International Management Tactics Questions

[CVass]

Every year, I love to start my save as the manager of a club and international teams. In years past, I would start a save with my own tactics for my club team; they would stink, and then I would find some meta plug-and-play tactic, which became stale (for VERY OBVIOUS reasons). 

I would then find players to match my meta tactic for my international team, and usually, the international players would fit to a large degree. This year, I have taken a different approach and am doing everything from scratch, including tactics, scouting, etc.

I have searched over the years, and there is very little info on it (or I am a dummy looking in the wrong places). This save, I am managing England, and I decided to list my best attackers in order of importance and tweaked the best I could. We won the Euros with great luck and off of set pieces - a lot of smash-and-grab going on... So, I want to make it better...

My question is, how do you go about building tactics for your international management?

• Do you pick a tactic that is how you want to play and then place the best players in those roles?
• Do you load in your best 11, let the Assistant Manager tell you their best roles, and then tweak from there?
• Do you pick their best roles based on their comfort with club tactics?
• Does role comfort/familiarity even really matter, and am I overthinking it?
• Where do you start your process, and who gets priority for their preferred playing style?
• What positions get priority? For example, Declan Rice is far and away the best DM, but he is the second-best CM at the moment. Is it better to get him in the middle, more advanced in a 4-3-3, or keep him as a DM as the single pivot?
• If roles and duties are overwhelmingly crucial in international management, who changes to complement the tactic? Who plays out of the comfort zone? Are certain positions affected less when tweaking roles than others?
  • For example, I have a very talented bunch of players, but their roles don't jive. My five best attackers, Bellingham, Saka, Foden, Kane, and Rice (if you play him as a CM), all have support duties, with Rice being defensive. Also, Foden and Bellingham are best as AP-S, making matters even stickier with Kane as the DLF-S and Saka as a W-S. Who is best to leave in their favored/most comfortable role and duty? Do you tweak the most adaptable player, the role that would make the tactic come to life, or am I asking dumb questions to begin with?

I know these are a lot of questions, and some may not even matter one bit. But I don't see this topic discussed much, and I wanted to throw some things out. I know international management gets a lot of stick, and I know it could be way better, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks for indulging me!

[Cloud9]

On 24/04/2024 at 16:30, CVass said:

Every year, I love to start my save as the manager of a club and international teams. In years past, I would start a save with my own tactics for my club team; they would stink, and then I would find some meta plug-and-play tactic, which became stale (for VERY OBVIOUS reasons). 

I would then find players to match my meta tactic for my international team, and usually, the international players would fit to a large degree. This year, I have taken a different approach and am doing everything from scratch, including tactics, scouting, etc.

I have searched over the years, and there is very little info on it (or I am a dummy looking in the wrong places). This save, I am managing England, and I decided to list my best attackers in order of importance and tweaked the best I could. We won the Euros with great luck and off of set pieces - a lot of smash-and-grab going on... So, I want to make it better...

My question is, how do you go about building tactics for your international management?

• Do you pick a tactic that is how you want to play and then place the best players in those roles?
• Do you load in your best 11, let the Assistant Manager tell you their best roles, and then tweak from there?
• Do you pick their best roles based on their comfort with club tactics?
• Does role comfort/familiarity even really matter, and am I overthinking it?
• Where do you start your process, and who gets priority for their preferred playing style?
• What positions get priority? For example, Declan Rice is far and away the best DM, but he is the second-best CM at the moment. Is it better to get him in the middle, more advanced in a 4-3-3, or keep him as a DM as the single pivot?
• If roles and duties are overwhelmingly crucial in international management, who changes to complement the tactic? Who plays out of the comfort zone? Are certain positions affected less when tweaking roles than others?
  • For example, I have a very talented bunch of players, but their roles don't jive. My five best attackers, Bellingham, Saka, Foden, Kane, and Rice (if you play him as a CM), all have support duties, with Rice being defensive. Also, Foden and Bellingham are best as AP-S, making matters even stickier with Kane as the DLF-S and Saka as a W-S. Who is best to leave in their favored/most comfortable role and duty? Do you tweak the most adaptable player, the role that would make the tactic come to life, or am I asking dumb questions to begin with?

I know these are a lot of questions, and some may not even matter one bit. But I don't see this topic discussed much, and I wanted to throw some things out. I know international management gets a lot of stick, and I know it could be way better, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on this.

Thanks for indulging me!

I'd build around my best players at the international level and England have some great players to pick from. 

Personally I'd go for a Pep style approach (at least that's what I think England should try to do for the Euros). England have John Stones to play his unique Libero role and the pace of Walker to cover for him. A good 6 is hard to find and Rice has the mentals and height to be a Rodri like DM(s). That gives the license to the two 8's to go forward, like you see with City, and the very talented frontline the freedom to attack.

On goalkeeper go for whoever can stop penalties: Anticipation, Concentration, Reflexes.

I'd ignore what the game says the players are best at for the most part. For example: Bellingham's profile is not really the of an AP. With a complete player like this I'd just stick him as a BBM and let him do his thing. 

Really though you could do whatever with England in game. IRL playing without fullbacks makes sense because Trent is defensively an issue and Reece James/Chillwell unfortunately can't stay fit. Those factors seem to be lessened within FM to some degree so you have more tactical ability to pick and choose how you'd like to approach things. 

Edited April 27 by Cloud9