Popular Post Duracellio Posted April 19 Popular Post Share Posted April 19 (edited) SENSIBLE APPROACH TO A MATCH 1. INTRODUCTION Hi everyone, Over the last few years I’ve been diving on the wonderful arts of managing, prepare and adapt to a certain match. The importance of that particular part of the game became obvious to me with the addition of the data hub a few years ago. Micro managing teams and tactics for a specific scenario is one of the things I enjoy the most in Football Manager and it is definitely one of the most satisfying things about the game. When you see everything, you anticipated and prepared, taking shape into the game, it's absolutely wonderful, and even when it doesn’t work exactly has you intended, it's nice to know why it didn’t work out as planned, so you can do better next time. Everyone has its own way of playing the game and it's perfectly fine to do so, but personally it's been a game changer for me, in the recent years, to play the game and understand what's going on "under the hood", to learn, to research and to improve on a try and error basis, adapting (that has been going on for years since the good old days back in the 90's) and lately this SI forum has been my main source to improve and learn something new about the game every day. That being said, it’s not fair that I only take from this community, so I wanted to give back some of that knowledge and contribute by sharing a bit of my experiences and results. At the very least it could generate some good discussions and, once more, I can learn something new from your inputs. 2. THE ENVIRONMENT Instead of posting updates from an entire save throughout the time, because not only we already have some really good ones on the forum but mostly, because time is becoming a precious currency nowadays as I am getting into my 50s and I can’t really afford that luxury. I am going to write how I prepare for games, what do I do to adapt to the opponent, how I counter their strengths and how does that translate into the game itself. I intend to share not only the successful ones, where the strategy works and we get the win, but the losses as well, as I consider we learn the most with those, and most of all, so that I can still feed on all the knowledge of the brilliant strategist minds that are on this forum. I'll try to keep the "hypotheticals" as low as possible and keep it as simple as it can be. What do I translate from the analytical point of view of the next opponent, what do I think we can do to counter those strong points, which "buttons do I have to press to make it happen" and most important, and something that I don’t see much on the internet, the why (Oh yeah! I’m all the way on the "WW" [Why Wagon]) and not just because "it's a trend everywhere and apparently it works", I want to understand the “why” behind every decision and outcome! Before taking you into an entire match cycle, here goes some context: The year is 2024, as current as it gets. we are managing GD Chaves, a team from the Portuguese top tier that is expected to finish last on the league table, and we are going to play against the title contender, FC Porto, currently managed by the ex-Aston Villa, Unai Emery. For this first example, I'll try to keep it short and ignore some pre-match stuff (as equally important) like training, resting, calendar congestion and set pieces preparation focusing more on the tactical side of the game. 3. THE COACH First thing I always do is looking into the opponents coaching preferences to see if we can gather some useful information. Although Unai is a renowned coach and his game plans are well known and famous, for practical purposes I am doing the match cycle anyways. Let's see what can we find by looking into his profile: With the addition of the data hub to Football Manager, the preferred formations and tactical style page is not that relevant anymore, but old habits die hard. The "tends to" section has some good information for us, lets dive into them first, with no particular order: "Sit back and protect a lead" was the first thing that caught my eye. That tells me that if we concede first, most probably keeping a counter attacking style, passing into the space won’t work that well, since his teams are going to protect that space behind the defence and closing the gaps between the lines, Here's something to remind during the course of this game (mental note to self). "Uses counter-pressing" tells me that they will not sit back and let us control the game, taking our time with the ball, they are definitely going to bring the game at us. Taking into consideration that our players are technically inferior, they can't receive and protect the ball and turn around, all while being under huge pressure, like an elite player would be able to do so we'll probably have to set the tempo a bit higher than normal to cope with them pressing us all over when we have the ball, giving us no time to think. Since we are going to rush things a little bit and our players first touch and passing range is not the greatest (considering first touch, passing, technique, vision, composure and decision) we'll have to get them closer to each other. We're not expected to have a lot of the ball, due to to all we've mentioned already, so we have to make the best out of the little time we have on the ball, decreasing the turnovers we concede, by narrowing our attacking width we will decrease the chances of making mistakes due to that higher tempo. "Plays out of defence" is expected to be used in a team like FC Porto with quality players. Regarding the formations Unai tends to play with, he always uses a back 4 so he will probably play something between an inverted fullback or a half-back to create a back 3 when transitioning. If this isn’t the case, we could consider using 2 hardworking strikers to press the 2 centre backs into a mistake but considering our team, even having those hardworking strikers (we'll see the chess pieces we have at our display in a bit) I don't think pressing high some quality ball playing defenders will helps us much, besides, once they surpass our initial press, we would be in big trouble. Pressing high is a big no no. "Delegates to a set piece coach" just tells me that the next window of information, the "set piece preferences" under "Coaching", is not useful in this match and we'll have to rely on our data analysts but I’ll leave it here anyway for educational purposes: We could take advantage of this information to tweak our set pieces accordingly. 4. DATA HUB Now the fun part begins, the data hub! That confusing monster consisting on a bunch of numbers and graphics. Let’s make things simple and easier on this first match approach. We'll look only at the Summary and Expected tactical style. According to our analysts, FC Porto will play in a tiki-taka style short passes, extreme pressing and trying to lure us out of position with lots and lots of movement into spaces without the ball. It also report that they tend to play a bit cautious when playing away, although I think this might be related to some champions league games they've had recently, I don't believe they'll be cautious against us, honestly. In short, FC Porto are a dangerous side and our life will be very hard, like our encouraging analyst reports. Now we know what to expect. As for the Set Pieces preparation, we went for the throw ins and offensive corners to make the most out of every chance we have, since we won't have a lot. 5. OPPOSITION INSTRUCTIONS Considering the above information, we now need to setup how we’re going to deal with the opposition, individually: Getting into detail: GOALKEEPER: we don't want to press Diogo Costa, not only because he's really talented playing the ball with his feet (14 passing; 14 vision; 17 kicking; 14 throwing; 15 decisions; 16 composure) but most importantly because my strategy for this game is not to press high in any case; Spoiler FULLBACKS: Since they use a back 4 formation, our approach to this will be not adding any kind of trigger pressure to ensure we don't stretch our team press, since I don't intend to place a lot of players upfront, when we’re out of possession. That will allow us to only press those fullbacks once/if they reach our line of engagement, keeping the structural shape of our defensive unit sound and compact. By tackling them hard, we make sure they don't have much time on the ball and it tells our players to really go for it, and do everything in their power to stop those crosses from coming into the box (even over the expense of a few cards). And finally, showing the left fullback to his left foot and the right fullback to his right foot to push them outside, where they can only hurt us with crosses (they don’t really pose an aerial threat); Spoiler THE MIDFIELDERS: is where the battle is going to happen most of the time, or at least I intend to make it that way, with a mid-block. FC Porto will play two midfielders (and some good ones). I am not going to thight mark or press them at the start of the game because I'm looking to understand what roles they're going to play. You don't want to mark or press a mezzala or a roaming playmaker for example, when you're trying to maintain your defensive shape at all costs, those roles tend to roam out from the middle of the pitch, and since our analysts reported “Lots of movement" I am willing to bet in a roaming role on one of those two midfielders. The sole instruction we give is to tackle Stephen Eustáquio harder because he is very susceptible to get injured (I know, it isn't pretty, but if we can make the manager waste a sub with an injury, why not) and he doesn't have that much bravery. We’re aiming to grasp for every 0,1% of success we can; WINGERS: When facing opponents with players on the AMR, AML and/or AMC strata, I always trigger press them, as most of the times these are the main source of creativity and we don't want to give them an inch of space to work their magic. Showing them the outside of the pitch and hitting them hard, same principle as the fullbacks. Spoiler STRIKERS: This is a tricky one, because it has a lot of variants. For this match, Namaso is expected to play as a false 9, to link up the play between the midfield and the attack. He will try to open up our defensive line and create space to his partner in crime, Evanilson. We don't want to follow him around opening gaps in our back line, so we go with the “never thigh mark” for Mr. Namaso there. Now regarding his partner upfront, I think Toni Martinez is playing instead of Evanilson, because the latter is tired, he's a star player for FC Porto and it is a League Cup game, so I think they will rotate. If Evanilson is the chosen one, there is no way we can tight mark him, press him or tackle him harder, he is just very complete, fast, composed and strong. Such players change games so we can only pray that our defenders step up their game because they are going to need to, when facing such forwards. If we had better defenders, we could consider tight marking him. If Toni Martinez is the chosen one, has I believe it will happen, then we'll mark him tight and press him, since he is slower and taller which makes him more of a target forward. Showing the outside of the pitch as well for both of them. Spoiler YOUR DEFENSIVE PREPARATION CAN GIVE YOU 1 POINT OFFENSIVE PREPARATION CAN GIVE YOU 3 Doing a good preparation into our defensive strategy is key, every game starts 0-0 so if we don't concede that's 1 point right there, and regarding the two teams quality gap, I’d say 1 point is not too shabby. Now, we've delved into the opposition long enough, it's time to look at what we got and set up our offensive strategy to try and win the game and therefore, the 3 points. Having a transfer market already into this save, we've managed to bring some players that emulate our tactical blueprint. It consists mainly in a bunch of hardworking players, brave, determined, aggressive, tireless machines. We give ourselves the luxury of having 2 spots maximum for technical players, that may or may not be, so keen to get involved in the physical side of the game, or could struggle in that part of it. We can allow that because they're supported by 8/9 hardworking players who aim to cover those specific “weak spots” with they're positions and/or roles. 6. MEET THE BOYS What do we have to work with? GOALKEEPER: Our main GK isn't the best in short distribution although he isn't terrible either. He gives us the oportunity to choose between playing it simple to our centre backs and let them dictate how we transition, or we can use his 16 passing, 13 kicking and 12 throwing to start the counter. Bearing in mind that he has 6 vision and 10 composure, whether it is short or long, it is probably a good idea to tell him where to launch the ball instead of relying on his decision making under pressure. Spoiler CENTRE BACKS: All of our centre backs fall into the "average category". Most of them have between 12/14 on those important physical and technical attributes for defenders. No one really stands out of the bunch. The opponents aren't taller and stronger than us so we shouldn't have a lot of problems in the physical side of the game. Our defenders range between 1.87m to 1.93m tall, so the aerial side of the game isn't really a concern. Among those 5 CB's we have some decent ball playing defenders (for this level), that tells us we have the flexibility to outline a plan considering the technical features of their strikers and the way they will press our back line. Spoiler FULLBACKS: Most of the times we aim to stretch the pitch using one of our FBs (usually the right one), relying in the other side to keep our rest defence with, at the very least, 3 at the back. We can play Sandro Cruz or Totti (natural centre back) in that defensive fullback role considering he is strong in the air and we rely on him to win +90% of the aerial duels in those second post crosses, against opposite wingers. This particular role is one that I change the most throughout the season because if we concede a goal, it better not be a defensive mistake in our build up. We change a lot according to the opponent’s offensive line: If we play with a back 4 and the opponent has 2 strikers upfront we choose a natural center back as an inverted fullback: Spoiler If we play with a back 4 and the opponent has only 1 striker upfront we play a more natural fullback, choosing between a more offensive approach with the likes of Moustapha Seck or a more defensive one, Sandro Cruz (mainly because of his physical profile): Spoiler By tweaking it this way ahead of every match, we make sure to always have the advantage in numbers and always give our defensive line a way out of trouble. We aim to remove the chance of mistakes in very dangerous areas where mistakes are punished with goals, as much as possible. On the right side we usually play a natural winger adapted to fullback. Spoiler MIDFIELDERS: Here is where we have our most hardworking players, the engine room of our team, they're the ones that make sure everything tics. Our captain and best player, Samu, is injured and therefore out of combat for this game. Spoiler They clearly stand out for their mental and physical capacity as our main concern for this part of the pitch is to fight for every inch, leaving the technical side of the game to the players in front of them (Samu is the exception, he's very technical): THE COOL KIDS aka ATACKING MIDFIELDERS: Since we have two hard workers in our (defensive) midfield strata, and one fullback is going to stretch the field on one side, we aim to play with two creative players (one in the middle and the other cutting inside from the wing) and one explosive disruptor/line breaker/runner, in short, a dribbly boy with pace, aggression, flair, etc Our dribbly boy is usually a right footed player playing on the left side with the Winger role on support Spoiler The standard to our winger on the right side is to use a left footed technical player as an advanced playmaker, to hit our left side dribbly runner with trough passes on his attempts to break the defensive line. This role is usually reserved for the likes of Xadas and/or Alex Mendez Spoiler In the middle of the pitch we have 2 similar profiles although Morlaye Sylla is a more agressive and hard working than Alanzinho, but both of them excels in that position Spoiler STRIKERS: Two hardworking brave and aggressive pressing forwards (how many times have I used these adjectives so far it's our DNA!) but different in style. Depú is a small, good off the ball and fast striker, and Ronaldo Tavares is a tall, strong and good in the air kind of target forward combined with pressing forward. Spoiler 7. THE STRUCTURE METAMORPHOSIS TO SUCCESS Our standard structure usually falls into a 4231 category, although it can be very flexible (as I think it should always be) and we tweak it on a game-to-game basis to get the most out of the opponent’s weaknesses. For this particular match against Porto (taking into account everything we went so far about the opponents play style with 2 strikers, using a high-octane counter-pressing and tiki-taka short passing style) I went for a 433 that morphs into a 541 when defending. How and why? My string of thought for this is simple: -The "HOW": The key here is to use a Libero that will give us the chance to transmogrify between the defensive phase and the offensive phase, therefore changing from a 541 into a 433 and the other way around when we need to defend, regarding whether we have the ball or not. -The "WHY" is my favourite part. As a "why guy" I believe everything needs a reason: Defensive Phase We're not going to have a lot of the ball, that we’ve already uncovered. They're stronger, faster, smarter and we’re expected to be under pressure for long periods of time during the game. We've already established that we’re average, at the best, at marking, tackling, concentration, etc (defensive duties) so to outplay them when we're under pressure, we need to outnumber them in every part of the field. By defending in a 541 we not only place our 3 CBs against those 2 dangerous strikers as we also have 2 fullbacks and 2 “wingers” (1 WINGER and 1 wide AP) covering the wider areas. In the middle of the pitch we aim to instruct our pressing forward to close the gap behind him and defend deeper, closer to our 2 midfielders, creating a 3 vs 2 battle against the opponent, outnumbering them in the midfield and preventing them from building-up through the middle Offensive Phase we're not going to be able to pass it around and keep the ball a lot because they're going to press the hell out of us and they're good at it. We're not the best at first touch, vision, decisions, etc (offensive duties) so we have to make the most out of every possession we have. We can't just give them the ball every time we get the chance to recover it, if we do that, it will be a matter of time until we concede. Once we get the ball, we go for the safety in numbers and by morphing into a 433 it helps us to make sure we outnumber the opponent everywhere. In the build up our libero will give us that back 3 comfort to overcome the initial aggressive trigger press that they intend to apply and for that matter we'll play with a balanced left back instead of a defensive/inverted one so we can stretch the field over that left side, and on the opposite side we’ll play as usually with the offensive right fullback. Once we surpass the initial pressure, our libero turns into a defensive midfielder. TEAM INSTRUCTIONS During this article I've approached the team instructions numerous times so if you read the piece carefully and pick up the instructions along the way as I dive into them, you’ll end up with this very screen. But to make it simple for a pleasant understanding of the overall and avoid making it esoteric, we’ll go through it one by one in this chapter. The mentality is the standard of our team for every game. I see this “slider” (as I call it) as a way of pushing all the 3 team phases behaviour (in possession, out of possession and in offensive/defensive transitions) up or down all at once, influencing all those 3 collective moments. That’s why you see an increase/decrease, for example, in tempo, passing directness, etc, without even touching those when you increase/decrease that mentality “slider”. Since we’re micro-managing everything here, we don’t need to mess with the overall “slider” button, leaving it in the "Balanced" position. We create our own mentality trough the tweaks we make with singular instruction changes in those specific collective behaviours (passing style, quickness, width, etc) on those 3 moments we have available in the game: defensive moments, offensive moments and in between. With that out of the way, lets dive into those 3 moments and why did we choose those tendencies (it will always be just tendencies) for this specific match against FC PORTO: IN POSSESSION “Shorter passing”: As we have seen before in our analyst report, it’s not expected that we have a lot of time on the ball without being pressed all over the pitch, and this issue combined with the lack of quality in placing long passes (regarding vision, technique, passing composure) tells me that we need to keep it simple and short. That doesn’t mean we can’t ping some long passes, it’s just a tendency, besides we still have some players stretching the field like our winger and both our fullbacks, so we’ll still see some long passes when they make sense. NOTE: bare in mind that player traits plays their part, our Advanced Playmaker, Xadas, for example, has the "tries killer balls" trait (we'll dive into that next); “Work ball into the box”: is self-explanatory, we don’t have that much people upfront, adding to that, the fact that we’re going to play with a mid-block with 11 players defending, leaving no one upfront, means that if we rush things too much, we’ll end up messing the few little chances we have during the game. To make the most out of what we grasp during the game, we need to take our time. We have the speed (mainly Jair) and the space behind the opponents defence (FC Porto defensive line will be high), we still want to get the best out of both worlds, speedy counter attacks and quality possession whenever we can. To avoid the complete absence of long shots, we added the individual instruction to our striker to “shoot more”; By being “More Disciplined” we’re telling everyone to be “robust”, “collectively stronger” and “tactically compact” (game’s words) and that’s exactly what we need. No messing around guys, no fancy touches or cool dribbles, keep it simple, play time is in the park; “Standard width”: I thought about starting a bit narrower from the start but decided to see how it goes into the first 15/20min of the match. I believe Unai is going to use some kind of an inverted wing back so I don’t want to narrow things too much; “Play out of defence”: this was a tricky one, if it’s true that with 5 at the back we have a lot of tools to play it out smoothly, it is also true that we’ll face 2 opponent strikers that are going to press us a lot. In other hand, the way we have set up our rest attack means we won’t have a lot of people upfront so I don’t want the team to hoof it long indiscriminately. I’ll see how it pans out, if it gets really hard to play out and we pick a mistake or two, I’ll take it out; We left the “play for set pieces” out because we want those crosses to find our offensive players, instead of hitting our opponents. It’s a good strategy to control the tempo of the game if we need it. We would eventually turn it on once we got in front; We’re not forcing the “passes into space” for the same reason we’re keeping it short and the standard tempo. We’re not going to have a lot of players upfront once we get the ball back so we aim to keep it simple here. Passes will still be mixed between trough passes and passes to feet; IN TRANSITION “Counter-attack”: We still aim to counter our opponents, when possible, the way we’re going to do it is dictated by our tempo, passing directness and by playing it out from defence and working into the box make those counters a bit well thought. “Take short kicks” and “distribute to centre backs”: We have already approached this when we dived into our goalkeeper, Vinicius. He has the passing, throwing and kicking, to make a quality transition but lacks the vision, composure and decision and when under pressure I don’t trust him to make the best decision where to distribute the ball so we’re going to help him in that part of his game by telling him exactly were to place the ball, in sum, short and simple; “Slow pace down”: We need our 3 centre backs to position themselves first and get ready to receive the ball, as well as the fullback are intended to stretch the game. Besides there’s no point in rushing things out since we are defending with 11 bodies behind the ball. We need to give them time to go up on the field to position themselves; OUT OF POSSESSION “Mid-Block” and “Standard defensive line”: We want to keep it tight and compact but we don’t want to invite too much pressure to our box. In this particular match, where we are clearly the underdog, FC Porto is expected to have the ball a lot. This middle block is going to behave more has a “slightly low block” because our team will naturally go back a little more due to the momentum of the game; “Standard trigger press”: We went into this one already, this feature used in conjunction with the right individual opposition instructions means that we aim to bring the “fight” into the midfield where we are stronger and where we can outnumber our opponent with our out of possession system 5-5-0 (our pressing forward will drop a lot and make a line of 5 in the midfield); “Get stuck in” along with the collective and individual trigger press activated and paired with our midfielders and pressing forward archetype (hardworking, aggressive, tireless machines), will result in a hell of a fight, our opponents won’t even know what hit them; NOTE: Usually, I take a quick peak into the referee in our game. Considering we’re going in hard and aggressive it might be a good idea to understand what’s that specific referee style. Does he tend to show a lot of cards, is he a bit more conservative? In this case the referee is Nelson Pereira. He has shown 3 yellow cards and 0 red cards in 8 games so far. That tells me that we probably can get away with our aggressive style. “Trap outside”: We will be defending in a system that consists of a 5-5-0. Those two lines of 5 will be really close to each other (also due to the standard defensive line and mid-block), that means we will have our 4 wide players (2 fullbacks, 1 winger and 1 wide AP) really close to each other. We can benefit from that, even more if Unai Emery decides to play an Inverted wingback. Besides all that, you don’t really want to give the centre of the pitch, in front of your box to your opponents. Regarding the aerial duels, the average height is not a concern for this game, since our opponent strikers and wingers are not that tall and we have 3 centre backs ready to deal with those crosses, so we should be good on that part of the game; 8. THE SMALL DETAILS MAKE BIG DIFFERENCES To get the best out of our players into this particular shape, we'll give a quick look into the individual traits that our players have and how can we maximize them, creating synergies all across the field. Attacking players Our Advanced Playmaker (S), Xadas, is left footed and has the “cuts inside” and “tries killer balls often” traits, which is perfect to launch those quick counter attacks that we’re looking for long trough passes to the other side where we have our Winger (S), Jair, that "gets into opposition area", runs with the ball and tries to beat offside trap constantly. These two are a perfect combo for this game, aswell as Depú, our Pressing Forward who also has the trait "tries to beat offside trap". So, we can expect a lot of pinged passes from Xadas to these two. Here are some examples: Midfield players We want both our midfields to keep it as simple as possible, no running or dribbling with the ball here. Their primary mission is to win the ball back and play short and simple for the playmaker to work his magic. Once again, these traits fit like a glove on what we need for this particular match. I usually play the double pivot at the defensive midfield strata but for this specific structure, with 5 at the back, with libero making his way up, it makes sense to push them up a notch. The BWM is self-explanatory, he needs to work hard to cover a lot of ground, as the right fullback will be bombing forward the entire game. Moses is our guy. The idea behind the BBM role is my attempt to give a bit more support when in possession and when we find ourselves in front of the penalty box. Since Samu is injured, that role has to be fulfilled by Guzzo. Defence players Here it can get a bit tricky. Down the right side it looks a perfect synergy with the FB bombing forward and therefore, increasing the gap between him and the right centre back, it makes perfect sense to have a RCB that play long passes or switch the ball from one flank to the other, were the left FB is waiting. On other hand, I am not sure about the bringing the ball out…I guess we’ll have to rely on his 10 decision making to choose the right moment to dribble it out or to hoof it long. Our Libero will keep it simple and play short passes when he gets the ball, exactly as we like it in dangerous areas, and our left fullback will run down the left whenever possible. 9. REST DEFENCE If you’re an avid consumer of football and its constantly evolving terms, you have certainly heard of this term. If you haven't, I highly advise you to take a good look at this article from @Rashidi where he dives into the theory of such terms as positional football, rest defence and rest attack and merges them into the game we all know. As little as it is expected from us to attack, we still want to do so, although considering Unai will play with 2 strikers, it can be a tricky situation for us, as we try to stretch forward a little, we might get caught in a conundrum. It was exactly to avoid nasty surprises, that I set up a rest defence of two layers of 3. Confusing? I’ll explain: The image bellow illustrates a situation in which Rodrigo Gomes, our right fullback, was involved in a very common play of our team, where we rely on his quality to run and dribble down the right flank, taking an opponent out of the way and crossing the ball. In that same image you can see 6 players setting up our rest defence divided by two lines: 1st Line of defence: BWM (Moses), Libero (Nogueira), BBM (Guzzo); 2nd Line of defence: Right centre back (Pedrão), Left centre back (Toti), Left fullback (Sandro Cruz); This is why setting up a good rest defence is really important in modern football. It can be the difference between gaining back a loose ball and scoring or get countered easily and leave your back line vulnerable to fast strikers. He, who control the transitions, will dominate the game! 10. WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE PITCH THE GAME Sometimes it can be tempting to hit the play button and just go raid the pantry, leaving the game running on its own. The thing is, you need to see what’s up, what changes does the opponent coach operates during the game. All your trouble, setting up the perfect team to face the next match, all the time you spent reading reports and analysis will mean nothing if you don’t adapt to the changes your opponent will be throwing at you. So, go make that delicious sandwich later, as someone said, “I’d rather face the hardest part of the job on an empty stomach”. I went to this game with a few doubts about my set up. One of which was the defensive line. I went with a standard defensive line but was considering going with a lower defensive line until the very last second. During the course of the game FC Porto tried a lot of killer balls over my defensive line and as soon as I saw the first two balls ending in some dangerous chances, I grabbed the mouse and was about to lowering it but…"wait…my defensive line is perfect, every time they’re trying those through balls, they are always getting caught offside". so I didn’t touch it, if it is working, don’t break it right? It kept happening over and over and the outcome was always the same, offside!! We kept the ball way better than I had anticipated, situations like this, where we outnumbered our opposition kept happening throughout the entire match. So I switched the passing range to "shorter": 11. THE GOALS AND FINAL RESULT Now, for the best part of the game. Did our team win? Did the plan work? GD CHAVES 1 - 0 FC PORTO At the beginning of the match, around minute 7’ we had to make a forced sub, our left back picked up an injury. Sandro Cruz went into the tussle. He was on the pitch for 5 minutes, and ventured ahead on the left flank to grab an assist. Even tough we scored a goal, the left back wasn't supposed to risk that run, but in the end it paid off. After this goal I dropped him into Defensive mentality. GD CHAVES 2 - 0 FC PORTO Remember when I said we went for the throw ins and offensive corners in those set pieces preparation? Well, it paid off! Minute 55' Rodrigo Gomes with a cracker!! The Defensive Winger deserves way more credit than we give him, to be honest. By this point, I’ve started to make some changes. The Left Winger, Jair, became a Defensive Winger, defending way deeper, often acting as a left defender, pushing the full-back into the middle, which gave us a line of 6 at the back, every time the ball went on that left side: And acting as a Centre Midfielder every time the ball was on the right side of the pitch, freeing the BWM to better cover the Right full-back. It was time to park the big, red, double decker London BUS. In the video below you can see the Defensive Winger in defensive transition! This play shows really well how much FC PORTO struggle to penetrate into our penalty box and get into shooting range: GD CHAVES 3 - 0 FC PORTO In the final stretch of the game, FC Porto players were really fatigued and were always late to the pressing triggers. We lowered the tempo to keep some fresh legs for the upcoming games and started wasting time. We ended up scoring a 3rd and final goal. Alex Mendez came from the bench and took his chance with a long shot and got lucky with a deflection. 3-0 would be the final score in an immaculate display by our players and a performance to remember! 12. MATCH FACTS AND FINAL THOUGHTS -In the end we’ve managed to win the game, a huge win for us agains’t one of the best teams in the league. -FC Porto ended up rotating a lot more than I was expecting, as we can see for the line up but still, they have some top tier players. -FC Porto had 8 shots total but only 1 on target and 7 long shots. That is a reflexion of how much of a struggle it was for them, to get into finishing positions. Despite that, that sole shot hit the woodwork, and that would be the equalizer so we had a tiny bit of luck on that situation. -We caught them 7 times on the offside trap, even though we played with a mid-block and standard defensive line. Our defensive line was amazing today! -In the beginning of the match cycle, I wrote about how little possession I expected to had, but we’ve managed to share the ball and had similar passes completed. It was a pleasure to write this article to you all. I hope to read your ideas and inputs about this thread and to create good discussions about what I could do differently or what I might have done wrong and by all means, feel free to share your experiences and let me know if this article helped you in any way. Cheers everyone. LAST UPDATED: 20 APRIL 2024 Edited April 20 by Duracellio 18 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
OYTNANAK Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 Looks like a good thread. Will read it later! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheMartello Posted April 19 Share Posted April 19 Will read the whole piece tomorrow, but on first sight I miss the Team Instructions/Player instructions. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
naufal husain Posted April 20 Share Posted April 20 Always amaze with people can manage micro tactics every match and get the result, amazing article! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracellio Posted April 20 Author Share Posted April 20 (edited) Em 19/04/2024 em 21:42, TheMartello disse: Will read the whole piece tomorrow, but on first sight I miss the Team Instructions/Player instructions. You’re absolutely right! It was supposed to be on the chapter 7. Must have missed it during the copy/paste of the article! Will update it as soon as I can. EDIT: Just updated the article. Thanks for the heads up 19 horas atrás, naufal husain disse: Always amaze with people can manage micro tactics every match and get the result, amazing article! Thanks mate. Glad you like it Edited April 20 by Duracellio Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
gmanthos96 Posted April 21 Share Posted April 21 Nice! It would be interesting to make an approach on training too! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox-7- Posted April 21 Share Posted April 21 (edited) Remarkable write up, lots of valuable information here, even for experienced players! For example, in many years of playing FM, I have never thought of looking at the opposing manager's profile to obtain useful information...even though I love doing micromanagement in my saves for some time now, there is always a further aspect that has never been considered thanks to which I can go even deeper Edited April 21 by Fox-7- 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vrig Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 Excellent read, thanks for that. So weird that this thread and that other one popped up about a week after I decided to do a 'horses for courses' save. Also that you started with a match against Uni Emery's 424, which has been the bane of my existence in this version of FM 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracellio Posted April 22 Author Share Posted April 22 (edited) Em 21/04/2024 em 12:48, gmanthos96 disse: Nice! It would be interesting to make an approach on training too! Thanks. It's an interesting idea aswell. Feel free to share some tips if you think of something. 18 horas atrás, Fox-7- disse: Remarkable write up, lots of valuable information here, even for experienced players! For example, in many years of playing FM, I have never thought of looking at the opposing manager's profile to obtain useful information...even though I love doing micromanagement in my saves for some time now, there is always a further aspect that has never been considered thanks to which I can go even deeper 7 horas atrás, vrig disse: Excellent read, thanks for that. So weird that this thread and that other one popped up about a week after I decided to do a 'horses for courses' save. Also that you started with a match against Uni Emery's 424, which has been the bane of my existence in this version of FM Thank you for the kind words. I feel the same @Fox-7-. It's the first game I play that, no matter for how long you play, you can always learn something new. That's why I think communities like this one are so important to share. @vrig I felt the same “weirdness”. I wrote this article for about a week or so, putting together all the gifs and images, etc and during the process I saw the other thread asking exactly about this one I was writing and I thought “wow, perfect timing! It’s on the way”. I hope it helps in some way in your new save Edited April 22 by Duracellio Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los_Culés Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 Great, now I will study all my opponents and play like 3 matches per month . On a serious note, awesome post Durecellio. P.S. The png/jpeg pictures in this thread are not displaying for me when browsing with my laptop but they all display correctly in my phone, what can be the cause? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracellio Posted April 22 Author Share Posted April 22 (edited) 1 hora atrás, Los_Culés disse: Great, now I will study all my opponents and play like 3 matches per month . On a serious note, awesome post Durecellio. P.S. The png/jpeg pictures in this thread are not displaying for me when browsing with my laptop but they all display correctly in my phone, what can be the cause? Once you get used to it, it's just routine, it looks more complicated than it actually is. It really depends on who you’re facing and how good your team is, you probably don’t need to do the whole match cycle for every opponent. It can help a lot if you organize the opponents into 3 categories: 1-low difficulty, 2-medium difficulty, 3 high difficulty opponents, then according to those levels you can adapt your preparation detail. Regarding the pictures, I have no idea, probably something to do with your anti-virus and false positives in your laptop? Let me know if you have this issue in other platform, because more people might have the same problem. I could change the images bank I've used. The .gifs work correctly in your laptop ? Edited April 22 by Duracellio Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Los_Culés Posted April 22 Share Posted April 22 @DuracellioThe very first picture (with the manager) above the Introduction title displays correctly and then nothing else (including gifs). I do not have this problem in other threads here. Anyway lets hope that I am the only one and others see everything correctly. Would be shame to miss so much tactical knowledge. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
LuboM25 Posted April 24 Share Posted April 24 Great write up, thanks for sharing! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 Am 19.4.2024 um 17:23 schrieb Duracellio: but the losses as well, as I consider we learn the most with those, and most of all, so that I can still feed on all the knowledge of the brilliant strategist minds that are on this forum. A M A Z I N G Just stumbled over this one and read the introduction. It’s brilliant and I will dive into it in the days to come. Great one! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracellio Posted April 25 Author Share Posted April 25 (edited) 2 horas atrás, HanziZoloman disse: A M A Z I N G Just stumbled over this one and read the introduction. It’s brilliant and I will dive into it in the days to come. Great one! Thank you, let me know what you think once you finished reading. Regarding all the reactions I feel thankful and inspired to continue the tread!! I am cooking a few more articles, lighter reading since the heavy one (because it’s introductory, etc) is already out of the way. How to prepare for a Europe game, taking into account it’s a two game elimination, another game against this very FC Porto, but this time a championship game, since I got the idea they’ve rotated a lot for this cup game and weren’t full force, (that left me with a bitter taste) and finally a heavy defeat against another title contender on the Portuguese championship. Diving into the “whys” and “hows” of it. What we could’ve made differently to change the outcome! Big plans, little time Edited April 25 by Duracellio 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 (edited) The best is always learning from mistakes. Right now I am going through the instructions piece by piece with the YAC Billericay in EFL One against Swansea. This is just that kind of piece which was missing here. You’ve created something beautiful. The best part: It’s not some big shot or easy to big shot team but a relegation candidate trying to hit above weight. I am a fan Did not work out for me in this match: Much was similar to your plans against Porto. We did some things right and were in control of the match most of the time. They had a two strikers a tall, slow one and a fast small one which made it tricky. Should I trap them wide or inside. I decided to put their best crosser on the inside and their medium to bad crossers wide. This one worked fine, the tall striker was out of the game except for his goal The fast and small one I decided to never tight mark because I expected him to run around a lot and I didn’t want him to disrupt my solid Defense line. He was out of the game for the first 45 Minutes. In the preferred 433 I decided to drop the DM as a HB to help in the build up against the two striker pressing which looked really nice. The other two were supposed to escape the two opponent CM which looked edging throughout the match. In the 2nd half the pacy striker ran behind our Defense for an assist and a goal. Just the classic through ball and score. I slept, I didn’t notice a change. Especially as we were in control of the game in 1st half and in front 1:0. Their defenders were rather small and no good jumpers. I tried to exploit that with high crosses towards my big and jumpy striker. A corner gave the 1 nill but no further goals came but a lot of chances. When I switched my right winger from a left into a right footer we had even better chances for a 2nd goal. XG: 1.15 Billericay : 1.30 Swansea Shots/ on target: 10/4 : 8/4 Possession: 65% : 35% This is another one, Possession: We expected them to play tiki taka but had the ball most of the time playing it beautifully out from the back. We did no mistakes here, had the ball a lot with patience. The passing map looks wonderful. After all: We looked good a lot of the time but failed in the end due to a mistake I cannot clearly spot. Edited April 25 by HanziZoloman 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vrig Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 (edited) Just had a nice little run of 3 matches against tough teams to put my tweaking to the test and I thought I'd share a bit of it here since it seems to fit. I'm playing as Man United and I've used the second summer to build a bit of a toolkit squad, so I have a lot more toys to play with than @Duracellio, but maybe it's still of interest to somebody. We're coming off a good first season where we won the Champions League through a series of comebacks, but were thwarted in the league by City and Liverpool, who were miles out in front. After an opening day visit to Stamford Bridge, we'll have the pleasure of exacting revenge on the latter in the Super Cup, and the former in the league at home. You couldn't ask for better fixtures to start the campaign... right? Apologies for not having the Data Hub report, but I can't for the life of me find it for past matches. They supposedly played a wing play style, but the analysts says that about half the teams in the game. As such, I mostly ignored their style and focused on the roles and players I was up against. Chelsea greet us with a 4231 featuring the game's most overrated player up top - Romelu Lukaku. There's nothing like a striker who's both quick and good in the air to give you a headache, especially when that player also has a tricky number 10 like Nkunku right behind them. Fortunately I've got good aerial defenders, so I can at least somewhat limit his opportunities from balls into the box. The threat of his pace can be limited with a lower defensive line, while I'm going for a good old fashioned man-marking job on Nkunku. The wingers, Sterling and Mudryk, are full of pace, so I opt to never mark them tightly and close them down whenever possible. I would have added hard tackling for them too, but I've just come off a season where we had a load of red cards and I've got a load of players new to the league who could do without that kind of start to life at Old Trafford. The thinking was that we could use the space behind Enzo Fernandez as he pushed forward as a Segundo Volante. I opted for Sancho to achieve this, and to get him into that zone, I've got Shaw pushing up behind him. Mount is picked as a BWM for two reasons: (1) to cover Shaw when he goes forward, and more importantly (2) it isn't a role affected by positional play rotations. Had I picked a mezzala or B2B or something there, Sancho would be forced wider than I would like. Because I'm really serious about him coming infield, I also opt for minimum width. Meanwhile in midfield, Mount is positioned to win the ball off Enzo while Mainoo plays as a Mezzala to try and drag BWM Caicedo out of the middle. Does it work? Defensively, yes. Big scary Lukaku ends the game without a shot, and half the attempts Chelsea end up with fall to their centre backs from corners. It's a deserved clean sheet. Offensively? Absolutely not, and it's a few errors from me that are the reason. Amad is playing as a winger with a wingback getting up the pitch behind him, which is not something I'd ever really do if I had stopped and thought about it for a second. He's also affected by the minimum width setting, so he's getting pitted directly up against Colwill far too often and losing out, since their guy is both stronger and quicker. Meanwhile Sancho is having plenty of touches in good areas but sometimes FM gets it right and a waster plays like a waster, so he's pretty much just rolling it back where it came from and offering none of that creative spark we were hoping for. Hojlund is getting no help from anybody - he has no shots, is getting crowded out in the air, and has touched the ball in just twelve instances, giving it away immediately more than half the time. It takes until the 75th minute before I realise... But this is why football has substitutes - to make careless clowns like me look clever. A plan starts to come together; hapless Hojlund and struggling Sancho are hauled off with 15 minutes to go. Evan Ferguson with his half a silver star comes onto the left flank and bullies a beleaguered Reece James, winning a header against him, playing a one-two around him, and squaring to give Mehdi a goal on his debut. You'll note that we started funneling them wide and inviting crosses too - that was in response to Lukaku coming off for Miss Jackson. The switch up on the right flank gave us more synergy and a bit more hope of controlling the middle with an IWB, as well as a crossing threat with a right-footed winger. Honestly, I probably should have come up with something better on this side, but I spent all my smart points on the Ferguson change. We had some results last season where we eviscerated teams using a tailored system, and while we comfortably won the xG battle here, this wasn't one of those, nor were the two that followed. This was a cagey away match that took an injury time winner to earn a 1-0 win, but it was one of my favourites from a tactical point of view. Edited April 25 by vrig 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
billmatic Posted April 25 Share Posted April 25 On 22/04/2024 at 17:19, Duracellio said: It can help a lot if you organize the opponents into 3 categories: 1-low difficulty, 2-medium difficulty, 3 high difficulty opponents, then according to those levels you can adapt your preparation detail. Brilliant write up, definitely taught me a lot, but I want to ask how you would categorise each team? What would you look for to determine a low difficulty team from a medium difficulty team? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
vrig Posted April 30 Share Posted April 30 I can do a breakdown of the Liverpool and City games, along with one where we killed Bayern Munich, but I don't want to detail the thread anymore than I have. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracellio Posted May 1 Author Share Posted May 1 Em 25/04/2024 em 15:56, billmatic disse: Brilliant write up, definitely taught me a lot, but I want to ask how you would categorise each team? What would you look for to determine a low difficulty team from a medium difficulty team? Hi Bill, sorry for the delay in replying. It's been crazy lately. I'd say there's a few tools the game provide you. The average values of your team compared to the league, that would give you an idea where you stand, the media expectation, or season preview is also a good indicator, the reports you'll get from scouting your next opponents will reveal a lot of the players stats, you can compare by position for example or to keep it simply by starting 11 vs starting 11. I think once you get emerged into your "world" you get to know every team in your league and end up knowing their players, who's better than you, who's not, and who's at your level. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted May 1 Share Posted May 1 vor 1 Stunde schrieb Duracellio: Hi Bill, sorry for the delay in replying. It's been crazy lately. I'd say there's a few tools the game provide you. The average values of your team compared to the league, that would give you an idea where you stand, the media expectation, or season preview is also a good indicator, the reports you'll get from scouting your next opponents will reveal a lot of the players stats, you can compare by position for example or to keep it simply by starting 11 vs starting 11. I think once you get emerged into your "world" you get to know every team in your league and end up knowing their players, who's better than you, who's not, and who's at your level. After doing it game by game, I am getting into that „world“ and it pays off. I am now fighting for Promotion with the same team and players. That’s great work, thank you 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
billmatic Posted May 2 Share Posted May 2 On 01/05/2024 at 06:03, Duracellio said: Hi Bill, sorry for the delay in replying. It's been crazy lately. I'd say there's a few tools the game provide you. The average values of your team compared to the league, that would give you an idea where you stand, the media expectation, or season preview is also a good indicator, the reports you'll get from scouting your next opponents will reveal a lot of the players stats, you can compare by position for example or to keep it simply by starting 11 vs starting 11. I think once you get emerged into your "world" you get to know every team in your league and end up knowing their players, who's better than you, who's not, and who's at your level. Great tips, thank you! Now to stick with a save long enough to receive scouting reports. On 01/05/2024 at 07:38, HanziZoloman said: After doing it game by game, I am getting into that „world“ and it pays off. I am now fighting for Promotion with the same team and players. That’s great work, thank you This has struck a chord with me, the thought of getting into my own "world" and finally seeing the pay off is enticing. But where to start? 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted May 3 Share Posted May 3 (edited) vor 19 Stunden schrieb billmatic: This has struck a chord with me, the thought of getting into my own "world" and finally seeing the pay off is enticing. But where to start? Just do it one by one as explained here. I first tried to imagine the pathways of the opponent players, like imagining how the playmaker moves, the winger, how the FB defend. Then checking the players on weaknesses. Next is figuring out how to attack. You can post it here with an example and your ideas and we’ll help I try and contribute how I approach a typical League match (EFL One) step by step. I have not played the match yet, we will see how it goes. In the next match we will play FC Burnley at home. They sit 21st in the table while we are 4th (Billericay). We had some hard times playing those pressure soaking, deep sitting relegation candidates and they are clearly not the teams we like to play. My defenders are not that fast and we are vulnerable to the counter. Our playing style itself is a fluid counter-attacking approach, I am expecting a tough match and a draw which is fine for me. I adopted the step-by-step approach which is wonderfully explained by @Duracellio above. 1) I check the scouting report: Regarding our scout FC Burnley will play as expected. They most likely will chose a cautious risktaking-style with counter attacks. Their manager prefers attacking on the wings (wingplay). They seem to play a very simple football. Two No-nonsense FB protect their flanks and won't contribute much to the offense. They rely heavily on the speed of their wingers. I check the wingers then: Westwood is extremely fast (15) and agile (17-19) and is therefor a threat to watch carefully. He can also cross (12) the ball to the two striker. His weaknesses are, he has right foot only (we can think about trapping him on the wrong foot) , his bravery is low (5-8) but he is strong and has balance, we will not bully him around but we can impress him with a nice, strong tackle. My FB is extremely aggressive and very brave, this will be a challenge for Westwood. Westwood also does not like to work hard (7). Maybe we can put him off by taking the fun out of him. Hulme on the left side is trickier. He is also extremely fast (15) and agile (12-15) but also has strong balance (16-19) and is a brave guy (18-20). We will not impress him as easy as is right counterpart. He has his strong foot on the left. Their wingers definitely pose a threat to my slow FB. His weaknesses are his slow intelligence, composure and concentration but he likes to work hard (15). Maybe we can press him. If we press very high a long ball down the flanks could definitely lead to a goal. Particularly as they attack with two strikers. Let's have a look on them. Again, it does not suit my team. The Strikers are fast above all Olayinka (16) . He is the small fast dribbler, Greenhough is a bigger, jumpy one but he can dribble and run as well. At this point I am a bit worried. The apparently easy match against Burnley could easily lead into a defeat. The defend in two banks of four, soak the pressure and hit me down the flanks. Two capeable guys up front are waiting for their chance to come. Johnson, the B2B will move from DM into AM offering a passing option for Westwood and Haley will offer one for Hulme, he will also cover the center a bit more. Greenhough will drop deep into AM and help out on the left. Olayinka will be the main threat up front. Greenhough has longshots (9) which is not crazy but sometime enough. How can I nullify their strengths? I am not sure why Burnley is so low in the table, they have a good run-and-go system. I will now check on their midfielders and CBs. Johnson is a very capeable B2B player, he has everything, natural fitness, stamina, work rate and all the technical attributes as well. Haley is a brave and reliable passer (16) who can also challenge and tackle. The defensive line is solid but all defenders are not very composed. Espescially their left FB (7) and the CB (9). Strategy: Option one is giving them time to build up and compress the space for their fast runners, hitting them on the counter with the fluid counter-attacking style we used to play. Option two is pressing their defenders heavily, not giving them any time with the ball. I'd like to play Option two but in a 433 I only have three players pressing their back four. If I'd chose this option, the three up front should be fast and hard working. It's tricky and I am not sure how to approach that game. There is one advantage: Burnley played during the week, while Billericay didn't. Their players should be tired. Maybe I combine both approaches, maybe we come out of the box with heavy pressing, giving their tired or second choice squad players little time and a tough challenge but also taking the risk of a counter. After scoring a goal we play the match out in fluid counter-attacks. To counter their threats we will press and tackle the backline with our three attackers and the Mezzala, while the other midfielders will mainly stay centrally to chase longballs. I am thinking about a BWM or a Carrilero and a DM. The FB need to be close to the Wingers, to engage them immediately and strong. I am not sure about putting the wingers on the wrong foot or push them wide. I think I'll trap them inside and see how it's going. Ok now I have a plan. I will move on to the match and see who's playing. Spoiler Ok during the week one of my best players has taken a virus and will not be available for the match. That happens. My team consists of hard working, brave machines, who can run 90 minutes. They are aggressive and mostly brave. I want to tackle the backline which means that I will play a fast, aggressive PF(S) rather than the AF. I will sub him later to finish them off on the counter. At least that's the plan. I want them to be tired and slow in the head. 2) Matchday: There are some changes in their starting set up. Westwood is playing up front, we remember him being fast but lazy and he can be impressed with a hard tackle. Olayinka is the smaller but faster striker. He plays as the DLF which takes away his speed a bit. He can pass the ball but his decision making isn't that good (9). This suits us taking the risk with counter-attacks. On the flanks are their 2nd suits Wright and Greenfield who are both similar but a bit less good than their first choice options. I am now encouraged to take the risk and press their backline. Greenfield can cross the ball and I will trap him inside, wright isn't a good crosser, I will trap him outside. Spoiler 3) Setting opposition instructions to counter their threats: Spoiler We can see, the wingers are tackled immediately to make use of their low bravery and to take the fun out of them. Westwood as well. Olayinka is also tackled hard (maybe I take it off) but also never being marked. I want my defenders to stay close together and not being pulled out of position, offering gaps. The strong midfielders are left blank, my men have just to win the long balls. I will take care of this with roles/ duties selection. The Backline is being pressed. I will press the quicker one, Fisher and tight mark the slower Brown. Darling is pulled away from fisher. Both is to limitate Fishers options and to force him to just hoof the ball forward. Wright (here we have the winger playing a FB role) is being pressed as well (composure 8). I anticipate them attacking both wings equally. 4) finding the roles and TIs for the match. Ok here we go. We have three to four players up front doing as needed, Graham pressing Fisher (RCB) and Kilman marking Brown (LCB). The Wingers are either fast and aggressive (Young) or fast, aggressive and can anticipate well (Stutter). They should do a good job. I leave my best attacking players (Kalala and Moore) on the bench and will sub them later in the game. I chose my most aggressive, fast setup. Kalala usually fills the second MC with a playmaking role which is not needed now, counter-press will be my playmaker and I need the aggressive Beadle and the towering Myers to win the second balls. Usually I'd chose a different BWM but he's ill and my left FB will play BWM. He is not good at passing and I will PI (shorter passing). The DM has no PIs (usually hold position but I want him to challenge the other MC). TIs are suiting the approach, higher defense line, high pressing. When we build up we will take time and lure them out (play out of defence and slow pace down). remember we expect Burnley to be a bit sore which is why we pass it a bit faster. This should work out at least in my head. Let's see what's happening. Spoiler Note 1: One has to be very attentive, shortly into the match Olayinka (remember I never mark him) was changed into AF and Westwood switches with Greenhough, the first playing Winger and the latter DLF. I didn't noticed until Olayinka "found his scoring touch again". I immediately changed Olayinka to be tackled hard and Greenhough never to mark. For Westwood everything stays the same, put on the left foot and tackled hard. 24th minute 2:1 Note 2: After a while one can see the roles and fitness of the opponents team. It's as guessed Haley, Westwood and Greenhough already have half hearts, the FB as well. My players all show green hearts. We dominate the game, Burnley only had 3 attempts while we have already 12. Billericay have 70 % possession but only 2 of the 12 attempts were on goal. Halftime All goals are scored with corners. Dressing room. We dominate the ball but we need to make it count. I will tell them to do better. "things are going well but I know you're capable of doing better". I will talk individually and tell my Attackers that they can do better and that I have faith in them. That's all. I think we have a good chance, I will continue to press for the 3rd goal. I don't want to take the foot off the gas pedal. Note 3: Burnley did a sub in halftime. the exhausted Greenhaugh stayed on the bench, Westwood moved into DLF and Greenfield took the right wing. He is a fast crosser, I immediately put him on the left foot and tackle him hard. My left FB is actually playing a strong game (he's 2nd choice). Note 4: Another change, Olayinka switches into DLF and the fast but lazy Westwood into AF. I don't need to counter that, everything is fine but our accuracy. Burnley is struggling heavily. 59th minute 2:1 Note 5: They sub Wright who is half dead and Clark (LFB) comes on the pitch. A fresh FB, his composure is even lower (6) which means I will press him immediately as well. We want to finish them. In my head I am thinking about dialing it down and switch into our fluid counter-attacking but we have them ready now for the last punch. I think I am deciding it in the next ten minutes. 66th minute 2:1 Note 6: They switched their CB and immediately got more control of the game (7 shots/ 4 on target). It's getting dangerous. I need to switch my mezzala and I will take the fluid counter-attack now. I will dial the tempo down to standard and will prepare to see out the match. We need to be careful, both FB and the DM already received yellow cards. 70th minute 2:1 Noooooo! 2:2 Westwood again after a corner. They are taking the game to us and switching some positions. I need to be on my toes. Remember a draw has been the target. I could try and press them again or see the match out. We have been the better team most of the game. 78th minute 2:2 Gooooal! 3:2 Another corner and Kalala scores from close distance. I switched to pressing already and will hold our foot on the gas pedal. 82nd minute 3:2 Overtime: Collins my right FB is really tired and I see him losing his man over and over but they are still attacking down my left flank with Westwood. I take my time now, slowly passing and wasting time. "Well done lads, that was a good win for us." Wow it was the expected tough match. Westwood found himself alone in front of my keeper but missed his shot, it was offside anyways but close. Did it work out? We were clearly the better team but Burnley were close behind. None of the goals were from counter-pressing situations but our high possession and the many attempts show that we did as expected. I took the risk with their counter attacks and it was a close gamble. Maybe we were lucky maybe our positive form and excellent dressing room atmosphere gave the edge. We take the three points anyway as it is 2 points more then anticipated. I hope this can help how to prepare for a match. I am not very good at tactical aspects of the game and still learning much from this community. But somehow it pays off, we're sitting 3rd now with the same team which played only mediocre in the last year, failing to finish in top half as demanded. Spoiler Edited May 3 by HanziZoloman 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracellio Posted May 17 Author Share Posted May 17 (edited) SENSIBLE APPROACH TO A MATCH (PART II) 1. PREVIOUSLY ON "SENSIBLE APPROACH TO A MATCH" On the first article of this Sensible Approach to a Match, I’ve approached the entire match cycle, against one of the best teams in the league. Although it was a wonderful win, in the end it turned out to have a bittersweet taste, not only because it was a league cup game, and the teams tend to ease a bit on those, but also because FC Porto ended up rotating a few key players for that game. The good news is, we have another game against them, this time for the championship! *Quick recap*, in my approach to our first clash, I chose to adapt the team in the way we defend, to face those two dangerous forwards, transforming our usual shape of a 433 (commonly called 4231) with an offensive midfielder into a 433 with a defensive midfielder when in possession and a 541 when defending. However, despite these defensive changes, we kept the offensive phase the same, short, patient passes and tempo, keeping it simple on the majority of the phases and areas, leaving the creativity to 2 players, always supported by a solid defensive shape, cohesion and hard workers behind them (I can’t emphasize this enough since it’s the key for success, in my point of view) which ended up being compatible with our defensive shape. It would be way harder for everyone to play a high-octane tempo, with direct passes, since it is not the way we usually play and the fact that we were defending with a lot of people behind the ball, would make it very hard to find enough legs upfront to kick it long and rush things out. 2. THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE This introduction is important to explain that, although we’ve adapted to face our opponent, we haven’t changed that much as it may seem at first glance. The way I see it, keeping it plain and simple for you, my fellow football manager reader, there’s 4 ways of approaching a match: Adapting offensively, adapting defensively, both, or not adapting at all imposing our football with the confidence that the quality available is enough to master any strategy that the opponent throws at us. At the moment, in this Portuguese league, after the anual pre-season analysis of all the teams we’re competing against, I’ve estimated that we’ll have to adapt our way of defending against 4/5 teams (either because of the offensive power they have at their disposal or because they play with a system that requires us to be cautious and guarantee defensive superiority, as is the case with Unai Emery’s FC Porto and their 442), adapting offensively against 3/4, in most cases because they’re a though side to break, which leaves us with 9/10 teams that we are expected to win with more or less difficulty without having to adapt considerably (this considering that we always do our homework and use our “sensible approach” to the matches, obviously). 3. THE MATCH We already went through most of the match cycle for this very opponent in an extensive way, so I’m not going to bore you with the environment, the coach, the data hub, the opposition instructions, etc. (If you haven’t read the PART I of this thread, I highly advise you to scroll up this page and start from the beginning so this PART II can make more sense). Something that kept ringing in my head was the fact that in our previous match against FC Porto, we’ve adapted heavily defensively. What would have happened if we hadn’t adapted so much, in terms of positioning, but rather in terms of defensive behaviour, maintaining the same offensive positions (our usual 4231)? The funny part about FM being a game is, we can try it out and have an answer! That’s exactly what I did. It would be obviously a risky attempt of taking on the title contender without the due care, so we very welcome every detail, as little as it could be, where we could take some kind of advantage. A first glance into the 442 strategies with the two wide offensive midfielders in the AM strata, allows us to immediately notice the lack of players in the middle of the pitch. That’s it! That’s where the GOLD is. I thought about turning the focus down the middle instruction on, but since I have 3 creative players in the midfield (regista, advanced playmaker and attacking midfielder) they're already a ball magnet, so there's no need for it, the team will play it naturally narrow at times. Resorting to our roles, leaving our 4231 untouched, we aim to morph into a 343 in possession, keeping the principles we talked about in the first article, building up with 3 defender agaisnt 2 forwards, to face the initial pressure without hoofing the ball; 4 midfielders in the middle of the pitch to outplay their 2 midfielders, and 3 upfront, to stretch the pitch with two “wingers” (one natural winger on the left and one right wingback) and the tip of the spear, fast and hard-working striker. These are the roles we’ve used to achieve that. We went with our usual 4231 Offensive Phase During some moments in the game, you could clearly see the advantage we went for, by overwhelming them and focusing our build up through the middle: You can see FC Porto trying to counter this and trying to even the numbers in the middle of the pitch by narrowing the right winger and the leftback, this last one probably has a man mark instruction on our AP, Alex Mendez because it's not a common defensive behaviour. These man marking is leaving our wingback Rodrigo Gomes with hectares of space since their left winger can't always track back in time to close down on him! We went to explore that gap numerous times. Once I noticed this behaviour I've changed the focus to attack through the right flank. By doing this and using these roles in this particular shape, we ended up drawing FOUR PLAYERS out of position, which 2 of them were the centre midfielders! This happened because their left winger can't track back fast enough, leaving gaps, which are filled by the midfielders, trying to cover for their winger. Due to their high press strategy to get the ball back as fast as possible, they expose a lot of defensive positions, we've managed to get a 3v3 agaisnt FC Porto defenders, inside their own penalty box, at times: I have to tell you, I’m a big fan of the way the Wingback and the Advanced Playmaker on the wing behave, the synergy between them and the way they keep interchanging their positioning inside/ouside between them, confusing the opposition instructions, it’s exactly the way I like to see the teams play. Here’s an example of these movements: Due to our quality (or lack of it) this specific play didn’t end up in a goal for us but it would pay off in a very similar play between those two: GOAL GD CHAVES 1 - 0 FC PORTO Defensive Phase Defensively we kept our 451 shape, giving FC Porto a though time to break our 2 low defensive lines. That’s how our team is used to play agaisnt biggest opponents and has the cohesion and tactical knowledge at the maximum, it translates in moments where we are under pressure for some periods of time but are perfectly comfortable without the ball. After scoring the first goal and being ahead 1-0, it’s inevitable that we’re going to be overwhelmed by them, they’re going to throw the numbers at us, they have to, so we might as well embrace that and change what can be viewed as a possible hard time for us, into an advantage. I've lowered the lines together and uped the tempo a bit, by inviting our opponent into our own half, the goal here, after scoring and being ahead 1-0, is to hit them in the counter, we have the “weapons” to do that. In the image below we se Otávio (the left centreback) bringing the ball forward, due to the lack of passing options available, that's exactly what we want from them: Transition Phase We completely changed our strategy as soon as the score was in our favour, and started to hit our opponent with these counters, over and over: In this first example the counter didn't exactly work out, but the strategy ended up paying off, giving us what we were looking for, the safety of a second GOAL, in the shape of an amazing counter attack! GOAL GD CHAVES 2 - 0 FC PORTO As they kept exposing their defense in the last 15/20minutes, that led to a final result of 3-0. We ended up with 40% posession, when we had almost 55% in the first 30minutes of the game, which translates perfectly the way we morphed during the match. I highlight two key moments about this match. The first was definitely the preparation of the game, exploiting their weaknesses and the second was reacting during the game. As soon as we got the first goal, I went for counter, lowering the lines and inviting them to our own half. This could end up in the 1-1 for them, but it was worth the gamble, in the end it is a probability game, sometimes they fall for you, sometimes for your opponent. Note: During the game, I noticed they were going all in through their right flank, were we have our left explosive winger, Jair, that is a very hard-working and aggressive, for the better and the worse. He had a yellow card already and had “aggressive” body language. Adding that to the fact that we were already 1-0 and our starting midfield trio had 1 defensive midfielder, 1 all-round and 1 creative, we’ve slided the creative midfielder to the wing, replacing Jair, moved our captain, the all-round midfielder, Samu, up into the AM strata and subbed in Moses, the perfect “Kante” role to help our defensive midfielder. By changing the players and the roles we completely changed our midfield and our strategy (as we lowered lines, and upped the tempo a notch to hit them in the counter) and gave our team the tools to give what the game was asking from us by opting for an aggressive and more defensive midfield. With 1 sub we change the entire strategy 4. MATCH FACTS AND FINAL THOUGHTS In the end it was another great win for us, against an awesome opponent, this time for the championship! Hope you guys enjoyed reading the chapter two of this Sensible Approach to a Match series, more is expected to come, next time we’ll have a conference league qualifying round against Newcastle where we can dive into the pros and cons of a two-legged match and the differences of approach between a league match and a two-legged knockout match and (spoiler alert) a big loss agaisnt another title contender, we'll dive together into what we could have done diferently. Cheers everyone, be safe. LAST UPDATED 18 MAY 2024 Edited May 18 by Duracellio 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted May 18 Share Posted May 18 vor 11 Stunden schrieb Duracellio: In the end it was another great win for us, against an awesome opponent, this time for the championship! Hope you guys enjoyed reading the chapter two of this Sensible Approach to a Match series, more is expected to come, next time we’ll have a conference league qualifying round against Newcastle where we can dive into the pros and cons of a two-legged match and the differences of approach between a league match and a two-legged knockout match and (spoiler alert) a big loss agaisnt another title contender, we'll dive together into what we could have done diferently. Cheers everyone, be safe. I am so much a fan of this topic here. Thanks @Duracellio for putting in the work. You answered a lot of questions I am thinking about, especially on how to exploit those 442‘s. I have a difficult time against top clubs playing 442. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duracellio Posted May 18 Author Share Posted May 18 (edited) 5 horas atrás, HanziZoloman disse: I am so much a fan of this topic here. Thanks @Duracellio for putting in the work. You answered a lot of questions I am thinking about, especially on how to exploit those 442‘s. I have a difficult time against top clubs playing 442. Thank you HanziZoloman for such kind words! Sometimes a loss isn't exactly a failure, and a win isn't exactly a success, the hard part is acknowledge them. In this particular match, we've won (the goal here isn't exactly about the final result) but at times we were very lucky to keep the 1-0 and we pulled out a second goal in a counter-attack. It was a gamble and it all came down to wether the ball hit the post and go in or go out (they've hit 3 times our posts). I know luck is a part of the game, but when you gamble in some parts of the match, you loose control of the strategic side of it. The same principles apply to a defeat, you can loose a game and do everything perfectly! Sometimes you do need that small percentage of luck combined with homework and thinkering behind a match, the point I am trying to make is, although we've won, and our strategy worked flawless at times, I can't say for sure that it was a success (the final result 3-0 is a bit misleading) because we depended way too much on some luck and took a gamble, especially after having an advantage. The proof of that is the next game I'm bringing, I got a bit intoxicated by success with this win agaisnt Porto and went with the same strategy agaisnt a similar 442, got careless and it wasn't pretty hehe. Personally I feel confident preparing and approaching a match, but I feel that I still need to improve a lot in the strategy to adopt in X scenario that my opponent throws at me during the match. PS: Some images and gifs weren't loading correctly, I think I've resolved the issue, please let me know if someone has trouble in seeing everything, Cheers. Edited May 18 by Duracellio 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanziZoloman Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 (edited) @DuracellioI have another aspect which could be exploited: Concentration and anticipation, @Rashidi describes the attributes as intelligence. Players lacking concentration and anticipation are (maybe) easy to distract and confuse. One can exploit that by movement, like positional play, a DM coming from deep (SV) or the classic overlap combos AP/WB but one can also exploit that by ppm, one-twos or by movement patterns, all should be difficult to anticipate by those low intelligence players. Just now I had a match against Reading in the Championship. All teams in that league have better players than us. I spotted the less intelligence players in CM (they played 442 wingplay). I tried to make use of their weakness by playing my best movement players (off the ball) against them and changed the roles into some that target CM and AMC space, like AP(S) w/ roam and CM(A). I placed a playmaker in the DM(S) behind them who likes to move and pass. 3:1 (xG 3.34 : 0.46) Reading had a hard time against us. My CM were among the best performances. Edited May 19 by HanziZoloman 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
naufal husain Posted May 20 Share Posted May 20 On 18/05/2024 at 18:19, Duracellio said: PS: Some images and gifs weren't loading correctly, I think I've resolved the issue, please let me know if someone has trouble in seeing everything, Cheers. Idk why but I still can't see those gifs... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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