Uncle_Sam

So I'm getting a bizarre "ERROR IN NATION RULES" during testing that says a team has no squad selected for a match that takes place in middle of the 2020 season. What could cause that problem, and why does it take 3 years for that error to show up in testing?

It seems there was a little update, but this was still not fixed. PLEASE FIX THIS. I'm not a coder, but this does not feel like the kind of issue that would be difficult to sort out.

I don't know if I have emphasized this enough, but this is a very maddening, exasperating issue. You all have no idea how badly this slows everything down. If I'm just looking to clean up jersey color edits I made in the past, then I have to remove each change ONE AT A TIME, save and reload the file after each change. My only other option would to be clear all changes made to the club and then save and reload, but doing that means I have to go and reenter all other changes. TLDR version: what would normally take about 1 minute can now take up to an hour or even more.

Any chance that there has been an update that corrected this? It's really causing my edit to DRAG along...

I'm also looking for the answer to this question.

On the Club "Details" screen there is a new option with a tick box called, "Is Institute". Does anyone know what that means for clubs in the game?

Add me to the list. I imported my XML file from last year and now the Database Changes screen is blank.

This. I have a file that I have been working on for years over several different versions of the editor. I have ALWAYS been able to load up database files from previous versions of the editor and the fact that I cannot on this version is VERY disappointing. I really need you guys to fix this PRONTO.

That's actually pretty hilarious. If nothing else I bet it would work as a great tactic for grinding out a result when the AI starts throwing guys forward at the end of a match.

So I'm now about to begin the 2019 season and kick this into high gear. I used the offseason to jettison a lot of the dead weight. I also brought in more of "my kind" of players who I think I can develop in the tactic. I didn't have a huge transfer budget, only about $13m. So I really went for 18-23 year old guys who I can develop. Most of them were relatively cheap. This is what the team looks like in the preseason: My most expensive purchases were Bruno Tabata (Attacking Midfielder) and Alison (Defensive Midfielder) Obviously Real Madrid isn't going to come knocking on our door any time soon but they are an upgrade to our overall squad. All of the other guys are young and developing. As for the tactic itself, I've decided to really start simple and build from there. The only team instructions I have is to Roam From Position and Be More Expressive. The Brazilian style of play, generally speaking, is to build from the back. So I had previously set Play Out of Defense, Work Ball Into Box, and Shorter Passing. I may put all of those back, but I wanted the players to be free to be creative. The reality is that the passing will generally be short anyway due to the narrow-ness of the formation. I know that I'm probably not going to get away with a formation that mirrors itself on each side, although when I coached it that was really our default strategy only adjusting it based on the typ of players I had. In my experience in FM the roles need to allow for more interplay between strata. Generally, it's not a great idea to have two players side-by-side with the same duty-role (except maybe the center backs), but I feel if there is one formation where it can work it would be this one.

Mine has to do with how the front 3 would mark and press the opponents' back line. In real life I coach my striker to be the first defender when one of the center backs has the ball, while the outside forwards mark the options to the left and right. In this picture below, the DCR has the ball so the center striker presses. The AML marks the right fullback while the AMR marks the left center back. As it is in game, I have been unable to get the players to function like this. I don't know how to tell them to make it possible, but I'd like to be able to.

Quick Update: we won the Copa do Brasil after two 1-0 wins over Palmeiras. The matches weren't particularly helpful for this project due to the formation that they employed. This is what they came at me with: I mean... come on. Given how aggressive they were obviously going to be I set both of my fullbacks to Fullback-Defend, with low closing down and tight marking, specifically marking the striker on their side. This is the only method I've found to combat the 3 center striker tactic. It worked, in both legs they could only muster 4 shots in each leg. But, it's hard to use the data for creating this tactic. Good news is I got like $16.5M for winning the cup and I'm automatically qualified now for the Copa Libertadores, which was not going to happen through league play. Hopefully that extra money and the prospect of continental competition will help me lure some players in during the offseason.

So I was very excited to get a message today from someone who I would call one of my FM tactical theft victims, Cleon. Probably the best to show how Cleon thinks on a whole different level than me in FM tactics is in visual form: You guys have no idea how accurate that image is. Anyway, when I first started using the 4-2-2-2 in FM (my goodness, it's probably been 10-12 years ago, How old are we?), Cleon was a guy who I bounced a lot of stuff off of. Well, ok usually what would happen is that he would help me fix what was going wrong. In fact, my memory is a bit hazy but I believe that my closing down solution for the midfield posted in this thread was something that he gave me way back when. Anyway, I admittedly have a tab open in my browser to his blog series on the 4-4-2 Box Midfield for what I believe was FM 16. I have been referencing it, looking for parallels in his experience while developing the tactic and my own. So for anyone interested in this project you may want to read up on his series: Part 1 - https://teaandbusquets.com/art-of-the-brazilian-box-4-2-2-2 Part 2 - https://teaandbusquets.com/the-art-of-the-brazilian-box-part-two Part 3 - https://teaandbusquets.com/the-art-of-the-brazilian-box-part-three Final Chapter - https://teaandbusquets.com/the-art-of-the-brazilian-box-final-chapter A great read and even though I haven't used many of his adjustments it's still relevant reading as it helps give a wider perspective for someone using this formation in FM. You can never have too much data when trying to doing something like this. He did also mention that he's worked on a 4-2-2-2 in FM18 with 2 Segundo Volantes at DM, a Mezzala and a Carrilero at MC. No lie, I actually thought about eventually trying two Segundo Volantes. My theory was that if the SV's both were set to push forward it would "force" the MCs to fill the space out wider. I was going to wait until the squad was a little better before I gave it a go because I kind of have this locked-in philosophy of keeping 3 players on Defend/Cover duty at all times and was tentative about coming off of it until the quality of my squad was at least on par with the top half of my competition. As for the MCs, his concept also lines up with something I had planned (but his idea is better, of course). After I felt like I got this tactic to the point where I couldn't really expect to improve it anymore, I want to build a 4-2-2-2 designed simply to maximize success rather than fulfill an "inspiration" that would function something like this: You'd have one forward playing as a Target Man (11-Ronaldo) with a second forward playing underneath (probably as a deep lying forward to start). One of the MCs would be more attacking (10-Ronaldinho), getting forward and exploring the half spaces. The fullback on his side (6-R. Carlos) would be given support duty to allow the MC more space to roam. The other MC would be more of a supporting player, linking to the front (8-Kaka). I had planned on him being a Mezzala - Support, but the Carrilero makes MUCH more sense. The fullback on that side would be bombing forward, probably Wingback-Attack or even Complete Wingback-Attack. Anyway, that's just a very early concept of where I would start building a 4-2-2-2 if I weren't working on what I'm doing.

I am considering playing with the roles. If I wasn't trying to manifest my inspiration for this thread (2006 World Cup), I would avoid having players side-by-side with the same role. I'd probably do something like this; DR - Wingback Attack DCR - Central Defender Cover DCL - Central Defender Cover DL - Wingback Support DMR - Anchor Man (or Defensive Midfielder...) Defend DML - Segundo Volanta Support MCR - Mezzala Support MCL - Mezzala Attack STCR - Deep Lying Forward Support STCL - Advanced Forward (or Target Man) Attack That would probably provide better balance but I really want to try and get it to work with two "#10s" like Ronaldinho and Kaka. I'm also kind of avoiding making any rash decisions. I did read an article about Harison a year or two ago. He was in Atlanta working as a teacher and youth coach IIRC.

Here is what I have done with pretty good success so far. I set all four players on my back line to Defend duty, DR and DL are both set to the Fullback role. I then go to the Player Instructions for the Fullbacks and set them to Specifically Mark the outside strikers (DR marks the STCL, DL marks the STCR), and set them to Mark Tighter. My center backs are already on Mark Tighter. That seems to work pretty well for me. I'm yet to surrender a goal in the run of play against a Narrow 3 striker look, but obviously you don't see it a lot.