Football Manager or Find-the-Meta Manager

[wazzaflow10]

1 hour ago, Muja said:

I conducted numerous tests, in the hundreds, using the editor to create specific competitions with specific teams, isolating external variables as much as possible such as morale, happiness, fitness, and tactical knowledge with FMRTE.

They are not documented, except for a single Excel file full of numbers, because these tests were done for me only.

And you're so willing to share because you know those test will hold up to a light breeze.

I'll wait for the sun to burn out for you to produce valid test results. Like i said before

[Muja]

2 minuti fa, wazzaflow10 ha scritto:

And you're so willing to share because you know those test will hold up to a light breeze.

I'll wait for the sun to burn out for you to produce valid test results. Like i said before

You really are a lost cause.

Quote

If you really need it, I can even redo the test in question and document it with save files and all, to provide you with more concrete evidence. It would only take a couple of days. 

100 matches on neutral ground between two identical teams with maximum morale, fitness, happiness, and tactical knowledge. One of them uses a parking the bus preset, the other uses a very simple offensive tactic.

And another 100 matches where one team uses a gegenpress preset and the other team still uses the same very simple offensive tactic.

Documented with 200 save files.

It'll take me a few days - 'cause, you know, I have a real job too.

Do I really have to go to such lengths?
If I did it and the results proved me right, would that be enough for you to admit you're wrong? Or would you come up with some other excuse?

[wazzaflow10]

19 minutes ago, Muja said:

You really are a lost cause.

100 matches on neutral ground between two identical teams with maximum morale, fitness, happiness, and tactical knowledge. One of them uses a parking the bus preset, the other uses a very simple offensive tactic.

And another 100 matches where one team uses a gegenpress preset and the other team still uses the same very simple offensive tactic.

Documented with 200 save files.

It'll take me a few days - 'cause, you know, I have a real job too.

Do I really have to go to such lengths?
If I did it and the results proved me right, would that be enough for you to admit you're wrong? Or would you come up with some other excuse?

Its not how testing works. You post your findings with a solid objective testable hypothesis and a conclusion from testing. You get questioned about the method and results and probably asked to provide the data and parameters so that the test can be repeated outside your set up - and it might not just be from me. You might even have to repeat or modify certain test items to verify its not just a fluke or artefact of something unaccounted for. If you can answer those questions sufficiently then we can talk about right and wrong. This is pretty much how any legitimate statistical finding is verified so if you don't want to subject yourself to it that's fine given you have a "real" job.

So lets just start with a simple testable hypothesis shall we? What is it you're trying to prove so badly?

Edited February 16 by wazzaflow10
wrote to instead of so

[santy001]

I'd just like to point out why low crosses can work out better with a big, bruising centre forward. Because it's something I do extensively in FM. 

By selecting low crosses you're indicating to your team that is the preference, realistically low crosses result in higher quality/more dangerous chances more often but they are harder to get the set-up for. So by selecting it you have your team trying to create that set-up environment and many times it just isn't viable. The player is blocked off, there's too many defenders near-side to the player etc. At that point the player has to decide to either recycle possession, or hit a lofted cross into the box. 

Very often, they'll do the latter. It's not your teams instruction, but it has become the best route to chance creation and then because I have stuck some 6'4" physical monster up there when those defenders have to turn run and try to compete for the cross there's only one winner in the air. 

I've been there before and thought "well floated crosses should make more sense, if he scores X amount on low he'll score even more on floated" but its so much easier to get into positions to play a floated cross, and your crossing numbers do go up insanely. But you end up with more situations where defenders are set and ready to compete with your striker, often outnumbering them and so when using that option you have way more floated crosses at a significantly lower quality. 

My striker is still optimal for dealing with low crosses when the team can pull them off though:

Places Shots & Tries First Time Shots with high first touch, technique, composure and anticipation mean he is picked first and foremost for feeding off those low crosses but knowing they can't always be played even with that as your crossing preference means you have to consider how else things will play out in matches. If low crosses are engineered correctly by a team in the first place though they're substantially easier to score from.

Whipped and low crosses don't remove floated crosses from your teams attacking approach, it reduces their frequency but tends to mean those that are played are of a much higher quality or as a more desperate last measure to keep an attack going. A test by itself doesn't highlight the type of goals being scored from a specific instruction, so on the surface level lumbering TF scoring better from low crosses could look incorrect. You might then load it up and find actually he scored 90% of the elevated/floated crosses that were played to him. The rest were simple tap ins etc. On the other hand it may well be the case that they were all low driven balls across the box and he has been slotting them in for fun.

[whatsupdoc]

11 hours ago, santy001 said:

I'd just like to point out why low crosses can work out better with a big, bruising centre forward. Because it's something I do extensively in FM. 

By selecting low crosses you're indicating to your team that is the preference, realistically low crosses result in higher quality/more dangerous chances more often but they are harder to get the set-up for. So by selecting it you have your team trying to create that set-up environment and many times it just isn't viable. The player is blocked off, there's too many defenders near-side to the player etc. At that point the player has to decide to either recycle possession, or hit a lofted cross into the box. 

Very often, they'll do the latter. It's not your teams instruction, but it has become the best route to chance creation and then because I have stuck some 6'4" physical monster up there when those defenders have to turn run and try to compete for the cross there's only one winner in the air. 

I've been there before and thought "well floated crosses should make more sense, if he scores X amount on low he'll score even more on floated" but its so much easier to get into positions to play a floated cross, and your crossing numbers do go up insanely. But you end up with more situations where defenders are set and ready to compete with your striker, often outnumbering them and so when using that option you have way more floated crosses at a significantly lower quality. 

My striker is still optimal for dealing with low crosses when the team can pull them off though:

Places Shots & Tries First Time Shots with high first touch, technique, composure and anticipation mean he is picked first and foremost for feeding off those low crosses but knowing they can't always be played even with that as your crossing preference means you have to consider how else things will play out in matches. If low crosses are engineered correctly by a team in the first place though they're substantially easier to score from.

Whipped and low crosses don't remove floated crosses from your teams attacking approach, it reduces their frequency but tends to mean those that are played are of a much higher quality or as a more desperate last measure to keep an attack going. A test by itself doesn't highlight the type of goals being scored from a specific instruction, so on the surface level lumbering TF scoring better from low crosses could look incorrect. You might then load it up and find actually he scored 90% of the elevated/floated crosses that were played to him. The rest were simple tap ins etc. On the other hand it may well be the case that they were all low driven balls across the box and he has been slotting them in for fun.

 

I think you're pretty much right there. From the tests I've done, going and watching the goals scored by my giant, I noticed that the amount of low crosses he scores is about 1/4 the amount of high crosses, despite the low crossing team instruction.

The guy I tested it with was an absolute monster for League 2 so it was a little more highlighted than perhaps would be usual (that he'd get lofted / whipped crosses and score a bunch of headers despite the setting.). 

This was playing on neither 'disciplined' nor 'expressive' creative freedom.

 

I'm going to try and get some detailed testing done on what is happening with low crosses this weekend and hopefully will have something to add.

Edited February 17 by whatsupdoc

[Muja]

13 ore fa, wazzaflow10 ha scritto:

So lets just start with a simple testable hypothesis shall we? What is it you're trying to prove so badly?

It seems that a bunch of messages have been deleted after last night.
I don't understand why, just when the conversation was becoming more civil...!
My answer to this, and even your reply after that, which I managed to read yesterday. It was a quite detailed response, but now it's gone 

[santy001]

2 hours ago, whatsupdoc said:

I think you're pretty much right there. From the tests I've done, going and watching the goals scored by my giant, I noticed that the amount of low crosses he scores is about 1/4 the amount of high crosses, despite the low crossing team instruction.

This is an example all tests face. There can be an output in the data that on the surface gives an interpretation of "low crosses work best with big forwards" and people may try to argue that point but as you've then noticed looking past the headline figure - there's an awful lot of headed goals in there. 

Moving past that initial point there is then a question about how low crosses functions in the game with myriad outcomes such as:
- Actually working correctly
- Incorrectly teams are giving up a little too early on trying to create space/beat a player for a low cross
- Incorrectly teams are not recycling possession and attempting to build again
- The players selected aren't up to it against the current level of opponents
- The players selected are capable but have attributes more likely to cause them to deviate from what you're asking
- In X amount of games the opposition actively working against the team instructions make it unviable so the team correctly tries something else without a managers input
 

There could be countless other reasons too. There have been many examples in the past though of people getting to that first point and proclaiming it as fact with little further analysis. Most testing that tends to be useful to SI longterm is its "I found X is happening when you do Y. Here are all the examples" then SI can start digging in with more control on their side. There are many instances where the community does indeed find something with their testing that is amiss but more often than not its something else several layers deeper that ends up being something SI have to zero in on. 

With testing its much like feedback and with idea suggestions. There isn't an expectation on folk in the community to figure out the correct way to implement a feature or fix a bug. It can often be more advantageous to avoid that is it often strips out what is useful at the beginning sometimes by focusing on the wrong thing. 

[whatsupdoc]

1 minute ago, santy001 said:

This is an example all tests face. There can be an output in the data that on the surface gives an interpretation of "low crosses work best with big forwards" and people may try to argue that point but as you've then noticed looking past the headline figure - there's an awful lot of headed goals in there. 

Moving past that initial point there is then a question about how low crosses functions in the game with myriad outcomes such as:
- Actually working correctly
- Incorrectly teams are giving up a little too early on trying to create space/beat a player for a low cross
- Incorrectly teams are not recycling possession and attempting to build again
- The players selected aren't up to it against the current level of opponents
- The players selected are capable but have attributes more likely to cause them to deviate from what you're asking
- In X amount of games the opposition actively working against the team instructions make it unviable so the team correctly tries something else without a managers input
 

There could be countless other reasons too. There have been many examples in the past though of people getting to that first point and proclaiming it as fact with little further analysis. Most testing that tends to be useful to SI longterm is its "I found X is happening when you do Y. Here are all the examples" then SI can start digging in with more control on their side. There are many instances where the community does indeed find something with their testing that is amiss but more often than not its something else several layers deeper that ends up being something SI have to zero in on. 

With testing its much like feedback and with idea suggestions. There isn't an expectation on folk in the community to figure out the correct way to implement a feature or fix a bug. It can often be more advantageous to avoid that is it often strips out what is useful at the beginning sometimes by focusing on the wrong thing. 

Yes - heaps of factors. In the test below the striker in question was significantly better than his opponents in the air and that impacts the data. Still, with enough data and enough variety one can get closer to some kind of truth. 

 

Some data from one of the seasons mentioned above: 

In this season you see the low crossing team instruction get:

- more team  goals overall

- more goals from crosses

- higher % of goals from crosses. 

etc etc. 

It's very obviously not definitive but it provides some possible direction to look further into it. Next you'd need to drill down into individual data for example looking at a FB in all 3 tests:

I don't see any huge standouts in this. Maybe dribbles/90 is an interesting direction to look in... 

I'm surprised that the crosses attempted is highest in the low cross season...

IDK, food for thought anyways.

 

[Ein]

Of course it is true that selecting low crosses doesn't mean that crossers will never attempt any floated crosses. In that case, it makes sense to see a lower number of floated crosses but a larger number of higher quality ones (that result in goals from direct headers and assists from knock downs) not in absolute terms (as the test seems to be showing) but as a percentage of attempted floated crosses. Otherwise, one would always have to choose the counterintuitive option e.g selecting floated crosses when playing with a quick, agile forward to create more higher quality low crosses.

Edited February 17 by Ein

[whatsupdoc]

2 hours ago, Ein said:

Of course it is true that selecting low crosses doesn't mean that crossers will never attempt any floated crosses. In that case, it makes sense to see a lower number of floated crosses but a larger number of higher quality ones (that result in goals from direct headers and assists from knock downs) not in absolute terms (as the test seems to be showing) but as a percentage of attempted floated crosses. Otherwise, one would always have to choose the counterintuitive option e.g selecting floated crosses when playing with a quick, agile forward to create more higher quality low crosses.

This is the striker they are aimed at, so I wouldn't say it's obvious that low crosses should be a significantly higher percentage bet...

Anyway, I think one of the issues is that low crosses seem quite effective from longer distances too (rather than just high xA cutbacks).

First time finishing with the feet, especially the wrong foot, seems to be OP (even a backup GK can finish first time low crosses on his bad foot).

and in general teams are able to cross too much when using low. 

Edited February 17 by whatsupdoc

[wazzaflow10]

5 hours ago, whatsupdoc said:

Yes - heaps of factors. In the test below the striker in question was significantly better than his opponents in the air and that impacts the data. Still, with enough data and enough variety one can get closer to some kind of truth. 

 

Some data from one of the seasons mentioned above: 

In this season you see the low crossing team instruction get:

- more team  goals overall

- more goals from crosses

- higher % of goals from crosses. 

etc etc. 

It's very obviously not definitive but it provides some possible direction to look further into it. Next you'd need to drill down into individual data for example looking at a FB in all 3 tests:

I don't see any huge standouts in this. Maybe dribbles/90 is an interesting direction to look in... 

I'm surprised that the crosses attempted is highest in the low cross season...

IDK, food for thought anyways.

 

Just wanted to say nice job pulling that apart.

[whatsupdoc]

25 minutes ago, wazzaflow10 said:

Just wanted to say nice job pulling that apart.

Thanks! I enjoy doing it. Always nice to see people encouraging / suggesting ways forward with this kind of thing.

[Mitja]

On 16/02/2024 at 14:51, Costav said:

No no, I am not talking about American football when you have two different line-ups. Here I am talking about movement/disposition with or without ball. I am in the football world (and I study football too, because I like to coach and I have a followed courses from the italian FA) long enough to know that there are a looot of things that are currently implemented but that you cannot replicate in FM. I tried a lot of different tactical combinations, but the replication is very limited because the ME does not include such solutions (and I believe it is like this because such solutions are not even considered). And this is a pity because it would give another level of immersion.

I know that the majority of FM players (in a wider sense) are just interested in believing they can be Mourinho/Guardiola within a software, but the cool thing of FM is that the game replicates (or at least try to) the RL in a very comprehensive way, and this is very good! So when I hear comments like SI needs to simplify tactics  because "there are more styles in FM than in real life" or "there's is no defensive possession football irl" I am like "ooookaaaaaay, let's turn off Fifa and talk about coaching a team".

Then I know it's a game, and I don't pretend they will exploit every single minimal possibility that can be applied in real life. It's fair enough as the game is right now, although a bit more of tactical improvement could be very welcome.

p.s. Of course this is absolutely not personal, I would not like to sound like I am addressing directly to you even if am answering to a conversation I am having with you. It is more as a general comment

Don't worry about personal thing I enjoy having these conversations and sometimes it's good for discussion if people don't agree. What I mean with simplifying it's mostly got to do with how mentality works and why keeping it is holding back  the game. Sometimes a step back is worth considering sometimes less is more. If mentality is ditched all other instructions become transparent and perfectly clear. Football style will start to look like what is supposed to.bYou play as attacking/defending as role and duty selection and team instructions  dictate. Not some vague and hardly understandable mentality which interferes with other instructions, a dinosaur from CM days when there were only like seven or eight team instructions.

Edited February 17 by Mitja

[DarJ]

I've just seen Chelsea play well for most of the game and be a threat whenever they went forward but for some reason the manager decides to park the bus with 20 minutes left and guess what? They never went forward after that and eventually concede.

This has nothing to do with FM but it just made me laugh 

[Ein]

On 16/02/2024 at 08:44, Mitja said:

I think SI would do themselves a favour if they simplified tactics creator. There are more styles in FM than in real life with all combinations of team instructions and mentality it became a mess. Some styles don't work simply because they are not doing its job compared to what's being claimed in description like defensive ones we discussed. For example there's is no defensive possession football irl but in FM any tactics on lower mentalities turns into that. Tools are there but they aren't being used carefully. 

Rather than being simplified, I would suggest that the tactics creator needs to be made less abstract (less dependent on mentalities, roles, etc). What would be helpful is the ability to create patterns of play and intertwine tactics with training to develop specific strategies. For instance, if you aim to attack in a certain way:

For example:
1. play out of defence (this would have its own pattern of play) until the ball reaches our designated midfield creator (say our #8).
2. When the ball reaches our #8, our LW (#11) should cut inside to overload the opposition defender (#5) with our CF (#9).
3a. If the opposition RFB (#2) does not follow our #11, pass the ball to either our #11 or #9 (the one farthest from their #5).
3b. If their #2 follows our #11 to prevent the overload, our LFB (#3) should bomb forward and our #8 should switch play to him.

And so on...

The higher the number of patterns of play, the more unpredictable your team will be. However, it will be more challenging for your players to remember and execute them successfully, depending on their technical abilities, mental attributes, player traits, team cohesion, etc. This approach integrates tactics, training, and one's managerial knowledge into a cohesive package.

[Aoyao]

3 hours ago, Ein said:

Rather than being simplified, I would suggest that the tactics creator needs to be made less abstract (less dependent on mentalities, roles, etc). What would be helpful is the ability to create patterns of play and intertwine tactics with training to develop specific strategies. For instance, if you aim to attack in a certain way:

For example:
1. play out of defence (this would have its own pattern of play) until the ball reaches our designated midfield creator (say our #8).
2. When the ball reaches our #8, our LW (#11) should cut inside to overload the opposition defender (#5) with our CF (#9).
3a. If the opposition RFB (#2) does not follow our #11, pass the ball to either our #11 or #9 (the one farthest from their #5).
3b. If their #2 follows our #11 to prevent the overload, our LFB (#3) should bomb forward and our #8 should switch play to him.

And so on...

The higher the number of patterns of play, the more unpredictable your team will be. However, it will be more challenging for your players to remember and execute them successfully, depending on their technical abilities, mental attributes, player traits, team cohesion, etc. This approach integrates tactics, training, and one's managerial knowledge into a cohesive package.

It'll be hard to control for AI mannager.

[Ein]

6 hours ago, Aoyao said:

It'll be hard to control for AI mannager.

AI managers would have preprogrammed patterns of play (based on real-life preferences) with some degree of flexibility (dropping and adopting new PoP over time), depending on tactical knowledge, adaptability, in-game performance, etc.

Of course it would still be possible to play without PoP if one chooses to. In that case, the players would be left to their own devices (as at present, essentially).

Edited February 18 by Ein

[DarJ]

28 minutes ago, Ein said:

AI managers would have preprogrammed patterns of play (based on real-life preferences) with some degree of flexibility (dropping and adopting new PoP over time), depending on tactical knowledge, adaptability, in-game performance, etc.

Of course it would still be possible to play without PoP if one chooses to. In that case, the players would be left to their own devices (as at present, essentially).

You don't think it will still end up like how it is now? The preprogrammed pattern of play for the AI will never beat the creativity of the human manager 

[Mitja]

31 minutes ago, Ein said:

AI managers would have preprogrammed patterns of play (based on real-life preferences) with some degree of flexibility (dropping and adopting new PoP over time), depending on tactical knowledge, adaptability, in-game performance, etc.

Of course it would still be possible to play without PoP if one chooses to. In that case, the players would be left to their own devices (as at present, essentially).

I think that's a nice idea but a little too in-depth for me. Linking training and tactics is definitely a realistic approach. 

What I meant with simplification, I'll give you example of pressing instructions. There's d-line, trigger, intensity, counter press, tackling, probably even all encompassing mentality. For me this is overkill. I mean how do you press without intensity? Can you really instruct Gatusso to press in gently manner? There needs to be difference between him and Messi. By having such control in football game players attributes simply can't stand out everything will feel too robotic. I think even having two sliders for intensity is too much let alone five.

[Ein]

25 minutes ago, DarJ said:

You don't think it will still end up like how it is now? The preprogrammed pattern of play for the AI will never beat the creativity of the human manager 

I think it could help the AI (if done correctly) because the moves would be more rule-bound, like chess.

[NineCloudNine]

12 hours ago, DarJ said:

I've just seen Chelsea play well for most of the game and be a threat whenever they went forward but for some reason the manager decides to park the bus with 20 minutes left and guess what? They never went forward after that and eventually concede.

This has nothing to do with FM but it just made me laugh 

I thought of these discussions while watching that game as well . I think the Chelsea players were exhausted, plus City’s bench is far stronger. That said, if Chelsea had tried to defend that way from the start they’d have lost by a lot. Instead, they did what any team needs to do facing a high press, which is direct passes and fast counter attacks into the wide open spaces behind the defence. 

[Ein]

15 minutes ago, Mitja said:

I think that's a nice idea but a little too in-depth for me. Linking training and tactics is definitely a realistic approach. 

What I meant with simplification, I'll give you example of pressing instructions. There's d-line, trigger, intensity, counter press, tackling, probably even all encompassing mentality. For me this is overkill. I mean how do you press without intensity? Can you really instruct Gatusso to press in gently manner? There needs to be difference between him and Messi. By having such control in football game players attributes simply can't stand out everything will feel too robotic. I think even having two sliders for intensity is too much let alone five.

I agree re. simplification in that sense, with things like mentality being superfluous at this point (and possibly unbalanced in the way it stacks with some TIs). As I suggested in another thread, mentality could be automatically determined from the combined effect of various factors like TIs, roles, PIs, formation, OIs, etc.

[Aoyao]

49 minutes ago, Ein said:

I agree re. simplification in that sense, with things like mentality being superfluous at this point (and possibly unbalanced in the way it stacks with some TIs). As I suggested in another thread, mentality could be automatically determined from the combined effect of various factors like TIs, roles, PIs, formation, OIs, etc.

Like shape in FM24

[jcafcwbb]

I think people who do not understand how shape and mentality are the most important things in real life football do not understand football or tactics at all. You can tell a team to play down the wings but without the correct shape and mentality you might a well be talking to the office cat.

An example of this is the Champions League semi final. In the first leg Ancelotti had his team attacking as a 4-3-3 but defensively they dropped into a 5-3-2 to stop they way Man City attacked. He wanted to stop the balls played to the edge of the six-yard area. He changed his defensive shape from what Madrid normally played in order to nullify their threat. 

The mentality gauge is the simplification of the TIs and is closer to what a real manager would do with defensive/ultra defensive meaning sit back; cautious meaning keep possession and positive meaning try riskier passes and attacking/ultra attacking meaning push forward. Balanced essentially means follow the tactics. In real life managers do not tell the players we have adjusted the slider two clicks to the right - he will either say push forward more, get up the pitch, sit deeper, hold on the ball, be more direct. Mentality is better than adjusting TIs for that.

It would interesting to see if we could get a mode where access to tactics screen could be turned off - although I guess that could be self-imposed. All you could change would be mentality and shape.

 

[Mitja]

6 minutes ago, jcafcwbb said:

I think people who do not understand how shape and mentality are the most important things in real life football do not understand football or tactics at all. You can tell a team to play down the wings but without the correct shape and mentality you might a well be talking to the office cat.

An example of this is the Champions League semi final. In the first leg Ancelotti had his team attacking as a 4-3-3 but defensively they dropped into a 5-3-2 to stop they way Man City attacked. He wanted to stop the balls played to the edge of the six-yard area. He changed his defensive shape from what Madrid normally played in order to nullify their threat. 

The mentality gauge is the simplification of the TIs and is closer to what a real manager would do with defensive/ultra defensive meaning sit back; cautious meaning keep possession and positive meaning try riskier passes and attacking/ultra attacking meaning push forward. Balanced essentially means follow the tactics. In real life managers do not tell the players we have adjusted the slider two clicks to the right - he will either say push forward more, get up the pitch, sit deeper, hold on the ball, be more direct. Mentality is better than adjusting TIs for that.

It would interesting to see if we could get a mode where access to tactics screen could be turned off - although I guess that could be self-imposed. All you could change would be mentality and shape.

 

Well you proved our point with "mentality is TIs simplification" it means TIs are surplus or mentality is.

In real life mentality is just a sum of all other instructions imagine a coach saying to the team: listen guys we play arsenal tonight we'll play our normal game but we'll be doing everything 35 percent less risky. I really doubt.

[jcafcwbb]

27 minutes ago, Mitja said:

Well you proved our point with "mentality is TIs simplification" it means TIs are surplus or mentality is.

In real life mentality is just a sum of all other instructions imagine a coach saying to the team: listen guys we play arsenal tonight we'll play our normal game but we'll be doing everything 35 percent less risky. I really doubt.

Well not entirely.

My idea is that the TI is the tactical blueprint of your team and will form the main part of your training. The mentality is used for the match to match situation.  

I have re-read the mentalities and they are slightly different from what I thought. I used the fluid counter attack preset and changing mentalities does not affect TIs. But cautious asks you players to get behind the ball which is inviting pressure for the counter attack. Positive is to keep possession but to encourage forward runs when it is safe to do so. They are less extreme versions of attacking and defensive. 

Mentalities compliment the TIs from my viewing this morning, Rather than adjusting your TIs you can decide how you want your team to adapt their blue prints to each match. So away from home where you are not favourite you may keep all your TIs and go cautious and at home where you are favourite you can go positive. 

In football teams tend to spends Fridays walking through the shape for the match and the tactics in a meeting. During the match the manager will ask them hold on to the ball more or push higher/lower, be more compact. At half-time is where any formation changes are talked about unless something is clearly not working and the manager changes things with subs in the first half etc. Teams tend not to change things like their passing or tempo from match to match but they will change formation, mentality and how they deal with opponents.

[Muja]

57 minuti fa, jcafcwbb ha scritto:

Cautious asks you players to get behind the ball which is inviting pressure for the counter attack. Positive is to keep possession but to encourage forward runs when it is safe to do so. They are less extreme versions of attacking and defensive.

Mentalities do MUCH more than that, though. 

I'll elaborate more later. 

[Muja]

19 ore fa, Mitja ha scritto:

If mentality is ditched all other instructions become transparent and perfectly clear.
[...]
some vague and hardly understandable mentality which interferes with other instructions, a dinosaur from CM days when there were only like seven or eight team instructions.

I couldn't agree more.

Not many years ago (or perhaps many years ago and I'm older than I'd like to think), mentalities had different names than they do now:
defensive, counter, standard, control, attack.

Those names already then gave a wrong impression of what mentality really did.

2 ore fa, jcafcwbb ha scritto:

I have re-read the mentalities and they are slightly different from what I thought.

It doesn't help either that the descriptions within the game, like much of the current documentation, are old, imprecise, and sometimes even misleading.
They create misconceptions like this:

3 ore fa, jcafcwbb ha scritto:

cautious asks you players to get behind the ball which is inviting pressure for the counter attack. Positive is to keep possession but to encourage forward runs when it is safe to do so.

That's not exactly how it works.
You can still be attacking on a defensive mentality and you can still be fairly defensive on an attacking mentality. 

The main aspect affected by mentalities is the concept of 'risk'.

That's why mentalities were renamed, and "Counter" became "Cautious", "Control" became "Positive", "Standard" became "Balanced" and so on.

This concept of risk affects many different things: width, tempo, passes directness, passing risk-taking, how high is the defense line on the pitch, even pressing!

Compared to "balanced", a positive mentality means that the team will be a bit wider, defenders' passes will be a bit shorter and offensive players will make more direct passes, tempo will be a bit faster, defense will be slightly higher, all player will press a bit more, all of them will take more risks in general.

So, you see, if you want to have a tactic based on possession, maybe positive mentality isn't the best choice because offensive players will take more risk when maybe you want to keep the ball and play it safe.
Conversely, a cautious mentality means they will take LESS risks, but if you want to play counter-attacking football, when your team gets the ball back you want them to rapidly attack and be more urgent when bringing the ball up, which is the contrary of being cautious. 

Taking all this into consideration, changing the mentality can also profoundly change the way a tactic works on the pitch, because it affects LOTS of things that can even counter some TIs and the team strategy as a whole.
This is the main reason why these days I almost exclusively use the balanced mentality and seldom change it.

And in my opinion, this is also why the concept of "mentality" is now redundant and something that the tactic creator could (and even should) do without in the future.

[NineCloudNine]

5 hours ago, jcafcwbb said:

I think people who do not understand how shape and mentality are the most important things in real life football do not understand football or tactics at all. You can tell a team to play down the wings but without the correct shape and mentality you might a well be talking to the office cat.

You are correct about the importance of mentality in football. Unfortunately mentality in FM doesn't mean what you understand it to mean. It dials TIs up or down in ways that aren't always clear or predictable and which can have effects contrary to what you'd think the word means. Players have their own mentality, based on position/role as well as team mentality, which you can't change and which doesn't always match the team mentality. Certain team instructions change the mentality of some players in ways which aren't explained and are hard to spot.

There are long guides to this by experts like Rashidi which will leave you thinking "how was I supposed to know or find out all that?". It's too complicated, too opaque and too confusing. Mentality IS important in football but mentality in FM doesn't work like the real life examples you gave, nor even like the in-game descriptions suggest it does.

Edited February 18 by NineCloudNine

[Mitja]

1 hour ago, NineCloudNine said:

You are correct about the importance of mentality in football. Unfortunately mentality in FM doesn't mean what you understand it to mean. It dials TIs up or down in ways that aren't always clear or predictable and which can have effects contrary to what you'd think the word means. Players have their own mentality, based on position/role as well as team mentality, which you can't change and which doesn't always match the team mentality. Certain team instructions change the mentality of some players in ways which aren't explained and are hard to spot.

There are long guides to this by experts like Rashidi which will leave you thinking "how was I supposed to know or find out all that?". It's too complicated, too opaque and too confusing. Mentality IS important in football but mentality in FM doesn't work like the real life examples you gave, nor even like the in-game descriptions suggest it does.

What would mentality be in real football? Other than being a sum of all other instructions the only thing I can come up with is team spirit. Attacking or defensive are just labels a quick way to describe teams who play more on front foot or more conservative. Attacking fullback still behaves according to set of instructions and his ability not because coach told him to be attacking. 

[NineCloudNine]

35 minutes ago, Mitja said:

What would mentality be in real football?

"Right lads, we're going for the win here so I want us to attack from the off. Bob, that means you getting forward right up against the opposition full back; Johnno I want you running in behind every chance you get; press them high and don't give that fancy lightweight winger of theirs a moment's peace."

Mentality first -> instructions follow. Makes more sense than the Manager giving out a list of instructions and the players adding them up and concluding that we're going to be attacking today.

But that's the real world. In FM the interaction between overall mentality, TIs, PIs, roles and duties is like a five-dimensional puzzle box. On the face of it the TIs are modifiers to the mentality (since all sliders are relative to the mentality) but in practice players set how they want to play (the TIs) and then use mentality as a modifier in matches. All of which you'd only properly understand if you've read a 3,000 word explanation by Rashidi because absolutely none of it is clearly described in-game

Edited February 18 by NineCloudNine

[Mitja]

1 hour ago, NineCloudNine said:

"Right lads, we're going for the win here so I want us to attack from the off. Bob, that means you getting forward right up against the opposition full back; Johnno I want you running in behind every chance you get; press them high and don't give that fancy lightweight winger of theirs a moment's peace."

Mentality first -> instructions follow. Makes more sense than the Manager giving out a list of instructions and the players adding them up and concluding that we're going to be attacking today.

 

Everything you mentioned are instructions exactly what I said that mentality is a sum of other instructions. Bob is asked how to position himself, Johnno pretty much the same and to press more I don't see any connection to mentality in FM terms.

As I mentioned every team has more than one approach which are practised on training ground and keep evolving they change depending on your strengths and opp weaknesses. Etc etc. It's a bit more complex then right lads we'll be 25 percent more attacking today.

[NineCloudNine]

2 minutes ago, Mitja said:

Everything you mentioned are instructions exactly what I said that mentality is a sum of other instructions. Bob is asked how to position himself, Johnno pretty much the same and to press more I don't see any connection to mentality in FM terms.

There isn't. You didn't ask me for that, you asked for an example of mentality in real life football, which is what I gave. I agree with you that this isn't what mentality means in FM - I said so in the paragraph you didn't quote .

[Rodrigogc]

The fact is that training should be connected to tactics in FM because that's basically what football is. A coach IRL simply telling his players to step back and counter doesn't mean anything if he hasn't trained his players to do this. The same goes for pressing, telling your players IRL to press without having the right players to do so and proper training, will create loads of space for the opposition to exploit. That's what FM should be about, but instead you can simply tell your players to attack and press and they will succeed accordingly. 

I don't know if SI can't do this properly, but to me is shocking how training is stagnated in FM and has almost no relation with what happens in the match. 

[Muja]

1 ora fa, NineCloudNine ha scritto:

"Right lads, we're going for the win here so I want us to attack from the off. Bob, that means you getting forward right up against the opposition full back; Johnno I want you running in behind every chance you get; press them high and don't give that fancy lightweight winger of theirs a moment's peace."

Right.
In FM this would become:
- Bob goes from W-Su to W-Att
- Johnno goes from Amc-Su to Amc-Att
- trigger press goes from "often" to "very often"
- OI man-mark on fancy opponent winger

It's four clicks, sure.
In theory, adjusting the mentality would be just one click. And you'd mostly get the same thing, so it WOULD be better.
But then you get much more than that: the team goes wider, tempo goes higher, offensive passes gets more direct, everyone will shoot more and be more offensive so you need to decrease the duty of somebody else to keep the balance, and add more TI to counterbalance the mentality, and then 1 click becomes more.

At the moment I prefer to keep the balanced mentality and do those 4 clicks instead, I feel more in control.
 

[Mitja]

19 minutes ago, NineCloudNine said:

There isn't. You didn't ask me for that, you asked for an example of mentality in real life football, which is what I gave. I agree with you that this isn't what mentality means in FM - I said so in the paragraph you didn't quote .

But you said mentality first instructions follow. Where's mentality? And you are not giving them a list of instructions you play a tactic which was being trained continuously  and prepared for next game. 

[Ein]

Mentality is an abstract FM artefact which should have been rendered obsolete (at least as a free choice) with the implementation of the block/press line. This is also the reason mentalities were renamed e.g. from counter to cautious and control to positive since the block line is really the basis for those styles of football. To keep possession and control the game you have to press your opponent high. To hit your opponent on the counter you have to invite your opponent in.

The current situation hardly makes sense e.g. you can simultaneously ask your players to be very defensive and press very high up the pitch or, alternatively, ask your players to be very attacking whilst simultaneously instructing them to stay within their own half.

[Mitja]

27 minutes ago, Rodrigogc said:

The fact is that training should be connected to tactics in FM because that's basically what football is. A coach IRL simply telling his players to step back and counter doesn't mean anything if he hasn't trained his players to do this. The same goes for pressing, telling your players IRL to press without having the right players to do so and proper training, will create loads of space for the opposition to exploit. That's what FM should be about, but instead you can simply tell your players to attack and press and they will succeed accordingly. 

I don't know if SI can't do this properly, but to me is shocking how training is stagnated in FM and has almost no relation with what happens in the match. 

I like the current approach where tactical familiarity is being trained by different sessions. Sure you can always go more in-depth but I don't tinker around with it too much.

[NineCloudNine]

12 minutes ago, Mitja said:

But you said mentality first instructions follow. Where's mentality? And you are not giving them a list of instructions you play a tactic which was being trained continuously  and prepared for next game. 

I have no idea why you are arguing with me. I agree with you!

[Mitja]

Ok guys I have something for you. This is how I see it. These are core styles every team trains at least two different tactical setups.

[Mitja]

These instructions are typical for core style which doesn't mean they can't be changed of course. Some instructions are not available for each core style. For example in Counter very short passing would be unavailable or high d-line. In Control Possession direct passing would be unavailable of course. Or higher tempo. These unavailable instructions could help against overpowered tactical setups and avoid illogical happenings in ME. Like when defensive teams control possession against much stronger opposition. Without mentality all instructions become coherent and clear.