Michael Zorc
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Posts posted by Michael Zorc
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4 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:
He is talking about marking a position that an opposition player doesn't occupy.
So if the opposition play a 442 with 2*MCs he is asking if he can mark the DMCL & DMCR positions where there aren't any players. His intention is to block passes rather than actually mark a physical player.
Does FM18 actually allow you to do this? If yes, apologies, as I must have misunderstood the feature.
Were this to actually be possible, I would buy the game as this would be a definite advance defensively!
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3 hours ago, pats said:
Opposition instruction is different. I know I can use it. I'm taking about the new 'Mark specific position' PI that's been added in FM 18. I suppose that PI is there to influence individual player defensive positioning?
You could already do that in FM17 using specific man marking. I don't see any difference apart from how it's branded, unless I'm missing something...
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Taking a couple of years off FM while I wait for SI to improve the defensive options available to us.
Just no longer prepared to put the time into the game until this is finally addressed and brought into the 21st century.
See you all in 2019.
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Really disappointed with the defensive side of the game. Nothing on vertical compactness (i.e. not just pushing up d-line but getting strikers to drop back too), pressing triggers, counterpressing. Just hopeless.
Given the debacle that was FM17, absolutely STUNNED that nothing was mentioned on fixing wide midfielder positioning.
Also, you could already tell a player to mark a specific position, it was just hidden inside the specific man marking instruction so not sure why this is being sold as a new feature - it's just been moved.
Agree that the underlap feature needs to be refined and made available for just one flank, not forced on both if you tick the option.
On the plus side, the new PPM "bring the ball out of defence" is a tiny step forward but if it's just limited to when the player has the ball and then they immediately shift backwards instead of maintaining a line with the DM to setup the counterpress, then it will be a disappointment.
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1 hour ago, Kcinnay said:
Disappointing. No defensive width settings, no vertical compactness settings, no extra pressing settings, no clear distinction between zonal marking and man marking. Still no extra options to tweak creative freedom. I sincerely hope that a defensive forward now will be tracking back like an attacking midfielder, to achieve vertical compactness. I was hoping that we could set out how a wide midfielder in a midfield 4 would defend (tuck in centrally, very narrow, or stay wide). Underwhelming.
This is exactly why I will now not be buying FM18.
Absolutely gutted. This will be the first version of FM/CM that I have never bought.
Now awaiting FM19.
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1 hour ago, scholesvolley said:
Thank goodness! Looking forward to this. Finally!
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4 hours ago, KUBI said:
You did hear about new tactical roles today.
Whereabouts? Only saw scouting video and don't remember seeing this mentioned. Is there another source of info I've missed?
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Disappointed to be 30 days from release and still not have heard anything major on tactics. Really dislike the way SI is going about this.
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Interesting feature and relevant to real life football so I think it's a good addition.
However, I won't be pre-ordering as I don't have enough info on improvements to tactics, training and the match engine. Happy to wait until post-November 10, if necessary, as these are the parts of the game that really matter to me. I'll miss the discount, but that's fine.
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20 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:
@Michael Zorc agree on most of things you say. just wanted to highlight the modern defensive principles were last time "updated" in 90s with, among others, Sacchi. So the knowledge was there and it took some time before it became an absolute norm. They are so effective and still valid that, i'd argue, they are in a way responsible for the development of modern tactics as Guardiola and likes try to find ways around them.Agreed.
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3 hours ago, El Payaso said:
Really good message there Sir.
And to add to this: the closing down settings haven't even made any real noticeable difference in the ME and for example zonal marking isn't really working and holes are easy to find everywhere.
I also agree on you that the attacking play is a bit too fluid even with bad sides. I remember playing one touch precise passing play with 60-70% possession with Ebbsfleet FC. The quality of our passing play was better than with Barcelona and if the players would have some creativity in them in terms of longer range in terms of through ball the style of play would have been even better. I was all the time thinking that the team is playing way too well and at times much better than any team in real life. This of course also was down to the fact that the players didn't face tight marking or closing down when receiving the ball or while in possession. No one was making them rush the decision or attempt anything hard. Also even with a lower league club heavy touches were completely non existing.
Watched Argentina play once again last evening and even with talented and skillful squad like that organizing the attacking play seems to be tough. It was basically one man team with Messi being the creator on everything and once again creating at least 5 clear chances and at least one of them should have been buried. But the fact still is that Argentina are facing the difficulty to get the team perform in attack even though the whole team in terms of attack is world class.
I had a similar experience with Tranmere Rovers in terms of the Barcelona-style football you referenced with Ebbsfleet FC. One of the regretful aspects of FM is that to enjoy a more difficult save, one must usually choose a club that is somewhat restrained in the transfer market and with the quality of players they have at their disposal, due to size and resources, as opposed to being able to find a deeper, more sophisticated tactical challenge in a higher/different league.
We've even seen teams like Rangers/Celtic hold a Messi-inspired Barcelona scoreless in CL games despite limited resources so as you quite rightly point out, a world class offense and tactically astute manager isn't always enough to easily break down smaller opponents. I've found that aspect of football elusive in FM.
Winning is fun, but I think from a purist point of view the holy grail is realism and being able to re-create real life systems in an FM match engine that is flexible enough to accomodate new, innovative ideas. In other words, give us the tools to show how good we are - and to allow the world class AI managers like Guardiola and Simeone to really separate themselves and show how good they are. It has to be a 2-way street or the game becomes unrealistic and too easy.
2 hours ago, MBarbaric said:actually, there wasn't really any major breakthrough in defending since 90's (apart pressing which is more of attacking without the ball than positional defence) and Sacchi so we would be well off if it was on that level. what we have in FM is nothing like defending in real.
It's an interesting discussion as I think the overarching principles have been around a while and many of the new innnovations have simply been built on top of that, with roots in the ideas taught by Michels, Cruyff and Sacchi.
However, in terms of the complexity of the organisation, setting up the counterpress with positional attacking, methods to counter opponent dismarking measures, triggers to set up situational counterpresses to effectively force an opponent back to the prior transition phase, having situational and pitch geographic specific orientations in marking schemes, and the individual variations of counterpressing: man-oriented, space-oriented, ball-oriented and passing-lane, I think that has moved on since the 90's.
On some level, taken individually, all concepts have been around for decades (whether as a deliberate strategy a team trained for, or spontaneous, player-initiated action on the pitch) but as a collective whole and cohesive strategy across a wide range of leagues and teams, I think football has seen a change in the last decade as the coaching curriculae have improved and the younger coaches have infiltrated many more clubs, inspired by the likes of Sacchi and Lobonovski, Cruyff etc and looking to do even better with additional tools of analysis (e.g. video, tracking devices), better facilities (training pitch positional grids) and higher player/coach education throughout each club (now more widespread than the famous whole club tactical and technical philosophies that were once largely exclusive to Ajax/Barcelona).
I think it's largely evident as we see some of the older "world class" coaches become less relevant in the modern game. Keegan/Dalglish of the mid-90's in England couldn't get a job today (Howard Wilkinson on '92 fame I believe got Sunderland relegated after Peter Reid left) and Ancelotti seen as an innovator at AC Milan with his 4-3-2-1/4-3-1-2 struggles to really impose a tactical identity on any of his teams and largely has to rely on superior players dominating their league and man management techniques to get the best out of them. He more recently has taken over a more disciplined organiser (Mourinho, Guardiola), whose influence doesn't immediately go away, hence being able to still win things until that fades after 1-2 seasons. That's why I believe he hasn't lasted more than a couple years at Chelsea, R. Madrid and Bayern. Just my take on it, though.
I guess similar arguments for how football has collectively move on can be made for Benitez and Wenger, both seen as among the top innovators in the EPL at one point. It's not necessarily that their defensive schemes have changed or been degraded, it's more how teams defend against them, not just one or two teams, but the whole league can deal with the threats they pose/that were unique to their attacks when they first burst onto the scene.
Trapattoni, Capello, Hitzfeld, van Gaal, Hiddink, Boskov, Lobonovski, Antic - I'm not entirely sure these guys could get a top job AND be consistently successful in today's game, despite their obvious pedigree. All defended/marked/pressed in their own ways very successfully with varying degrees of depth and aggression but I'm not sure they possess the array of tools and complexity that we see at the top today. Could they learn and adapt? No doubt, especially with their skills and talent, I just think they'd do it differently to how they did it when they were winning in the 90's. Of course, I could be wrong and maybe my perception is off entirely.
EPL defences in particular had to adapt, as the prevelance of inside forwards became more common, to block those half-spaces the likes of Pires used to exploit so well.
Going back and watching old games, it is sometimes amazing to marvel at the space between defence, midfield & attack.
Until I actually went back and watched some 90's DVDs of Bundesliga, La Liga, Serie A and EPL (Football On Tap is a really good resource), I didn't believe the difference to today was so big. There were one-offs that were ahead of their time, absolutely for sure, but the leagues collectively have improved to a degree I didn't realise until I actually reviewed the old footage.
I think I have nostalgic memories of the 90's that sometimes clouds my memory of what the tactical organisation was like back then compared to now. At the time, it was the best I'd seen and things evolve so gradually over the decades that it's hard to remember just how much of a jump we've made in coaching quality over a period of, say, 20 years.
I just hope these ongoing changes in football are really tackled by SI to a much greater degree than they have been in the past as I don't think there has been a lot of innovation in the actual defensive strategies available to an FM game-world manager in the last decade. Has SI tried to improve the quality of defending that exists in the game? Sure, but I'm not sure that they've gone beyond that to really reflect the way defences are organised and used as an attacking weapon to disrupt opponents in real-life, modern football. FM defending feels very reactive and simplistic in comparison.
Just my view and insight into what my hopes, dreams and aspirations for change are when looking forward to the new FM18 release.
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1 hour ago, davehanson said:I couldn't care less about 'new features'. I want to know if they have improved the match engine and the AI - and HOW they have done it.
I won't be pre-ordering or buying until I know that these things have been improved. There just hasn't been enough improvement in those 2 areas for me over the last 3 or 4 years to continue to justify buying what, essentially, has now become a data update every year.
I'm totally with you on this. Only interested in the match engine and tactics/training - i.e. the stuff that actually relates to football.
In the last 10 years, the football world has really moved on in terms of pressing and marking schemes but SI has been stuck firmly in the past with just "zonal", "tight" or "specific man", completely ignoring recent innovations or just letting them fly right by them without really noticing.
There needs to be dramatic improvement in these areas or SI risks the game being a simulation that doesn't reflect modern football, but instead a 1990's brand of EPL defending that doesn't really exist anymore, all the while trying to squeeze modern roles into an outdated defensive tactical framework that causes offenses and certain individual roles to be way too overpowered in the attacking phase. It's too easy to score goals and exploit holes in the opponents' defence and this needs major work in order to be fully addressed.
So far, I haven't seen enough to pre-order so happy enough to continue my FM17 saves with Ajax & Rangers using a new 3-5-2-0 formation that I'm quite enjoying (although my offense, while great to watch, shouldn't be this good in reality).
Anyway, I reckon SI are waiting for Catalonia to declare independence on Monday before announcing their next feature...😥
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I actually liked the video and the way it was done, especially the Mike Duff reference and Miles' drive-and-stop interview.
However, Miles acting was really bad (in a playful, funny kind of way - I think Miles is great 😀) and he gave away the info too easily but, still, it gave me a good laugh.
I was just happy to hear about new players roles and potential tactical improvements, as I mentioned before.
In terms of buying the game, I'll wait for the specific details of the tactical improvements to be released as I'm quite happy to miss the pre-order deadline and pay more for the game after getting greater certainty on the features that matter to me most.
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Naturally delighted to hear talk of improved tactical options, new player roles and tweaks to the match engine.
That's exactly what I'm looking for in this game.
Hoping those zones on the tactics board give us greater flexibility in player positioning and pressing schemes.
Also really wishing that at least one of those new roles is an attacking centre back!
I'm optimistic that this could be an FM to remember.
So far, so good. 😀
I'm getting closer to pre-ordering.
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Hoping for an attacking centre back role in FM18, this would be a huge help when playing a flat back 3 if you could assign one of the outside DC's to play using this type of movement.
Really excited to hear about any tactical developments in Friday's feature video. The hopes are always high before the event, I just hope it lives up to my dreams for the game's direction.
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1 minute ago, RTHerringbone said:
I could well have ****ed up the list of tweeted letters. It's at least roughly right 😂
I don't even know what an anagram is so I'm relying on you guys. 😂
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4 minutes ago, andu1 said:
as long as it's something related to football rather than cosmetic features it's fine by me.
That would be my wish too.
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1 minute ago, andu1 said:
i hope it's either related to AI managers or something like dynamic player potential.
just wishful thinking.
Dynamic player potential would be incredible.
So would dynamic situational pressing.
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5 minutes ago, Whatawaster95 said:
I'm the same mate, that and ai squad building being massively improved are prerequisites to me buying this years game.
Yeah, AI squad building seems to have been a persistent issue for many years so would love to see some positive progress made in this area. I want a challenging game that is as close to reality as we can get.
Counting down the days until that first feature video.
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Hoping to hear about significant improvements in defensive positioning and pressing options in the first feature video.
If major progress has been made in these areas, I will look to pre-order.
If tactics are underdeveloped again, I'll just wait for FM19.
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On 04/09/2017 at 14:44, Jean0987654321 said:
Yeah, the features that have been announced on social media isn't really special. I want to know if they tweaked the ME and the Tactical Creator...
It's all about the Match Engine and Tactics Creator for me - where I personally believe major improvements are needed in defensive positioning. This is what will determine whether I buy the game and nothing else.
Training overhaul would be a bonus.
The cosmetic features surrounding social media will not get me to buy FM18.
I'm interested in the actual football aspects of the game. The rest is just noise for me.
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Looking forward to the new release and eagerly awaiting/hoping for new feature announcements surrounding tactics and the match engine. That's the part of the game that excites me most so that will determine whether or not I purchase FM18 this year.
This is the first year I'm not automatically buying the game, though. Will need to get some sort of insight into defensive positioning of midfielders first - after last year's disappointment.
I have, however, bought and played every prior incarnation of CM/FM so I'm hoping that FM17's frustrations were a one-off and that I have reason to continue with the series going forward. 👍
For now at least, I'm quietly optimistic. 😀
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40 minutes ago, Welshace said:
If steam isn't starting fm17 won't be the issue...
Have you restarted your computer and tried again?
Tried a few times and finally worked. Totally panicked there after the first couple of restarts were unsuccessful. Strange, but thankfully ok now.
Thanks.
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There used to be a bug in previous FM versions whereby "strikerless" squads were prone to players moaning about lack of depth if you sold all your strikers - is this still the case in FM17?
Also, on the tactic itself, midfield triangles in FM17 (particularly when using playmakers in the 2 MC spots) tend to be too narrow so I'm experimenting with different roles/duties to get a better balance there as efficient and adequate spacing between players has always been a big thing for Guardiola. I think this is mostly an FM issue though.
Overall, I like what you've done, especially the way to AP (A) combines with the SS (A). I think the way you've represented the striker role here is a lot closer to Messi's real life movement during that time, as opposed to the FM17 interpretation of the F9 role - and I feel it gives you a much better balance defensively against teams that use a DM. I also like the support roles on the wide attackers as they did drop when in the defensive third, something often overlooked when people try to re-create that Barcelona side on FM.
I'll continue to experiment with this, mostly the fullback (looking to get that Abidal and Alves balance improved a little) and midfield (the aftermentioned FM17 spacing issues in the middle of the park) roles to see if I can get a bit closer to real life, but still using your overall theory for style of play and most of the structure/role/duty templates you've provided.
Great work Ozil! Thanks for a very insightful piece of work!
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Football Manager TV: Matchday
in Football Manager General Discussion
Posted
Haven't seen anything that would make me buy the game.
I see a lot of work has gone into new features - and that's great - but nothing regarding the area of the game that I feel needs improving the most - more detailed & varied options for the defensive phase, and the negative transition.
Purchased a subscription to Netflix instead to keep me busy for the year ahead - until FM19 is announced...