely to hoof it long or play riskier balls since they don't have much time to assess passing options.

[Aoyao]

@Jack Joyce

Help.

Which is correct above the post?

[HUMBL3B33]

To me it seems like it's pretty easy if you avoid any noise and isolate 3 components to understand directness and tempo. 
 

1. Directness: This is the distance you are allowing your players to pass the ball. Whether it be from back to front or from side to side. 
 

2. Tempo: This is the speed at which they have to play during a sustained possession. A quicker tempo will as the players to look not to keep the ball for more than a few seconds. 
 

3. Mentality: This is probably the most important in order to master the passing.
 

On higher mentalities you are asking your players to just put the ball and players forward as soon as possible. With lower passing directness players will do so but less regularly and would more often look for a pass closer to them. With low tempo that is exaggerated as the player looks to take their time on the ball and not look to force a pass super soon. And the opposite spectrums work in the exact opposite way.

On lower mentalities they'll avoid making too many mistakes and if there's not a clear opening they'll opt recycle possession instead.

However if you do that against teams with compact defense you're just recycling the possession without any real threat because they wont give you enough room and clear opportunities.

Hence it's important to look at the directness and tempo as 2 isolated instructions and then pair each one up with mentality and then check the ingame stats and situation to alter them accordingly. 
 

For e.g: if you have a tall and strong player up front and you don't want to loose points in this match against a relegation threatened team with compact defense. Try to be cautious and try direct passing with normal tempo. This will ask the players to try and find the tall player and if he's good at trapping the ball ball and passing it to the teammate and provided you have a runner attacking the space behind the defense. You might have a solid chance of scoring. 
 

On the other spectrum if this is a must win match against the same team. You can play on a positive or attacking mentality with the same kind of instructions to score at any cost. Mind you, this is also going to make you more vulnerable. 
 

Hope this helps. 

Edited September 13, 2023 by HUMBL3B33
Spelling

[cuski]

The combination of tempo and passing direction has always seemed like the great enigma of Football Manager to me. I've been playing for years and have never been sure of fully understanding it. If we also add mentality to the equation, things get even more complicated.

Up until now, I've been going with user Carrera's explanation, but it would be very interesting if a developer could share their perspective on this matter. It's a crucial issue, and it always appears to be a recurring question in the forum.

Greetings and apologies for my poor English.

 

[dzek]

2 hours ago, cuski said:

The combination of tempo and passing direction has always seemed like the great enigma of Football Manager to me. I've been playing for years and have never been sure of fully understanding it. If we also add mentality to the equation, things get even more complicated.

Up until now, I've been going with user Carrera's explanation, but it would be very interesting if a developer could share their perspective on this matter. It's a crucial issue, and it always appears to be a recurring question in the forum.

Greetings and apologies for my poor English.

 

There are a lot of instructions that we don't know what they do and all the time we have to guess and say "oh this is it... or is it this..." etc. I'm also an old player of this game and I'm still trying to figure out what most of the instructions in the game do.

Another big issue with this sometimes is that the UI description doesn't give us a good explanation or at least gives us a little bit of what an instruction does and also every new version or update may change something in ME but the UI remains the same.

For example if you set Play Out Of Defence there are many aspect of your play style that will change.

1. Defensive line and DM position will pass the ball shorter than the rest of the team.
2. GK will try to distribute the ball to defenders more often(it depends of his duty and Take More Risks PI) without even set Distribution Area/Position to him.
3. DM positioned players will drop deeper to get the ball from defenders.
4. It will slow down team’s build up and increase the amount of passes between defensive line and DM position.

And the description simply says that defenders will bring the ball up with passes rather than kick it out. (I don't remember exactly how it mentions it)

 

[Andros]

I used to think that -

Tempo = How quickly the ball is moved around, something to change based on the opposition press.  If I was under pressure from an opposition high block, I would increase the tempo.  If I had lots of time and the opposition had a low block, lower the tempo.

Direct Passing = How quickly the ball is moved from back to front.  If I want to counter, get the ball out of defense quickly, or exploit opposition space left by full backs, I would increase this.

 

But yesterday I watched a youtube video by 'The Managers Seat' called 'What tempo is best' where he plays 2 games, 1 with tempo on max and 1 with it on min.  He only did 1 test for each, but he argued that tempo really increased the players desire to take risks by finding the forward players quickly.  High tempo resulted in defensive and midfield players looking to find the attackers who were trying to beat the opposition defensive line.  A lower tempo mean that the defensive and midfield players would try to hold onto the ball much quicker.  

 

To me, it seems that tempo (based on this 1 video) also does much of what I thought direct passing would do.

[Aoyao]

so

I'll set lower tempo for direct passing.

[dzek]

I don't know if this has to do with the directness of the passes or a problem in the game but when you set shorter passing, the passes seem to be softer with the risk of the opponent stealing the ball.

I have seen it happen several times, especially when the centre backs pass to the wing backs or defensive midfielders.

[Aoyao]

The direct  is a direction pass to GOAL whatever range and groundpass.

More direct passing is more pass forward whatever short on the ground or  long in the air.

On 12/09/2023 at 04:02, CARRERA said:

  Hide contents

 

 

[Aoyao]

More forward pass need more space and player in the advance pitch.

So,The instruction in transition make plyaer move not ball play.

Edited September 17, 2023 by Aoyao

[dzek]

7 hours ago, Aoyao said:

The direct  is a direction pass to GOAL whatever range and groundpass.

More direct passing is more pass forward whatever short on the ground or  long in the air.

So this is the correct answer on this thread?

[Aoyao]

10 hours ago, dzek said:

So this is the correct answer on this thread?

In my mind only.

There is nobody tell us how direct works in the FM.

[HUMBL3B33]

5 hours ago, Aoyao said:

In my mind only.

There is nobody tell us how direct works in the FM.

Agreed. There's no clear and obvious answer to this. But my previous answer above would take in consideration 3 of the most important components needed to understand and exaplain it in a way that you can replicate and test it for yourself. 

These are some concepts which is explained by @Rashidi on his stream as well as a lot of other youtubers, bloggers echo too as well. Again, there's no one claiming they are correct. But a lot of people echo to this and in my experience it feels pretty close to what they explain. I can to some extent change the behaviour of my team and see those actions on the pitch as well.

[Rashidi]

A direct pass is just a longer pass specifically directed to a player or into space. The pass into space can happen with those roles that tend to take more risks or if you are playing on a higher mentality and are using pass into space as a TI.

Going into the staff details to decipher what the team instructions will do will only make some more confused, there is a reason why that information in not readily accessible.  It has a specific purpose for being there and its not for understanding tactics.

If you play a short passing game and you play on max width, players may only look to play short passes they can manage, and avoid playing longer passes because they may turn over the ball. If you play on higher mentalities, they might take the risk, but even then if a players passing attribute is low, he may just look for the simple pass or hesitate and get trigger pressed.

If you set the whole team to direct passing then more players will look to play longer passes which could be dangerous for you.  You could balance things out by choosing the right mentality, roles, width. And if you have a player bad at passing, just tell him to keep it short using a player instruction.  Remember its not about one single team or player instruction, its about TIs, PIs, roles and duties.  

Direct passing is good for counter attacking systems that play with a low to mid block. Here you want to soak and then use longer passes to get behind opp defensive lines.

Short passing can be useful for possession based sides or teams that have congested midfields. Here they play on higher tempo. With good players who have good OTB attributes they may be able to do some quick pass and moves to get inside defensive lines.

There is no one way of playing, but playing direct on low tempo is something I wont be doing.

[Aoyao]

19 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Direct passing is good for counter attacking systems that play with a low to mid block. Here you want to soak and then use longer passes to get behind opp defensive lines.

Does the transition instruction make the player move without ball？

The possession instruction make the ball play.

The out of possession instruction make player defence action.

[HUMBL3B33]

4 hours ago, Aoyao said:

Does the transition instruction make the player move without ball？

The possession instruction make the ball play.

The out of possession instruction make player defence action.

The 3 tactical menu in the game is directly a result of 3 phase tactical play theory in football. There are more school of thoughts as well. But this is one of the most accurate and widely accepted one.
You can refer the link to learn more and then maybe learn more by researching about it.

https://www.phaseofplay.com/post/phases-of-play-in-football

If you're already aware of it, that's basically what the instruction menu refers to.
In Possession: Gives your player a blueprint to follow whenever they have won the ball or have sustained possession for a while.
In Transition: Gives a blueprint of what they should do just after winning it or losing it. 
Out of possession: Gives you a blueprint on how to react to the opposition sustaining the possession for a while.

Keep in mind that these are just general instructions and there are tons of factors that make count in to decide whether they succeed or fail, just like their attributes(visible/invisible), personality, traits, opposition and etc.

Each kind of instruction menu would affect just the way they behave with or without the ball. The "in transition" menu has both options, defensive transitions  (Counter press and regroup) and attacking transition (Counter and hold shape). This means you have option to tell your players what to do in both facets of the transition, whether you're with the ball or without. How extreme they do it depends on the mentality. A role and duty with higher individual mentality on a balanced Team mentality may spring more often to counter press or counter and vice versa. 

A key to understand how the movements work is to notice how individual mentality works and then associate the hardcoded individual instructions a role has. For example, An AP on attack from midfield has a very attacking individual mentality on positive team mentality with hardcoded (More risk, more dribble and less shooting) as a result even on higher mentalities he may not look to become a goalscoring option in the box. Instead he chooses to be the outlet pass to churn the game ahead. Similarly, CM on attack from midfield has a very attacking individual mentality as well on positive team mentality with hardcoded (Get further forward) which will see him become a goalscoring option from a midfield and will always look to join the players in the box. 

As explained, both roles on attack duty occupies similar areas with similar mentality but one of them looks to become a goalscoring option more often than the other and the other one becomes a passing outlet more than the other. Hence, we can understand how these roles play with and without the ball.

If I am not wrong, The "In Transition" menu helps you elevate and delegate the mentality slightly for a temporary time. During which you will see a lot of people burning their asses off to reach opponents goal or back to your own goal. Hence, In reality, it does affect your players moments but not forever, and once you have either lost the ball or sustained the possession. The Out of possession or In possession instruction comes into play.

Edited September 19, 2023 by HUMBL3B33
Additional Input

[Aoyao]

In summary

Direct is a play style which is passing from back to front.

Is it right in the FM?

 

 

[Adonalsium]

This is starting to resemble concern trolling. You have your answers. It isn't simple to quantify.

[Rashidi]

On 23/09/2023 at 11:54, Aoyao said:

In summary

Direct is a play style which is passing from back to front.

Is it right in the FM?

@Jack Joyce

@Jimmy Wong

@Neil Brock

You’ve got your answers there is no need to around tagging the SI staff to confirm. They do read the threads and if there was something obviously wrong they would have intervened. Editing your tags and closing the thread.