AceCream Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 (edited) Premise: This years' Football Manager marks 20 years of our beloved football simulation game and I have been thinking about how I want to replay all of these games. The first game I played was Football Manager 2005, I got it as a Christmas present in 2004 and have been hooked on these games ever since. I have recently been reading/listening to books on the evolution of modern football tactics. Most notably: Jonathan Wilson's "Inverting the Pyramid" Jonathan Wilson's "The Barcelona Inheritance" Michael Cox's "Zonal Marking" These books go into detail on how tactics have evolved throughout the years. Reading about Cruyff's Barcelona, Sacchi's Milan and Ferguson's United got me thinking about how I would set up their teams in Football Manager. But instead of recreating famous teams in the most current Football Manager, I thought why not play each and every game of the series, starting with Football Manager 2005 and picking the most exciting/revolutionary/successful team from that season and play using their play-style, players, formations and signings. A sort of historical reenactment, if you will, of legendary teams' seasons in the Football Manager game from that specific season. Not unlike people role-playing as soldiers in historical battles from the civil war, I will roleplay as managers from historic seasons. Wikipedia's definition sums it up nicely: Quote Historical reenactments (or re-enactment) is an educational or entertainment activity in which mainly amateur hobbyists and history enthusiasts dress in historic uniforms and follow a plan to recreate aspects of a historical event or period. I would describe myself as an amateur hobbyist and football history enthusiast. However instead of physically dressing up in historic uniforms (bar the occasional kit when I'm feeling extra motivated) I will dress my teams up tactically and historically accurate and try to recreate their success. Method: I plan on role-playing as the manager that was at helm during that season, creating a manager with the same name, D.O.B., reputation, attributes (if available), nationality and so on. If possible I will tick "disable first transfer window" and only use the players that were at the club. Therefore there will be no recruitment, unless I am enjoying myself a lot and continue into the 2nd season and beyond. Regarding tactics I will research the team's play style, formations and player roles using Transfermarkt for team sheets as well as watching old games and reading/listening to articles/books/podcasts. Each Football Manager installment usually had some sort of "META", whether that be a specific formation, type of player or play-style and I will try not to abandon the tactical principles of the team I am reenacting too much to cater to the META tactics. However, I would also like to try to replicate the success(and enjoy myself) of each team so I will need to find a balance between theoretical tactical ideology and realistic implementation of said ideology in the game I am playing. I do not plan on dwelling too long on each game and going into too much detail on how they play. I intend on keeping things rather simple tactically, only focusing on major factors of the team's success and finishing seasons rather quickly. I really admire tactical discussions and posts on this Forum, especially @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! "Very Fluid" series and @crusadertsar tactical experimentations and writings. They have highly influenced me in their approach on playing these games and will use many of their posts as inspiration. Here is a proposed plan on reenactments I intend on trying and examples on objectives for each one: FM2005: Mourinho's Chelsea. Can I match the 15 goals conceded record and win the Premier League using the 4-3-3 with Makélélé in the Makélélé role? FM2006: Rijkaard's Barcelona. Can I win the UCL/La Liga double with Ronaldinho being the main man while introducing Messi to the world? FM2007: Ancelotti's Milan. Can I win the UCL with an aging Milan squad using the famous Christmas Tree formation? FM2008: Ferguson's United. Can I win the Premier League and UCL using Ferguson's fluid 4-4-2 getting Ronaldo to score 30+ goals in the league? FM2009: Guardiola's Barcelona. Can I win the treble establishing Messi as the best player in the world in a legendary Barcelona 4-3-3? FM2010: Mourinho's Inter. Can I win the UCL using a pragmatic 4-2-3-1 with Wesley Sneijder in the #10 role? FM2011: Guardiola's Barcelona vol. 2. Can I be the most dominant team in the world implementing a tiki-taka system with Messi in the false 9? FM2012: Klopp's Dortmund. Can I implement a very high pressing "heavy metal" system developing a young Götze and Lewandowski and winning the Bundesliga? FM2013: Heynckes's Bayern. Can I win the treble using a high pressing 4-2-3-1 with Robben and Ribery excelling as inverted wingers? And so on You get the idea. The intention is to also retroactively review each installment of Football Manager, highlighting pros and cons of each installment while viewing them through a somewhat critical lens on their ability to create tactics. Maybe even eventually ranking them when I have played 1 season with all of them. I want to note that the early days of Football Manager did not have nearly as sophisticated tactical options as today's games, and instructions are implemented as sliders. This can at times feel like a "black box" and you're not really sure if what you're changing has any effect on the teams play-style, which I guess also applies to todays game to some extent. I will however do my best in implementing the teams style and welcome any and all feedback, comments and critiques. So without further ado, lets start off this series by trying to reenact Mourinho's Chelsea in FM 2005. Part 1: Mourinho's Chelsea in FM2005 Background: (Mourinho's first press conference at Stamford Bridge) Mourinho joined Chelsea in the summer of 2004, after remarkably winning the Champions League with Porto. Tactically Mourinho's Porto were solid and organised in defence, using a 4-3-1-2 and deploying a high press. His Chelsea Team however did not press as high as Porto and used a 4-3-3 instead. Below are the formations he used in the beginning of the 04/05 season according to Transfermarkt. (Chelsea's fixtures in the 04/05 season) He started off by using a 4-2-3-1 with Lampard in the number 10 role, but quickly pulled Lampard deeper into midfield. He instead opted for a holding midfielder and in that position was none other than Claude Makéléle, who made the role his own. In today's game the role is seen as an essential part of every top-side but in 2004 in England the 4-4-2 was used almost exclusively. According to Jonathan Wilson's The Barcelona Inheritance Chelsea's football started off a little dull and scratchy. Discipline was however strict and he quickly had imposed his methods. Damien Duff and Robben flanked the powerful striker Drogba while Lampard was in a shuttling midfield role in which he excelled and scored 13 goals. Mourinho was more cautious than he had been at Porto, most notably with the fullbacks Paulo Ferreira and Wayne Bridge who rarely advanced further than the halfway line. His side did not press anywhere near as high as his Porto side, in part because of John Terry's lack of pace. However Chelsea conceded only 15 goals in 38 games, a Premier League record, while also finishing the season with 95 points. Also a premier league record. (Chelsea's team shape in Mourinho's first two seasons in 2004-2006) So in the first reenactment I aim to answer the following questions: Can I replicate Jose's performances and win the league by 95 points and only conceding 15? I doubt it, but who knows Can Football manager 2005 accurately depict the tactics used by Mourinho's Chelsea? How does FM 2005 hold up in 2024? Implementation in FM2005: First off, lets take a look at the squad: (The Chelsea Squad in FM2005) Feeling nostalgic? I really love the clean and less cluttered look of the old games. Below is the formation used: (My starting XI and proposed shape) And the team instructions: (Team instructions) Like I said, it is rather hard to implement team instructions in FM2005, but my thought process is an attacking high tempo side looking to break on the counter with a solid defence. Watching Chelsea's league cup final game vs Liverpool we can see the played rather directly and did not focus on playing out from the back. There defensive line was never really high up and they pressed only in their own half. Apparently I'm running out of space and will continue below... References: https://dictatethegame.com/4-3-3-role-guide-the-back-four/#Mourinhos_2004-2006_Chelsea Jonathans Wilson's "The Barcelona Inheritance" Edited April 3 by AceCream 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 (edited) Players, roles and instructions: If I were to create this team in Football Manager 2024 I would start off by use these roles and team instructions. In attack I am aiming to see a 4-1-2-3. I also want to obviously see the team split into 5 players defending and 5 players attacking. (How I would set up Mourinho's Chelsea in FM2024) The back four: Starting from the back, the whole of the back four will stay back, including the fullbacks: (Player instructions for every player in the back 4 and the Makélélé role) John Terry: (The captain John Terry's attributes) Carvalho: (Mourinho's loyal servant Ricardo Carvalho) Midfield: Now for one of the most important parts of the tactic. The Makélélé role: Quote Regarded as one of the best players ever in his position, Makélélé revolutionised the role of the defensive midfielder in the Premier League; as such, this position frequently came to be known colloquially as "the Makélélé role" in England. A combative and hard-working player, although he was capable of getting forward and playing in more advanced positions, he usually played in front of his team's back-line, where he mainly served as a defensive foil for his more offensive teammates, due to his aggressive tackling, as well as his ability to read the game, break down plays, mark and anticipate opponents, and time his challenges. I want Makélélé to stay in front of the back four, rarely running forward, winning the ball back and playing it to either Lampard or Tiago. Who better to use in THE Makélélé role other than Makélélé himself: (The legendary Claude Makélélé's attributes) Thiago will link the defense and midfield while Lampard will be employed as a shuttler, bombing forward and aiding the attack. (Player instructions for the Lampard role) Lampard: (Mr. Consistent Frank Lampard's attributes) Attack: Drogba will be our main attacking outlet, with Duff/Joe Cole/Robben running in from wide and crossing the ball. Drogba: (Powerful striker Didier Drogba) Robben: (The tricky winger Robben) Duff: (Electric Damien Duff) Now that the team is set up, the next posts will analyse our results and how we play in the ME. Edited March 25 by AceCream Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbogusz Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Oh, well just as I was tempted to play with MadScientist 07/08 database on FM24 and continue Mourinho's work in the season he was (in my opinion) sacked too soon. Now you have encouraged me ever more to do it. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 7 minutes ago, kbogusz said: Oh, well just as I was tempted to play with MadScientist 07/08 database on FM24 and continue Mourinho's work in the season he was (in my opinion) sacked too soon. Now you have encouraged me ever more to do it. Go for it! How will you continue on Mourinho's success? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 Brilliant thread! Those were the times both in terms of football and FM. Really interesting to see in-depth analysis of how well you can implement a desired style of play and how it pans out in the old match engine. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kbogusz Posted March 23 Share Posted March 23 (edited) 20 minutes ago, AceCream said: Go for it! How will you continue on Mourinho's success? Well I don't think it would be a long career, because 1. it might get boring quite quickly because at FM08 database Chelsea team is very strong with Cech, Terry, Lampard, Drogba, Ballack, Essien, J. and A. Cole, Malouda and so on... If it will turn out to easy, then I might not have a lot of interest later 2. the retro database is not the best for long-term save, because it doesn't cover a lot of leagues and the lack of realism might discourage me from playing a lot of seasons. Nonetheless, my goal is to, by using Mourinho's approach and tactics (or atleast highly inspirated by it) achieve what Mourinho unfortunately didn't at Chelsea - win the Champions League. And do it before Di Matteo did it IRL (that's a whole different story BTW). It means quite much to me, because as a Chelsea fan, the lost 2008 final was by far my biggest heartbreak to date back then. Well I was 10 y/o when it happened, so I think it can be said that I want to go back to the past and fulfill my "childhood dream" Edited March 23 by kbogusz 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 23 Author Share Posted March 23 49 minutes ago, Litmanen 10 said: Brilliant thread! Those were the times both in terms of football and FM. Really interesting to see in-depth analysis of how well you can implement a desired style of play and how it pans out in the old match engine. Thank you! Its going well. I am focusing on keeping things very simple and just trying to create the correct shapes in attack and defense. I will write an update when the season is half way done. A great thing about the older games is that you absolutely fly through the seasons. No press conferences, no team talks, nothing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cloud9 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 9 hours ago, Litmanen 10 said: My all time favorite goal from Ronaldinho in that game, remember watching that live. Still doesn't quite seem possible that he's just done that all these years later. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 19 minutes ago, Cloud9 said: My all time favorite goal from Ronaldinho in that game, remember watching that live. Still doesn't quite seem possible that he's just done that all these years later. I think this is my single favorite football match. The Mourinho mind game and the tactical approach with quick counters destroyed Barcelona in the beginning of the game before them coming back to the game. This is what I always used to aim for in FM too and maybe these kind of tactical battles that are currently missing a bit. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 (edited) On 24/03/2024 at 07:41, Cloud9 said: My all time favorite goal from Ronaldinho in that game, remember watching that live. Still doesn't quite seem possible that he's just done that all these years later. It's an absolute classic. The tempo in that match is insane. This match is one of the matches I watched back the most while figuring out how I want my team to play. Chelsea's electric counter attacks are peak Mourinho. It can be viewed in full here for those interested: https://footballia.eu/matches/chelsea-fc-fc-barcelona-champions-league-2004-2005 Edited March 25 by AceCream 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los_Culés Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Great thread. FM 05 . Also very nice to see these Player Profiles . 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 (edited) Team Shape: In the tactics creator in FM2005 it can be kind of hard to implement detailed team and player instructions. There are no "roles", no team instructions like "Play out from the back" and team instructions override player position instructions at times. So I have to personalize every player position to the way I want to play. I am going to try and keep things simple and aim to just get the right players in the right positions to begin with. Like I stated earlier, I want to see clearly a flat back four at all times with Makélélé just in front. I have been watching old games from the 04/05 season and here is a still image from the League Cup semi-final game against United in 2005(please excuse the quality): (Chelsea build up from the back against Manchester United in the Carling Cup Semi-final in 2005) Here we can see the team shape in build-up. A flat back 4 with Makélélé in front. It is rather easy to create this shape in FM2005. With specific player instructions telling the DM to stay in position as well as the full-backs not to run forward we create this shape: (2 banks of 5 showcasing the defensive 5 and the attacking 5) We can see the team clearly divided into the defensive 5 and the attacking 5. With the ball higher up the pitch we can see we hold this shape as well: (The same shape, but further up the field) In defense the shape narrows making in very difficult for the opposition to find space in between the lines. Here is a still image from the semi final game against United where we can see just how compact the midfield was: (Chelsea defend narrowly against Manchester United) (Our narrow 4-3-3 shape in defense) Edited March 25 by AceCream Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 (edited) Counter-attacking Masterclass: In 04/05 Chelsea played Barcelona in the round of 16 in the UEFA Champions League producing one of the most memorable fixtures in the competition's history. Like @Litmanen 10 stated "the tactical approach with quick counters destroyed Barcelona in the beginning of the game". (Match statistics after 20 minutes in the R16 game between Chelsea and Barcelona at the Stamford Bridge in 2005) In just 20 minutes Chelsea were 3-0 up despite only having roughly 30% possession. The full match can be seen here for free, and I highly recommend people to watch it: https://footballia.eu/matches/chelsea-fc-fc-barcelona-champions-league-2004-2005 I will now attempt to demonstrate our counter attacking system in FM2005 with a 3-1 away win against Manchester United. Unfortunately we had to change into a 4-4-2 because of injuries in midfield, but the overall play style was the same. I decided to have the mentality of the team defensive with the slider to about halfway down to the left and with the "Counter Attack" box ticked. We started off rather poorly with Cristiano Ronaldo scoring a freekick early in the first half. However on the 31st minute Joe Cole won the ball back on the half way line, skipped past Giggs and found Robben wide open on the opposite side who squared it to Mutu with Drogba firing in the goal from the rebound. 1-1. (Drogba scores the equalizer on the 31st minute) On the 82nd minute Gallas headed the ball into midfield finding Kezman who quickly found Duff open on the right flank who used his immense speed to dribble through on goal and score. (Duff finds the winner on the 82nd minute) Mateja Kezman then sealed the victory with another devastating counter attack. (Chelsea secure a massive victory at Old Trafford) Edited March 26 by AceCream 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lilljons Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Wow, what a breath of fresh(?) air! Getting all nostalgic and relearning stuff. Looking forward to all your future posts. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Litmanen 10 Posted March 24 Share Posted March 24 Superb! Would be interesting also to see some of these goals and buildups in gifs. Love those times when you actually had to use some time setting up and editing your tactics. And also, no 3D ME. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 (edited) Mourinho's Chelsea 04/05 Mid Season Review (Chelsea Starting XI in the Champions League in 04/05) Results: On the 1st of January 2005 we find ourselves is 1st place in the Premier League with 48 points, 4 points ahead Fulham and 8 points ahead of Arsenal. We have already conceded exactly 15 goals, so unless we do not concede a goal in the next 18 matches we will not match José's record of goals conceded in a league season. We are however on track on getting a record number of points and we top the league in goals scored. (League table on 01.01.2005) In FM2005 the players' condition is ridiculous at times, regularly getting as low as 40-50% in matches, especially for the strikers. I have needed to rotate a lot but thankfully we have 4 very capable strikers in Gudjohnsen, Kezman, Drogba and Mutu. In real-life Mutu got a 7 month ban in 04/05 for cocaine use which had not been added to the game at the time. For realism maybe I shouldn't use him as much because he only played 2 games for Mourinho before being sold to Juventus in January, his attributes however are to good to refuse: (Adrian Mutu's attributes in FM2005) On the wings the main options are Duff, Cole, Robben and Geremi. I noticed they would start a little bit too high up the pitch becoming isolated from play so I moved them into midfield and instructing them to run up the pitch in possession in our slightly tweaked 4-3-3 (or 4-1-4-1) (New formation being used with the wingers positioned deeper) Pulling the wingers slightly deeper into midfield got them a lot more involved in build up play and creating a lot more chances for our strikers. Joe Cole in particular excelled in the new position, topping the assist chart: (Joe Cole's stats when the season is half way done) It is Drogba however who is our main man. Winning the Balon d'Or and World Player of the year with 18 goals and 10 assists in all competitions in January. One thing I've noticed as well is that average ratings are a lot higher in this game. Here are the average ratings in the league midway through the season: (Player average ratings in the Premier League) In the Champions league we got off to a rocky start with 3 draws in a row but finished in 1st place beating Celtic 9-1 at home. We then drew Anderlecht in the round of 16. (Champion's League Group H final standings) We are also through to the QF of the League Cup, a Cup that Chelsea actually won against Liverpool in 04/05. Hopefully we can replicate that success. More to come soon.... Edited March 26 by AceCream 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 (edited) 34 minutes ago, Litmanen 10 said: Superb! Would be interesting also to see some of these goals and buildups in gifs. Love those times when you actually had to use some time setting up and editing your tactics. And also, no 3D ME. Good idea, I will try to create some GIFs showcasing our play style! @Litmanen 10 do you recommend any software to screen capture FM and creating gifs? Edited March 24 by AceCream 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 24 Author Share Posted March 24 (edited) The "Meta" in FM2005 Having reached March in game I have gotten to know the match engine better, what works and what doesn't. One thing I've noticed is just how overpowered wingers are in this game. Looking at average ratings in the top 3 leagues, all the top players are wingers. Usually with over 8.0 average match rating with 10-20 assists in all competitions(including my own). (Wingers are incredibly powerful in FM 2005, and Robben is no exception) It is actually surprisingly enjoyable to look at the wingers in action in the 2D match engine taking their man on before unleashing a cross. A majority of my goals happen when after a turnover my wingers find themselves in acres of space on the opposite side resulting in a goal-scoring opportunity. Luckily I am using the 4-3-3 where wingers are a huge part of the tactic. Initially I set them in the AML/AMR area with no "directional arrows" indicating where I wanted them to go. This resulted in them acting more as strikers rather than wingers. I therefore took inspiration from a team with one of the best wingers of all time in the Premier League. Robert Pires: (The silky Robert Pires in FM2005) With an astounding 8.33 in average rating after 24 league games I decided to pull my wingers back into the ML/MR area, which apparently was the meta in FM2005 because every big team had their wingers positioned deep with an instruction to run forward. Arsenal, Liverpool, Man Utd, Valencia, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Inter and Milan are all using a variant of the 4-4-2 with the wingers positioned deep. However where they usually deployed 2 strikers up front, Mourinho's Chelsea sacrificed one of the strikers by adding a player to the center for added midfield superiority. Which brings me to my next point. Mourinho's 4-3-3 in Attack in Fm2005 Having spoken about the defensive structure and the Makélélé role in a previous post above, I now want to demonstrate how we attack. The lone forward. Removing one of the strikers and adding a player into midfield admittedly creates an overload in midfield but it also sacrifices attacking threat. Therefore there is a need for a very capable lone forward. The responsibility of the lone forward is to either drop short to link and help create overloads in central midfield, or provide direct runs beyond the opposition. Mourinho had the pleasure of having Didier Drogba at his disposal. Being such a physical player, Chelsea would not hesitate to fire long balls into his area where Drogba could often easily hold off 1 or even 2 players at a time and holding up the ball passing it either back into midfield or flicking it on. IN FM2005 there is the option of ticking the box "Use Targetman" which has the players trying to find him more often. This has worked well in the match engine with Drogba often receiving the ball and laying it off to the midfielders or wingers, usually Frank Lampard who has scored 14 goals in all competitions at the time of writing. Below is an example of how Drogba is used as a target man. Paulo Ferreira finds Drogba in the box after a throw in, who then easily holds off 3 players before passing it to Lampard to score. (Drogba showcases his Target-man abilities assisting Frank Lampard) This has resulted in Drogba creating a lot of chances for both the wingers and midfielders, getting an impressive 12 assists in all competitions. (Balon d'Or winner Drogba's stats in the 04/05 season) Explosive wingers. When I think of Chelsea in 2004-2006 I think of two players: Arjen Robben and Damien Duff. Extremely fast wingers with great dribbling capabilities breaking away on the counter. Like I said earlier, wingers are obviously a bit overpowered in the match engine. They seem to be the main attacking threat in most teams and therefore notch up very impressive stats during the season. In my team this is no different. With 3 world class wingers in Robben, Joe Cole and Duff my attacks usually start and end with them. I want my wingers to act like more traditional wingers of the past creating width and crossing the ball often. Of course they are allowed to invert from time to time and score goals but their main attacking threat should be by creating chances for others. Which they definitively did in the Carling Cup Final against Derby. The first goal of the match starts off with Cole on the right flank dribbling past Derby's left back. He finds Robben at the far post who gets on the end of the cross and scores. I really like the team's shape in these images. I find it really encapsulates Chelsea's shape in 04/05 with the flat back four, the DM patrolling in front and one of the MCs connecting defense and attack and Frank Lampard lurking just outside the box. Finally the wingers are on opposite sides creating width and Drogba occupying the center-backs. (Cole tees up Robben to fire Chelsea 1-0 up in the 2005 Carling Cup Final) So there we have it. Our first trophy of the season, using Mourinho's tactics and players and also winning a trophy that they won in 2005 against Liverpool. (Mourinho's first of many trophies for the Blues) (Chelsea celebrate their 1st trophy in the Abramovich era) With only 10 league games to go and a place in the Champions League QF the season will be over soon. I am looking forward to updating you on how that goes, and what I will do after this. In my next "reenactment" in FM2006 I was thinking about Rijkaard's UCL winning Barcelona side with prime Ronaldinho, however I am willing to listen to any other suggestions of exciting teams from the 05/06 season. References: https://www.coachesvoice.com/cv/4-3-3-football-tactics-explained-formation-liverpool-klopp-barcelona-guardiola/ Edited March 25 by AceCream 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted March 25 Share Posted March 25 That’s an impressive and wonderful piece of read. Thank you! I will consume every part of it. I believe Rijkaards Barca should be next. It’s Ronaldinho in his primes. A must! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 25 Author Share Posted March 25 (edited) A trip to Spain (Team Showcase): Los Ches and their Enganche I want to take a quick detour from England to showcase an amazing La Liga side, but first a short history lesson. In the early nineties it seemed that the number 10 role was going extinct. During that time the demand for silky smooth incredibly technical players playing behind the strikers was diminishing. Denmark were applauded for their overwhelming functionality in EURO 92 and Brazil won the 1994 World Cup in a very un-Brazilian manner fielding 2 midfield destroyers winning the World Cup on penalties after a goalless draw. Later in Italy, a country known for their Trequartistas, Ancelotti denied the chance to sign Roberto di Baggio and Gianfranco Zola because he said they would not fit into his beloved 4-4-2 system he learned under Sacchi. This was a decision he later admittedly regretted. Physical attributes were valued over finesse and pragmatism was chosen over aesthetics. The future of attacking flair in midfield seemed bleak. However, come the turn of the millennium, football had never been more attacking. EURO 2000 marked a shift in modern playstyles and was arguably one of the best international tournaments in the modern era attacking-wise. Every national side in the semi-final employed a 10 in that tournament. Italy had Totti in their 3-4-1-2, France had Zidane in their 4-2-3-1, Holland deployed Bergkamp in their 4-4-1-1 and Portugal had Rui Costa in a 4-2-3-1. Due to the increased use of highly defensively organized teams in the mid nineties it is theorized that teams started adding more attacking midfielders to aid the attack nearing the millennium. The need to break down stubborn defenses became more important and teams started to move their playmakers higher up the pitch. (EURO 2000 team of the tournament) It is in Argentina where the playmaker is positioned in the number 10 role and is called, as many of you inevitably know, the Enganche. Argentina is known for their 4-3-1-2 formation, fielding no wingers and instead deploying 2 mobile strikers that drift out wide and the Enganche in the hole. But why am I telling you all this? Well, in 2001 Valencia signed from River Plate an elegant, technically brilliant attacking midfielder named Pablo Aimar. A free-kick specialist, able to utilise his excellent dribbling capabilities and vision to orchestrate attacking moves he quickly drew comparisons to Diego Maradona. Later, the greatest footballer of all time, Lionel Messi stated that in his youth he idolized the small-framed Enganche. But how does this tie into FM2005, you ask? (Lionel Messi's Idol, Pablo Aimar) In FM2005 arguably the best team in the game is Valencia. Valencia in the early 2000s, in my opinion, is one of the most underappreciated clubs in modern history. They won La Liga in 2002 and 2004 and were back-to-back runners up in the Champions League in 2000 and 2001, losing on penalties in the final in the latter. In 2004 Rafa Benítez won them the UEFA Cup beating Marseille rather convincingly in the final in Gothenburg. I want to show you some of the talent they had at their disposal. Starting from the goalkeeper they had the bleach haired wonder Santiago Cañizares: (Cañizares's attributes in FM2005) One of the last true sweepers and best center-back of his generation Roberto Ayala: (Ayala's attributes in FM2005) 2010 World-Cup winner Marchena: (Marchena's attributes in FM2005) The incredibly underrated Fabio Aurelio: (Marchena's attributes in FM2005) Current manager of Valencia Ruben Baraja: (Barajas's attributes in FM2005) Mr. Reliable and Club Captain David Albelda: (Albelda's attributes in FM2005) Brighton legend Vicente: (Vicente's attributes in FM2005) The beautifully haired Rufete: (Rufete's attributes in FM2005) Clinical poacher Mista: (Mista's attributes in FM2005) And saving the best for last, one of the most enigmatic, technically brilliant Enganches ever, Lionel Messi's childhood idol Pablo Aimar (Aimar's attributes in FM2005) This is without a doubt one of the best, most insane out-of-the-box teams I have ever seen on any Football Manager. Look at the age profile of the squad, they are all in their prime. Also this is without a few honorable mentions in Bernardo Corradi, Marco Di Vaio, Momo Sissoko, Emiliano Morretti, Miguel Angel Angulo, Stefano Fiore who, trust me, I had a hard time leaving out of this showcase due to space limitations. I am very tempted to play a season or two with Valencia in FM2005 and deploying a eye-watering 4-2-3-1 with Aimar in the number 10 position. Also in FM2005 La Liga is fully licensed with kits, logos and team facepacks adding to the immersion. This goal Valencia scored by Aimar against Liverpool in the Uefa Cup in 2002 remains one of my all time favorite goals: But again why am I telling you all of this? Well it just so happens that my Chelsea team drew them in the Champions League Quarter Final and if I am going to get at least as far as Mourinho did in real life in 04/05 I will need to bring my A-game. Valencia are sitting comfortably on the top of La Liga 10 points ahead of the Galácticos Real Madrid who have Zidane, Beckham, Ronaldo, Figo, Raul and Michel Owen at their disposal, just to name a few. Season finale and the conclusion on Mourinho's Chelsea in FM2005 coming soon... References: Jonathan Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid Chapter 19: Ghosts and the Machine Edited March 26 by AceCream 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 (edited) Mourinho‘s Chelsea 04/05 Season Comparison and FM2005 Conclusion Results: Premier League We won the league rather convincingly, having won it with 2 games to spare finishing 9 points ahead of Manchester United with 87 points. 26 wins, 9 draws and 3 losses scoring 84 goals and conceding 24 with a GD of +60. The only records broken this season was the goal difference. If I'm not mistaken, the highest goal difference before 04/05 was +52 in 99/00 by Manchester United. (Chelsea celebrate their first title win in 50 years) In real life Chelsea won the league with a record 95 points, winning 29, drawing 7 and losing only 1 game while famously conceding only 15 goals. Therefore the only objective, Premier League wise, we managed to replicate is winning the league. We did win it however with a counter attacking and rather defensive approach, using a 4-3-3 and conceding the least in the league. (2004/2005 final Premier League Table) In the league I consider this re-enactment as a success performance wise and regarding tactical historical accuracy of our playstyle. Champions League In big games against strong opponents in the league and the knockout rounds of the Champions League, I decided to try and tweak our playstyle a bit. I opted for a more pragmatic approach trying to be more like Mourinho. Mourinho is a manager renowned for his mastery of winning one-off games with tactically astute defensive approaches. Moving the mentality slider 4/10 spaces to the left I chose to be more defensive than normally. (Team instructions in big games) It might be a bit lazy to interpret Mourinho‘s tactical excellence simply as „defensive“ but it makes sense in my opinion. If the sliders of 2005 work anything like the mentality option of today‘s match engine, it means we well be slightly more risk averse. Admittedly I see little to no difference in the way we play with this more defensive option on the pitch but the match stats speak for themselves. (1st leg Champions League Quarter Final Match Stats) The 1st leg against Valencia away at the Mestalla ended in a 0-1 win for Chelsea. Right before the final whistle Paulo Ferreira won the ball back at the halfway line, finds Geremi alone in the space between the lines who easily slid in Drogba to fire home the winner. I was really happy with this win and the referee of the match put a smile on my face as well. The second leg was no contest where we won convincingly 3-0. (Drogba scores the winner) (Legendary Italian referee Collina) We then drew Italian giants Milan in the semi-final. Which brings me to one of the problems with re-enactments of this type. To be tactically historically accurate I need to set up my team similarly to how I think the manager would have set up. In this case how Mourinho would have set up against Milan. Milan, at the time, had assembled one of the most legendary teams ever with Maldini, Nesta, Stam, Cafu, Pirlo, Gattuso, Seedorf, Kaka, Shevchenko and Crespo. So it is safe to assume that Mourinho would have probably used a pretty defensive approach. In Football Manager it feels very good when it works, however when it doesn't it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I used the same team instructions as I used in the quarter final, a defensive counter attacking approach. At Stamford Bridge we managed a 0-0 draw and the stats suggested that was a fair result. At the San Siro however, Milan absolutely destroyed us, and we somehow only lost 1-0. In our defense, we had many key players out with injuries in the end of the season. In the other tie, Roma beat Arsenal and went on to win it in an all-Italian final. (Champions League 2nd leg semifinal match stats) (Champions League semi final results) (Chelsea's injuries) Results wise, we managed a Champions League semi-final, just like Chelsea in 04/05. Unlike Chelsea however, we were battered in the biggest game of the season, whereas Chelsea arguably battered Liverpool in real life. I feel like Chelsea would have been much better in their big games and consider this as a failure on my part performance wise. To grade this re-enactment of the Chelsea 04/05 season I think it would be best to categorize it into two factors: Results and historical accuracy of tactics and play-style. Results: 4/5. We won the league and the league cup and lost in the UCL semi-final. Exactly like Chelsea in 04/05. We maybe didn't get a record number of points or concede a ridiculously low amount of goals in the league but it was always going to be unrealistic that we would manage to match those feats. Historical accuracy: 4/5. We used the same formation, play-style and squad. Of course there are many tactical nuances which are difficult to replicate in FM2005 and I could have spent more time on tweaking instructions but like I stated in the 1st post: "I intend on keeping things rather simple tactically, only focusing on major factors of the team's success and finishing seasons rather quickly." We managed to get the right players in the right positions and I feel we represented the spirit of Mourinho's Chelsea well. Stats: Players in FM2005 feel a bit overpowered, compared to more recent games. Both attribute-wise and ratings-wise. In later games player's match rating by default start at 6.0 but in FM2005 they start at 7.0 which explains the high average ratings. Players in my team achieved pretty amazing statistics throughout the season: (Player stats) I am no data-analyst, but I think, for example, the attacker's dribbles per game are really high. Maybe someone here knows more about this than me, but I believe a high successful dribbles per 90 minutes is usually in the 3-5 range. A player I feel we managed to recreate well is Frank Lampard. He managed 12 goals in the league, 16 in total compared to his 13 league goals in real life. His late runs into the box and positioning in the match engine felt really Lampard-esque while also scoring many long shots from time to time. (Frank Lampard stats) (Team Stats) Football Manager 2005: In conclusion, I am going to speak a bit on the game itself. Football Manager 2005 is a wonderful game and I highly recommend for fans to try out a season or two. It may be a bit clunky at times, but the basic addictive formula is the same. The UI doesn't feel outdated and the adjustment of going from FM24 to FM05 was quick and painless. I miss the green and blue color scheme with the grass background. The yellow/orange color of the attributes pop out beautifully making it very satisfying when looking at excellent players. I could spend hours just clicking through teams and leagues, viewing players and looking at their history. The only real gripe I had with the game was the inability to quit to the start screen or loading up another save file from the options menu. You have to quit the game, start it again and then choose which game to load . (Options panel) FM2005 was released in world where stats and data analysis wasn't really the mainstream. Therefore team and player stats isn't really that useful a tool. The only team stats available to view is form, goals conceded, goals scored and so on. There are no possession stats, shots, pass completion (except from individual match stats) and so on. So it can be hard to determine if your team is playing the way you would like it to play. (Team Stats to choose from) The tactics creator and match engine felt at times as a black box of sorts. I rarely felt like what I was choosing had any impact on how my team played, but rather just was just another variable in the engines many calculations. I experimented a bit and tried my best to implement a possession based tactic with shorter passing and more patient build up play but visually I saw no difference. Even though I asked the keeper to pass it as short as possible it made no difference. It all feels very random at times, which I guess could also be said about today's game. Pros: Very quick loading times Clean UI Nostalgia Cons: Few player and team stats to analyze. A low sense of tactical control. Final rating: 7/10. This is the first Football Manager game and it feels like a appetizer for what's to come. Nostalgia plays a huge factor in the enjoyment I got out of the game, but I truly feel it holds up even today. If you got this far thank you so much for reading, it has been a pleasure to re-enact Mourinho's Chelsea in FM2005. There are many teams in this game that I would love to try out a season with but the show must go on. Please join me on my next adventure where we leave England and travel to sunny Spain where I will aim to re-enact Rijkaard's Barcelona in FM2006. (Rijkaard met Mourinho twice in the knockout stages of the Champions League in 04/05 and 05/06.) Edited March 28 by AceCream 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted March 28 Author Share Posted March 28 (edited) Part 2: Rijkaard‘s Barcelona in FM2006 Historical Background: „At Barcelona style of play is everything. It is an ideology that has turned Barcelona into an institution“ - Johann Cruyff. Although Dutch, Rijkaard was not particularly hard to work with like many of his compatriots (van Gaal, Koeman and most infamously Johan Cruyff himself). He endured a difficult start in 03/04 as Barcelona won just 2 of their first 7 games, including a 5-1 defeat at Malaga. They were beaten at home in the league against Madrid for this first time in 20 years. A game in which Rijkaard‘s team selection drew accusations of cowardice. In the winter-break of 2004 Barcelona were 12th in the table. Things were so bad that Sandro Rossell, a board member, had plotted to replace him with Brazilian Luiz Felipe Scolari who had recently won the World Cup. Everything was transformed however with the arrival of Dutch tireless midfielder Edgar Davids and Barca‘s subsequent switch from 4-2-3-1 to a Cruyffian 4-3-3. (Messi and Rijkaard embrace during a Champions League match in 05/06) With that system everything started to fall into place. In a 4-3-3 there is no defensive double pivot and there are more lines of vertical passing. Ronaldinho started to tuck inside from the left forming a diamond with his midfield trio of Xavi, Deco and Edmílson. This opened the left wing up for the left back to run into, usually the attacking fullbacks van Bronckhorst or Sylvinho. After this new shape was implemented Barca went on a run of 9 league wins in a row in the latter stage of the 03/04 season. Then won a league game at the Bernabeu for the first time in 7 years. They finished 2nd to Valencia in his first season. (Illustration of Barcelona's shape in 05/06) In 04/05 Barca were finally playing attacking football again, Cruyff said. Pushing high up the pitch, focusing on maintaining possession and using the wings to stretch the play. Rijkaard was maybe not a revolutionary like Guardiola, Cruyff or Mourinho. But he did have an understated calmness on the touchline and focused on keeping things simple and allowing his best players to express themselves. La liga was won convincingly in 04/05 after having started the season going 10 games unbeaten and never leaving the top spot. 05/06 was the best season Barcelona had, arguably since Cruyff‘s dream team in the early 90s. Ronaldinho received a standing ovation at the Bernabeau in a 3-0 win over Real Madrid in El Classico in November and Barcelona won the league by 12 points. More importantly they clinched only the second Champions League title in the club‘s history. Mourinho‘s Chelsea were beaten in the round of 16 and wins against Benfica and Milan subsequently followed. Arsene Wenger‘s Arsenal were then beaten 2-1 in Paris in the final. Pep Guardiola wrote in El País that „this Barcelona side was the best side since Cruyff‘s Dream Team“. [1] Rijkaard‘s Barcelona: When figuring out the play-style of a team I start off by looking at the formations used by the team on Transfermarkt. Here we see that Barcelona used a 4-3-3 in every game, so that will be our starting shape. I then like to watch old matches to understand the team‘s playstyle and player roles better. Lets start off by watching the famous 3-0 win at the Bernabeu from November of 2005. It can be seen here: https://footballia.eu/matches/real-madrid-fc-barcelona-liga-1-division-2005-2006. This was their starting 11 and formation: (Barcelona team sheet vs Real Madrid in November 2005) Starting from the goalkeeping position, Victor Valdes can be seen playing out from the back with his feet comfortably as well as going long on occasions. He also isn‘t afraid of coming off his line and sweeping up, showcasing his potential as a sweeper keeper. The centerbacks, Puyol and Rafa Marquez, were comfortable with playing out from the back with the latter having permission on being direct and trying riskier passes. With Ronaldinho inverting this leaves space for van Bronckhorst to run into, while on the other side of the pitch fullback Oleguer held his position more. (Barcelona playing out from the back) The midfield trio of Edmílson, Xavi and Deco may have not been as talented as Busquets, Xavi and Iniesta but they got the job done. Edmílson, the holding midfielder, was found in front of the defense playing short simple passes to Xavi or Deco and winning the ball back. Xavi could be best described as a deep-lying playmaker, and the transition from defense to attack went through him. Finally Deco, the most attacking of the three, would often dribble with the ball forward finding the front three or arrive late in the box. The attacking trident of Ronaldinho, Eto‘o and Messi are the team‘s main goalscoring threat. With Ronaldinho inverting, Eto‘o on occasion coming deep to get the ball or running into space, and finally Messi creating width by hugging the touchline on the right side before dribbling onto his left foot. The defensive line is relatively high for 2006 standards and Barcelona pressed immediately when Real reach the half-way line. (Barcelona shape in the attacking build up) If I were to setup the team in FM24‘s tactic creator it would look something like this: (Rijkaard's Barcelona in FM24) Implementation in FM2006: At first glance FM2006s tactic creator and match engine is a slight improvement on FM2005s. They have added possession stats (which will come in handy when recreating a Barcelona side), pre-determined player roles, a better more streamlined UI, team talks during halftime and fulltime. Overall everything is just a bit tighter. First things first, the proposed formation and team instructions: (Proposed formation, starting XI and team instructions) I did not use a playmaker in FM2005 and I am excited to see how they are represented in the match engine. The playmaker will of course be Xavi, but I am not really sure how it works in FM2006. You have to check the box "Use playmaker" and then add players to a playmaker list, similar to how you add penalty takers or set piece takers on corners. So I guess if Xavi is not on the pitch the player next on the list will be automatically the new playmaker. But what if I add no-one to the list but still have the box checked? If anybody knows please let me know . Like I said earlier, FM2006 introduces pre-determined player instructions based on the position (or role) you would like them to preform. A sort of prototype of the roles we have in the current games. This comes in handy and I use them as a starting off point when choosing the player instructions for each position and them tweak them a bit to my liking. They can be seen here: (Drop down menu to choose pre determined player instructions for specific positions) Not surprisingly the most exciting player in the team is Ronaldinho. Because I want him to invert and acting almost as a wide number 10 I have his arrow in the formation point inwards towards the striker position, but I might just have it go straight to the right in midfield after having a look at how he behaves in the match engine. I also chose the pre-determined "Attacking Midfielder" player instructions and tweaked them a bit. With 19 long shots I had him attempt more of them as well as running with the ball more often. I also gave him the "Free Role" and I am excited to see how that works in this match engine. (Ronaldinho's attributes in FM2006 and player instructions) His attributes are obviously ridiculous and it honestly feels kind of weird getting to use him. I feel kind of pressured to have to get the most out of him and if I don't succeed in making him preform well in the re-enactment I will see it as a major failure on my part. That's gonna be it for now. In the next post I will showcase the rest of the team and their respective roles as well as taking a first look at the match engine in FM2006. References: [1] Jonathan Wilson's The Barcelona Inheritance Chapter: Out of Dutch. Edited April 3 by AceCream 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bosque Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 Dude, I'm in love with this thread. Especially with the Pablo Aimar post. Keep it coming! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 1 Author Share Posted April 1 1 hour ago, bosque said: Dude, I'm in love with this thread. Especially with the Pablo Aimar post. Keep it coming! Thank you so much! I am having a blast myself. I have been travelling a bit during Easter so my time to play FM has decreased. You can expect a new post soon however! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
llado01 Posted April 1 Share Posted April 1 (edited) two things: 1- the current Giuly's role is a Raumdeuter he attack the space in all of matches , never received the ball at his feet 2- Ronaldinho was a clear AP , all of the Barça's attacks started with he, all of them BTW, great Job, thanks Edited April 1 by llado01 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldschoolfm Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 (edited) thank you for this series. i am an old skool player who, till today, am still playing FM2005 on an off. I somehow have not have had the time to buy or play any FM that is newer than that, but have become some kind of an expert on the intricacies of the FM2005 engine. you are right on a number of points, esp the point that wingers are "very powerful" in FM2005. In particular, pace and dribbling allows crazy levels of offensive penetration, and jumping is very important because players are going to lump the ball up the moment they cannot find a target to execute your "short pass" instructions, so you better be able to win the ensuing header. A thread this new about games this old is very rare and i was very excited to see it. i just wanted to mention abit about what arrows do. As far as i can tell, a forward arrow tells a player where you want him to be when you are in possession. A backward arrows tells a player where you want him to be when you are NOT in possession. there's no way, as far as i know, to tell a player to retreat when you are in possession, so getting a DM to fall back to form a back 3 when in possession is impossible (that said, even today i am discovering new things about the fm2005 engine, so if anyone knows more pls feel free to correct me!) so if you want your ronaldinho to move to become the tip of the diamond, it may make more sense to draw an arrow to the AM position. Edited April 3 by oldschoolfm 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 3 Author Share Posted April 3 (edited) On 01/04/2024 at 19:12, llado01 said: two things: 1- the current Giuly's role is a Raumdeuter he attack the space in all of matches , never received the ball at his feet 2- Ronaldinho was a clear AP , all of the Barça's attacks started with he, all of them BTW, great Job, thanks Thanks for your input @llado01. Giuly and Messi have both been injured for a majority of my season so I have had to retrain Iniesta as an AMR. He might not have the pace for a winger, but technically he is of course brilliant. In my attempt to get Ronaldinho to be more of a AMC that starts out wide I instruct to rarely cross the ball and often to try through balls. He is playing well and averages a goal and assist every other game. (Ronaldinho's player instructions and statistics) 7 hours ago, oldschoolfm said: thank you for this series. i am an old skool player who, till today, am still playing FM2005 on an off. I somehow have not have had the time to buy or play any FM that is newer than that, but have become some kind of an expert on the intricacies of the FM2005 engine. you are right on a number of points, esp the point that wingers are "very powerful" in FM2005. In particular, pace and dribbling allows crazy levels of offensive penetration, and jumping is very important because players are going to lump the ball up the moment they cannot find a target to execute your "short pass" instructions, so you better be able to win the ensuing header. A thread this new about games this old is very rare and i was very excited to see it. i just wanted to mention abit about what arrows do. As far as i can tell, a forward arrow tells a player where you want him to be when you are in possession. A backward arrows tells a player where you want him to be when you are NOT in possession. there's no way, as far as i know, to tell a player to retreat when you are in possession, so getting a DM to fall back to form a back 3 when in possession is impossible (that said, even today i am discovering new things about the fm2005 engine, so if anyone knows more pls feel free to correct me!) so if you want your ronaldinho to move to become the tip of the diamond, it may make more sense to draw an arrow to the AM position. I have been looking at very old threads on the forum by @Cleon, @Rashidi and @wwfan dating back to 2006 . I believe what your talking about are the so-called Farrows, Barrows and Sarrows which you can read about here: I also have based my tactical approaches on Rashidi's thread "Creating Effective Tactics - One possible approach". Finally here WWFan goes into detail here on the importance of mentality in his thread here (albeit in FM2007, which will come in handy when we re-enact Ancelotti's Champions League winning Milan of 06/07 ): Its kind weird reading threads from 2006 I must admit, sort of like stepping into a time machine . Edited April 3 by AceCream Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldschoolfm Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 WOW that article by @wwfan completely blew my mind, i am not sure how much it applies to FM2005 but it makes sense. i can't wait to get home to try it now lol thank you SO MUCH for being a great resource for such an ancient game that no on else is playing. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikcheck Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 Should you be limiting Ronaldinho to such a short passing game? Given is insane attributes. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 If you take suggestions. I would suggest Mourinho's Inter when you get to FM 2009. Along with that famous victory against Barcelona with Chelsea in 2005, I will always remember that UEFA Champions league encounter between Inter and Barcelona. The swift counter attacks in the first leg and the sturdy defensive effort (plus the Busquets peek) in the second one. I think the defensive effort was way better than for example Chelsea had at Camp Nou in 2012. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 3 Author Share Posted April 3 (edited) 10 minutes ago, El Payaso said: If you take suggestions. I would suggest Mourinho's Inter when you get to FM 2009. Along with that famous victory against Barcelona with Chelsea in 2005, I will always remember that UEFA Champions league encounter between Inter and Barcelona. The swift counter attacks in the first leg and the sturdy defensive effort (plus the Busquets peek) in the second one. I think the defensive effort was way better than for example Chelsea had at Camp Nou in 2012. @El Payaso I am definitely taking suggestions! And the one you suggested is exactly what I proposed in the opening post of this topic . However, I think FM10 would be more appropriate as that would start off in the 09/10 season when they won the treble. On 23/03/2024 at 19:37, AceCream said: Here is a proposed plan on reenactments I intend on trying and examples on objectives for each one: FM2005: Mourinho's Chelsea. Can I match the 15 goals conceded record and win the Premier League using the 4-3-3 with Makélélé in the Makélélé role? FM2006: Rijkaard's Barcelona. Can I win the UCL/La Liga double with Ronaldinho being the main man while introducing Messi to the world? FM2007: Ancelotti's Milan. Can I win the UCL with an aging Milan squad using the famous Christmas Tree formation? FM2008: Ferguson's United. Can I win the Premier League and UCL using Ferguson's fluid 4-4-2 getting Ronaldo to score 30+ goals in the league? FM2009: Guardiola's Barcelona. Can I win the treble establishing Messi as the best player in the world in a legendary Barcelona 4-3-3? FM2010: Mourinho's Inter. Can I win the UCL using a pragmatic 4-2-3-1 with Wesley Sneijder in the #10 role? FM2011: Guardiola's Barcelona vol. 2. Can I be the most dominant team in the world implementing a tiki-taka system with Messi in the false 9? FM2012: Klopp's Dortmund. Can I implement a very high pressing "heavy metal" system developing a young Götze and Lewandowski and winning the Bundesliga? FM2013: Heynckes's Bayern. Can I win the treble using a high pressing 4-2-3-1 with Robben and Ribery excelling as inverted wingers? And so on Edited April 3 by AceCream Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Payaso Posted April 3 Share Posted April 3 Woops, totally missed that. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 3 Author Share Posted April 3 (edited) 19 hours ago, mikcheck said: Should you be limiting Ronaldinho to such a short passing game? Given is insane attributes. In an ideal world probably not. He obviously has the ability to be trying more direct long balls with his passing and vision. IIRC shorter passing is the default with the pre-determined Attacking Midfielder player instructions I used when creating the Ronaldinho role. I also started the save by setting up a possession-based system to see how it would work in FM2006, so I didn't want somebody in the team to be giving the ball away with risky passes. I have however tweaked the system a bit, allowing some players to try more direct passes. You can expect an update to be posted later today after I get home from work explaining all of the player roles and how they perform in the ME Edited April 4 by AceCream 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 3 Author Share Posted April 3 (edited) Rijkaard's Barcelona: Player Roles and Instructions In a previous post I mentioned that FM2006 introduces pre-determined player instruction templates for specific positions on the pitch. The player instructions available are: Goalkeeper Full Back Centre Back Defensive Midfielder Attacking Midfielder Winger Striker Target Man In 2005 tactics, statistics and player-roles weren‘t really that mainstream and usually people only talked about formations, especially in England. So, you will find no mezzalas, false-9s, segundo volantes and inverted wingbacks. No high-blocks, pressing triggers and counter-pressing team instructions. I however like the simplicity of the tactic creator. I just try to get my best players in the correct areas of the pitch, which I think was also Rijkaard’s coaching philosophy with his Barcelona side. Of course, managing the best team in the world helps. (Barcelona 05/06 team celebrating a goal in the Champions League) I want to emphasize that I am willingly playing these old games with the mindset that it is 2006 and I am acting as if I’m playing them “blind”, using the tools the game gives me without any prior knowledge or trying to exploit the match engine using tried and true methods in any way. I feel this makes me less biased when critiquing the games and it gives me more enjoyment with the limited tools and resources compared to today’s games. Anyways, let’s talk about the player’s attributes and their instructions. Starting with Victor Valdes I chose the pre-determined goalkeeper instructions but tweaked them to pass short and distribute the ball to the centre back. I feel like he goes shorter more often in open play, but I swear I have never seen him distribute the ball to Puyol or the other centerback during a goal kick. If anybody knows how to achieve this, please let me know. (Victor Valdes attributes and instructions. Just look at those physicals attributes!) On the left side I have the more attacking full backs. Gio and Serginho are both highly technical fullbacks with great creative, passing and crossing capabilities. I instruct them to run forward often, cross more often and cross from a deeper position. This makes them act like quasi-wingers running into the space created by Ronaldinho. (Bronckhorst attributes and instructions) On the right hand side, I have Oleguer acting as a defensive inverted fullback or Belleti acting as a more traditional fullback. Neither of them runs forward very often for more defensive stability resulting in a back three when we attack. I am surprised the level of positional play you can implement with the old match engine. (Attacking shape showcasing the DL (Bronckhorst) running into space and the DR (Belletti) staying back) The centre-backs (Puyol and Marquez) have the pre-determined centre-back player instructions; however Marquez has the permission to try more direct passes as well as dribble with the ball more often (run with ball slider), resulting in him being more of a modern ball-playing defender while Puyol is just the traditional centre-back: (Carles Puyol's attributes, a total of ten 20s ) In real life Marquez started out as a traditional centre-back in his early Barcelona career but because of his technical abilities on the ball as well as his vision he was often deployed as a defensive midfielder. Rafa was one of Rijkaard‘s unsung heroes acting almost as a Koeman/Beckenbauer-esque libero style defender. Wikipedia‘s article about his style of play sums him up to a T: Quote „Rafa has been described as elegant on the ball and in his tackling, possessing excellent technical ability and vision, tactical awareness, dependable in the air for both, defending and attacking, and being skilful coming out of defense. He also stood out for his leadership, as well as his passing range, and his ability to read the game and intercept the ball“ I feel like Marquez was born a little bit too early and played in an era that didn't utilize ball-playing defenders enough. Imagine him playing today in Pep's City. (Quintessential Ball-Playing Defender Rafa Marquez) Just in front of the defence lies Edmílson, our defensive midfielder. And that is exactly what I want him to be, just a simple defensively minded holding midfielder who breaks up opposition attacks and helps with the build up in attack. Not as defensive as for example Makélélé in my Chelsea team in FM2005, but not as attacking as an Andrea Pirlo (who I can’t wait to use as a Regista in my next re-enactment in FM2007). Edmílson uses the pre-determined defensive midfielder player instructions with a rather defensive mentality and is supposed to press and close down more. La Masia graduate Thiago Motta is a suitable rotation option in this position. (Edmílson's attributes and player instructions) Xavi is our playmaker. I want the ball to go through him in basically all phases of play. He might not have been as influential in Rijkaard’s side as he was with Guardiola, but his technical and mental attributes are elite. Like I have stated, I’m not sure how playmakers work in this match engine, and I admit I do not see a difference when watching a match in the game. Unfortunately, there are no detailed player statistics to see if his passing numbers are higher than other players in the team. I tick the box “hold up ball” and ask him to often try through balls to utilize his amazing passing and creativity. Given his stats this season and what I have seen of him on the pitch I think I am correctly representing the way he played under Rijkaard. (Xavi's attributes and player instructions) Deco is our ball-carrier and chance creator, the most attacking of the midfield 3. He has unlimited creative freedom and I want him to run with the ball often as well as trying through balls for Eto’o. Deco is one of those brilliant forgotten players who was overshadowed by many of his teammates. I absolutely adore these kinds of players. Others, in my opinion, who fall under this category of quiet geniuses are for example: Guti Hernandez, Aimar (who I mentioned in my Valencia FM2005 showcase), Riquelme, Recoba and so on. (Deco's attributes and player instructions) On the left of the attacking 3 we have Ronaldinho. I have been experimenting with the Sarrows and Farrows as well as instructions with him. As @llado01 stated he saw him as a clear advanced playmaker, but he was also a prolific goal-scorer during his time at Barca. In 05/06 he scored 17 league goals, 26 goals in all competitions. In the mid-2000s it was almost unheard of for wide players or number 10s to score so many goals. Obviously, that changed later with the coming of Messi and Ronaldo, and most recently Salah. I therefore want him to both score goals and create chances, acting almost as a second striker / wide-playmaker hybrid. I started off by using a diagonal Farrow pointing to the striker position, but he ended up being to much in the way of Eto’o in that position and not creating enough. I then tried a Sarrow (side-ways arrow) straight into the AMC position, but according to my research of older threads from the forum Sarrows aren’t really understood and he wasn’t performing as well as he should. I ended up using a standard Farrow but with the “Cross Ball” slider turned down all the way to the left. I found he would dribble down the left more and then cut inside, because he wasn’t “allowed” to cross. This has resulted in some brilliant goals and beautiful attacking play, which I will demonstrate in a future post. Eto’o has been our main star this season, already scoring 16 LEAGUE goals before December. I just use the Striker pre-determined player instructions and that is it. His extreme pace and acceleration supplemented with his insane finishing and off the ball movement makes him probably the best striker in the world. (Eto'o attributes and player instructions) On the right side I have a traditional winger who hugs the touchline and creates width and crosses the ball often. I wanted to use Giuly and Messi there but unfortunately this happened: (RIP Messi) Giuly has also been injured for a majority of the 1st half of the season so I have been retraining Iniesta as an AMR. Due to space limitations I'll have to cut it short here. To be continued... Edited April 4 by AceCream Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 3 Author Share Posted April 3 (edited) Rijkaard's Barcelona: Player Roles and Instructions Continued As I was saying, Messi and Giuly have unfortunately been injured most of the season. Truth be told I am more frustrated by Giuly being injured because he played a bigger role than Messi in the 05/06 season. If Ronaldinho had ruptured his ACL I probably would have save scummed. But getting to use a 21 year old Iniesta in the AMR position is a fine consolation. (Messi's, Giuly's and Iniesta's attributes. Notice Messi's 20 tackling ) The season has started well and I feel like my team is playing attacking possession based football which Cruyff himself would have been proud of. We are on the top of the league having scored the most goals and even Guardiola is singing our praises: (A young Guardiola praises our Spanish Super Cup success) (We have scored over 2 goals per game) When creating the tactic I wanted to see Ronaldinho inverting with van Bronckhorst running into the empty space on the left wing. This pattern of play can be seen many times in Barcelona's games in the 05/06 season. This can be rather easily replicated in the match engine and results in some very nice attacks. Ronaldinho's 19 long shots and instruction to try long shots often was beautifully demonstrated in this goal below: (A great curling effort from Ronaldinho against Cádiz) There are 5 aspects that really please me with this goal. The playing out from the back by Marquez to find Edmílson. The short beautiful passing of the midfield. Ronaldinho cutting inside and shooting from distance. Bronckhorst running into the space left by Ronaldinho and keeping the width. The back 3 of Olegeur, Marques and Puyol. The team is ridiculously well equipped to play a possession based system. The technical capabilities of the whole team is quite remarkable and with thirteen players having 16 passing or more we often dominate matches. I would love there to be more team stats representing our style of play, but the only metric I have are match stats from individual games. (The squad's attacking attributes) (Match stats against Racing Santander) That concludes the player roles and a quick glance at how the team functions within the match engine. Next there will be a mid-season update, followed by maybe another team showcase like I did with Valencia in FM2005 and then we will wrap things up at the end of the season. Thanks for reading! Edited April 4 by AceCream 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bosque Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Very interesting the positional play achieved with such an old match engine! I like the simplicity behind the team and player instructions. Especially with the mentality. I remember complex theories about the rules of 1, rules of 2, 2-6-2 etc. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 4 Author Share Posted April 4 (edited) 6 hours ago, bosque said: Very interesting the positional play achieved with such an old match engine! I like the simplicity behind the team and player instructions. Especially with the mentality. I remember complex theories about the rules of 1, rules of 2, 2-6-2 etc. Thanks @bosque! I have been reading old threads on this forum and I came across this one from October 2006: Here he talks about mentality frameworks. The frameworks are based on the assumption that the mentality slider has a numerical value from 0-20 and that the combination of mentalities and the total sum of them dictate how the team plays. Therefore a team with 100 total mentality (10 outfield players with an average mentality of 10) is very balanced. Here are a few of these frameworks: Rule of two. The Rule of Two is based upon the assumption that players must have a variety of acceptable passing options available to them. If players are too close together they are too easy to contain, and passing breaks down. If players are too far apart, too many ambitious balls are hit, and passing breaks down. Therefore, each player must be able to pick out someone to pass too who has a mentality within two positions of his own. Total mentality: 112 (+12) 5x5 Defensive Line. 5x5 Defensive Line Theory assumes that teams have a basic philosophy of five attack and five defend. Originally, the thinking here was that 5 players should have an equal defensive mentality, and five should have can equal attacking mentality. There were problems employing this type of system as there were big gaps between the attacking players and defensive players. The solution was to ensure the defensive line setting was equal to the mentality of the attacking players. Total mentality: 100 (+0) And so on... It's a great read if you ever intend on playing the games that had sliders (FM05-FM09 I believe). I did not go into such detail though when choosing the mentality of my teams (Chelsea and Barcelona). I am of course managing the best teams in each edition of the game so tactics do not matter too much for performance. This is the mentality distribution: So with the mentalities as a numerical value my mentality distribution is: GK = 0 DCs = 2 DR = 10 DL = 14 CDM = 5 MCL = 10 MCR = 14 AML = 14 AMR = 10 ST = 14 Total mentality: 93. So according to that article I am playing rather defensively . I might need to reconsider my play style during the later half of the season if my aim is to play attacking Cruyffian total football! Edited April 4 by AceCream 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikcheck Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 Oh how I miss those good old days, playing with mentality sliders, trying the nike defence and so on 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 Just amazing 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
R0ca Posted April 5 Share Posted April 5 So much nostalgia in this fantastic thread. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AceCream Posted April 14 Author Share Posted April 14 (edited) Rijkaard‘s Barcelona 05/06 Mid Season Review (Rijkaard oversees training for Barcelona in 2006) During the winter-break, when the league is just about half-way done, we are rather comfortably on the top of La Liga with 42 points out of a possible 51. 5 points ahead of dark-horse Betis with Valencia and arch rivals Real Madrid both sitting on 34 points. Probably our most telling statistic is our impressive defensive record of only 8 goals conceded. However, our 2.4 goals per game also indicate how dominant we have been this season. (La Liga table on January 1st 2005) The stars of the show have been, you guessed it, Eto‘o and Ronaldinho. With the pair averaging an impressive 36 goals between them. Eto‘o in particular has been astounding, but he was unfortunately injured in December, leaving him out for 2 months If he hadn't have been injured for so long he could have challenged Hugo Sanchez's and Telmo Zarra's La Liga record of 38 goals. Records before the Messi/Ronaldo era were a bit more reasonable to say the least. Ronaldinho has been exceeding my expectations, which sounds ludicrous given how good he already is. His goal scoring has been phenomenal and I'm hoping he can reach at least 15 league goals, similar to how he preformed in real life in 05/06. (Eto'o's Stats) (Ronaldinho's stats) Talking about injuries, they are getting kind of ridiculous. Here is basically half my starting 11 injured during a period in mid-January. (Barcelona's injuries pile on) An aspect of this re-enactment I see as a relative failure is our poor results against Real Madrid. In the first half of the season we lost at the Bernabéu 2-1 with both goals coming from Brazilian superstar Julio Baptista, who has been fantastic for them this season scoring 9 and assisting 10 in 21 league games this season from a midfield position in a standard 4-4-2 formation. Of course in real life Baptista would never really live up to the hype and was later loaned to Arsenal where the only thing I remember him doing was scoring 4 goals against Liverpool in a league cup quarter final in 2007. (Baptista's attributes and stats) Wanderley Luxembergo's men also beat us in the Copa del Rey quarter final on penalties after a 2-2 aggregate score and we drew them 0-0 at home in a league game sandwiched between the cup-tie . However his poor league form saw him sacked in February and Director of Football Arrigo Sacchi has to find someone new to manage the Galácticos for the remainder of the season. An important aspect of the real 05/06 season was Barcelona's dominance over Real Madrid in the matches between the two teams, so not beating them at all this season is a bit of a disappointment. (3 Games against Real Madrid in 8 days) In the Champions League we secured the top stop in our group with Everton, Porto and Dinamo Kiev. Surprisingly Dinamo Kiev got 2nd place, advancing them to the round of 16. The Champion's League is one our main objectives for this re-enactment alongside La Liga. We play Italian giants Inter in the Round of 16 who have the likes of prime Adriano, lightning quick Obafemi Martins, stalwarts Stankovic, Cambiasso, Zanetti and Walter Samuel, as well as the brilliant Alvaro Recoba. This fixture will be our first real roadblock this season and Ronaldinho and Eto'o had better regained their fitness for this game. (UCL Group and R16 draw) (Adriano' Attributes) (Obafemi Martins' Attributes) (Recoba's Attributes) A refreshing part of playing these old games is the incredible distribution of talent the teams have compared to today's game. Every team seems to have at least 1 world class player. Look at for example Batistuta playing for Fiorentina for half a decade, even staying when the team was relegated, Alan Shearer becoming a record signing for Newcastle, the Parma team of the late 90s including Buffon ,Cannavaro, Thuram and Crespo to name a few. This TIFO video explains how times have changed really well, where world class players only realistically can join a handful of teams. Although the mid 2000s were maybe nothing compared to the 90s regarding how diversified talent was between teams, there are still incredibly talented players playing for what would be considered relatively small clubs. One such club and player is Villarreal and Riquelme. In 2005/2006 Villarreal managed to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League where they narrowly lost to Wenger's Arsenal. Riquelme and Diego Forlán were the stand-out players of that team. (Riquelme's and Forlan's attributes) In Italy relegation candidate Lecce had players such as Mirko Vucinic and Cristian Ledesma whom both played for over 5 seasons at the Pugliese club. (Vucinic's and Ledesma's attributes) Of course nostalgia plays a part of this, and Riquelme of 2006 could be compared to Yeremy Pino of today's Villarreal who also reached a semi-final in the Champions League in 2022. I am going to end this post on Zlatan Ibrahimovic's attributes. If a player had these exact attributes in today's game I am pretty sure he would far exceed 200 current ability . Those physical attributes are just insane. (Ibrahimovic's attributes) I am going to end it here, thanks for reading! I have been playing a lot of FM24 recently and am having a blast managing Thiago Motta's Bologna playing a very fluid defensive-possession based system, so please excuse how long it has been since my last update. This will still be my side project and I aim to keep playing 1 season in every game however long it may take. The next update will be the last for Rijkaard's Barcelona in FM2006 before we move onto Ancelotti's Milan in FM2007. Edited April 14 by AceCream 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldschoolfm Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 looking forward to the next update! would love to see more about your bologna game as well! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bosque Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 39 minutes ago, oldschoolfm said: looking forward to the next update! would love to see more about your bologna game as well! Me too! I really like the writing and explanation. Very simple and engaging. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted April 15 Share Posted April 15 Great piece of work! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
De Nile Posted April 17 Share Posted April 17 I feel like this Barca had the most eye catching counter attacks than the later and more successful Barca squads. FM2014 could be for Atletico Madrid's 442: La Liga win and 2nd in the Champs. League. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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