Popular Post crusadertsar Posted November 18, 2023 Popular Post Share Posted November 18, 2023 (edited) This is a new guide using examples offered by FM24 match engine on a topic that I wrote about many times before. In other threads from FM21, FM22 and FM23 where I was trying to answer an age-old question - Can defensively-responsible, low-to-mid intensity football be successful in Football Manager? I said YES to that question many times before and given my limited experience (one season under the belt so far) with FM24, my answer remains unchanged. You definitely don't need to roll a Geggenpress Meta Tactic (ahem highest defensive line with highest line of engagement and maximum pressing on attacking team mentality ahem) to be successful in FM. If you are interested in my previous threads about similar pragmatic, "defensive" tactics then check them out below, otherwise continue with me on my exploration of how to defend better in FM24. And YES I love Jose and Ted Lasso, so there that is out of the bag 1. Start With A Plan One of the biggest mistakes you can make in Football Manager is to go into tactic creation without a preconceived tactical plan. This plan might not always be clear in the beginning. Or easy to form. But you will definitely need one in order to be successful in all tactical aspects of the game. And to come up with a logical plan you will have to ask yourself some questions. What exactly am I trying to achieve with this tactical system? How will the tactic emphasize the strengths of my players while minimizing their weaknesses? How do I want my team to defend? How will they attack? Who will be my supporting, attacking and defending players? Who will score the goals? Firstly, even if you are managing a world-class team, your players cannot do EVERYTHING. Even if they are the most well-rounded total footballers in the world, having them run around while trying to put 100% effort into both attack and defence is NOT ideal use of their skills or game time. Even in intense Geggenpress tactics players cannot attack and defend in equal measure and intensity. Something has to give. You can tell your players to be ultra-attacking and try to score loads and loads of goals. Or have them form a solid defence and just score enough to outscore the AI, whether it be by 1 or 2 goals. Because at the end of the day, that is all you need in the game of football to get those 3 valuable points. You can certainly try to make an uber-aggressive attacking tactic, one with super high defensive lines and max pressing and try to cheat the game’s match engine. You will probably win more than lose, especially if you have very good players. You will probably win a trophy, or two. But I don’t think it’s a realistic or optimal way of playing FM. It’s certainly not how I gain satisfaction in FM24. The football that I like my team to play is very balanced in both attack and defence. But if anything I want more focus on defence. Why? Well like I said before, if it only takes one goal to win, then why should my players expand their energy and risk injury trying to score more than one? It makes more sense to expand the rest of their effort on trying to prevent the other team from scoring. In my view that is a logical and balanced approach to football. Defence-First Football. So there, that’s what I want to achieve with all of my tactics. Good solid defending. First and foremost. On to the next questions. How do I want my players to defend? How do I improve the defensive side in my tactic? There are a few things you can control which should help your team defend better in any formation (and even before you assign player roles). Use deeper player positioning to your advantage Position players on the field in a way to gain numerical advantage in areas where you want your players to defend the hardest and gain back the ball. So if you have strong, tall centrebacks who can jump and deal with crosses all day then why not funnel opponent’s attack outside, to the flanks? Let them exhaust themselves by running to the byline to launch low-chance crosses all day. This works even better when you have a numerical advantage in CBs as in 3-in-back formation (like Italian-inspired 3-4-2-1). On the other hand, classic 4-4-2 (or its deeper DM variant) is a perfect formation for funneling the opposition and the ball to the wings where you can force them into running to the byline until they can waste their possession by crossing or get tackled by your fullback. It makes no sense to allow an opponent with a clear midfield tactical advantage to attack you through the midfield. 4-4-2 formation is inherently weaker in the midfield, especially against elite sides that like to press high such as the case with most modern top clubs using 4-3-3 formation. You will always be playing on your backfoot when you line up 2 midfielders against their 3. But how do you turn a weakness into an advantage? There is a very easy solution and all it involves is simple player positioning and a few team instructions. I am a fan of using the defensive midfield strata when looking to make my tactic better defensively. It only makes sense to have your midfielders start deeper (where they are closer to, and can get support from your CBs) when you want them to defend better. Also, keep in mind that when you set up your formation in the Tactic Creator what you see on the screen is your out-of-possession defending shape. It reflects how the players actually line up when they defend, without the ball. Therefore, when you want your players to defend and attack like a classic 4-4-2, you might actually want them to line up in 4-4-1-1 DM (or 4-2-2-1-1 DM Wide, if you really want to be pedantic) formation. This way you are making sure that your team operates in multiple layers for better ball control and can rely on adequate defensive support when the ball is lost. Your one attacking midfielder can also act as a deep supporting striker during attack, while being available in a deeper position when defending or moving the ball up (“comes deep to get the ball” trait helps a lot). At the same time, the two DMs can drop down to aid your CBs. And if you use a versatile role like Segundo Volante then you can still have your DM acting as a proper attacking CM (or even AM given the new positional play changes in FM24) when the ball is regained and you go on the offensive. To summarize, if you think that: a) you will easily be outplayed (due to numerical disadvantage) down the middle, and b) have tall, physically and mentally strong CBs who have no problem dealing with crosses… then it makes sense to funnel the opponent to the wider areas when your team will have no disadvantage. Or might even have a slight advantage. Because on the flanks the defending team can use the sidelines and the byline as an extra defender. It’s a fact, flanks are easier to defend simply because space is limited and no matter how fast or technical the opponent is, they won’t be able to go outside the limits of the pitch and bypass your defender. So two simple steps. Place midfielders in DM strata, then funnel (through Outside Trap instruction) opponents to the flanks where you can match (or even outnumber them, if opposition likes to use inverted wingbacks) opponent numerically. So far so good! We have our “better defending” shape and basic defending plan. Now before we start selecting roles, it is a good idea to examine the player attributes. Specifically those attributes, which I believe are important to Defence-First Football. 2. Attributes For Better Defending (or Defending Starts with Inner Strength) Zava approves the following message. Mental attributes are absolutely key for Defence-First football. Closely followed by physical attributes such as Stamina, Strength, and Jumping Reach (especially for centrebacks who you want to deal with crosses but having midfielders with good jumping is always preferred). Of course this is not to say that technical attributes such as First Touch, Passing and Technique are not important to defensive football. Quite the opposite. Teams such as Barcelona often play very solid defensively-responsible football because they possess players with high levels of technical skills. Such players might not be able to tackle very effectively or outmuscle their opponents but they will nevertheless keep the ball away from the opposition and thus reduce their chance to score. Afterall, dominating possession is a type of defending while pure possession tiki-taka football is one of the most defensive styles around. Possession-focused football helps in defending by controlling the ball and space. Those are basic principles of both Total Football and Positional Play football. Have players in every area of the pitch at all times, when one leaves, another replaces him. Win back the ball as soon as you lose it. But that’s not what I am focusing on in this guide. Plenty has been written on that topic by others more qualified than me such as @Rashidi and @04texag. Even then I have covered quite a lot already on Total Football and Positional Play in my other blogs. Two you can check out below. This guide is about defending on a budget. Sort of. Not that the tactical style that I am developing is only suitable for a relegation-threatened underdog. As you have probably guessed already I am using the example of Real Sociedad which is definitely a top mid-table club in Spain. Maybe not strong enough to properly challenge the two Madrid clubs and Barcelona for the title but good enough to win a continental football spot every season. La Real actually has enough technical players to attempt Possession-focused defensive style and I have tried that on many occasions with them in the past. Yet there is still a huge gap between them and a club like Man City or even Barcelona. After a few seasons you can definitely try to narrow that gap through smart transfers and youth intakes but it will remain an uphill struggle for quite some time to compete against elite teams like City on their own terms. Much better to beat them on your own terms. And that is why I prefer to save my money and defend smarter. Exactly, SMARTER. Mental attributes denote player’s footballing IQ and tactical awareness. And it is not as expensive to stock your team full of players with great mental attributes. Besides players with great Teamwork and Workrate will work much harder at following your tactical instructions. And less risk of premature hair loss due to managerial frustration with your footballers' stupidity. Although you can always opt for a nice hat if the stress becomes too much to handle. When you examine the profile of your typical player with defensive responsibilities, be it a centreback, inverted fullback (on defend duty) or a defensive midfielder, there will be a few important attributes shared across all roles. Interestingly enough, aside from the standard ones like Positioning and Jumping Reach, majority will fall in the upper half of the mental attributes section. I will try to outline them in the order of importance. Anticipation, Composure and Concentration, I deem to be essential attributes for any player who will be involved a lot in defensive situations (essentially your defensive midfielders and centrebacks). Anticipation - is foremost an attribute that defines player’s football IQ. Wrongly, many FM players tend to assume it is more of an attacking attribute, like Off The Ball attribute. While Anticipation can be very useful to an attacker, it is a very general attribute that influences almost all player actions in both attack and defence. In fact, there is a good reason that almost every role in the game has Anticipation listed as either required or important attribute. Simply put, Anticipation reflects the player’s ability to predict and react to movements and other actions of both his teammates and opponents. Higher Anticipation will allow player to react faster to events. Anticipation works in tandem with either Off The Ball or Positioning depending on the situation. So for a defender, he could have the best Positioning in the world but if his Anticipation is bad, he simply won’t anticipate the movement of the opposition attacker accurately enough to get into a good defensive position. Positioning - another key defensive attribute which all defensive-focused roles require, defensive wingers and liberos included. Positioning is the defensive equivalent of offensive Off The Ball. It reflects how well a player reads a defensive situation and positions himself so as to deal more effectively with an opposition attack. Positioning comes into play when your defenders are off the ball and the opponent is in possession. As mentioned above, Positioning and Anticipation work in tandem and should really be an ever-connected pair. Obviously, you should be much more wary of asking a player with good anticipation but bad positioning to defend. Yet one with great positioning but mediocre anticipation should also never be your 1st choice. Concentration is my next essential Defence-First Football attribute. The game defines it as “the player’s mental focus and attention to detail on an event-by-event basis”. I see it as a mental equivalent of physical stamina attribute. Thus because mental attributes are so important to defending, it only makes sense that your defenders have the mental stamina = concentration in order to defend at the top of their abilities for as long as possible. Unlike attacking, defending is something that is always ongoing throughout the whole 90+ minutes of a match. Your team might have scored a vital goal against a tough opponent so then the next logical step is to defend even harder so as not to lose your lead. The moment you have a single goal lead is when defending becomes the team priority. Essentially Concentration is a measure of how unaffected a player is by lost focus when making a decision. The player’s focus will gradually drain over the course of the match. And the more his focus decreases the more likely he is to make a bad decision. Higher concentration will reduce the rate at which focus falls. Composure, my 3rd essential defending attribute, is similar to Concentration in how it affects decision-making. It defines a player’s steadiness of mind and ability to make smart decisions on and off the ball. Hence it is another attribute that is important in both attacking and defending situations. From its in-game description Composure might sound very similar to another mental attribute, Decisions. In my opinion Decision attribute is a good one to have BUT not as vital to defending as Composure is. Decision is a general measure of how well a player will evaluate the options that he is aware of and make the correct choice. Yet, a player’s decision-making will be limited by his Vision attribute. The choices are only as good the options that the player is aware of. If he does not see the best option then the choice he decides on might not be a very good one. Also Decision attributes is not contextual. Let me explain. Composure on the other hand is more accurate in reflecting the kind of decision-making that happens all the time in the mind of a player engaged in defending. Defensive decision-making does not happen in a vaccuum. It is done in the context of a very stressful, high-stakes situation. When you are defending against an opposing footballer who is actively trying to get past you and score. There is a lot of mental pressure that affects the decision-making process in such situations. Composure measures how unaffected a player is by this mental pressure while making a decision or performing an action on or off the ball. The higher the stakes, or closer the opponent is to the net you are trying to defend, the more interference this mental pressure will have on decision-making. Mental pressure can arise from being close to opposition players (such as when trying to close down their star striker), or by the importance of the situation such as when the opponent has a clear goal-scoring opportunity.Thus when defending there is always mental pressure involved. Excessive mental pressure can cause a player to both make a bad decision and perform his chosen action poorly (poor tackle resulting in a red card). Higher Composure attribute reduces the effect of mental pressure upon the player’s Decision attribute. So that’s why I believe Composure is more important than Decision attribute for defensive situations. Finally, there are a few complimentary mental attributes. They are not absolutely essential but are nevertheless very good to have as part of Defence-First Football DNA. Players with high Teamwork attribute will just play more like you expect from your tactic. Hence less stress for the manager. According to the game, Teamwork reflects the player’s ability “to follow tactical instructions whilst working for and alongside his team-mates”. Very good to have for any football style really, but especially for Defence-First style that requires extra discipline and attentive commitment. Workrate attribute, like Teamwork is bonus because it governs how hard a player “works” in both attacking and defensive situations. More specifically it is the player’s “willingness to work to his full capacity, going above and beyond the call of duty.” In the context of defending, it means that the player with high workrate who starts in a more advanced position will be more willing to drop deeper to close down opponents or try to regain the ball. Advanced midfielders and wingers (especially defensive wingers) will greatly benefit from high values in this attribute. Determination is a self-explanatory attribute that is always good to have by all players and in all situations on the pitch and even off the pitch (will train better!). It is a no-brainer inclusion in my team DNA. Although I am willing to overlook relatively low determination in my youngsters, knowing that this attribute tends to naturally increase in players (ideally before mid-20s y.o) if given enough mentoring attention or just by being around a determined 1st Team Squad. Finally moving to the physical attributes. There are three - two of which I think are very important to make your team better at defending and one attribute which is recommended but not essential. Not if you, like me, prefer to play with with more patient mid-to-low intensity style. Strength and Jumping Reach will both help your players exert themselves physically over their opponents in all defensive situations, as well as the offensive ones. Therefore the two are always part of my Team DNA in every save and version of FM. Jumping is particularly important when a player competes with an opponent to get to an aerial ball such as a floated cross. Any tactic that is looking to set up a pressing trap outside and to invite crosses needs centrebacks with very good Jumping. While Strength is simply a measure of how well a player can exert his physical force upon an opposition player. Strength affects how likely a player is to succeed in a physical situation such as when shielding the ball from an opponent while standing or dribbling, when attempting to tackle, when marking an opposition player or when simply competing with an opponent to get to the ball. No matter how technical your opponent is, they can still be outmuscled and bullied by a more physical defender. In any team sport, strength and size matter. Stamina on the other hand is important but not essential in my Defending DNA. Its importance varies depending on the style of football you are after. If you want your team to play a more proactive, aggressive style of defending (such as in Geggenpress) where your players will actively try to win the ball back in opponent’s half of the field then by all means Stamina will be key, along with Aggression and Bravery (I would also recommend those two for any defence-minded player). In general, Stamina attribute reflects how well a player can retain condition while exerting effort during a match. Naturally, the higher a player’s condition is, the better he will perform any action. And the more effort a player puts in during a match the more his condition will deteriorate. That’s why more intense styles of football such as high-pressing Geggenpress or any high possession football require players with high levels of Stamina. For low-to-mid intensity midblock - not as much. TO BE CONTINUED... Edited February 20 by crusadertsar 37 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 can you write the next part right now? i cant wait 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dzek Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 11 hours ago, crusadertsar said: otherwise continue with me on my exploration of how to defend better in FM24. I'm interested on this one 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikcheck Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 (edited) 1 hora atrás, dzek disse: I'm interested on this one Didn't play FM24 yet but does defending or mid/low blocks still weak and gengenpress systems overpowered? @crusadertsar I'm looking forward to this one, not only because I sympathize with Real Sociedade, but also 4411/442 are two of my favourite formations. One thing you mentioned and it's important for me playing a medium/low block, is to have midfielders with good jumpin reach. I go even far and I try to have ALL of my players with that capacity. It's hard to find, but I try my best to have it like that. It's really important too in those long goal kicks, to start counter attacks. Edited November 19, 2023 by mikcheck 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 19, 2023 Author Share Posted November 19, 2023 2 hours ago, mikcheck said: Didn't play FM24 yet but does defending or mid/low blocks still weak and gengenpress systems overpowered? @crusadertsar I'm looking forward to this one, not only because I sympathize with Real Sociedade, but also 4411/442 are two of my favourite formations. One thing you mentioned and it's important for me playing a medium/low block, is to have midfielders with good jumpin reach. I go even far and I try to have ALL of my players with that capacity. It's hard to find, but I try my best to have it like that. It's really important too in those long goal kicks, to start counter attacks. Exactly! Having tall and strong midfielders is an unbelievable advantage. I remember Porto was fun to manage a few years back because of that exact reason. I love intercepting those long kicks by AI. Also gives you more options during set pieces. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-7- Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 (edited) I follow and look forward to the part relating to the offensive phase to take inspiration and learn something new or perhaps focus attention on some aspect that I have rarely considered. As a good ol' Italian boy I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of conceding as few goals as possible and in fact I have the same tactical approach as you regarding this style of play in organizing the defensive phase, and the 4-4-1-1 DM is also my favorite strategy. However, I often focus so much with my setup and tactical settings on not conceding goals that I struggle to find the right balance to be able to score even just one, resulting in me being too passive to be successful in the long term. I currently have a save with Kilmarnock in the Scottish Premier League in their very first early days, I'm committing more FM sessions just to look for a tall and strong TF to base my attacking game on, while we are already in a very good position in terms of average height and aerial ability of the defenders Edited November 19, 2023 by Fox-7- 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dzek Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 2 hours ago, mikcheck said: Didn't play FM24 yet but does defending or mid/low blocks still weak and gengenpress systems overpowered? Im high pressing lover so I dont know the rest but its time for some stability on my defence Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post crusadertsar Posted November 19, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 19, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Fox-7- said: I follow and look forward to the part relating to the offensive phase to take inspiration and learn something new or perhaps focus attention on some aspect that I have rarely considered. As a good ol' Italian boy I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of conceding as few goals as possible and in fact I have the same tactical approach as you regarding this style of play in organizing the defensive phase, and the 4-4-1-1 DM is also my favorite strategy. However, I often focus so much with my setup and tactical settings on not conceding goals that I struggle to find the right balance to be able to score even just one, resulting in me being too passive to be successful in the long term. I currently have a save with Kilmarnock in the Scottish Premier League in their very first early days, I'm committing more FM sessions just to look for a tall and strong TF to base my attacking game on, while we are already in a very good position in terms of average height and aerial ability of the defenders Thanks for following mate. Indeed striking the right balance between conceding fewest goals and actually being clinical in the offensive phase can be tricky. Unlike with more aggressive attacking styles where your team is always pushing into the opposition half, you will have far less chances. So this only puts even more stress on setting up the attacking portion of the tactic and the roles just right. You have to have the right players and they have to be doing the right thing. I don't think my tactic is perfect but we seem to be doing more things right then wrong. Currently sitting in 4th in beginning of March. And it looks like its going to be a pretty close title race. I'm not stressing to win it in our 1st season but it would be a nice surprise. It will certainly be an interesting showdown in the last month and a half between Real Madrid, Barcelona and Villareal (surprise!). I also hope that Athletic Bilbao gets in there too. The more Basque clubs in Europe next year the better . On the other hand Athletico Madrid have bombed the season completely sitting in 12 spot. The level of competition and quality from other teams is exactly why I find LaLiga to be my favourite league in football (and it has been for quite a while now). And every year there always seems to be some surprise factor like Villareal this season. Also as seen in the screenshot above, our attacking is not that shabby for a defensive-focused style. Sitting in 3rd position (behind Real Madrid and Villareal) in numbers of goals scored. So far La Real scored 50 goals (16 coming from our Pressing Forward Sadiq, 10 from AMC Oyarzabal, 7 and 5 from wingers Brais Mendez and Barrenetxea respectively). Mendez has been absolutely key in his right wing position, also assisting on 11 assists. So the team's offensive contribution is pretty much split realistically between the 4 attacking players. My players are playing as to be expected by their roles. Those with attack duties are scoring more while support duties are supporting. Oyarzabal is a bit of an outlier with his offensive contribution but I actually planned for his role to act as a sort of secondary supporting striker for us. I even added "get further forward" instruction to make sure he gets more involved in attacking phase later in the buildup. I like a good old Shadow Striker role but find it a bit too aggressive for my set up, preferring my AMC to also drop deeper and help out the midfielders. I might consider adding "comes deep to get the ball" but I suspect I would need a faster player than Oyarzabal to get the full benefit from it. With his Acceleration I don't think Mikel would be able to keep up in both midfield and attack. So I will keep him as is for now. He seems to be doing just fine. Tactically, I like to keep things as simple as possible with few team instructions and a couple more player instructions to influence player behavior under the hood. I was actually inspired a lot by a recent excellent comment written by @herne79 in which he described how his West Ham team plays. Unfortunately it disappeared since because its thread was deleted. I sort of see Real Sociedad as a similar team to West Ham in terms of being too good for mid-table but not quite good enough to be a regular in the top 5 of the league. But this type of fluid counter-attacking approach could work very well with both teams. Now to explain a little my choice of roles and some of the instructions. I tried to keep all the roles different (because I believe tactical variety is key when it comes to roles). The two fullbacks actually play very differently. I used to use wingback on the left flank but since found a simple fullback with "get further forward" instruction to give more balance to our defence. You could get a similar effect by using a player with "get further" trait there. On the right flank, I use a fullback with increased mentality (due to "underlap right" instruction) to a similar effect but less adventurous than my left fullback which is just the way I like it. I want balance in our attack. On the right side we have a more adventurous Segundo Volante (I am currently testing "get further forward" instruction with young Benat Turrientes in that role because he has much better acceleration and pace than Merino). While on the left flank we have a more attacking Inverted Winger so it made sense to switch from Wingback to fullback there. While at same time "get further" instruction ensures that the fullback will still overlap our winger when opportunity presents itself. I got to say that I really love the Defensive Winger role in this setup. I was rather surprised with the output that we received from Brais Mendez in that role but on second thought he does seem very suitable to it. Some of the other individual instructions I used so far: "Roam from position" for my AMC - I don't use a playmaker in this role to avoid him getting marked excessively but he still attracts opposition DMs from time to time so roaming helps alot in that respect. He also gets "Get further forward" but I explained that one already. The only other role with a few individual instructions is my left DM. I tell him to "Dribble Less", "Shoot Less Often" and "Hold Position". I could use Ballwinning Midfielder in this position to mimic the same behavior but I don't really want my player going too heavy on the tackling. He is one of the hidden playmakers in my tactic (as I usually play Zubimendi or Merino there) and I don't want him to amass yellow cards and risk being thrown out of the game. In general, the goal of the tactic is to be very disciplined and limit number of yellows. As you can see from one of the screens above, we are currently sitting with 14 total yellow cards which is the best in the league. My left fullback - "Get Further Forward" - already explained. And now a few more defensive statistics. I don't want to continue bragging but just feel like its relevant here since the objective of the tactic is defensive performance afterall In March we remain best team in terms of goals conceded (24 for whole season). As you can see from image above there is quite a divide between Real Sociedad and the rest of the league in that respect. La Real is also tied with Athletic Bilbao (Yay!!) and Barcelona for the number of clean sheets (12) which is a statistic that I am even more proud off. A lot of this probably has to do with the performances of our primary keeper. Remiro is quite good although definitely not a world-class keeper like ones that Barcelona and Real Madrid have. However he is very reliable and rarely gets injured which helps alot. Here are some of our recent performances. Love seeing all those clean sheets An interesting fact is that all of our goals seem to come in the 2nd half. But realizing that our overall tactical intensity is relatively low it's not all that surprising. Keeping my players fresh and performing at the top of their abilities during the match is part of the master plan. So by minute 55 when the AI is tired from running around and pressing everywhere my players are still in the green and ready to pounce on any scoring chances. So that's it for now! In a future mini-update I would love to share some of the nice clinical goals I have been seeing with this system and some of the heat maps of player positioning perhaps. There is definitely a lot that I am loving with this campaign and many more things I am looking forward to sharing, especially our youth intakes which I've always found to be exciting with Real Sociedad in my previous saves. Below is the preview of the 1st intake coming in only a few weeks now. Very excited to see what it brings! 5-star golden generation is good indication of what to expect but I am also thrilled to be getting some excellent midfielders and defensive midfielders it seems. And probably a decent centreback or two. Which is exactly what we need in the future. Agur! And thanks for following along with me on this journey everyone! Edited November 19, 2023 by crusadertsar 9 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
herne79 Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 2 hours ago, crusadertsar said: I was actually inspired a lot by a recent excellent comment written by @herne79 in which he described how his West Ham team plays. Unfortunately it disappeared since because its thread was deleted. Yeh weird it was removed, there was a nice little discussion. Anyway yes, that formation with Trap Outside especially pays dividends. I could see it working with other formations too, but the way you are describing use of the DMs to help channel the ball is spot on. I like seeing the Defensive WInger in play, mine was blowing a bit hit and miss and eventually changed permanently to a WM(s). A good article so far, interested to see more . 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
04texag Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 21 hours ago, crusadertsar said: This is a new guide using examples offered by FM24 match engine on a topic that I wrote about many times before. In other threads from FM21, FM22 and FM23 where I was trying to answer an age-old question - Can defensively-responsible, low-to-mid intensity football be successful in Football Manager? I said YES to that question many times before and given my limited experience (one season under the belt so far) with FM24, my answer remains unchanged. You definitely don't need to roll a Geggenpress Meta Tactic (ahem highest defensive line with highest line of engagement and maximum pressing on attacking team mentality ahem) to be successful in FM. If you are interested in my previous threads about similar pragmatic, "defensive" tactics then check them out below, otherwise continue with me on my exploration of how to defend better in FM24. And YES I love Jose and Ted Lasso, so there that is out of the bag 1. Start With A Plan One of the biggest mistakes you can make in Football Manager is to go into tactic creation without a preconceived tactical plan. This plan might not always be clear in the beginning. Or easy to form. But you will definitely need one in order to be successful in all tactical aspects of the game. And to come up with a logical plan you will have to ask yourself some questions. What exactly am I trying to achieve with this tactical system? How will the tactic emphasize the strengths of my players while minimizing their weaknesses? How do I want my team to defend? How will they attack? Who will be my supporting, attacking and defending players? Who will score the goals? Firstly, even if you are managing a world-class team, your players cannot do EVERYTHING. Even if they are the most well-rounded total footballers in the world, having them run around while trying to put 100% effort into both attack and defence is NOT ideal use of their skills or game time. Even in intense Geggenpress tactics players cannot attack and defend in equal measure and intensity. Something has to give. You can tell your players to be ultra-attacking and try to score loads and loads of goals. Or have them form a solid defence and just score enough to outscore the AI, whether it be by 1 or 2 goals. Because at the end of the day, that is all you need in the game of football to get those 3 valuable points. You can certainly try to make an uber-aggressive attacking tactic, one with super high defensive lines and max pressing and try to cheat the game’s match engine. You will probably win more than lose, especially if you have very good players. You will probably win a trophy, or two. But I don’t think it’s a realistic or optimal way of playing FM. It’s certainly not how I gain satisfaction in FM24. The football that I like my team to play is very balanced in both attack and defence. But if anything I want more focus on defence. Why? Well like I said before, if it only takes one goal to win, then why should my players expand their energy and risk injury trying to score more than one? It makes more sense to expand the rest of their effort on trying to prevent the other team from scoring. In my view that is a logical and balanced approach to football. Defence-First Football. So there, that’s what I want to achieve with all of my tactics. Good solid defending. First and foremost. On to the next questions. How do I want my players to defend? How do I improve the defensive side in my tactic? There are a few things you can control which should help your team defend better in any formation (and even before you assign player roles). Use deeper player positioning to your advantage Position players on the field in a way to gain numerical advantage in areas where you want your players to defend the hardest and gain back the ball. So if you have strong, tall centrebacks who can jump and deal with crosses all day then why not funnel opponent’s attack outside, to the flanks? Let them exhaust themselves by running to the byline to launch low-chance crosses all day. This works even better when you have a numerical advantage in CBs as in 3-in-back formation (like Italian-inspired 3-4-2-1). On the other hand, classic 4-4-2 (or its deeper DM variant) is a perfect formation for funneling the opposition and the ball to the wings where you can force them into running to the byline until they can waste their possession by crossing or get tackled by your fullback. It makes no sense to allow an opponent with a clear midfield tactical advantage to attack you through the midfield. 4-4-2 formation is inherently weaker in the midfield, especially against elite sides that like to press high such as the case with most modern top clubs using 4-3-3 formation. You will always be playing on your backfoot when you line up 2 midfielders against their 3. But how do you turn a weakness into an advantage? There is a very easy solution and all it involves is simple player positioning and a few team instructions. I am a fan of using the defensive midfield strata when looking to make my tactic better defensively. It only makes sense to have your midfielders start deeper (where they are closer to, and can get support from your CBs) when you want them to defend better. Also, keep in mind that when you set up your formation in the Tactic Creator what you see on the screen is your out-of-possession defending shape. It reflects how the players actually line up when they defend, without the ball. Therefore, when you want your players to defend and attack like a classic 4-4-2, you might actually want them to line up in 4-4-1-1 DM (or 4-2-2-1-1 DM Wide, if you really want to be pedantic) formation. This way you are making sure that your team operates in multiple layers for better ball control and can rely on adequate defensive support when the ball is lost. Your one attacking midfielder can also act as a deep supporting striker during attack, while being available in a deeper position when defending or moving the bal up (“comes deep to get the ball” trait helps a lot). At the same time, the two DMs can drop down to aid your CBs. And if you use a versatile role like Segundo Volante then you can still have your DM acting as a proper attacking CM (or even AM given the new positional play changes in FM24) when the ball is regained and you go on the offensive. To summarize, if you think that: a) you will easily be outplayed (due to numerical disadvantage) down the middle, and b) have tall, physically and mentally strong CBs who have no problem dealing with crosses… then it makes sense to funnel the opponent to the wider areas when your team will have no disadvantage. Or might even have a slight advantage. Because on the flanks the defending team can use the sidelines and the byline as an extra defender. It’s a fact, flanks are easier to defend simply because space is limited and no matter how fast or technical the opponent is, they won’t be able to go outside the limits of the pitch and bypass your defender. So two simple steps. Place midfielders in DM strata, then funnel (through Outside Trap instruction) opponents to the flanks where you can match (or even outnumber them, if opposition likes to use inverted wingbacks) opponent numerically. So far so good! We have our “better defending” shape and basic defending plan. Now before we start selecting roles, it is a good idea to examine the player attributes. Specifically those attributes, which I believe are important to Defence-First Football. 2. Attributes For Better Defending (or Defending Starts with Inner Strength) Zava approves the following message. Mental attributes are absolutely key for Defence-First football. Closely followed by physical attributes such as Stamina, Strength, and Jumping Reach (especially for centrebacks who you want to deal with crosses but having midfielders with good jumping is always preferred). Of course this is not to say that technical attributes such as First Touch, Passing and Technique are not important to defensive football. Quite the opposite. Teams such as Barcelona often play very solid defensively-responsible football because they possess players with high levels of technical skills. Such players might not be able to tackle very effectively or outmuscle their opponents but they will nevertheless keep the ball away from the opposition and thus reduce their chance to score. Afterall, dominating possession is a type of defending while pure possession tiki-taka football is one of the most defensive styles around. Possession-focused football helps in defending by controlling the ball and space. Those are basic principles of both Total Football and Positional Play football. Have players in every area of the pitch at all times, when one leaves, another replaces him. Win back the ball as soon as you lose it. But that’s not what I am focusing on in this guide. Plenty has been written on that topic by others more qualified than me such as @Rashidi and @04texag. Even then I have covered quite a lot already on Total Football and Positional Play in my other blogs. Two you can check out below. This guide is about defending on a budget. Sort of. Not that the tactical style that I am developing is only suitable for a relegation-threatened underdog. As you have probably guessed already I am using the example of Real Sociedad which is definitely a top mid-table club in Spain. Maybe not strong enough to properly challenge the two Madrid clubs and Barcelona for the title but good enough to win a continental football spot every season. La Real actually has enough technical players to attempt Possession-focused defensive style and I have tried that on many occasions with them in the past. Yet there is still a huge gap between them and a club like Man City or even Barcelona. After a few seasons you can definitely try to narrow that gap through smart transfers and youth intakes but it will remain an uphill struggle for quite some time to compete against elite teams like City on their own terms. Much better to beat them on your own terms. And that is why I prefer to save my money and defend smarter. Exactly, SMARTER. Mental attributes denote player’s footballing IQ and tactical awareness. And it is not as expensive to stock your team full of players with great mental attributes. Besides players with great Teamwork and Workrate will work much harder at following your tactical instructions. And less risk of premature hair loss due to managerial frustration with your footballers' stupidity. Although you can always opt for a nice hat if the stress becomes too much to handle. When you examine the profile of your typical player with defensive responsibilities, be it a centreback, inverted fullback (on defend duty) or a defensive midfielder, there will be a few important attributes shared across all roles. Interestingly enough, aside from the standard ones like Positioning and Jumping Reach, majority will fall in the upper half of the mental attributes section. I will try to outline them in the order of importance. Anticipation, Composure and Concentration, I deem to be essential attributes for any player who will be involved a lot in defensive situations (essentially your defensive midfielders and centrebacks). Anticipation - is foremost an attribute that defines player’s football IQ. Wrongly, many FM players tend to assume it is more of an attacking attribute, like Off The Ball attribute. While Anticipation can be very useful to an attacker, it is a very general attribute that influences almost all player actions in both attack and defence. In fact, there is a good reason that almost every role in the game has Anticipation listed as either required or important attribute. Simply put, Anticipation reflects the player’s ability to predict and react to movements and other actions of both his teammates and opponents. Higher Anticipation will allow player to react faster to events. Anticipation works in tandem with either Off The Ball or Positioning depending on the situation. So for a defender, he could have the best Positioning in the world but if his Anticipation is bad, he simply won’t anticipate the movement of the opposition attacker accurately enough to get into a good defensive position. Positioning - another key defensive attribute which all defensive-focused roles require, defensive wingers and liberos included. Positioning is the defensive equivalent of offensive Off The Ball. It reflects how well a player reads a defensive situation and positions himself so as to deal more effectively with an opposition attack. Positioning comes into play when your defenders are off the ball and the opponent is in possession. As mentioned above, Positioning and Anticipation work in tandem and should really be an ever-connected pair. Obviously, you should be much more wary of asking a player with good anticipation but bad positioning to defend. Yet one with great positioning but mediocre anticipation should also never be your 1st choice. Concentration is my next essential Defence-First Football attribute. The game defines it as “the player’s mental focus and attention to detail on an event-by-event basis”. I see it as a mental equivalent of physical stamina attribute. Thus because mental attributes are so important to defending, it only makes sense that your defenders have the mental stamina = concentration in order to defend at the top of their abilities for as long as possible. Unlike attacking, defending is something that is always ongoing throughout the whole 90+ minutes of a match. Your team might have scored a vital goal against a tough opponent so then the next logical step is to defend even harder so as not to lose your lead. The moment you have a single goal lead is when defending becomes the team priority. Essentially Concentration is a measure of how unaffected a player is by lost focus when making a decision. The player’s focus will gradually drain over the course of the match. And the more his focus decreases the more likely he is to make a bad decision. Higher concentration will reduce the rate at which focus falls. Composure, my 3rd essential defending attribute, is similar to Concentration in how it affects decision-making. It defines a player’s steadiness of mind and ability to make smart decisions on and off the ball. Hence it is another attribute that is important in both attacking and defending situations. From its in-game description Composure might sound very similar to another mental attribute, Decisions. In my opinion Decision attribute is a good one to have BUT not as vital to defending as Composure is. Decision is a general measure of how well a player will evaluate the options that he is aware of and make the correct choice. Yet, a player’s decision-making will be limited by his Vision attribute. The choices are only as good the options that the player is aware of. If he does not see the best option then the choice he decides on might not be a very good one. Also Decision attributes is not contextual. Let me explain. Composure on the other hand is more accurate in reflecting the kind of decision-making that happens all the time in the mind of a player engaged in defending. Defensive decision-making does not happen in a vaccuum. It is done in the context of a very stressful, high-stakes situation. When you are defending against an opposing footballer who is actively trying to get past you and score. There is a lot of mental pressure that affects the decision-making process in such situations. Composure measures how unaffected a player is by this mental pressure while making a decision or performing an action on or off the ball. The higher the stakes, or closer the opponent is to the net you are trying to defend, the more interference this mental pressure will have on decision-making. Mental pressure can arise from being close to opposition players (such as when trying to close down their star striker), or by the importance of the situation such as when the opponent has a clear goal-scoring opportunity.Thus when defending there is always mental pressure involved. Excessive mental pressure can cause a player to both make a bad decision and perform his chosen action poorly (poor tackle resulting in a red card). Higher Composure attribute reduces the effect of mental pressure upon the player’s Decision attribute. So that’s why I believe Composure is more important than Decision attribute for defensive situations. Finally, there are a few complimentary mental attributes. They are not absolutely essential but are nevertheless very good to have as part of Defence-First Football DNA. Players with high Teamwork attribute will just play more like you expect from your tactic. Hence less stress for the manager. According to the game, Teamwork reflects the player’s ability “to follow tactical instructions whilst working for and alongside his team-mates”. Very good to have for any football style really, but especially for Defence-First style that requires extra discipline and attentive commitment. Workrate attribute, like Teamwork is bonus because it governs how hard a player “works” in both attacking and defensive situations. More specifically it is the player’s “willingness to work to his full capacity, going above and beyond the call of duty.” In the context of defending, it means that the player with high workrate who starts in a more advanced position will be more willing to drop deeper to close down opponents or try to regain the ball. Advanced midfielders and wingers (especially defensive wingers) will greatly benefit from high values in this attribute. Determination is a self-explanatory attribute that is always good to have by all players and in all situations on the pitch and even off the pitch (will train better!). It is a no-brainer inclusion in my team DNA. Although I am willing to overlook relatively low determination in my youngsters, knowing that this attribute tends to naturally increase in players (ideally before mid-20s y.o) if given enough mentoring attention or just by being around a determined 1st Team Squad. Finally moving to the physical attributes. There are three - two of which I think are very important to make your team better at defending and one attribute which is recommended but not essential. Not if you, like me, prefer to play with with more patient mid-to-low intensity style. Strength and Jumping Reach will both help your players exert themselves physically over their opponents in all defensive situations, as well as the offensive ones. Therefore the two are always part of my Team DNA in every save and version of FM. Jumping is particularly important when a player competes with an opponent to get to an aerial ball such as a floated cross. Any tactic that is looking to set up a pressing trap outside and to invite crosses needs centrebacks with very good Jumping. While Strength is simply a measure of how well a player can exert his physical force upon an opposition player. Strength affects how likely a player is to succeed in a physical situation such as when shielding the ball from an opponent while standing or dribbling, when attempting to tackle, when marking an opposition player or when simply competing with an opponent to get to the ball. No matter how technical your opponent is, they can still be outmuscled and bullied by a more physical defender. In any team sport, strength and size matter. Stamina on the other hand is important but not essential in my Defending DNA. Its importance varies depending on the style of football you are after. If you want your team to play a more proactive, aggressive style of defending (such as in Geggenpress) where your players will actively try to win the ball back in opponent’s half of the field then by all means Stamina will be key, along with Aggression and Bravery (I would also recommend those two for any defence-minded player). In general, Stamina attribute reflects how well a player can retain condition while exerting effort during a match. Naturally, the higher a player’s condition is, the better he will perform any action. And the more effort a player puts in during a match the more his condition will deteriorate. That’s why more intense styles of football such as high-pressing Geggenpress or any high possession football require players with high levels of Stamina. For low-to-mid intensity midblock - not as much. TO BE CONTINUED... Great post! Your writing is always great and I like these threads about tactical styles I'm not as familiar with. Also, you give me honors I'm not sure I'm worthy of, but thanks! Keep up your great writing and approach! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayvanmond Posted November 19, 2023 Share Posted November 19, 2023 This is the thread man!!!!! Each to their own, but there is far too many similar variations of on the front foot, high intensity tactics. this couldn't have come at a better time. Just started up with blank canvas S.S Lazio, obviously direct rivals with A.S Roma and up head to head with Mr Pragmatic Mourinho. Following this thread closely, thanks dude. Look forward to updates 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 20, 2023 Share Posted November 20, 2023 For some reason this made me want to post here. Off the field pragmatism would be what Jose talks about here - making small incremental additions to a team over the years to set them up for success Like gegenpress tactics - it's not as flashy as signing a big name via transfers. Instead focusing on making small additions over the years to eventually becoming a top side. I think there needs to be written more on what being "defensive first" approach to managing a club in Football manager Not sure if anyone agrees but just my thoughts. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-7- Posted November 21, 2023 Share Posted November 21, 2023 (edited) Il 19/11/2023 in 15:31 , crusadertsar ha scritto: Thanks for following mate. Indeed striking the right balance between conceding fewest goals and actually being clinical in the offensive phase can be tricky. Unlike with more aggressive attacking styles where your team is always pushing into the opposition half, you will have far less chances. So this only puts even more stress on setting up the attacking portion of the tactic and the roles just right. You have to have the right players and they have to be doing the right thing. I don't think my tactic is perfect but we seem to be doing more things right then wrong. Currently sitting in 4th in beginning of March. And it looks like its going to be a pretty close title race. I'm not stressing to win it in our 1st season but it would be a nice surprise. It will certainly be an interesting showdown in the last month and a half between Real Madrid, Barcelona and Villareal (surprise!). I also hope that Athletic Bilbao gets in there too. The more Basque clubs in Europe next year the better . On the other hand Athletico Madrid have bombed the season completely sitting in 12 spot. The level of competition and quality from other teams is exactly why I find LaLiga to be my favourite league in football (and it has been for quite a while now). And every year there always seems to be some surprise factor like Villareal this season. Also as seen in the screenshot above, our attacking is not that shabby for a defensive-focused style. Sitting in 3rd position (behind Real Madrid and Villareal) in numbers of goals scored. So far La Real scored 50 goals (16 coming from our Pressing Forward Sadiq, 10 from AMC Oyarzabal, 7 and 5 from wingers Brais Mendez and Barrenetxea respectively). Mendez has been absolutely key in his right wing position, also assisting on 11 assists. So the team's offensive contribution is pretty much split realistically between the 4 attacking players. My players are playing as to be expected by their roles. Those with attack duties are scoring more while support duties are supporting. Oyarzabal is a bit of an outlier with his offensive contribution but I actually planned for his role to act as a sort of secondary supporting striker for us. I even added "get further forward" instruction to make sure he gets more involved in attacking phase later in the buildup. I like a good old Shadow Striker role but find it a bit too aggressive for my set up, preferring my AMC to also drop deeper and help out the midfielders. I might consider adding "comes deep to get the ball" but I suspect I would need a faster player than Oyarzabal to get the full benefit from it. With his Acceleration I don't think Mikel would be able to keep up in both midfield and attack. So I will keep him as is for now. He seems to be doing just fine. Tactically, I like to keep things as simple as possible with few team instructions and a couple more player instructions to influence player behavior under the hood. I was actually inspired a lot by a recent excellent comment written by @herne79 in which he described how his West Ham team plays. Unfortunately it disappeared since because its thread was deleted. I sort of see Real Sociedad as a similar team to West Ham in terms of being too good for mid-table but not quite good enough to be a regular in the top 5 of the league. But this type of fluid counter-attacking approach could work very well with both teams. Now to explain a little my choice of roles and some of the instructions. I tried to keep all the roles different (because I believe tactical variety is key when it comes to roles). The two fullbacks actually play very differently. I used to use wingback on the left flank but since found a simple fullback with "get further forward" instruction to give more balance to our defence. You could get a similar effect by using a player with "get further" trait there. On the right flank, I use a fullback with increased mentality (due to "underlap right" instruction) to a similar effect but less adventurous than my left fullback which is just the way I like it. I want balance in our attack. On the right side we have a more adventurous Segundo Volante (I am currently testing "get further forward" instruction with young Benat Turrientes in that role because he has much better acceleration and pace than Merino). While on the left flank we have a more attacking Inverted Winger so it made sense to switch from Wingback to fullback there. While at same time "get further" instruction ensures that the fullback will still overlap our winger when opportunity presents itself. I got to say that I really love the Defensive Winger role in this setup. I was rather surprised with the output that we received from Brais Mendez in that role but on second thought he does seem very suitable to it. Some of the other individual instructions I used so far: "Roam from position" for my AMC - I don't use a playmaker in this role to avoid him getting marked excessively but he still attracts opposition DMs from time to time so roaming helps alot in that respect. He also gets "Get further forward" but I explained that one already. The only other role with a few individual instructions is my left DM. I tell him to "Dribble Less", "Shoot Less Often" and "Hold Position". I could use Ballwinning Midfielder in this position to mimic the same behavior but I don't really want my player going too heavy on the tackling. He is one of the hidden playmakers in my tactic (as I usually play Zubimendi or Merino there) and I don't want him to amass yellow cards and risk being thrown out of the game. In general, the goal of the tactic is to be very disciplined and limit number of yellows. As you can see from one of the screens above, we are currently sitting with 14 total yellow cards which is the best in the league. My left fullback - "Get Further Forward" - already explained. And now a few more defensive statistics. I don't want to continue bragging but just feel like its relevant here since the objective of the tactic is defensive performance afterall In March we remain best team in terms of goals conceded (24 for whole season). As you can see from image above there is quite a divide between Real Sociedad and the rest of the league in that respect. La Real is also tied with Athletic Bilbao (Yay!!) and Barcelona for the number of clean sheets (12) which is a statistic that I am even more proud off. A lot of this probably has to do with the performances of our primary keeper. Remiro is quite good although definitely not a world-class keeper like ones that Barcelona and Real Madrid have. However he is very reliable and rarely gets injured which helps alot. Here are some of our recent performances. Love seeing all those clean sheets An interesting fact is that all of our goals seem to come in the 2nd half. But realizing that our overall tactical intensity is relatively low it's not all that surprising. Keeping my players fresh and performing at the top of their abilities during the match is part of the master plan. So by minute 55 when the AI is tired from running around and pressing everywhere my players are still in the green and ready to pounce on any scoring chances. So that's it for now! In a future mini-update I would love to share some of the nice clinical goals I have been seeing with this system and some of the heat maps of player positioning perhaps. There is definitely a lot that I am loving with this campaign and many more things I am looking forward to sharing, especially our youth intakes which I've always found to be exciting with Real Sociedad in my previous saves. Below is the preview of the 1st intake coming in only a few weeks now. Very excited to see what it brings! 5-star golden generation is good indication of what to expect but I am also thrilled to be getting some excellent midfielders and defensive midfielders it seems. And probably a decent centreback or two. Which is exactly what we need in the future. Agur! And thanks for following along with me on this journey everyone! Happy to see that, at least on paper, I should be on the right track. In fact, my tactics are almost the same as yours, except for some roles and defensively more aggressive TIs such as Counterpress and Get stuck in...For example, in attack I'm trying to give a chance to a combination of TMs + SS positioned asymmetrically, in order to allow me to defend like a 4-4-2 and with the two in front decide whether to press hard on the CBs or whether to make them stay in position and cover the passing lines towards the midfielders based on the opponent. On the left I reversed the duties of IW and FB compared to yours to look for a more incisive overlap in the counterattack. First SPL match at home against Rangers, I managed to get a 1-1 draw by taking the lead from a corner and holding them to an xG value on par with mine at around 0.7, only to then concede a penalty for their equalizer in the final minutes. I will have to take this into account throughout the season given the low values in Decisions and Composure. Satisfied with the result and the defensive performance, I will have to evaluate the effectiveness of my attacking phase against opponents closer to my level, at the moment Rangers and Celtic are on another planet to be able to make a sensible evaluation Edited November 21, 2023 by Fox-7- 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 23, 2023 Share Posted November 23, 2023 @crusadertsar when's the next part coming 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 23, 2023 Share Posted November 23, 2023 32 minutes ago, crusadertsar said: Tonight (Canadian time) hopefully Looking forward to it!!! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lemon_Head Posted November 23, 2023 Share Posted November 23, 2023 On 21/11/2023 at 04:30, Fox-7- said: Happy to see that, at least on paper, I should be on the right track. In fact, my tactics are almost the same as yours, except for some roles and defensively more aggressive TIs such as Counterpress and Get stuck in...For example, in attack I'm trying to give a chance to a combination of TMs + SS positioned asymmetrically, in order to allow me to defend like a 4-4-2 and with the two in front decide whether to press hard on the CBs or whether to make them stay in position and cover the passing lines towards the midfielders based on the opponent. On the left I reversed the duties of IW and FB compared to yours to look for a more incisive overlap in the counterattack. First SPL match at home against Rangers, I managed to get a 1-1 draw by taking the lead from a corner and holding them to an xG value on par with mine at around 0.7, only to then concede a penalty for their equalizer in the final minutes. I will have to take this into account throughout the season given the low values in Decisions and Composure. Satisfied with the result and the defensive performance, I will have to evaluate the effectiveness of my attacking phase against opponents closer to my level, at the moment Rangers and Celtic are on another planet to be able to make a sensible evaluation Do you mind posting a picture of your tactic? It sounds a lot like your tactic is similar to Dyche Everton right now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post crusadertsar Posted November 24, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 24, 2023 (edited) Tactical Intermission: Le Verrou While trying to bring more defensive structure to my tactics, I realized that my best option was to look to football’s past and not its present. Unfortunately, in modern football there is too much emphasis on attacking and possession. It’s partially a strategy to increase the game’s spectacle factor and to cater to fans’ desires. Naturally, this fosters some trends in popular formations and styles. Which elite club these days has not tried 4-3-3 or mimicked the concepts of Positional Play, popularized by Pep Guardiola? To be frank, I have my own fascination with Total Football and its many derivatives but after a while it kind of became boring to play the same way. Or use the same old team instructions in all tactics. There are only so many variations of high pressing, high defensive line attacking system that one can do. Eventually the shape becomes irrelevant as you acquire world-class players and just force your way to victory. It gives you wins and trophies of course. But the bigger question is, is it a “nice”, satisfying way of winning? Do you want more strategy and tactical intricacy from your tactics? Or maybe just want the satisfaction of punching way over your weight as an underdog? All those plug-and-play gegenpress tactics work well with the top teams filled with top players in the league, allowing you to zoom through seasons and win trophies while holidaying. Winning anything substantial with a mid-level club (much less bottom feeder underdog) requires much more investment in the tactical side of FM. And, as I tried to show in my last blog, a well-developed plan. History Lesson This brings me to my trip into football’s past, to look for some much-needed inspiration. Specifically to Switzerland, circa 1930s. My plan was not to completely change the basic tactical system which I introduced in the 1st blog but rather to integrate a few refinements inspired by one of football’s most historically successful tactic – Le Verrou ("The Doorbolt" in French). Le Verrou tactic had famously led to the development of Catenaccio tactic in Italy. It was another defensively-focused tactical system which became so successful in its time (largely thanks to Italian giant Inter Milan) that it eventually overshadowed the original Verrou tactic in the annals of football history. Some even call Verrou, the Swiss Catenaccio, which is disgustingly anachronistic. The original importance of Le Verrou system must not be forgotten. And it shouldn’t be, specifically because it can still be very relevant and effective in modern football. Le Verrou, Swizterland’s biggest claim to fame in football, was actually masterminded by an Austrian by the name of Karl Rappan. A native of Vienna who fell in love with the mountainous country and spend almost all of his managerial career in Switzerland. It was at his 1st manager job, in Geneve, one of the cities on Lac Leman where he first came up with the concept of the Doorbolt. The city’s football club was Servette FC. Rappan spent the rest of his career – which extended from 1932 to 1963 – coaching Swiss teams and the Switzerland national team. After his role as player-coach at Servette, Rappan became a full-time coach and joined Grasshopper Club Zürich, managing the Zürich club from 1935 to 1948, and winning five domestic league titles and seven cups. In 1948, he returned to Servette for a second period at the club, now as coach only. He remained there until 1957, adding one more league title and one cup to his palmares. After Servette, Rappan had a one-season spell at FC Zürich. From 1960 to 1963, he coached the Switzerland national team, and after this last period in charge of the national squad, he joined Lausanne-Sport, being their coach from 1964 to 1968, and winning one league title in 1965. Then, after almost four decades of service in Swiss football, he returned to Austria to be the technical director of Rapid Wien – his former club as a player – for the 1969–70 season. Karl Rappan’s great service to Swiss football cannot be denied. His creative tactics have essentially put Switzerland (a minor player prior to 1930s) on the world map of the sport. With Rappan at its help, the Swiss National Team had its first period of recognized success. In 1938 the Swiss were able to eliminate Germany in the 1st round of World Cup (much to the ruling Nazi party’s great exasperation). The first match ended in 1-1 draw and had to be replayed (before penalty shoot-outs came into effect in 1970!). So then the 2nd match resulted in the resounding 4-2 defeat of Nazi Germany by the Swiss heroes. Two weeks prior to the World Cup, Switzerland played powerhouse England in a friendly and defeated them. Rappan was the coach of Swiss team on four occasions: 1937 to 1938, 1942 to 1949, 1953 to 1954, and 1960 to 1963. Altogether, he managed Switzerland in 77 international matches, the most ever by any Swiss team coach. He won 29 matches, also a record. And I strongly suspect that if the penalty shoot-outs were a thing by then he would have had a lot more victories. Oh well. With Rappan at its helm, Switzerland qualified to the World Cups in 1938, 1954 (where they even beat Italy! but lost 7–5 to Austria in quarterfinals), and in 1962. In total, he recorded three wins, one draw, and six losses as a national team coach in all World Cup finals tournaments. Karl Rappan’s last match as Switzerland's coach was on 11 November 1963. It was against France, observed by its home ground crowd in Paris. It was a 2–2 draw of course. Closer Look at Rappan’s Tactic Rappan developed his pragmatic tactical style largely out of necessity. In 1932 when he took over Servette FC in Geneve, the club was still semi-professional and thus often struggled against other professional sides who were able to field fitter pro players. Most sides in Central Europe at the time used some kind of variant of the popular 2-3-5 formation (although two inside forwards in the front 5 would be slightly withdrawn). Rappan’s big innovation was to pull back the two winghalves (the old right and left wide halfback position) to flank the two fullbacks. This essentially created the first real back four in football history. Then the centrehalf (central halfback in the picture above) grouped with the two inside forwards (who withdrew even further back) to form a real midfield three. With the remaining three forwards (one central striker and two wingers) you had what essentially resembled a modern 4-3-3 or perhaps slightly asymmetric 4-4-2. As previously-mentioned Rappan’s system was innovative in having implemented four dedicated defenders. Three of which were fielded in a fixed man-to-man marking role, plus an attacking centre-half. This was the verrouiller after whom the system got its name. A proto-libero (a libero before that role became known as such) was the “free” (from man-marking duties that is) player would also act as the formation’s sole playmaker, in the middle of the field. He would make late runs up from defence (while team was in possession) and would exchange passes with two central midfielders (old withdrawn inside forward role in the diagram above). Essentially, the system was a 1–3–3–3 formation, with the verouiller as the last player in front of the goalkeeper, and with the two outside forwards or wingers acting as forwards high up the pitch. These two players (one usually more withdrawn than the other) were told to keep possession of the ball and always look to cross to the central striker. While the central striker, usually a physical Targetman type, was supposed to make runs into the box or look to make backpasses to the most forward central midfielder. This most attacking central midfielder was to run in behind the opposing defence from the midfield as a sort shadow striker. The right winger usually sat slightly further back and would often drop off into deeper midfield roles when possession was lost, almost like a wingback. This was one of the roles that was later copied by the Italian catenaccio. ftyg To further clarify things, in his book “Inverting The Pyramid”, Jonathan Wilson wrote of Le Verrou tactic: "verrou [...] is best understood as a development from the old 2–3–5 [...]. Rather than the centre-half dropping in between the two full-backs, as in the W-M, the two wing-halves fell back to flank them. They retained an attacking role, but their primary function was to combat the opposition wingers. The two full-backs then became in effect central defenders, playing initially almost alongside each other, although in practice, if the opposition attacked down their right, the left of the two would move towards the ball, with the right covering just behind, and vice versa. In theory, that always left them with a spare man–the verouller as the Swiss press of the time called him or the libro as he would become–at the back." Wilson notes that a weakness of the verrou system was that it placed excessive demands on this creative centre-half, as the player deployed in this “libro” role was required to attack and act as a playmaker when on the ball, while instead dropping back into the defence, acting almost as a centre-back, off the ball. The success of the tactic relied a lot of the quality of this individual. A bit ironic, because initially Rappan developed Le Verrou to help him get better results from less capable semi-pro players. That is to have the collective team effort and superior tactics overshadow individual skill. Rappan looked for a system that was less rigid and less dependent on individual talent than the WM. It relied on collective work, and gave the amateurs of the time a chance to compensate to some extent for their lack of skill.However, for Le Verrou to work well at least one star player is probably needed, specifically the creative centreback “free” role. So to summarize, Karl Rappan’s “Doorbolt” tactic was a primarily defensive strategy which relied on a mixture of zonal and man-marking. It was the first system to play four players in defense, using one of them as a "security bolt" playmaking role. This early libero was primarily tasked with supporting the three central midfielders (the two inside forwards and centrehalf). It was an early version of the now-popular 433 formation. So with all that background, I am going to see whether I can create something similar within FM24. When I recently read about Le Verrou system I was thrilled to find out how close it sounded to what I have been trying to achieve with my tactic at Real Sociedad. I pretty confident that with only a few tweaks I could make my original formation resemble more the asymmetric 433 used by Rappan. Since Real Sociedad’s season is almost over this is still in purely theoretical phase. Just some food for thought during the long break between seasons. Some of the roles make sense to me on paper but might not work as well within the constraints of FM24 match engine. I am open to any suggestions or constructive criticism as I fine-tune the tactic for prime-time in season #2. TO BE CONTINUED (expect a mini-update about my very first youth intake, and a golden generation one at that, at La Real) … Agur! Edited November 24, 2023 by crusadertsar 14 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
w_x Posted November 24, 2023 Share Posted November 24, 2023 4 hours ago, crusadertsar said: Tactical Intermission: Le Verrou While trying to bring more defensive structure to my tactics, I realized that my best option was to look to football’s past and not its present. Unfortunately, in modern football there is too much emphasis on attacking and possession. It’s partially a strategy to increase the game’s spectacle factor and to cater to fans’ desires. Naturally, this fosters some trends in popular formations and styles. Which elite club these days has not tried 4-3-3 or mimicked the concepts of Positional Play, popularized by Pep Guardiola? To be frank, I have my own fascination with Total Football and its many derivatives but after a while it kind of became boring to play the same way. Or use the same old team instructions in all tactics. There are only so many variations of high pressing, high defensive line attacking system that one can do. Eventually the shape becomes irrelevant as you acquire world-class players and just force your way to victory. It gives you wins and trophies of course. But the bigger question is, is it a “nice”, satisfying way of winning? Do you want more strategy and tactical intricacy from your tactics? Or maybe just want the satisfaction of punching way over your weight as an underdog? All those plug-and-play gegenpress tactics work well with the top teams filled with top players in the league, allowing you to zoom through seasons and win trophies while holidaying. Winning anything substantial with a mid-level club (much less bottom feeder underdog) requires much more investment in the tactical side of FM. And, as I tried to show in my last blog, a well-developed plan. History Lesson This brings me to my trip into football’s past, to look for some much-needed inspiration. Specifically to Switzerland, circa 1930s. My plan was not to completely change the basic tactical system which I introduced in the 1st blog but rather to integrate a few refinements inspired by one of football’s most historically successful tactic – Le Verrou ("The Doorbolt" in French). Le Verrou tactic had famously led to the development of Catenaccio tactic in Italy. It was another defensively-focused tactical system which became so successful in its time (largely thanks to Italian giant Inter Milan) that it eventually overshadowed the original Verrou tactic in the annals of football history. Some even call Verrou, the Swiss Catenaccio, which is disgustingly anachronistic. The original importance of Le Verrou system must not be forgotten. And it shouldn’t be, specifically because it can still be very relevant and effective in modern football. Le Verrou, Swizterland’s biggest claim to fame in football, was actually masterminded by an Austrian by the name of Karl Rappan. A native of Vienna who fell in love with the mountainous country and spend almost all of his managerial career in Switzerland. It was at his 1st manager job, in Geneve, one of the cities on Lac Leman where he first came up with the concept of the Doorbolt. The city’s football club was Servette FC. Rappan spent the rest of his career – which extended from 1932 to 1963 – coaching Swiss teams and the Switzerland national team. After his role as player-coach at Servette, Rappan became a full-time coach and joined Grasshopper Club Zürich, managing the Zürich club from 1935 to 1948, and winning five domestic league titles and seven cups. In 1948, he returned to Servette for a second period at the club, now as coach only. He remained there until 1957, adding one more league title and one cup to his palmares. After Servette, Rappan had a one-season spell at FC Zürich. From 1960 to 1963, he coached the Switzerland national team, and after this last period in charge of the national squad, he joined Lausanne-Sport, being their coach from 1964 to 1968, and winning one league title in 1965. Then, after almost four decades of service in Swiss football, he returned to Austria to be the technical director of Rapid Wien – his former club as a player – for the 1969–70 season. Karl Rappan’s great service to Swiss football cannot be denied. His creative tactics have essentially put Switzerland (a minor player prior to 1930s) on the world map of the sport. With Rappan at its help, the Swiss National Team had its first period of recognized success. In 1938 the Swiss were able to eliminate Germany in the 1st round of World Cup (much to the ruling Nazi party’s great exasperation). The first match ended in 1-1 draw and had to be replayed (before penalty shoot-outs came into effect in 1970!). So then the 2nd match resulted in the resounding 4-2 defeat of Nazi Germany by the Swiss heroes. Two weeks prior to the World Cup, Switzerland played powerhouse England in a friendly and defeated them. Rappan was the coach of Swiss team on four occasions: 1937 to 1938, 1942 to 1949, 1953 to 1954, and 1960 to 1963. Altogether, he managed Switzerland in 77 international matches, the most ever by any Swiss team coach. He won 29 matches, also a record. And I strongly suspect that if the penalty shoot-outs were a thing by then he would have had a lot more victories. Oh well. With Rappan at its helm, Switzerland qualified to the World Cups in 1938, 1954 (where they even beat Italy! but lost 7–5 to Austria in quarterfinals), and in 1962. In total, he recorded three wins, one draw, and six losses as a national team coach in all World Cup finals tournaments. Karl Rappan’s last match as Switzerland's coach was on 11 November 1963. It was against France, observed by its home ground crowd in Paris. It was a 2–2 draw of course. Closer Look at Rappan’s Tactic Rappan developed his pragmatic tactical style largely out of necessity. In 1932 when he took over Servette FC in Geneve, the club was still semi-professional and thus often struggled against other professional sides who were able to field fitter pro players. Most sides in Central Europe at the time used some kind of variant of the popular 2-3-5 formation (although two inside forwards in the front 5 would be slightly withdrawn). Rappan’s big innovation was to pull back the two winghalves (the old right and left wide halfback position) to flank the two fullbacks. This essentially created the first real back four in football history. Then the centrehalf (central halfback in the picture above) grouped with the two inside forwards (who withdrew even further back) to form a real midfield three. With the remaining three forwards (one central striker and two wingers) you had what essentially resembled a modern 4-3-3 or perhaps slightly asymmetric 4-4-2. As previously-mentioned Rappan’s system was innovative in having implemented four dedicated defenders. Three of which were fielded in a fixed man-to-man marking role, plus an attacking centre-half. This was the verrouiller after whom the system got its name. A proto-libero (a libero before that role became known as such) was the “free” (from man-marking duties that is) player would also act as the formation’s sole playmaker, in the middle of the field. He would make late runs up from defence (while team was in possession) and would exchange passes with two central midfielders (old withdrawn inside forward role in the diagram above). Essentially, the system was a 1–3–3–3 formation, with the verouiller as the last player in front of the goalkeeper, and with the two outside forwards or wingers acting as forwards high up the pitch. These two players (one usually more withdrawn than the other) were told to keep possession of the ball and always look to cross to the central striker. While the central striker, usually a physical Targetman type, was supposed to make runs into the box or look to make backpasses to the most forward central midfielder. This most attacking central midfielder was to run in behind the opposing defence from the midfield as a sort shadow striker. The right winger usually sat slightly further back and would often drop off into deeper midfield roles when possession was lost, almost like a wingback. This was one of the roles that was later copied by the Italian catenaccio. ftyg To further clarify things, in his book “Inverting The Pyramid”, Jonathan Wilson wrote of Le Verrou tactic: "verrou [...] is best understood as a development from the old 2–3–5 [...]. Rather than the centre-half dropping in between the two full-backs, as in the W-M, the two wing-halves fell back to flank them. They retained an attacking role, but their primary function was to combat the opposition wingers. The two full-backs then became in effect central defenders, playing initially almost alongside each other, although in practice, if the opposition attacked down their right, the left of the two would move towards the ball, with the right covering just behind, and vice versa. In theory, that always left them with a spare man–the verouller as the Swiss press of the time called him or the libro as he would become–at the back." Wilson notes that a weakness of the verrou system was that it placed excessive demands on this creative centre-half, as the player deployed in this “libro” role was required to attack and act as a playmaker when on the ball, while instead dropping back into the defence, acting almost as a centre-back, off the ball. The success of the tactic relied a lot of the quality of this individual. A bit ironic, because initially Rappan developed Le Verrou to help him get better results from less capable semi-pro players. That is to have the collective team effort and superior tactics overshadow individual skill. Rappan looked for a system that was less rigid and less dependent on individual talent than the WM. It relied on collective work, and gave the amateurs of the time a chance to compensate to some extent for their lack of skill.However, for Le Verrou to work well at least one star player is probably needed, specifically the creative centreback “free” role. So to summarize, Karl Rappan’s “Doorbolt” tactic was a primarily defensive strategy which relied on a mixture of zonal and man-marking. It was the first system to play four players in defense, using one of them as a "security bolt" playmaking role. This early libero was primarily tasked with supporting the three central midfielders (the two inside forwards and centrehalf). It was an early version of the now-popular 433 formation. So with all that background, I am going to see whether I can create something similar within FM24. When I recently read about Le Verrou system I was thrilled to find out how close it sounded to what I have been trying to achieve with my tactic at Real Sociedad. I pretty confident that with only a few tweaks I could make my original formation resemble more the asymmetric 433 used by Rappan. Since Real Sociedad’s season is almost over this is still in purely theoretical phase. Just some food for thought during the long break between seasons. Some of the roles make sense to me on paper but might not work as well within the constraints of FM24 match engine. I am open to any suggestions or constructive criticism as I fine-tune the tactic for prime-time in season #2. TO BE CONTINUED (expect a mini-update about my very first youth intake, and a golden generation one at that, at La Real) … Agur! Good stuff as always. Surprised to not see Andre Silva amongst the goals for you Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 24, 2023 Author Share Posted November 24, 2023 (edited) 4 hours ago, w_x said: Good stuff as always. Surprised to not see Andre Silva amongst the goals for you Thanks! About Silva - mix of factors. A few injuries this season that kept him out of the team. But also I believe that having a relatively quick striker in a fluid counter-attacking system (which mine sort of is) pays off dividends. My first choice, Sadiq with acceleration of 16 and pace of 16 has been absolutely lethal with 18 league goals so far. He also has a jumping reach of 16 so I'm really curious how he will do in the Verrou tactic next season. Edited November 24, 2023 by crusadertsar 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 24, 2023 Share Posted November 24, 2023 (edited) On 18/11/2023 at 16:26, crusadertsar said: First Touch, Passing and Technique are not important to defensive football Any other technical attributes important for defense first? Edited November 24, 2023 by ta11zx Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 24, 2023 Author Share Posted November 24, 2023 24 minutes ago, ta11zx said: Any other technical attributes important for defense first? Tackling and Marking of course. But I guess I didn't mention them because they are kind of self-explanatory. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HowzatFM Posted November 24, 2023 Share Posted November 24, 2023 What key attributes do you look for in your attackers for a more pragmatic style of play? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 24, 2023 Author Share Posted November 24, 2023 3 hours ago, HowzatFM said: What key attributes do you look for in your attackers for a more pragmatic style of play? They should be as clinical as possible. So best values in Finishing, First Touch, Heading, Long Shots, Anticipation and Composure. To make sure that they can convert from less chances. Good physical attributes help a lot too. So Acceleration, Pace and Strength. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilljons Posted November 26, 2023 Share Posted November 26, 2023 I love your threads about defence first(and all the other things youve done). I've played this game since forever. And the last couple of years with trends more on the front foot, have made me more dead set on "countering the meta". I also like high engine football (spurs fan IRL and loving ange - to dare is to do) but am at the same time immensely impressed with the likes of simeone who goes against the grain. I haven't been able to recreate this in FM, understandably, because it takes a well oiled team and skills to do what they've done. Personally I'm playing with Aik Solna in Sweden. They have good experienced centerbacks. Decent/good fullbacks and good engine guys in midfield. Wonderchild Jonah kusi-asare at striker position. I set up a 433 in the mourinho mould. Mid to low block, standard to less press but get stuck in. I used attacking mentality because when we got the ball we should attack with intent. But tried to tone it down with be more disciplined and lower tempo. All the statistics said I overachieved and i started listening to the in-game advice. And played with balanced or cautious mentality and my goals per game dropped. Now I'm about to start my 2nd season and I'm a bit confused to how I should play. My mindset is defence first but the lower mentalities seems to hinder my goal production. I am one of those who have played for a long time, read what is to be read and still can't explain the ME to other people. 😆 I understand this may have come out more philosophical than concrete. Ps. This is why I don't post much. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikcheck Posted November 26, 2023 Share Posted November 26, 2023 (edited) Em 24/11/2023 em 11:30, crusadertsar disse: Thanks! About Silva - mix of factors. A few injuries this season that kept him out of the team. But also I believe that having a relatively quick striker in a fluid counter-attacking system (which mine sort of is) pays off dividends. My first choice, Sadiq with acceleration of 16 and pace of 16 has been absolutely lethal with 18 league goals so far. He also has a jumping reach of 16 so I'm really curious how he will do in the Verrou tactic next season. While Silva is technically better, I think Sadiq fit so much better in this style of play. He is faster and can jump higher, and that is essential, in my opinion. Can't have someone slow there. I wonder how that much higher defensive line coupled with a mid block is working? Defensively you're really compact with that choice, but are you finding balls behind the defence a problem? And about the TF role, how is it working? I'd though that a PF would be a better choice, just because playing a TF as a lone striker, there's situations when the ball is played direct to him, in times where he can be too isolated for that. But of course, that's just theory Edited November 26, 2023 by mikcheck 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tropicsafc Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 What a great thread. Thank you! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 27, 2023 Author Share Posted November 27, 2023 (edited) End of Season Mini-Update 1st season at San Sebastien's Anoeta stadium is over, and La Real did not do too shabby if I might say so. Generally, things went better than expected (judging from our form early in season and a slight dip in form in May). The objective of achieving Champions League football for another year was met with one place to spare, as we achieved 3rd place finish rather then 4th lowest needed (like Real Sociedad's finish in real life for 2022/23 season in LaLiga). This is the first indication that my defensive football system was successful. It allowed us to really compete with the best teams in the league and while we did not come up on top, we were at least able to maintain a decent goalscoring record (5th in the the league) to achieve the required results. The football may not have been very pretty but clinical and effective. Some of that has to do with the quality of the team since other that our main striker Sadiq we are rather lacking in that department (especially fast wide forward players). So improving our attack while maintaining the same level of defensive quality is among the main objectives next season. Nevertheless, there are a few interesting conclusions to be drawn from our attacking and goalscoring stats. Unlike the top two teams (Real Madrid and Barcelona) most of our goals came from open play (and from close up in penalty area). While Barca and Real Madrid both had double more corner goals than any other team in the league. I believe that working on our set piece routines (or getting much better set piece coach) is another way to improve our chances of finishing higher on table next season. On a positive note, one steam achievement I got this season was having least set piece goals conceded in a season. I also got "parked the tank" steam achievement (getting 20 clean sheets in a season). Overall our defensive system proved very solid as expected, with 20 clean sheets and least goals conceded in a season - 26. Part of that we had our keeper Alex Remiro to thank for. He actually almost beat his own record for most clean sheets in all competitions when he finished with 22 clean sheets (amazingly he had 23 in all competitive games last season in real life). Getting clean sheets is nice and all but when you are simply not scoring goals then you cannot really win any trophies. We had a major dip in goalscoring towards the end of the season, I know that's where I need to improve my tactics next season Between mid-April and end of May we had way too many 0-0 draws for my liking, especially against teams we should have been beating more comfortably. For some of those "easier" late game I did try making some adjustments to the tactic. These changes included playing Targetman upfront and moving AMC into CM strata (but putting him on attack duty) like in the Le Verrou tactic I discussed above. But not sure if those changes were more detrimental than helpful. It might have been too little time for team to integrate the changed tactical approach. So I would need to test more extensively next season. I would really like to give my Karl Rappan recreation tactic another chance next season but I think I will try to integrate the changes more gradually into the original 4-4-1-1 DM tactic that worked for us for most of the season. Maybe some kind of 433/4231 hybrid would work better. And I think that keeping Sadiq in his preferred Pressing Forward (A) role is probably more beneficial to his performance as that really dropped off once he was in Target Forward role. Even though he would make for a hell of a Target Forward, I believe that I need a striker role that drops deeper and works harder in the build-up like Pressing Forward. A fast and tall Pressing Forward is probably one of the best roles to have in a fluid counter-attacking system. So in that respect I very much agree with @mikcheck in his comment above. As a little side-note, my expected golden generation turned out to be a bit of a dud. In the end it was more of a one-man golden generation as the only player of note with significant potential (or with attributes needed for my system) turned out to be Basque youngster Oscar Sanz. I do like Sanz and I think that he is just the player we need to eventually fill that right flank, defensive winger role. At 15 y.o he already looks like a handy little winger and has loads of potential to develop. I just wish that some of his classmates were more that 3 star potential graduates. I will nevertheless keep my eye on a few other class of Y2024 graduates because star ratings for youth academy graduates have been known to be deceiving in the past. PS: To those curious about my nicknaming convention (Y24 after player's name). Developing youth through La Cantera (academy) is probably my favourite activity in the game so tend to be a little bit OCD about it. I actually like to monitor which year's youth intake my graduates came through. So Y24 means Spring 2024 intake (in 2023/24 season) and so on. In the end of the day when we do finally win the Champion's League with all Basque 1st XI I would like to see how many graduates on that team will be from same class (a bit like Man United's famous golden generation class 92 in 1990s). So that's it for now! Hope you guys enjoyed this mini-update More to come in 2024/25 season ... Edited November 27, 2023 by crusadertsar 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 What's your teams in defensive stats compared to rest of the league? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 27, 2023 Author Share Posted November 27, 2023 46 minutes ago, ta11zx said: What's your teams in defensive stats compared to rest of the league? As you can see our big outlier is the tackle attempts per game. A big difference from league average. But then I am telling my team to "stay on their feet". I prefer to play highly disciplined brand of football and keep number of yellow and red cards to a minimum. At the same time our tackles won ratio is greater than league average (by almost 5%). Some interesting facts - all Real Sociedad players only got 23 yellow cards in total this season. And not a single red card! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 27, 2023 Share Posted November 27, 2023 1 hour ago, crusadertsar said: As you can see our big outlier is the tackle attempts per game. A big difference from league average. But then I am telling my team to "stay on their feet". I prefer to play highly disciplined brand of football and keep number of yellow and red cards to a minimum. At the same time our tackles won ratio is greater than league average (by almost 5%). Some interesting facts - all Real Sociedad players only got 23 yellow cards in total this season. And not a single red card! I meant attributes wide in squad comparison screen Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 28, 2023 Author Share Posted November 28, 2023 2 hours ago, ta11zx said: I meant attributes wide in squad comparison screen Here you go mate! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 16 minutes ago, crusadertsar said: Here you go mate! The mental defensive attributes Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 28, 2023 Author Share Posted November 28, 2023 6 minutes ago, ta11zx said: The mental defensive attributes 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikcheck Posted November 28, 2023 Share Posted November 28, 2023 @crusadertsar thanks for the update. Any transfer targets? So will you return to the original 4411 with a PF? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted November 28, 2023 Author Share Posted November 28, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, mikcheck said: @crusadertsar thanks for the update. Any transfer targets? So will you return to the original 4411 with a PF? Yeah I am planning to use similar 4411 DM for 2nd season (with Sadiq back in PF role). There have been a few personnel changes over the summer. Martin Merquelanz has forced his way out but honestly I was kind of relieved. He is only 2 star ability and very injury prone. So I am planning to replace him with Ivan Martin from Girona. He is a quality wide midfielder who I am planning to slot into my right DW position. Girona actually got relegated in my save so he has been transfer listed. Both Tierney (loan finished) and Traore (going back to France) are leaving so I will need to get some cover in inverted fullback roles on both sides. Luckily both Pacheco and Elusandro (my current CB) are already natural in that role. With Elusandro going wide I will need another 1st choice CB (and possibly one suited for libero role). And also will need to find a better backup for keeper than my current option of Gaizka Ayesa. So here comes my biggest transfer business so far. And one I'm most proud of. Hugo Guillaume from Valencia. A 24 y.o Basque native of San Sebastian who is still young and at his prime. Can play both in CB and DM role and is technically capable of good ball control needed for libero role. And I got him for under 20 million. Edited November 28, 2023 by crusadertsar 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshr977 Posted December 1, 2023 Share Posted December 1, 2023 Just wanted to say a big thank you, I typically don’t like using attacking tactics because it’s just the go to and much easier to win. Had good success last year and built a really strong defensively solid ac Milan team, but this year it seems really difficult to replicate, however your tips have definitely helped me see that it is still possible and I’ve had some more success so far, thanks! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshr977 Posted December 5, 2023 Share Posted December 5, 2023 When is the next installment? ☺️ Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post crusadertsar Posted December 8, 2023 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 8, 2023 (edited) Season 2, Defence-First Tactic, Version 2 I decided to do a little tactical restructuring during the Summer 2024 off-season with Real Sociedad. This is in response to tactical findings from previous season. Namely, the defensive side of my tactic was great. I am not going to bore you by going over the statistical details again. You can find those in my previous posts. In summary our defence was solid enough to help us attain 3rd place finish in the league (an improvement over last year's 4th). But unfortunately Real Sociedad lacked some punch in attack to truly challenge for the title. Despite finishing 6th in the league in terms of goals scored, Real Sociedad had way too many 0-0 draws for my liking, or too many draws period. And on many occasions we failed to score the important goal to break a draw. So for the 2024-25 season to make a few important changes while hopefully maintaining the same solid defensive structure from last season. We also had a few player departures (mainly Tierney and Silva leaving after their loans ended) and thus some tactical modifications were warranted. As I wrote in my very first post, it is key to begin with a Plan. How exactly do I want my team to attack? Who should be our primary goals-scorers? I stressed in the past that variety is essential when it comes to crafting effective FM tactics. This is no different in relation to goal-scoring. We will need variety (both through roles and spatial positioning) in attack to improve our team’s attacking potential. One must not forget that you still need potent attack to have a good defence. If you attack is not enough to keep opposition occupied then your defence will probably work very intensely throughout the match. One aspect of tactic should not be overlooked in favour of the other. It is a balance in both attack and defence that creates successful FM tactics. Firstly, I foresee that Real Sociedad will need at least 3 routes to goals. Last season, I became so focused on defence that I ignored this aspect and only ended up two realistic ways to score goals – from our central striker and left flank attacker (inverted winger role for most of the season). The balance was off and that was the main reason why we could not really challenge for a title. Of course, part of that has to do with the player quality probably lacking when compared to our two main competitors Real Madrid and Barcelona. But tactics still play an important role. Winning as an underdog is very possible in FM24, it just takes more effort in devising the tactics and care in game-to-game monitoring. Last season, aside from Segundo Volante (S) we did not have much in terms of central late-arriving goal threat to back up our striker. So with the new, modified tactic I plan to address this. In the above tactic, there are three clear routes to goals. The central striker remains our most potent threat. I decided to modify this role a little. I believe that I would need more of a strong presence here since we are playing with only one striker and there a few players attacking from deep or from flank. A striker role that can hold up the ball, among other things, is thus preferable. I decided to go with Complete Forward (A) just because my current best player Umar Sadiq seems to be best suited to this role. He is strong, tall, can dribble and can finish. So a pretty decent Complete Forward in my opinion. Sadiq’s current backup is the promising youngster Mohamed-Ali Cho. A decent enough young player and also with enough potential to grow into CF role, although I will try him on Support duty because his Finishing is not so good. Sadly he is not Basque, so I will only be keeping him until his contract expires in 2027. On the right I opted for a hard-working IW, simply because I see it as good middle-ground role between an attack-focused IF and more supporting winger or wide playmaker. I believe that Inverted Winger role marries all of these separate roles rather nicely. With the right player you can have a versatile role that can dribble, pass, cross and chip in with goals aplenty. A great compliment to the more reserved AP on the left. Finally, our third goal-scorer will hopefully come from deeper position via CM(A). With my playmaker sitting on the wing, I had to changed up the midfield a little from my usual Mourinho’s Chelsea-inspired trio of creator, water-carrier and destroyer. It allowed to free one player from traditional playmaking duties and let him concentrate on purely pushing forward with aggressive runs on goal. Hence CM(A) role. And given the Positional Play changes in FM24, there is also the added benefit of this player moving more consistently into AMC strata. Add to this a more aggressive wingback and you have yourself a recipe for 3-2-4-1 shape in attack. A balance attacking formation that I am looking for. While we can hopefully defend in a 4-1-4-1. I also like the fact that our attack is coming from different vertical tactical strata: top central (via striker), attacking midfield strata (via IW) and deeper midfield (CM). Laterally, there is also quite a bit of tactical variety as our attackers are spread out and moving into wide areas, occupying central spaces as well as roaming into half-spaces between flank and centre. In the spirit of Total Football, we are trying to use the total expanse of the field to our advantage. It is also the concept behind the modern version of Total Football - Positional Play. The rest of the tactic is pretty self-explanatory. The main thing I tried to recreate is having 2-3 supporting players to each attacker. Likewise I wanted each attacking player to have at least 2 players supporting them directly. For example, Oyarzabal, our Advance Playmaker is in prime position to support both the CM(A) and the Striker. The central Striker is fed by both AP and BBM directly and Wingback more indirectly via crosses. CM(A) in turn gets most of his support from aforementioned AP but also from the nearby BBM and less directly from both Libero and Wingback (via crosses again). Right-flank IW gets most of his support from wingback (moving behind and overlapping beyond him) and the dynamic BBM who takes more risks and roams forward more than your usual CM. With the right player you could have a similar effect to playing RPM there except without the undesirable (for my tactic at least) ball-magnet effect in the midfield. I do not want a central playmaker to take away from my libero’s limelight. While a playmaker on the wing should be fine, and if anything can become a focus-point for an occasional pass from the libero. Speaking of the Libero. While it is a role that is sometimes hard to fill, given its demanding technical and mental requirements, it is invaluable in tactics where you want to start by building up from the back rather than having your players boot the ball long and risk losing it to the opposition tall jumpers. Also, hiding one of your primary playmakers deeper is a good away of giving them more influence over dictating the game rather than constantly being marked out by opponents. In fact, our Libero directly supports almost all the players in front of him, especially the runners like Wingback, CM(A) and BBM. The defensive side of the tactic is also rather simple. I tried to make least changes possible to it, given how solid it was last season. Our new acquisition Guillamon (16.75 million transfer from Valencia) is a rather competent libero with all the right traits to make him excel in the role even if his attributes may not be world-class. In possession he is happy moving forward to position himself next to our DM(S) Zubimendi (the only role with individual instructions to "dribble less", "shoot less often" and "hold position"). Due to FM24's positional play under-the-hood programming, Zubimendi will move slightly to the left. This essentially creates a sort of DM double pivot with our libero acting as a deep-lying playmaker. At the same time Le Normand (DCL) will move to the right to fill in the space liberated by our libero (thank God for FM24's Juego De Posicion!). The left fullback (IFB Defend) will then move centrally to become another CB in Le Normand's DCL position. All rather simple and elegant. And just like that we have defensive 2-2 box in Defence and DM strata. And here are some early signs that the tactic has potential Well I know it is a draw, but I am actually rather proud with that last Ajax result. We played an important Champions League match AWAY from home against a team of high reputation and employing some pretty talented players (especially some pacey, technical attackers). So not too bad at all TO BE CONTINUED ... Edited December 9, 2023 by crusadertsar 10 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexcH Posted December 11, 2023 Share Posted December 11, 2023 (edited) First of all, I want to say that this thread is a huge inspiration! Much of what I write here is heavily inspired by @crusadertsar post! In my save, I have tried to implement the same principles (as Crusadertsar have written about above). I have also looked back at Mourinho's time at Chelsea in 04/05. I have adopted some of the principles from that era and adjusted them to fit my team. The first thing I did in the game was to create a tactic that focuses on a strong attack, but also a stable defense. I don't just sit back and wait for the ball; instead, I prefer to attack. As you can see, I want many players to push forward, but I also need enough players to stay back to "protect". I have allowed my wingers to switch sides whenever they want, as this can confuse the opponent. This is something Mourinho had Robben and Duff do in the 04/05 season. Recruitment a key As you can see, the tactic isn't very defensive, BUT, the recruitment I have done has been key to playing the way I want to: not conceding many goals. I have (borrowed a lot from @crusadertsar) focused on these attributes when buying players - anticipation - concentration - positioning - teamwork - Work rate After four seasons we dominate, scores a lot of goals, and almost dont conceed. Sorry bad english! Edited December 11, 2023 by AlexcH 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMartello Posted December 11, 2023 Share Posted December 11, 2023 50 minutes ago, AlexcH said: First of all I want to say that this thread is a big inspiration! So a lot of the stuff i write here is heavy inspired by @crusadertsar post! I have tried to implement the same principles (which your write about above) in my save. I have also looked back to Mourinho in Chelsea 04/05. I have taken some of the principles from that era + adjustet some of them to my team. The first thing I did in the save was to make a tactic based on good attack, but also stable defence. I may not sit back and wait for the ball, but rather attack. As your see, i want many players going forward, but also have enough players staying back to "protect". I have made my wingers switch sides when they want, as i that can confuse the opponent. This was something Mourinho asked Robben and Duff to do in 04/05. Recruitment a key As you can see the tactic isnt very deffensive, BUT, the recruitment I have done has been key for playing the way i want to: not conceeding many goals. I have (copied a lot from @crusadertsar) focused on theese attributes when buying players: - anticipation - concentration - positioning - teamwork - Work rate After four seasons we dominate, scores a lot of goals, and almost dont conceed. Sorry bad english! Do you use player instructions in your tactic? And what is your best eleven? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ta11zx Posted December 11, 2023 Share Posted December 11, 2023 1 hour ago, AlexcH said: As you can see the tactic isnt very deffensive, BUT, the recruitment I have done has been key for playing the way i want to: not conceeding many goals. I have (copied a lot from @crusadertsar) focused on theese attributes when buying players: - anticipation - concentration - positioning - teamwork - Work rate are these the attributes you look for in your defense and midfield or for all players including wingers and striker? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlexcH Posted December 11, 2023 Share Posted December 11, 2023 @TheMartello I dont use any PI. Only wingers switching sides. As for my best 11, I think this is the best. I have some subs I really love putting on. For example Berg. really good player! @ta11zx Yes, I like to base my purchases on these skills, but I always consider other factors as well. There might be a winger (for example) who is very quick and technically skilled, but may not exactly have the mental attributes I mentioned above. This is something I evaluate as I go along. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted December 11, 2023 Author Share Posted December 11, 2023 (edited) @AlexcH Great implementation of balanced Mourinho inspired 433 and very good results with Roma 👍 Jose Mourinho has been my greatest source of inspiration throughout most of my FM career (going back to FM14). Mourinho's Chelsea 4-3-3 especially. But also his signature narrow 4-3-1-2 was a very defensively-responsible tactic which I always admired and tried to recreate in every version of Football Manager. I prefer say "defensively-responsible" or "Defence-First" and not "defensive" because that's one thing that people tend to misinterpret about Mourinho, especially from those early years. He was never a "defensive" manager. Pragmatic maybe but certainly not "park the bus" kind of defensive. In fact, some of his earlier tactics were quite direct and attacking. But then at the same time he knew when to adapt to opposition or adjust the tactic when in tougher Champions league competition. In his 2nd year at Porto (when they won the treble) Mourinho got Porto playing a more cautious, narrow 4312 that didn’t get opened as easily nor did the team press as high as often (despite keeping an intense middle block press). Many considered their style less entertaining than his previous wide 433. But we have to remember that if this approach had not been adopted, it wouldn’t have been possible to reach the latter stages of the Champions League, let alone win it. In those important European games, more often than not Porto would defend in a 4312, while attacking in a narrow 4132. When defending the two deeper lines of players tended to have a short distance between them, sort of like two banks of 4 and 3. As with every Mourinho side, his Porto frequently adapted to the opposition. It was common to see differences between pressure zones, distances between sectors, even slight differences in player roles and movements from match to match, especially in Europe. Let’s not forget Mou was one of the first to analyse opposition in depth and adapt his findings to his game plan. A true mastermind tactician in a every sense of the word. The Special One. Edited December 11, 2023 by crusadertsar 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahnzo Posted December 11, 2023 Share Posted December 11, 2023 7 hours ago, AlexcH said: I have allowed my wingers to switch sides whenever they want, as this can confuse the opponent. This is something Mourinho had Robben and Duff do in the 04/05 season. How is this done? I can't find anything in the tactic which instructs this. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RozA Posted December 12, 2023 Share Posted December 12, 2023 14 hours ago, crusadertsar said: @AlexcH Great implementation of balanced Mourinho inspired 433 and very good results with Roma 👍 Jose Mourinho has been my greatest source of inspiration throughout most of my FM career (going back to FM14). Mourinho's Chelsea 4-3-3 especially. But also his signature narrow 4-3-1-2 was a very defensively-responsible tactic which I always admired and tried to recreate in every version of Football Manager. I prefer say "defensively-responsible" or "Defence-First" and not "defensive" because that's one thing that people tend to misinterpret about Mourinho, especially from those early years. He was never a "defensive" manager. Pragmatic maybe but certainly not "park the bus" kind of defensive. In fact, some of his earlier tactics were quite direct and attacking. But then at the same time he knew when to adapt to opposition or adjust the tactic when in tougher Champions league competition. In his 2nd year at Porto (when they won the treble) Mourinho got Porto playing a more cautious, narrow 4312 that didn’t get opened as easily nor did the team press as high as often (despite keeping an intense middle block press). Many considered their style less entertaining than his previous wide 433. But we have to remember that if this approach had not been adopted, it wouldn’t have been possible to reach the latter stages of the Champions League, let alone win it. In those important European games, more often than not Porto would defend in a 4312, while attacking in a narrow 4132. When defending the two deeper lines of players tended to have a short distance between them, sort of like two banks of 4 and 3. As with every Mourinho side, his Porto frequently adapted to the opposition. It was common to see differences between pressure zones, distances between sectors, even slight differences in player roles and movements from match to match, especially in Europe. Let’s not forget Mou was one of the first to analyse opposition in depth and adapt his findings to his game plan. A true mastermind tactician in a every sense of the word. The Special One. @crusadertsar I remember you doing the 4-3-1-2 of Porto, I would be interested in how would you go about setting up now we have all the positional play elements in FM24? love all your posts and work mate. Keep it up, always an enjoyable read. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joshr977 Posted December 13, 2023 Share Posted December 13, 2023 On 12/12/2023 at 08:55, RozA said: @crusadertsar I remember you doing the 4-3-1-2 of Porto, I would be interested in how would you go about setting up now we have all the positional play elements in FM24? love all your posts and work mate. Keep it up, always an enjoyable read. I second this it would be great to see, amazing content as usual mate! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted December 13, 2023 Author Share Posted December 13, 2023 5 hours ago, Joshr977 said: I second this it would be great to see, amazing content as usual mate! Thanks mate! I might just do that one of these days 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted December 16, 2023 Author Share Posted December 16, 2023 (edited) Tactical Showcase - Narrow Diamond I really got to stop changing my tactics mid-season. But that's the curse of an incessant tactical tinkerer. Although to spread some blame around, I was partly inspired by the comments from some of the followers in this thread. You know who you are I really like the Narrow Diamond 442 for the two following reasons. It can be an exciting high-scoring tactic so I often switch to it when I just want to have some fun with a save and break some league records. Or just to underachieve as an underdog sometimes. Secondly, and this plays into the fun part again, it gives me less headaches and feeling of uncertainty when it comes to role selection. I find that in wide formations I can never settle on the optimal wide roles selection. Lately FM has given us much to think about when it comes to our winger and fullback/wingback selection. There are just so many roles and combinations that can work together! And it's made even building a simple 433 a potentially daunting task. Especially, If you are a tinkerer who obsesses about every detail in the tactic and want to make it as efficient as possible. If you are like me then with certain formations you will never feel like your tactic is complete. Well, with a Narrow Diamond there are no wingers and it actually brings me some peace of mind. To me Narrow Diamond is a definition of FM-Zen. It is kind of funny how by limiting a tactic you can actually make it easier to set up and understand. I guess I am a minimalist at heart who seeks a break from some of the tactical complexity involved in FM tactical creation. Another reason that Narrow Diamond is so easy to create and work with is because some of the roles that work really well in it just MAKE SENSE in this formation. In some ways, they were designed with a narrow formation in mind. So while there are so many things that you can do wrong in tactical crafting, at least you can feel confident that you cannot really mess up your role selection. But I am getting ahead of myself. Before you decide that you want to give Narrow Diamond a try, you need to see if your current squad is even capable of this formation. Like I mentioned before it is not a very demanding formation as it already cuts down your shopping list in terms of the wide attacker department. Nevertheless there is still a shopping list of requirements for a good balanced Narrow Diamond. A say "Balanced" because my objective in this tread still remains to showcase Defensively-responsible tactics. So naturally my Narrow Diamond will be more like Mourinho's Porto rather than Ancelotti's Real Madrid. My Defence-First Narrow Diamond Requirements: 1) Complementary Wingbacks - One Complete Wingback who is very capable in attack. Another wingback should be more defence-conscious. So while one pushes aggressively forward the other can cover for him (and allow other players in your formation to be more attacking). 2) Hard-Working Specialized Midfielders. The midfield diamond is essential to this formation so naturally we need very good players here. BUT as an underdog you can get away with lesser quality players here IF they are: 1) Hard-Working Teamplayers and 2) Complement each other's strengths. That is having 3 midfielders who individually can fill the 3 roles of Runner/Water Carrier, Destroyer and Creator, without necessarily having players that can fit all three roles themselves. When managing on a budget you want hard-working specialists to fill your diamond, not total footballers. 3) AMC Wildcard Player (Creative and Attacking). This is the role that is missing from the standard flat 4-4-2 and it's arguably what makes Narrow 4-4-2 so special. Because it could be a player that contributes to both attack and creative support. If your team is lucky to have one, then you could stick your playmaking wizard here, the fantasista player, the creative mastermind through whom most the attacks can be channeled. Roberto Baggio, the famous #10 often comes to mind as a perfect example of this role. In fact, Italian soil has been quite fruitful in yielding some of the best #10s in recent memory. AS Roma's Totti was another one. Anyway, you get my point. Even Jose Mourinho had his own talismanic fantasista wildcard player at Porto, Deco. Also your AMC does not necessarily have to be a playmaker. Personally, I am rather partial to Shadow Strikers. And that is one role that absolutely thrive in a Narrow Diamond. I will explain more of that later. We are not finished with our Narrow Diamond shopping list. 4) Finally for a successful Narrow Diamond, you will need a strong pairing in central defence. Since enemy attacks will come often via crosses from the flanks, you cannot get away with less quality here. Your centrebacks will need to be among your best players, if not outright stars of the team. Or at least try to get ones with better than league average for their defensive attributes (such as the mental and physical ones I mentioned in my very first post in this thread). And once you have your shopping list, it leads us to the strengths and weaknesses/limitations of the Narrow Diamond. Because why proceed with this formation? Is it worth the trouble, given its obvious width limitations? YES! It is very much worth it. In fact, I noticed that recently on this forum some misleading information has been floating around. Some people are claiming that Narrow formations like 442 Narrow Diamond are somehow weaker and flawed in the current match engine. Well that is very far from truth. And I would very much like to dispel this misinformation. But at the same time one has to be objective. Narrow Diamond is not a perfect formation by any means. No shape in football is perfect actually. Likewise Narrow 442 has its limitations. Luckily some of these can be mitigate by clever use of roles and instructions. But once again more on that later. Strengths: 1) Defensive Stability. One of the benefits of a midfield diamond is that one midfielder (usually the central one at the lower tip of the diamond) can be tasked with supporting the defence and drop deeper to form a passing triangle with the centrebacks. This can both help stop opposition attacks through the middle, help deal with crosses (if the player is tall) and aid in bringing the ball up from defence. By having a dedicated defensive midfielder, the Narrow Diamond sacrifices some attacking potential to ensure defensive stability. Which, given my aim of Defence-First Football, is perfectly fine. This extra man, the DM (or middle CM) destroyer, can easily step back into defence to act as the fifth defender if the team is under pressure. In some tactics (depending on the roles and instructions used) it can even lead to a transition in the form of a defensive 5-3-2. And thankfully to the Positional Play changes in FM24 match engine, such transitions are easier than ever to set up. 2) Midfield Control. Pretty self-explanatory. Three midfielders are always better than two when it comes to "bossing" the midfield and controlling the ball. It's even better when you have a hard-working AMC dropping deeper to help support as well. A player with high Workrate attribute will do so even in a seemingly ultra-attacking roles like Shadow Striker. "Comes deep to get the ball" trait can also help in increasing this behaviour. Furthermore, four midfielders ensure that there is no space for the opposition to string together passes in the build-up, which ultimately leaves them with two options — the long ball or cross from the flank. And luckily for us, there are specific team instructions that can help us deal with those two modes of attack pretty easily. 3) Boosted Attack. It is no secret that Narrow Diamond 442 can be an attacking formation on steroids. Afterall, you can essentially operate with two strikers and one shadow strikers. Albait the variaton of roles and duties is very important here since you will want to make sure that each of your final third attackers is doing something different that complements what the other two are doing. No 2-3 Advanced Forwards in my tactics, ever. You can try that, but that would be cheating and what's the fun in that? Weaknesses: To note here is that while Narrow Diamond has some clear weakness, they can all be mitigated to a certain degree. You may not be able to cancel them out completely but at least make them less of a liability. The important thing is to take advantage of the strengths to help you win games while reducing the weaknesses by specifically addressing the limitations. 1) Lack of Width. Another pretty obvious one. The Narrow Diamond is a very narrow formation due to the lack of wide players. But this can be addressed pretty easily through selection of roles. Having forwards (or AMC) which drift wide and move into channels. Some midfield roles such as Mezzala and Carrilero are also programmed to do exactly that and that is the reason why they are ideal for narrow formations. Similarly some wingback roles like CWB are designed to use the full extent of the flank. So even in a narrow formation, you can have a lot of attacks going through the flanks either via drifting forwards, midfielders, or fullbacks. It also helps to set the tactical width as wide as possible through team instructions. Or to move the traditional bottom of the diamond DM player up into CM strata and thus push the wider midfielders more towards the flanks. That is one reason why I prefer using 4-3-1-2 variation of Narrow Diamond over its 4-1-2-1-2 form. 2) Opposition Counterattack. Your centrebacks and defensive midfielder are usually the only defence against counterattacks. And these can be devastating to a formation that has less cover on the wings. To mitigate this I like to inject a healthy dose of Mourinho into my tactic. One wingback/fullback becomes more defensively-minded. Let the Mezzala in-front of him do all of the offensive heavy lifting. Obviously, you will need the right players for both roles to make this risky gambit work and not bite you in the backside. An example of a nice Mezzala. He can run, tackle, pass and shoot and cross pretty well. The only thing he is missing is above average dribbling. But then you cannot have everything in life haha. 3) Increased Player Fatigue. Notoriously narrow formations are thought to require extremely fit central midfielders to cover ground, and fullbacks who can bomb up and down the pitch with ease for the whole 90+ minute duration of the match in some case. This may put a strain on the players, resulting in a possible decrease in efficiency over the course of the game or season. But it does not have to be that way. By applying some of the principles of Defence-First Football, which I already implemented in my previous tactics, I can largely mitigate the effect of fatigue. Even with a more-attacking Narrow 442 I can still maintain low-intensity balanced strategy. In fact a lot of the instructions that used in my previous 4-2DM-3-1, Le Verrou 433 tactics are still present. Observe how the tactic's name is still Le Verrou. All I did is change and move some roles around. Alot of our important instructions remained the same. And most importantly the overall Tactical Intensity (in upper right corner, outlined in red) is still below the red zone. My players can often play for the whole match and take long time to go down below 70% condition. In the image above (of the Man City victory) you can see just how much better our overall physical conditioning was when compared to Man City players'. So in the end, after you read all this, do you still need another reason to use a Narrow Diamond? Especially when seemingly everyone is using the same ultra-attacking, intensely pressing 433 or 4231 tactics? 1) Sometimes you just want to go against the grain and succeed with an unpopular less-used formation. It’s the same drive that attracts us to managing underdogs. Achievement is usually more satisfying when it arrives at the end of a challenge. Thus I would like to present to you my rather simple tactic which nevertheless gets the job done for me. And is also very solid defensively in LaLiga. Most importantly it does not tire my players out for the whole 90 minute duration, unlike all those popular attacking gegenpress meta tactics. Just Low-to-mid intensity mid-block Balanced tactic. No more than 3 attack duties. NO Counterpress. NO Highpressing/Get Stuck In, Highest Closing down typical gegenpress "exploity" instructions. Just instructions that would make sense in real football and channel AI into areas where your diamond holds the advantage. Trap the AI and force them to exhaust themselves hitting the wall while you hit them with quick crosses and smart movement into half-spaces. That's all it takes. And Narrow Diamond is just such a great set-up for this kind of football. Especially given how there are roles in FM that were designed and exist specifically with this formation in mind. I am looking at you, Complete Wingback, Mezzala and Carrilero. PS: I also usually select "overlap right" to give a bit more attacking oumph to my CWB. TO BE CONTINUED ... Edited December 16, 2023 by crusadertsar 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
teej9 Posted December 16, 2023 Share Posted December 16, 2023 Excellent thread. I do have a question. Early in the thread, you mention that you don't have to play a high line and press like crazy, but then every system has a high line and presses like crazy. I mean sure, labelling it as defensive is fine, but it's just a high line press like mad without counter-pressing. Or am I missing something? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
crusadertsar Posted December 16, 2023 Author Share Posted December 16, 2023 (edited) 21 minutes ago, teej9 said: Excellent thread. I do have a question. Early in the thread, you mention that you don't have to play a high line and press like crazy, but then every system has a high line and presses like crazy. I mean sure, labelling it as defensive is fine, but it's just a high line press like mad without counter-pressing. Or am I missing something? I think you misunderstand the concepts behind pressing in the game. We press intensely in our own half. Thats the whole point. It's not high pressing at all. Also high defensive line does not mean high pressing. What the combination of mid-block and high defensive line does is compress my defence, making it a more united close-knit unit in our own half that is really hard for opposition to break down while we can regain the ball much easier. Again none of what I'm doing can be considered highpressing where you actually "defend" aggressively in opponents half. Does that make more sense to you? Edited December 16, 2023 by crusadertsar 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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