Halfspace crosses - how to get them frequently

[julle17]

So one thing in football that I enjoy watching in real life is half space crosses, especially when De Bruyne does them, but both Kimmich and Trent are the two other players I see do them extremely well. 

 This is an example of the kind of scenario I'm talking about. De Bruyne in the right half space putting in a back post cross, with both Gündogan and even someone else completely unmarked lurking even further backpost, just out of the image

So i was wondering if anyone had a way to get a specific player to do them often in FM. Curious to hear any ideas.

Thanks

[Cloud9]

1 hour ago, julle17 said:

So one thing in football that I enjoy watching in real life is half space crosses, especially when De Bruyne does them, but both Kimmich and Trent are the two other players I see do them extremely well. 

 This is an example of the kind of scenario I'm talking about. De Bruyne in the right half space putting in a back post cross, with both Gündogan and even someone else completely unmarked lurking even further backpost, just out of the image

So i was wondering if anyone had a way to get a specific player to do them often in FM. Curious to hear any ideas.

Thanks

Mezzala role

[julle17]

Well that was what i was thinking, but my players just never do them. I've tried loads of different combinations of instructions to make it happen, whether it's leave the role as default, tell it cross more, apply the early cross team instruction, my players just refuse to cross from the half space.

These are my cross maps for my last 3 games, and the one from 10 that looks like the right position, didn't actually seem like a cross when watching it back, was more of a through ball, not sure why it counted as a cross.

This is what i've been trying recently, the Mez on support has cross more often instruction aswell.

[crusadertsar]

9 minutes ago, julle17 said:

Well that was what i was thinking, but my players just never do them. I've tried loads of different combinations of instructions to make it happen, whether it's leave the role as default, tell it cross more, apply the early cross team instruction, my players just refuse to cross from the half space.

These are my cross maps for my last 3 games, and the one from 10 that looks like the right position, didn't actually seem like a cross when watching it back, was more of a through ball, not sure why it counted as a cross.

This is what i've been trying recently, the Mez on support has cross more often instruction aswell.

You have to take off hit early crosses instruction. It will cause your fullbacks to be the primary crossers in the formation. To get the mezzalas to cross you will need to slow the pace of the tactic to allow the ball time to get to your midfielders. 

Edited April 21 by crusadertsar

[HANZO]

tried to achieve the same thing just cant find what works tried ppm of crosses early on my mezzala but it just wasnt working 

[julle17]

29 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

You have to take off hit early crosses instruction. It will cause your fullbacks to be the primary crossers in the formation. To get the mezzalas to cross you will need to slow the pace of the tactic to allow the ball time to get to your midfielders. 

So these are the cross maps from the last 3 games where i removed the early cross team instruction and lowered the tempo. I won't lie i'm just really confused as to how to achieve this

[Poison]

Hmm if the "cross more often" player instruction doesn't help I don't know what will do it. One thing I've noticed, some players (low-ish teamwork maybe?) play to their strengths and ignore some tactical instructions, if your midfielders are poor in crosses maybe they refrain from using them. Maybe try "stay wider" player instruction too so they'll be in the positions that De Bruyne is.

Edit: Also, the player needs good vision and anticipation at least to execute the cross.

Edited April 21 by Poison

[julle17]

Thanks for the replies fellas.
 

6 minutes ago, Poison said:

Hmm if the "cross more often" player instruction doesn't help I don't know what will do it. One thing I've noticed, some players (low-ish teamwork maybe?) play to their strengths and ignore some tactical instructions, if your midfielders are poor in crosses maybe they refrain from using them. Maybe try "stay wider" player instruction too so they'll be in the positions that De Bruyne is.

Edit: Also, the player needs good vision and anticipation at least to execute the cross.

What i will say i've played about 15 games, and i'm yet to see any real halfspace cross, not just from my rcm, that i want to do it, but in general from any player. I'm clearly doing something wrong. 

Also with the stay wider suggestion, that is hardcoded in the mezzala, so shouldn't be an issue. I have also tried with a different role just without the stay wider. And honestly my rcm takes up roughly the same positions, but just doesn't cross it from the right half space

Edited April 21 by julle17

[Poison]

10 minutes ago, julle17 said:

Thanks for the replies fellas.
 

What i will say i've played about 15 games, and i'm yet to see any real halfspace cross, not just from my rcm, that i want to do it, but in general from any player. I'm clearly doing something wrong. 

Also with the stay wider suggestion, that is hardcoded in the mezzala, so shouldn't be an issue. I have also tried with a different role just without the stay wider. And honestly my rcm takes up roughly the same positions, but just doesn't cross it from the right half space

I've seen it a few times in my save, no specific instructions. The player who executed it had crazy skill (technical and mental attributes), he's my best player. I was playing him in a playmaker role if it helps (roaming playmaker).

[Cloud9]

1 hour ago, julle17 said:

Thanks for the replies fellas.
 

What i will say i've played about 15 games, and i'm yet to see any real halfspace cross, not just from my rcm, that i want to do it, but in general from any player. I'm clearly doing something wrong. 

Also with the stay wider suggestion, that is hardcoded in the mezzala, so shouldn't be an issue. I have also tried with a different role just without the stay wider. And honestly my rcm takes up roughly the same positions, but just doesn't cross it from the right half space

A lot of your tactic will result in less patient build up, like using "counter." Try using "hold shape" or leave it unchecked.

Try running a 9 that will offer you an option to cross to, F9 is great but will offer you movement that pulls the opposition around instead of a physical target. I don't see too many players to cross the ball to atm except for the IF. DLF offers a more direct option for your build up play.

What foot are your Mezzalas? 

Edited April 21 by Cloud9

[julle17]

So i have played through more than a season, and looked at every cross map from my team, and there just haven't had a cross from the half-space. I'm not going to claim they never happen, they just seem in my opinion far too rare.

This is just an example of a cross map from one of my games, but is a very good representation of how they look in general.

What i'm wondering is if anyone have a cross map where they see crosses from the marked areas below?

[julle17]

On 21/04/2024 at 23:39, Cloud9 said:

What foot are your Mezzalas?

I have tried 20+ games of both left and right, doesn't seem to make any difference

[Tajerio]

I wonder if perhaps the game doesn't characterize a half-space cross as an actual cross, and that's why the cross map doesn't show any. Have you watched the games back closely to see if it's happening?

[julle17]

49 minutes ago, Tajerio said:

I wonder if perhaps the game doesn't characterize a half-space cross as an actual cross, and that's why the cross map doesn't show any. Have you watched the games back closely to see if it's happening?

Honestly could be, i've watched back a couple games and found this instance. Here Tomiyasu crosses backpost to Saka from the left half-space, but in the analysis it is counted as a pass.
This is exactly what i'm looking for, now if it's not considered a cross, the question is how to make them do these kinds of passes more often.

 
As you can see here it is shown under passes, but not in the crosses section
 

 

Edited April 23 by julle17

[lied90]

18 minutes ago, julle17 said:

Honestly could be, i've watched back a couple games and found this instance. Here Tomiyasu crosses backpost to Saka from the left half-space, but in the analysis it is counted as a pass.
This is exactly what i'm looking for, now if it's not considered a cross, the question is how to make them do these kinds of passes more often.

 

 
As you can see here it is shown under passes, but not in the crosses section
 

 

The clip you showed is pretty much the only type of situation I see this happen. Winger runs wide and underlaps to a narrow FB who crosses it.

Would be nice if those who say that mezz is perfect for this would post their method and examples of it happening.

[julle17]

5 minutes ago, lied90 said:

The clip you showed is pretty much the only type of situation I see this happen. Winger runs wide and underlaps to a narrow FB who crosses it.

Would be nice if those who say that mezz is perfect for this would post their method and examples of it happening.

Agreed, i've looked through about 15 games of passing maps now, and i found 4 other instances of 'crosses'(counted as a pass) from those areas, and they were all from a winger going byline and going back to a fullback. I even watched through games, seeing the same stuff just where the winger passes to the cm in the same kind of area, but they just never crossed it from there.

[vrig]

Pretty sure the game doesn't actually count what you might call a half-space cross as a cross. If you work a midfielder into some space and they're the type to try a killer balls or long passes, provided you have someone attacking the back post, it'll happen. 

Doesn't even need to be a mezzala. I get these types of passes from a DM(s) into an IF(a) fairly regularly, particularly when I'm using minimum width and focusing play down the flanks. This encourages the midfielders to go into the halfspaces and also ensures the IF is playing up against their CB as often as possible.

I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to do it, but that's what's been working for me lately.

[julle17]

19 hours ago, vrig said:

Pretty sure the game doesn't actually count what you might call a half-space cross as a cross. If you work a midfielder into some space and they're the type to try a killer balls or long passes, provided you have someone attacking the back post, it'll happen. 

Doesn't even need to be a mezzala. I get these types of passes from a DM(s) into an IF(a) fairly regularly, particularly when I'm using minimum width and focusing play down the flanks. This encourages the midfielders to go into the halfspaces and also ensures the IF is playing up against their CB as often as possible.

I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to do it, but that's what's been working for me lately.

Could you perhaps show some examples? I would like to see how the situation looks when it happens

[vrig]

3 hours ago, julle17 said:

Could you perhaps show some examples? I would like to see how the situation looks when it happens

I probably won't to be honest, as going through matches, recording clips, and putting together a detailed breakdown is a fair bit more effort than I'm personally willing to put into a post on a forum about a game I sometimes play. Aside from not knowing how to do half of that in the first place, I'm pretty lazy at the best of times!

But you could maybe try some of the suggestions in the thread, such as playing about with width, focus, and role settings and hopefully finding your examples firsthand.

[lied90]

11 hours ago, vrig said:

I probably won't to be honest, as going through matches, recording clips, and putting together a detailed breakdown is a fair bit more effort than I'm personally willing to put into a post on a forum about a game I sometimes play. Aside from not knowing how to do half of that in the first place, I'm pretty lazy at the best of times!

But you could maybe try some of the suggestions in the thread, such as playing about with width, focus, and role settings and hopefully finding your examples firsthand.

It doesn't take more than 10 min tbh.

You just go to post match analytics, press on passes/crosses done by said players and post it together with the tactic screen. No need for a detailed breakdown or video, just info needed to reproduce it and examples of it happening.

For the record I've tried every advice he's got in this thread and can't reproduce any crosses from half space from the CM (mezz) position.

[lied90]

I've tried to reproduce it with Man City and using KdB as the mezz in 12 competitive matches.

 

After having looked at all passes and crosses made by KdB, watched all passes made by him in the half space, and excluded free kicks, I have observed two crosses from the half space in a total of 12 matches.

 

[Miragepredator]

When you choose the area that a player crosses to, does that influence how players act? So if I asked for a back post cross, does the ST or far sided players attack the back post more often? Perhaps doing this can lead to more players attacking that area and thus more frequent crosses.

I have also previously tried to use the player I want to cross as a winger/or other wide roles but also have a WB(a) behind him to overlap and create space for crosses but I was not sure if it worked and have not really tested it since

[CAE82]

It’s not a natural way to do it, but assuming Haaland and the AMRL will generally be the target, then you could try and force it by using the Target Man roles for them and use Floated Crosses. This will cause players to aim for them. You could also try More Direct Passes and Take More Risks on KDB and maybe the PPM ‘Switches Ball To Other Flank’ will encourage those type of diagonal balls (whether FM counts them as crosses or passes). 

[wennstrom]

I would remove shorter passing and add lower tempo + more direct passes on Kdb like CAE82 mentioned and see how that works out. But I suspect it would still be a rare occurrence in this ME

Edited April 26 by wennstrom

[lied90]

1 hour ago, CAE82 said:

It’s not a natural way to do it, but assuming Haaland and the AMRL will generally be the target, then you could try and force it by using the Target Man roles for them and use Floated Crosses. This will cause players to aim for them. You could also try More Direct Passes and Take More Risks on KDB and maybe the PPM ‘Switches Ball To Other Flank’ will encourage those type of diagonal balls (whether FM counts them as crosses or passes). 

 

1 hour ago, wennstrom said:

I would remove shorter passing and add lower tempo + more direct passes on Kdb like CAE82 mentioned and see how that works out. But I suspect it would still be a rare occurrence in this ME

Added these instructions. Played 10 competitive matches and crosses/diagonal passes from KdB in half spaces amounted to 3, one of them might have been too wide to count as from the half space but beggars can't be choosers. All crosses towards the IF and not Haaland, even with TF role. I don't think players actually know that they have a TF. Haaland would have to be moved to the left off center if KdB would ever find him.

[Dr Naysay]

Genuine question as I dont know. How often do crosses from a player in the halfspace happen in real life? Is three in ten games not realistic?

[lied90]

53 minutes ago, Dr Naysay said:

Genuine question as I dont know. How often do crosses from a player in the halfspace happen in real life? Is three in ten games not realistic?

this was all I found by simply googling it

[Dr Naysay]

10 minutes ago, lied90 said:

this was all I found by simply googling it

So it should be around 12 to 15 every 10 games as per the average PL crosses per game. Something you would hope gets improved in later versions.

[lied90]

8 minutes ago, Dr Naysay said:

So it should be around 12 to 15 every 10 games as per the average PL crosses per game. Something you would hope gets improved in later versions.

I'd say higher than that. Crosses from half space on average are watered out by teams like Burnley (it's from 2017-18) who do lots of deep crosses. Teams who have more possession in the opponents half should have a higher % of crosses from half spaces, especially if that is a specific part of the game plan.

[julle17]

2 hours ago, Dr Naysay said:

Genuine question as I dont know. How often do crosses from a player in the halfspace happen in real life? Is three in ten games not realistic?

I looked through some of KDB's crossmaps from the games he's played this season.

2 halfspace crosses, maybe 3 if you're a bit lenient with what is considered halfspace


Well there's obviously only 1 cross here, but he only played like 6 minutes this game, so thought it was still interesting he had a cross there.


Here we have 4 halfspace crosses


Here we have 3, maybe 4 if the one inside the box is counted aswell

Well i guess the point is, considering it's clearly something KDB does several times a game a lot, i think it seems to infrequent in the actual game. I'm still completely open to the fact that i just may not understand how to get my players to do them, but i would love to see actual examples of it happening frequently and on purpose.

[julle17]

Just had a look at Liverpool's two most recent games.

 

Trent had quite a few here aswell

[lied90]

51 minutes ago, julle17 said:

I'm still completely open to the fact that i just may not understand how to get my players to do them, but i would love to see actual examples of it happening frequently and on purpose.

I don't think we are doing much wrong. I also tracked how often my IW (Silva) passed backwards (underlap) to KdB, and it's very frequent with both low, standard, and high tempo. So KdB gets the ball in the right positions, he just makes a different choice than crossing it.

It's a bit deja vu from when I couldn't seem to get Tony Pulis type deep crosses to happen. Everything is set up for it to happen, but the players don't make the choice we want them to make.

[Cloud9]

1 hour ago, lied90 said:

I don't think we are doing much wrong. I also tracked how often my IW (Silva) passed backwards (underlap) to KdB, and it's very frequent with both low, standard, and high tempo. So KdB gets the ball in the right positions, he just makes a different choice than crossing it.

It's a bit deja vu from when I couldn't seem to get Tony Pulis type deep crosses to happen. Everything is set up for it to happen, but the players don't make the choice we want them to make.

Might take a look at your attacking roles, Poacher could help you compared to the AF who will look to run in behind and turn over possession. IW(s) on Bernardo Silva will also cut inside eventually even if you put stay wider on him, could try a traditional winger role. Similarly on the right hand side a patient wide player could help, you have two roles moving into goal scoring opportunities in the same finishing space + the poacher. Try dumping the wingback in favor of stable/patient 3-2 foundation. I'd continue to play around with the width settings as you test.

Aside from that, if you've run a bunch of tests and are still struggling to get it to work I'd just submit a bug report/feedback with the test info. 

Edited April 26 by Cloud9

[Rashidi]

I think if i can get 1-2 per game in exactly the halfspace I am going to be happy, most times i get them closely to the wider channels and this is done with the underlap instruction with focus play. Halfspace crosses inside the penalty area are common in FM

 

 

[lied90]

3 hours ago, Rashidi said:

I think if i can get 1-2 per game in exactly the halfspace I am going to be happy, most times i get them closely to the wider channels and this is done with the underlap instruction with focus play. Halfspace crosses inside the penalty area are common in FM

 

 

I assumed the threadstarter meant crosses/diagonal passes spesifically from this area (at least that is what I checked for):

[lied90]

4 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

Might take a look at your attacking roles, Poacher could help you compared to the AF who will look to run in behind and turn over possession. IW(s) on Bernardo Silva will also cut inside eventually even if you put stay wider on him, could try a traditional winger role. Similarly on the right hand side a patient wide player could help, you have two roles moving into goal scoring opportunities in the same finishing space + the poacher. Try dumping the wingback in favor of stable/patient 3-2 foundation. I'd continue to play around with the width settings as you test.

I highly doubt changing to a poacher instead of AF or TF will suddenly make KdB start to cross from the half space. I can tell a IW to cross less, I can't tell a winger to cross less, so I don't think that will make him use KdB more for the underlap, which was never a problem to begin with. No idea what you mean about two roles moving into same goal scoring opportunities + the poacher, thats exactly what I do want! I want players into that space because it gives KdB options in the box. Having less players in that area would be detrimental.

[Cloud9]

3 hours ago, lied90 said:

I highly doubt changing to a poacher instead of AF or TF will suddenly make KdB start to cross from the half space. I can tell a IW to cross less, I can't tell a winger to cross less, so I don't think that will make him use KdB more for the underlap, which was never a problem to begin with. No idea what you mean about two roles moving into same goal scoring opportunities + the poacher, thats exactly what I do want! I want players into that space because it gives KdB options in the box. Having less players in that area would be detrimental.

The point being your current setup isn't working the way you'd like by your own admission, so make changes. Removing redundancies and focusing on building up in a way that makes space for the MEZ and the runners could result in a more productive system. Providing a partner role (Winger(s) is a great partner to MEZ(s)) is an excellent way to get the best out of the role you'd like to build around.

Again, if you've already decided the game isn't working as intended, go post the evidence to SI. 

Edited April 26 by Cloud9

[lied90]

4 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

The point being your current setup isn't working the way you'd like by your own admission, so make changes.

My point being that your suggestions don't even adress the problem, it's like you didn't even read what I wrote.

4 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

Removing redundancies and focusing on building up in a way that makes space for the MEZ and the runners could result in a more productive system.

The mez already has lots of space and gets the ball when in the half space on a consistent basis. This is not the problem. 

4 hours ago, Cloud9 said:

Again, if you've already decided the game isn't working as intended, go post the evidence to SI

I will when I feel like I've tried every reasonable option.

[gunnersguy]

Very demoralising reading this thread that this doesn't seem achievable; even more so once you found out SI have closed the Bug Tracker forum 🙃  

[Ghost77]

My rightfooted wideplaymaker on support in RM position with cross more instruction helped me with that 👌

[julle17]

4 hours ago, Ghost77 said:

My rightfooted wideplaymaker on support in RM position with cross more instruction helped me with that 👌

Could you show examples of how often and clips of them? Would like to see it

[julle17]

6 hours ago, Ghost77 said:

My rightfooted wideplaymaker on support in RM position with cross more instruction helped me with that 👌

Also not saying you're lying, but how are you supposed to get cross more often on this role?

[lied90]

9 hours ago, julle17 said:

Also not saying you're lying, but how are you supposed to get cross more often on this role?

None of the crosses I get directly from the half space counts as crosses in post match analytics, so maybe it doesn't matter, but who knows.

[Ghost77]

19 hours ago, julle17 said:

Could you show examples of how often and clips of them? Would like to see it

Hopefully I'll get to my game in upcoming week. I will send some pics when possible 

 

17 hours ago, julle17 said:

Also not saying you're lying, but how are you supposed to get cross more often on this role?

My mistake there. I started my tactic with wide playmaker, but later experimented with wide midfielder role with cut inside and cross more often instructions. I am generally trying to recreate David Beckham at Man Utd. He was getting into half-space near the penalty area very often and crossed or shot from there. I also have overlap instrictuion on the right. My full back is on attack.

 

8 hours ago, lied90 said:

None of the crosses I get directly from the half space counts as crosses in post match analytics, so maybe it doesn't matter, but who knows.

I honestly never looked at the crosses in post match analytics. But scored quite a few goals from the far post after a cross from half-space. 

 

Edited Sunday at 12:53 by Ghost77