enigmatic

A player getting the hump because you haven't signed anyone to keep them out the team seems pretty "broken" to me... I mean, I think before making promises I'm not sure I can keep, but instead of thinking like a manager "do I have the budget/reputation to achieve this?", I'm thinking like a gamer "are SI's parameters reasonable enough and code bug-free enough for me to be able to keep this?"

I don't have any problem getting the ball off opposition defenders and actually charge keepers down too much, but then I'm rarely a favourite and max out pressing as well as having two hardworking strikers. I actually have more issue with how rare it is the AI bothers to press defensive players on the ball, because on the rare occasions I do encounter an AI side that's set up to press I find dominating the game a lot less easy... That's actually the opposite problem from the OP's, but one match engine enhancement that would help both is a bit more distinction between defenders who are very good on the ball and defenders who aren't (the latter should make more mistakes and hoof more than they do, but also should be more likely to be targeted for [counter]presses in the ME than skilled players even when manager instructions have pressing turned down low). A consequence would be that Pique could still keep the ball off you all game in a defensive setup but Chris Smalling couldn't... )

Good signings to improve the squad but I'd worry what might happen if you lost a centre back to injury. Assume Keogh was well past it. Probably reasonable for you to set a centre back your scouts like or an ex-Derby one as a transfer target, although the game really ought to be smart enough to make Stimac sign one anyway.

In the OP's case it's a downloaded tactic (and by other people's accounts usually a well performing one too) But since I've built similar systems that work very well I'll defend it. IWBs are extremely good at covering space in front of the back four on the counter, and also better at defending than conventional fullbacks who are overlapping (they run a short distance sideways rather than a long way backwards to deal with the counter attack, and defend in the normal position). You do sacrifice a bit of crossing (I often use one fullback on overlap until I have a lead) but for possession football and defending counters they're not just adequate but actually massively overpowered. BBMs are quite conservative and backed up by the IWBs (though I use a DLP/BBM or DLP/Mezzala combo instead of two BBMs) so this isn't a formation that gets caught on the counter much. Sometimes swap a striker for a DM when I'm under deep pressure though, because that's where even two IWBs aren't much help. Two AFs is an OK partnership with the right strikers, though I do sometimes use an F9 for the reason you stated or one or more PF(s) if I want my strikers disrupting them playing out of defence more, and an AM will help the midfield out a lot more (I've used AMs mainly in saves without many strikers though, because two strikers will usually score more goals) - FWIW my suggestion to @AshKing15 would be the original formation with the following changes: Drop the defensive line and line of engagement a notch. Two notches if your centre backs are slow by the standards of the division If one of the fullbacks is decent (by Conference standards) at crossing then make them a FB(A) and set to overlap on that side. You can always turn the overlap off and/or set the player back to IWBs or IWBd at a later stage if you've got a lead to defend. Drop mentality to positive and consider slowing tempo down, especially if you're controlling the game but your players are rushing into bad decisions. Consider dropping mentality more after scoring. Consider "be more expressive". Giving players a bit more freedom to make runs and have the odd pop from distance seems to work even with fairly poor players, and it helps compensate for your shape being a bit rigid. Will result in even lower shot conversion rates, but potentially more goals too. I use it most of the time, although I don't play with players that are quite as bad as yours. Consider changing the striker roles, perhaps even on a game by game or player by player basis. Consider bringing on a DM for a striker when you're leading, especially in the last 10 mins when the AI gets very attacking. 4-1-4-1 is a decent tactical setup for harder games anyway. Expect to take 17 shots to score quite often. Happens IRL to teams with players who are much better at shooting than Harrogate's. And yes, your attacking possession football against set defences will take more chances to score than an opposition team that has loads of space to run into in behind your defenders if one of them makes a mistake or they're just a lot slower. - I especially wouldn't push both the wide players forward unless you've got specialists in that role who are uncomfortable at MR/ML, which probably isn't an issue in the Conference. AMRs/AMLs play narrowly more like forwards (even when given the winger role). This can be a good thing if you happen to have an AMR or AML that looks like they'll be good at scoring, but you're sacrificing width for crossing and defensive support to do this and you probably don't want to do that on both sides OK, that was more than I expected to write...

From personal experiments (with FM17 but presumably still applicable) the effect is larger than Youth Rating (similar to clubs in that respect I guess...). Got an amazing golden generation of Chinese teenagers with their reputation set to 10,000 followed by not much afterwards as their reputation plummeted when they didn't win things

Yep. Well put Or to be more blunt, nothing in the game is dumber than when you try to praise someone for a performance including a last minute winner, but you can't thank them for the goal, so you have to praise their passing or defensive work and they get angry about their treatment as a result...

There's one player in the starting database with that combination of attributes that I can imagine signing for a Czech club with a bit of money (Hulk, who's 32 and playing in China, though I'm not sure you're so rich you can pay him 500k a week). The rest are names like Neymar and Pogba, and they're really not impressed by your national reputation and group stage football. Maybe set your sights a bit lower and sign players with potential. You probably are pretty attractive as a route into Europe for someone playing in the Colombian league, and some of those players will be around the standard of your current players and capable of being a lot better. Look at Ajax. Loads of money after various transfers despite the Eredivisie not being rich, but their big ticket signings were Daley Blind and Dusan Tadic. They did a lot with those two though. Also, they sign a lot of very good young players from all over the world.

Also, you already get the dynamic boost from winning a major tournament in the form of a higher national team reputation which will result in considerably more high potential newgens (too early really: it takes years before kids inspired to play football are 16 year old potential international footballers with pro contracts IRL). Static Game Importance and Youth Rating variables just balance that a little bit (along with the ratings of the individual clubs likely to generate players from that nation)

This is true. Think they should turn attribute masking off entirely for international sides or at least redo it with the assumption the national setup has perfect of knowledge of anyone in and around the squad and basic (star level) knowledge of pretty much everyone else that might be eligible, especially when we're talking domestically based players. Shouldn't have to call people up or manually scout them to understand if they're close to good enough, and shouldn't be confused about the strengths and weaknesses of pretty well known foreign talents either.

I'd have thought the reason why the human player gets worse "greys" is pretty obvious: if you get a whole squad full of players at your level without signing anyone and spending any money, you're going to exploit the hell out of it. Losing your left back shouldn't be a case of "yippee, I've got a slightly better one". In theory the "greys" for human players are supposed to be the equivalent of local unregistered amateurs and club employees you can drag in at the last minute, and having to use them is supposed to mean a bad outcome because you're having a nightmare with players leaving or getting injured... With the AI it's different: the AI in inactive leagues doesn't squad build properly and lots of foreign internationals don't get loaded at all, and it's clearly absurd if you're smashing big sides because the game doesn't generate most of their squad. It's not like players don't have enough advantages over the AI already. I believe the AI's greys are current real players pushed through a filter which tweaks them slightly and removes secondary positions to make them specialise in where the game's decided they're lacking, which does occasionally have the weird side effect of strikers that look like defenders, but in general they're good, which is the point. It'd be pretty **** for immersion if the likes of Molde or Lech were able to wallop nearly everyone they meet in the UEFA Cup unless you maxed out the database sizes because the opposition sides consist mostly of amateur standard players. The African Championship of Nations is pretty much an edge case because it's a very unusual ruleset that renders most of the usually available players unavailable (you're not actually allowed to manage nations if you can't normally pick a full squad IIRC, and thus they're not really intended for player-managed teams to use at all). Managing Nigeria with all Nigerian players loaded, I got a full squad of real players to pick, it just that as they were the players who hadn't been able to get contracts in Europe it wasn't a very good full squad compared with the usual-international standard greys Egypt and Cote d'Ivoire could pick. Guess they could theoretically set it to generate weaker "greys" for opponents in that competition (big debate on how weak) but it's pretty obvious SI doesn't prioritise edge cases, or international football in general, and probably wouldn't help your case anyway.

The thing is, I think a lot of people are actually happy seeing the VAR replay confirming the offside. They just don't want to watch the ref run whilst absolutely nothing game-related happens, and fixing that seems like "how to construct a highlights package 101". The only comparably dull thing FM sometimes shows is bits of timewasting before throws, but at least that's informative from a tactical perspective, and all the pre kickoff stuff is skippable

I remember at the beginning of the season how many people were complaining about this sort of thing...

I'm saying the game isn't scripted. And also that all the people saying that it's "scripted" because they are unhappy to lose to defensive teams are wrong, because many defensive teams often do win games of football (especially if their defensive teams are good, like Liverpool in FM) I think you are arguing the opposite and complaining that defensive teams sometimes win. Especially since you appeared to be disagreeing with @sporadicsmiles who is busy explaining why defensive teams can be hard to beat in FM is related to tactics, not "scripting". Apologies if it's my misunderstanding - I realise that you are not responding in your first language. Obviously many other people definitely are saying that the game is scripted because they can't accept losing to defensive teams, and so regardless of what you were arguing, they are still wrong

My friend, do you need to understand that if you argue FM is not equivalent to real life because you do not believe defensive teams score and win IRL and somebody points out that some teams consistently score and win playing defensively, this means you are wrong. The irony is that losing games to weak defensive teams is a rare case in FM (if anything rarer than real life). It's just that when people win, they assume that it's because they're great, and when they lose they childishly start accusing the game of scripting things against them rather than just accepting that luck is a factor in real and simulated football and they probably had their fair share of good luck in some of their wins, as well as an attacking formation that's a bit vulnerable at the back. Ironically it seems what most of them actually want is a game which is scripted so they always win if they pick the right players and formation...

Well sides win with a minority of possession and shots hundreds of times a season. Leicester did it so many times in a row they actually won the league. Atletico nearly got a league/CL double with a minority of possession in both competitions. Please, tell me more about how SI should code the game to make sure defensive teams never win...