lied90

If by "out of the box" you mean Preset tactics, then yes they are horrible and serve little to no purpose. This says more about the preset tactics than it does about Route One as a style in FM imo. You can play Route One with moderate success, it just doesn't compare to what you can achieve with gegenpress. Route one football is first and foremost a in possession tactic, meaning that it dictates what you do when you have the ball. Playing with high lines and high press wouldn't be as "pure", but it's still route one as long as you hoof it.

What a great foundation for route one

A player with 18 jumping reach and a simple front post corner still gets a lot of goals from direct headers, just not 30+ like in FM23. About penalties, are you sure there are too many, or do you just FEEL that there are too many? Because giving away even one penalty feels as too many

If you want to test it properly you have to give the tactic to all Team A-E. Then you test it vs all the AI formations. With 100 games there is a ton of RNG, I only tested once.

This tactic looks absolutely bonkers, almost like it's something from a randomly created tactics generator. Out of curiosity I tried it out with one of the teams in a tactic testing league, all squads with the same players etc. It did much better than expected.

Lower their training intensity.

This. I concede almost no goals from AI set pieces (human set pieces are a different story). Main problem is how weird throw ins and corners play out. Throw ins high up for me turn into highlights all the time and it always looks the same: - Set fancy dribble man to take throw in - Fancy dribble man gets a pass back after the throw - Proceeds to cut inside or give a high quality cross, resulting in a goal or high xG chance. Corners: - Aim for front post - Have 3-4 players outside the box - You either score from a direct header, or the AIs defense can't deal with the ensuing chaos and I score from a long shot just outside the box. I'd like to add that I only have 1 player back on defense, and I've NEVER conceded a goal from this. Playing vs Human corners (short corners) - Fancy dribble man A takes corner and passes to Fancy dribble man B - Fancy dribble man B takes passes it on the someone outside the box (who I have no option to man mark, and "edge of area" trackers won't mark him), resulting in a high quality chance. - Or, Fancy dribble man A gets the ball back and creates a chance from that. I think all this happens for two reasons: - Defense have a hard time readjusting after the initial set piece - Fancy dribble men getting the ball when high up and wide after set pieces creates dangerous 1vs1 situations easily

That's a shame.

I'm using the post match analytical data to evaluate how my team pass the ball, largely to see how using a TF and much more direct passing works in the engine. I've seen some passes from GK direct to my TF not being counted as a pass. Maybe it counts as a clearance, even if the "clearance" seem very intentional towards my TF? Example: Hedl receives a backwards pass from FB and launches it when Haaland approaches The ball almost lands on the head of Lucca Lucca flicks it to Moffi who scores. Another example in the same match: Backwards pass from CB to Hedl Ball goes straight to Lucca who wins the header This is from the analytics data post match with long successful passes by Heidl and headers won by Lucca. Two of the three headers in the black circle were the examples given. I also ticked unsuccessful long passes by Heidl just to check, but they didn't link with Luccas headers either. When using analytics data, it's like the ball just dropped from the clear blue sky onto Luccas head. In addition, the header from Lucca to Moffi didn't count as an assist, or key header, but it did count as a key pass (wtf?) I watch some matches on full highlights to evaluate, but it's too time consuming when trying to understand how something works over over a larger sample of matches. This all seems very inaccurate to me, has anyone else noticed things like this when using analytics data post match?

This is why I retrain box2box midfielders to CBs. Onana at CB takes the ball from defense, runs the entire length of the pitch and puts in crosses and trough balls

I think in terms of results, route one works just fine. At a top level, the style has been mostly used by teams who just want to survive or get mid table. In a very good season they might just qualify for europa, like Burnley under Dyche by finishing 7th(?) and Stoke under Pulis who got to europe by being runner up in the FA cup. This also works in FM, Bournemouth S1: The big problem for me is how the style plays out during build up. I can't get anyone except the GK to consistently launch long balls for the TF to flick on or chest down. This is such an integral part of route one tactics, as we are supposed to just bypass the midfield and get it forward asap. It makes me feel like I'm not actually playing route one.

Also, here is from the following match, 2-0 win vs Spurs. These are all the long passes my TF received (successfully). All except one from the GK, the one outlier is a pass into space from the fullback.

In my experience, the only player who launches passes from my defense to our TF and use him as an outlet, is the GK when instructed to. These are the forward passes my CBs. High tempo, very direct, both BPD, both with tries long range passes trait. This is my GK in comparison. I replayed the match and changed roles to NCB. The passing was dramatically more direct but I watched every single long pass and every single pass from CB to striker was into space between the opposing CB and FB. Either that or to a winger that wandered more centrally. Again, GK for comparison. This works much much better, even if he gets confused which striker to pass to sometimes.

Can you see from the analytics page that they send diagonal long passes from below the midfield line?

I quit because it didn't look like the route one footbll i wanted, I didn't have any issue with the results. I got the sense that he was dissatisfied with the results, not the style on the pitch.

I think it's already an issue if experienced FM players have to put their heads together in order to accomplish something as simple as a long ball from fullback to striker. It's a very basic concept, unlike complex passing patterns and fluid transitions. It's always good to ask to see if wiser managers know how to do something you don't, but in the case of long balls, it should be intuitive enough for anyone to recreate it close to real life.

I've continued tweaking but I think I've come to the conclusion that with whatever combination of instructions and roles I've tried, fullbacks will not attempt diagonal long passes/crosses from certain zones. Fullbacks under Tony Pulis often passed diagonal long balls from zone 1,3,4,6,7,9 towards the tall strikers in their team. In FM, the fullbacks heavily prioritize passing it sideways/backwards to the CB or forwards to the winger when in possession in the mentioned zones. They rarely attempt deep crosses/long diagonals unless they are in the final two zones (13,15,16,18). Even in zone 10 and 12 they rarely happen in my experience. This is the pass/cross map against West Ham in a 3-0 win. The few long balls fullbacks attempt from deeper areas are passes into space when the striker moves between opposing CB and fullback. In this picture Kerkez has a lot of time on the ball. He has the cross early trait, very direct passing, high tempo, cross towards TF, hit early crosses etc. Whenever this happens in FM, I see the FB pass either toward the wing, or sideways to the DM or CB. Our TF is the big white guy towards the left corner of the picture. The volante(s) Alex Scott is fairly close, Solanke his partner striker is fairly close and angled towards him, and Sinistera our right winger is also close enough to fight for the second ball. Kerkez goes for the safe choice and passes it into the legs of Kluivert. In most cases there is nothing wrong with that. Kluivert is super fast and good 1v1 so he can make something happen. The big issue is that the FB almost always goes for this choice, when given clear instructions to get it towards our strikers.

Done now.

Conquering Europe with a route one tactic would be much more unrealistic than the balance of the current ME.

I can do that when I'm back home tomorrow. How many do you need ? Asking because it sounds a bit time consuming.

Thanks for making the effort. It's quite frustrating as it's a very key part of this playstyle.

Report away obviously. I'd like to point out that I kinda expect even deeper crosses in the context of crosses under Tony Pulis. FM might consider it a long pass, which is why I also look at passes done by fullbacks.

Limiting their options so they are forced to play it long makes sense, the drawback would be that a 4222 shape would no longer make it look like a Tony Pulis team.

Tested for one match (vs Forest) with my default tactic, just changed mentality to attacking (se previous post to see the default tactic etc) Fullback crosses: Passes: The long pass highlighted was indeed a very deep cross directly from Tete to our TF!!! But it was a free kick.