Defensive Line- What the hell does it actually do, and how does it work?

[Noel Gallagher]

I've just had a thought, but i'm too drunk and too tired to test it now. Maybe when I get up perhaps.

What would happen if you set a defensive line of 20, but barrowed all of your defenders?

I wonder what position on the pitch they would take up, and what sort of gap there would be between defence & midfield?

[Asmodeus]

Confirmation:

Originally posted by Francis Cole:

Hello Guys.

Right in response to all your defensive line "problems" blah blah read this from the main man Paul C himself. Which will explain all your problems:

"Defensive line is indeed neutral in the following situations, by request of (Ex-Footballers we consult with):

- The team has the ball

- The ball is in the opposition’s own half

Otherwise, in 7.0.1, the difference between 1 and 20 is at most 30 yards depending on where the ball is. Obviously the closer to the goal the opposition are, the less this difference is to avoid people standing on the goal line in deep formations

"

Cheers

Fran

Explains why many see their defenders pushing up to halfway regardless of their defensive line setting.

[Garate]

Originally posted by Asmodeus:

Confirmation:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Francis Cole:

Hello Guys.

Right in response to all your defensive line "problems" blah blah read this from the main man Paul C himself. Which will explain all your problems:

"Defensive line is indeed neutral in the following situations, by request of (Ex-Footballers we consult with):

- The team has the ball

- The ball is in the opposition’s own half

Otherwise, in 7.0.1, the difference between 1 and 20 is at most 30 yards depending on where the ball is. Obviously the closer to the goal the opposition are, the less this difference is to avoid people standing on the goal line in deep formations

"

Cheers

Fran

Explains why many see their defenders pushing up to halfway regardless of their defensive line setting. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

It makes sense. I always thought DL is the space defense (coordinated with midfield) allows to the ball when not in posession. And I assume it's progressive, meaning if the ball is 50 yards from own goal, with DL 1, defenders will allow maybe 30 yards of distance, while with opposition playing the ball 25 yards from the goal, DL 1 will be a 15 yards distance, or even less (there must be an equation). But mentality and CD will also play a role on that.

[Finknottle]

In my attempts to create a fairly stable and consistent formation/tactic, I scoured the FM 2007 manual yet again.

On page 33 reading the parameters for the defensive line I find that it reads as follows. Defensive Line. Your back line will sit right back, almost on the edge of their own penalty area. Useful for dealing with pacy attacks.

For me, the operative part is the first sentence. If I am correct that implies that the eighteen yard line is the lowest end of deep defending, that is number one on the slider control and that number twenty will therefore be the at the halfway line.

Taking your pitch to be about 100 yards in length, this means that the distance between the number one click, deep defensive line, and the number twenty click, push up defensive line will be around thirty two yards. This being the diastnce from the eighteen yard line to the halfway line.

If this theory is correct, that wiould make each click the equivalent of about one and a half yards, beginning at the eighteen yard line on click number one. This means that we can now visualise fairly accurately just where the defensive line will be at any given number of clicks. This should be beneficial when arranging formations/tactics.

The only problem with this, is this. During a defensive line discussion with others it was generally agreed that the lowest (deepest) defensive line was that the goal line was the first click on the slider. This can be confirmed by Cleon in his reply to my query on 12-11-06, in this forum. He said "...... As I said on previous page 1 is the goal line and 20 is the half way line".

I and others agreed that this was correct. Now I'm not sure but I am now implementing the new theory in my new game with the patch. All opinions read with interest. Kind regards to all.

[Garate]

I don't think is a question of 1 click = X yards of pitch. I think DL's position is relative to ball postion in your own half.

Many have reported that even setting DL to 1 they don't see it sit 18 yds from own goal. Neither with DL=20 they see it placed in the halfline.

[Kristian]

Originally posted by Asmodeus:

Confirmation:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Francis Cole:

Hello Guys.

Right in response to all your defensive line "problems" blah blah read this from the main man Paul C himself. Which will explain all your problems:

"Defensive line is indeed neutral in the following situations, by request of (Ex-Footballers we consult with):

- The team has the ball

- The ball is in the opposition’s own half

Otherwise, in 7.0.1, the difference between 1 and 20 is at most 30 yards depending on where the ball is. Obviously the closer to the goal the opposition are, the less this difference is to avoid people standing on the goal line in deep formations

"

Cheers

Fran

Explains why many see their defenders pushing up to halfway regardless of their defensive line setting. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Curious.

Not sure that it gives any devastating new insight, but is interesting nonetheless.

[Finknottle]

Garate, the 1 click = 1.5 yards is only my interpretation of what the manual implies that the deepest defensive is on the 18 yard line. It is meant to just give a rough guide, so that when you set your defence, say to 3 clicks, it will give you an idea where you defenders are. in this case, 3 clicks = 4.5 yards. so your defence is sitting about 4-5 yards from your 18 yard line. It just gives some idea of the pitch geography.

As I mentioned earlier, I may be completely wrong. But it may help to understand the game a little better.

[Garate]

I guess it's Sunday and I can spend some time on this:

I set everybody on team CD: Mix. Then I played with DL=1, 10 & 20, and took snapshots.

With the ball around the halfway line, the distance between DL and ball is different -especially evident with DL=0

With ball in own 3/4, the difference is not that evident. DL=20 shows the defense lined one lawncut line up the box, while no clear difference with DL=10 and DL=1. Actually, DL=1 seems a bit more up (maybe I named wrongly the pics?) Anyway, but you see all the time that the line is in a different place depending on the ball.

[Garate]

Hmm, posting images I knew I was going to get in trouble.

http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dlboe0.jpghttp://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dlafn3.jpg

[Garate]

Originally posted by Garate:

Hmm, posting images I knew I was going to get in trouble.

http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dlboe0.jpg

http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dlafn3.jpg

[Kristian]

Originally posted by Garate:

I guess it's Sunday and I can spend some time on this:

I set everybody on team CD: Mix. Then I played with DL=1, 10 & 20, and took snapshots.

With the ball around the halfway line, the distance between DL and ball is different -especially evident with DL=0

With ball in own 3/4, the difference is not that evident. DL=20 shows the defense lined one lawncut line up the box, while no clear difference with DL=10 and DL=1. Actually, DL=1 seems a bit more up (maybe I named wrongly the pics?) Anyway, but you see all the time that the line is in a different place depending on the ball.

Interesting screenshots there.

Although the defence has pushed out a bit on one, it's noticable that the ball is more central therefore presumably your DC's closing setting comes into play more than with it wide as it DL=10.

Definitely displays well the suggestion from above that D-Line is relative to the position of the ball. Although the second set of screenshots only has the ball 2 grass-cuts further back, the defence on 20 D-line pushed out a lot further.

[Garate]

Originally posted by Kristian:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Garate:

I guess it's Sunday and I can spend some time on this:

I set everybody on team CD: Mix. Then I played with DL=1, 10 & 20, and took snapshots.

With the ball around the halfway line, the distance between DL and ball is different -especially evident with DL=0

With ball in own 3/4, the difference is not that evident. DL=20 shows the defense lined one lawncut line up the box, while no clear difference with DL=10 and DL=1. Actually, DL=1 seems a bit more up (maybe I named wrongly the pics?) Anyway, but you see all the time that the line is in a different place depending on the ball.

Interesting screenshots there.

Although the defence has pushed out a bit on one, it's noticable that the ball is more central therefore presumably your DC's closing setting comes into play more than with it wide as it DL=10.

Definitely displays well the suggestion from above that D-Line is relative to the position of the ball. Although the second set of screenshots only has the ball 2 grass-cuts further back, the defence on 20 D-line pushed out a lot further. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly. That was my theory (DL = distance from ball), and roughly it shows in the screenshots.

It's difficult to catch the game in the exact same situation, I tried to take screenshots when opposition was building up from their half, but obviously the 3 sets of screenshots aren't identical.

I have screenshots with ball close to the box, but I didn't find any difference there.

[Cleon]

I now play with a 15 d-line with Arsenal, with all my centre-backs on defensive mentality.

0.3 goals per game against so far.

Asmo - How you find this works against fast strikers?

[Asmodeus]

It works fine so far- but all my defenders have pace/acceleration of 15 or over (Eboue, Toure, Gallas, Clichy).

I also use the offside trap and it's all good.

[Cleon]

Originally posted by Asmodeus:

It works fine so far- but all my defenders have pace/acceleration of 15 or over (Eboue, Toure, Gallas, Clichy).

I also use the offside trap and it's all good.

Ahh that was my next question, how many off sides you get the opposition to have a game?

[Asmodeus]

Couldn't tell you- I think my d-line may actually be 14 though- it's the first notch of "push up."

[jonnycyclone]

Sorry to re-open the debate but I remember on FM06, it was advised to keep the d-line and the team mentality the same. Is this still advised. I just played a game with a dline of 7 and mentality of 12. When defending the team worked well as a unit, but I was slightly worried about the gap between the defence and the midfield when we had the ball in attacking positions. I did win 4-1 though!!

[Asmodeus]

Originally posted by jonnycyclone:

Sorry to re-open the debate but I remember on FM06, it was advised to keep the d-line and the team mentality the same. Is this still advised. I just played a game with a dline of 7 and mentality of 12. When defending the team worked well as a unit, but I was slightly worried about the gap between the defence and the midfield when we had the ball in attacking positions. I did win 4-1 though!!

That was always a good rule of thumb in FM2006 as you said- I personally still roughly adhere to this rule and find it works, but if I have a slow defence I play a deep defensive line irrespective of team mentality. As the manual says, you can offset this imbalance by playing a DMC in front of the defence to plug the gap.

[Finknottle]

jonnycyclone,can you tell me where in the 2006 manual it mentions what you say? I have just been looking at the mentality and defensive line instructions on pages 22 and 24 but can find no reference to what you say.

I must admit though, that what you say makes sense. But that is the attraction of the forums. Most of what everyone says has some credibility.I feel that the defensive line is possibly one of the major factors in getting your game tactics right.

At the minute my defensive line is on 11-13 at home and 7-10 away. I try to put closing down directly opposite to my defensive line. E.G. def line = 8 then closing down = 12. If these forums were not so good then perhaps I could get on and devote more time to playing the game!

Come on all managers , get boring, please! Kind regards to all.

[Asmodeus]

It was advice from here, not the manual.

[jonnycyclone]

As Asmo said, it was adice from the forum, and not the manual.

I have now played a couple of games with the deep defensive line and found it to be much better and stronger against teams with more pace. The DMC is a must though, and found that as well as plugging the hole to break up attacks, he is aslo a good point to start an attack, taking the ball away from the back four

[Danny091283]

Cleo i have talked with Guido a Dutch Tactical FM Genie.

We came to the conclusion that Defensive Line just says how you defenders play when you have the ball.

The mentality of the defenders are saying how to position when you don't have the ball.

But now i got the following question. If mentality says how to positining when you don't have the ball how is it then with your attakers?

I know that when you have almost no pressing the players are going back and standing verry close to the defenders. But what does mentality do?

I hope you understand my question.

[Cleon]

You got it wrong, defensive line only comes into play when you do not have possession.

As for mentality it seems you don't understand it, you are getting things wrong way around. Go to the unofficial tactics bible thread and read the threads about mentality, it exlplains everything there.

[Asmodeus]

For you Danny:

Originally posted by Asmodeus:

Confirmation:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Francis Cole:

Hello Guys.

Right in response to all your defensive line "problems" blah blah read this from the main man Paul C himself. Which will explain all your problems:

"Defensive line is indeed neutral in the following situations, by request of (Ex-Footballers we consult with):

- The team has the ball

- The ball is in the opposition’s own half

Otherwise, in 7.0.1, the difference between 1 and 20 is at most 30 yards depending on where the ball is. Obviously the closer to the goal the opposition are, the less this difference is to avoid people standing on the goal line in deep formations

"

Cheers

Fran

Explains why many see their defenders pushing up to halfway regardless of their defensive line setting. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Danny091283]

De DLC

De DC

De DRC

Team instructies

Now you understand what i am trying to say.

[Danny091283]

Ow and this happends when you don't have the ball:

[Rashidi]

Danny.

Mentality affects positioning of a player when he has the ball and also the nature of his passes.

Defensive line comes into play when you don't have possession of the ball and is affected to some extent by mentality as well. Looking at your latter picture, I'd expect the last line of defenders to stay in that position. If you look at where the ball is and how your two central midfielders have been pulled out of position, thats a result of your DL. DLine affects the midfield and defense and not just the defensive unit as a whole. A high DL does not mean that the whole team positions itself higher up the pitch like in 06. That is done why mentality. Adjusting individual mentalities will change how high up the pitch a player positions himself.

Whenever I set my closing down instructions then, i need to balance mentality and keep in mind where my Dline is. A higher placed DL means I cannot play with high closing down in midfield. I'll just pull players out of shape like your diagram has shown.

[Cleon]

Need to up so it doesnt get deleted.

[newgeneration manager]

Im thinking of using a sweper with 2 fullback and a centreback with games when i push up any way you think i can perfect it

[AmA Deo]

So, how have you experienced the D-line with FM09?

[Cityull]

Is the defensive line still the same in 09?

does anyone have any other opinions on it?

[RossoneriGunner]

Hi guys, can I ask you to take a look at the following link and let me know what you think of the tactic and the description that goes with it, I would be interested in your comments.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=103544

[Hektor]

Messing with the defensive line terrifies me, so i've been leaving it well alone for a long time in my present game.

However, I do have a pacy back 4 but have frequently been caught out by tall strikers. As such, the one time recently when I've felt confident in making a change was when I was faced with a team that had two really tall strikers that were both good in the air, but realtively slow. After been dominated by them for about half and hour, I put the d-line up to 15 and played the offside trap. In the end we won 4-0 and the opposing strikers ended up winning loads of headers, with ratings of about 5 or less.

I think this makes perfect sense, alllowing opposing strikers to win harmless headers further up the pitch as long as we win the second ball. I can also see how playing deep against such a team would have been an utter disaster, with the opposition winning countless headers on the edge of my penalty area.

My point is: surely a deep defensive line is for when you have sufficiently big, strong defenders that will win headers but be vulnerable against pace and a high line for when you have quick defenders or are capable of playing offside. Personally, I feel nervous about playing short, quick CBs because then I get dominated at set pieces.

[Rashidi]

Messing with the defensive line terrifies me, so i've been leaving it well alone for a long time in my present game.

My point is: surely a deep defensive line is for when you have sufficiently big, strong defenders that will win headers but be vulnerable against pace and a high line for when you have quick defenders or are capable of playing offside. Personally, I feel nervous about playing short, quick CBs because then I get dominated at set pieces.

I'd see things the same way. It all depends on how your tactic has been set up as well. If you want to play an attacking brand of football with a large number of players on high mentalities, then you would find your team usually attacking high up the pitch with quite a few players in the opposing half. Since Dline kicks in when you lose possession, a high dline would mean that the players are further up the pitch, which would necessitate u playing offside and having quick defenders.

In most cases a balanced tactic is all that people really need in a game. One that has players ranging from mentalities of 8-16, in this case you would have a defensive line that falls within the mentality range of your defensive group. This way your players don't have to drop too far to defend as well.

All my tactics...and yes, I'm back playing the game...have a dline of around 12. The only difference is how I attack and defend. In some cases I may change tactics midway through a game to go through the middle or in other cases I dominate possession and give a strong TM loads of chances.

[higgins]

I always try to build balanced tactic, so not to defensive or too attacking, cause I think this is vital to succeed in FM 09, however, from my experiece, d-line became a quite powerful tool to tweak tactic this year.

So if you stay balanced you could use the d-line in a better and very effective way, not diverging too much from your mentality asset.

I realized that often when I am favourite, the best way to defeat a team that stays

entrenched, trying to kill me on counter, was to invite them to me using a deep d-line, opening spaces and exploiting holes that emerged.

[ceefax the cat]

Ok I'm upping this. BANG!

I've been a bit disenchanted with the tactics creator in FM11. It feels like letting a slightly rubbish autopilot take care of my matches, and so I've gone back to classic mode. But I still crave more of a feeling of control - I want to get beyond the sliders and be able to think about tactics in real, physical, on-pitch terms. With that in mind, I'm trying to map the effect of sliders onto the pitch and the logical starting point for that is the defensive side of things, beginning with defensive line.

I'd like to get a grip on the real physical manifestation of defensive line slider settings. If I set the slider to 0, from where exactly will my back line defend? Is this contingent upon other settings, such as mentality and CD? If so, to what extent? I think the only way to play this game in an authentic way - to dictate from exactly where and in what way you want your team to defend - is to quantify the effects of these sliders to the point where you can position your team to the square meter, more or less: defend from HERE and close down when they get to HERE. To do that we need to perform experiments.

Unfortunately, my early attempts to do this have revealed that there's considerably interdependency between sliders. I've tried making test tactics, with all attacking instructions set to rarely, creative freedom to 0 and passing to long (so we constantly give the ball away), with block team mentalities, no closing down whatsoever (so nobody breaks the team shape as dictated by DL) and ever-changing DL settings, and there is, for the most part, no discernible difference in the position of the defensive line. That's a disappointment isn't it.

Yet, at the same time, it's clear that the DL slider has an effect on games. What I'd like to do now, hopefully with the help of someone from here, is go about pinning down and quantifying that effect. Then we move on to closing down, then width, before moving onto the world of attack.

Anyone?

[Marsupian]

Ok I'm upping this. BANG!

I've been a bit disenchanted with the tactics creator in FM11. It feels like letting a slightly rubbish autopilot take care of my matches, and so I've gone back to classic mode. But I still crave more of a feeling of control - I want to get beyond the sliders and be able to think about tactics in real, physical, on-pitch terms. With that in mind, I'm trying to map the effect of sliders onto the pitch and the logical starting point for that is the defensive side of things, beginning with defensive line.

I'd like to get a grip on the real physical manifestation of defensive line slider settings. If I set the slider to 0, from where exactly will my back line defend? Is this contingent upon other settings, such as mentality and CD? If so, to what extent? I think the only way to play this game in an authentic way - to dictate from exactly where and in what way you want your team to defend - is to quantify the effects of these sliders to the point where you can position your team to the square meter, more or less: defend from HERE and close down when they get to HERE. To do that we need to perform experiments.

Unfortunately, my early attempts to do this have revealed that there's considerably interdependency between sliders. I've tried making test tactics, with all attacking instructions set to rarely, creative freedom to 0 and passing to long (so we constantly give the ball away), with block team mentalities, no closing down whatsoever (so nobody breaks the team shape as dictated by DL) and ever-changing DL settings, and there is, for the most part, no discernible difference in the position of the defensive line. That's a disappointment isn't it.

Yet, at the same time, it's clear that the DL slider has an effect on games. What I'd like to do now, hopefully with the help of someone from here, is go about pinning down and quantifying that effect. Then we move on to closing down, then width, before moving onto the world of attack.

Anyone?

The reason these instructions don't give clear results is because the players will use their own football logic to make decisions. You can't quantify the results of sliders in distances and clear behaviors or decisions on the pitch. Players have their own behavior and the sliders will only influence their behavior and not dictate it. When you instruct your team to play extremely defensive with the defensive line of 0 the players will still push up because they feel they are leaving gaps in front of them and they don't think this is a good thing to do. They are basically saying to you: "I know you gave me this instruction but if I don't push up or close this player down we'll be in a lot of trouble so I'll just ignore you for a second mkay?". That is why no matter how extreme your instructions are the team will still play in a way that makes sense.

I fear your efforts to quantify instructions in clear numbers and figures is doomed to fail. It might be better to embrace the apparent randomness of the match engine and accept that due to the many influences and difference between players the same tactic will work out differently every game. A lot of people have reacted to the fluidness and variety of the match engine and how tactics work by becoming more fluent themselves and adapting to the different circumstances and opponents instead of creating a rigid tactic they will use every match no matter what.

[R. Hearn]

Just a thought, isn't it possible to tell where the defensive line is from goal kicks. Seeing as I play a possession/attacking game, I like my goalkeeper to play the ball to either of my fullbacks. However, I noticed that the defender collect doesn't work if a high defensive line and the keeper just hoofs the ball to the other half. When I specify he pass the ball to a defender (usually my DR) I notice my DR falls back from the rest of the defenders to collect the ball. Playing a lower defensive line, my defenders fall back and the keeper just passes to one of them without me specifying whom to.

Also, I've found that when playing a higher defensive line, very high closing down works better than low closing down. Playing a 4-2-3-1, I have my front four with very high closing down, my MCs a bit less than them, my fullbacks slightly less than the MCs and my DCs lesser than fullbacks. When defending, my front four and MCs are usually the onces pressing while my defenders stay back. With attacks from the wings, it's usually my fullbacks and wingers. This forces either an earlier crosses, which is easily dealt with or forced out for a corner or throw-in, making them dribble past my fullbacks, and if successful would have the nearest DC to contend with, or switch attack to the centre, but by then my MCs are now actings as DMCs outside the box and they have no choice but to shoot from distance.

It's worked well for me and my assistant manager always reports we're doing a good job of forcing them to shoot from distance, sometimes with, "we need to cut down on these chance." In the league, I conceded only 19 goals (a number of them from corners) and scored 115 goals in 35 matches (titles already in the bag).

I don't play a low defensive live as, for one, it tends to attract too much unwanted pressure; and with low closing, it gives opposition time to dally, control the game in my half and work out the moves, while with high closing down, tends to pull my defenders out of position and a simple pass or through to a quick striker could spell disaster.

[ceefax the cat]

I know that high CD best accompanies a high line. I set ultra-low closing down in an attempt to make my players stick to their positions no matter what, so I could see where they were choosing to defend from. This wasn't an attempt to make an effective tactic, it was an attempt to explore the function of 1 slider.

I also know that players will make their own decisions based on match situations, and that the relationship between the positioning of a player and the position of the defensive line slider is more complex than 0 = very deep and 20 = very high. Nonetheless, as long as there are logical, slider-based explanations for positioning up to a certain point, it must be possible to break that relationship down.

[davidbowie]

I always defend ultra-deep, because as was mentioned before, the game doesn't care about d-line when you have the ball or the opposition have it in their half.

Having it ultra-deep is the only way to get your defenders back as quickly as possible when the situation 'turns' from one where D-line doesn't mean anything to one where it does.

[Marsupian]

From reading some of the other posts in this thread it seems like it works based on where the opponents have possession in your half. If they have possession on their own half or you have possession the slider has no function and when they have possession in your half the slider controls how much distance they keep from the opponent with the ball. So a slider setting of 1 will see your defensive line drop back towards the box really fast when the opponent has possession on your half and a high defensive line will have them stick closer to the opponent in possession and restrict the space the player has.

I'm not sure if it still works like this but it sounds reasonable to me.

[NakS]

Yes, pretty much this.

I don't have FM at the moment, but the easiest way to spot thing is to play against your reserve team (you control both), same TC default instructions all over the board for both team except the defensive line: 1 and 20. Classic 2D view and don't focus where the defence drop, but when the defence start to drop and move up, the reference point being the opponent ball carrier when not in possession and the ball when in possession. So you can think about the D-line in terms of distance between the ball carrier and the line of defense, 1 means this distance will be very large, 20 and the distance will be very short, ie opponent can come closer before D-Line starting to drop back. Same goes when the ball is won back, with a high D-line, your players will push more readily whereas with a 1 D-Line, they will wait until the ball is further away.

[ceefax the cat]

That makes a certain amount of sense. Questions that spring from this then:

1- how can we quantify this? measure distance from the ball before there is forward / backward movement?

2- are we sure there's a hard and fast divide at the halfway line, or is there some response to the position of the ball before then?

3- this suggests that defending in the opposing half is entirely governed by closing down and mentality, understanding the exact function of which would then be the next frontier in terms of dictating your team shape as precisely as possible.

[ceefax the cat]

also: what dictates the base position of midfielders and forwards in relation to the defensive line? Just mentality?

[Flohrinho]

Hi guys as far as I understood d-line settings and how I use them is to either close the gap between midfield and defense, which would be done by pushing up your d-line and preventing the strikers from always running behind my defense, which would be lowering your d-line.

I also have the feeling that all the d-line setting really does is determine how much space you leave between midfield and defense the point where you players close down the opposition is naturally done by closing down and how aggressive they do that is determined by your mentality and tackling settings.

So for me d-line settings have always only be a fine tuning instrument I use during games to do what I said at the beginning while I try to shape the defense entirely through closing down, mentality and tackling settings.

[R. Hearn]

From what I've noticed, it's just as Marsupian said. Players stick close to the opposition with the ball when they fall back to a certain point with a high line while they tend to stand off more with a deeper line. They even run along with the player with the ball as he looks for space. Also, the defensive line doesn't really affect the space between the defenders and midfielders. Mentality does. While working on my tactic, the assistant reported they was a gap between the defence and midfielder that the opponent could exploit. Despite, pushing the defensive line up, I still received these reports. However, dropping the mentality of at least one of the midfielders closer to that of the defenders did the trick.

[Marsupian]

That makes a certain amount of sense. Questions that spring from this then:

1- how can we quantify this? measure distance from the ball before there is forward / backward movement?

2- are we sure there's a hard and fast divide at the halfway line, or is there some response to the position of the ball before then?

3- this suggests that defending in the opposing half is entirely governed by closing down and mentality, understanding the exact function of which would then be the next frontier in terms of dictating your team shape as precisely as possible.

1. I see no reason to quantify it and I don't see how you could. I just go with TC settings or make an educated guess, I doubt there is one optimal setting so no need to quantify or calculate anything.

2. I don't think there is a hard and fast devide, I'm not even sure it's only when the opponent crosses a certain line, it might depend on other factors.

3. Closing down, mentality and marking probably. In terms of dictating your teams shape other important factors are your formations and more importantly your opponents formation. Closing down and marking instructions can help dictate how much your players adapt to the opponents formation or stay in your own formation and hold position.

[Flohrinho]

From what I've noticed, it's just as Marsupian said. Players stick close to the opposition with the ball when they fall back to a certain point with a high line while they tend to stand off more with a deeper line. They even run along with the player with the ball as he looks for space. Also, the defensive line doesn't really affect the space between the defenders and midfielders. Mentality does. While working on my tactic, the assistant reported they was a gap between the defence and midfielder that the opponent could exploit. Despite, pushing the defensive line up, I still received these reports. However, dropping the mentality of at least one of the midfielders closer to that of the defenders did the trick.

Well that might be the case but then again I can observe the effect of my defenders closing the gap much earlier which might be down to the fact that they don't leave so much space between them and the opposition players with the ball. But it works for me I don't know exactly why but tinkering with the height of my defensive line can avoid other players from using the space between defense and midfield and prevent attackers running in behind my defense.

But yes it might really be the case that I'm just seeing that my defenders leave less space for the attackers when they receive the ball and the gap between midfield and defense actually stays the same, I have never measured it so I can't really say if there is a significant difference here.

[drunkrob]

From the manual

"Defensive Line

The Defensive Line slider positions your deepest line of defence on the pitch. It affects the position the players take up both with and without possession. The slider is set from Deep to Push Up, and the further right the bar is set, the closer to the halfway line the defensive unit will advance when in possession. If your team is using a defensive mentality, a defensive setting on the slider will ensure they stay deep when the rest of your team attacks. If your team uses an attacking philosophy, the effect of the slider is lessened and players will advance – although a deeper line will see them err on the side of caution a little more.

When your team is not in possession the same applies, but in terms of nullifying the opposition. As soon as your team loses the ball, the defensive line will adopt the approach you have told them to and either drop deeper or push up. You may want to take the qualities of the opposition’s attackers into consideration before each match before deciding on your defensive line approach, as quicker players can get in behind an advanced line, and deeper lines can be exposed by direct play and a big target man up front."

So it affects players both when with and without possession which seems to be against the general consensus of this thread. A high line with attacking mentality means you should play a shorter passing game as players are closer together amongst the opposition. Direct balls from back to front would be a bad idea. With a deeper line and lower mentality playing direct makes more sense as you want to move the ball forward quickly.

Now a combination of high line with low mentality or a low line with a high mentality is interesting.

[Tidd19]

That second paragraph almost seems to contradict the second sentence in the first paragraph. Is it possible that it means the defensive line has a small affect when in possession and then a much larger affect when out of possession?