zindrinho

For anyone struggling to win, this is your best friend: That nasty wing/fullback keeps overlapping on you, mark him with your wide man! Are those pesky poachers running in behind your CB? Mark that b***! Are those slimey IWs finding tons of space between your defence and midfield? Not anymore! (Beware, the AI WILL react to you marking their players out of the game, draw them deeper and have others run into the whole you leave behind while man marking a striker that's suddenly dropping deep. Just watch on comprehensive and you'll see when it happens.)

And you think he should be getting a better match rating even if he plays the safe pass? They do that too, but they will lose the ball dribbling as well and get a slight drop in ratings for not having any succesful dribbles and just a couple of back passes. It isn't about a broken match rating system, its about IF/IW being a difficult role (IMO of course)

cheapshots fired! What I'm saying is that the defence is in a perfect line, goal side, facing the correct way. If the FM player hasn't set up his defence properly I am glad to see that now has ramifications on the match. This would never happen IRL, of course, because real life players aren't puppets, they make their own decisions all the time. But if this now is the reaction to us FM players not having given our defence instructions to mark properly, I'm very happy.

They're all standing back to goal, facing right way waiting for a left footed cross. Any further out and they'd have to run towards their own goal to clear the expected left footed cross. This is in fact a perfectly set up defensive line, it's their reaction to the play that causes problems when no one is asked to mark the striker. Whether FM should automatically hold your hand in situations like this or not is another discussion, like when a CB is off the pitch for treatment and your best fitted* CM/DM automatically covers for him. Or when an IW/IF runs wide because the space is there, even though you told him to always** cut inside. I've always felt FM's been a bit too helpful, so even if your tactics are whack your players find a way, having to put more focus on my defensive setup would be a welcome change IMO.

The role description even warns about running into cul-de-sacs (brick walls, stops, endings etc). It's always easier to run wide than cut inside into a defender. Add a DM or couple deep lying CMs as well and the job's impossible. it's often very effective to do a support role on the wide man then and attack role for wing back, IW/IF creates space out wide and passes instead of taking on 2-3-4 men.

pressing is done on the man with the ball, that and man marking are 2 different things. The defence is perfectly lined up for a left footed cross, seems like the wide man is an IW, and with no defenders marking the striker he scores. makes perfect sense IMO.

what Rules? it's because of your setup, something I'd love to see more of in FM, that the choices we make have more impact both positive and negative. PS: Man marking is a PI, not opposition instruction.

You can see the other page with promises on top of the contract negs, button just to the left of "existing contract" drop down box.

Have you tried man marking him? Seems like the obvious solution. I'm really happy to see this, seems like the players just do exactly what you ask of them which could make the game harder. The game has been way too forgiving in the past, players doing things I havent asked them to because its smart, I dont want smart players I want puppets, that's how I win!

you're not showing the first contract screen, with playing time and promises. Contracts are a package deal, have to look at everything combined, not just weekly wage.

ah yes, they can easily disagree on how well their developments been, but praising training levels every week doesnt give a "bah, this again" response from players anymore. Developed well is not the same as trained well.

If all they do is run straight into a defender and lose the ball every time they have a chance to dribble it makes a lot of sense to drop to 6,5 after 20mins. They need space to run into, try using your striker on a more defensive role. (TF(s), PF(s) etc)

Are you playing FM21 by any chance? After they removed player conversation history I dont get angry responses to training praise anymore no matter how often you praise them. You cannot possibly be qualified for CL halfway through the season, there's still plenty of points to play for. Are you sure you can't? I've never had a player come complain to me about not getting enough game time without me being able to say "PLayer X is doing so well, I cant just replace him in the starting 11 because you asked me to"

Are you available weekdays from 11pm to 5am? Pretty sure any tactic would do just fine, simply man mark their attacking outlets, if you press them high at the same time the AI just cant get over the half way line. If you have ways to score a goal as well you'll hammer the opposition every time(*)

Why dont you just tell me how he's doing rather than making me watch stupid youtube videos? I'm doing the same game type myself now, started in norwegian 3rd tier with a team expected to end dead last, ended up in 2nd place and now being 1 leg away from winning promotion through the playoffs. Just got my fingers crossed I wont breeze through the 2nd tier now in just 1 season as well. If you have other suggestions on how to make the game more difficult I'm all ears!

You can choose to run leagues you dont manage in yourself on full detail or none, "playable" or "view only", but no of course you cant manage a team in a league without having full detail on, people are just repeating misconceptions. My best advice is to do a no-transfers save, only use the players your club already has and those coming through the youth system if you are tired of instant success too. If you also start in non-league you shouldn't see 5 promotions in a row anymore going from 6th tier to Prem league in 5 yrs. Of course it removes half the fun with the game, scouting, buying and developing talents, but you do get to see most of that talent getting into your 1st team and not just fall down the pecking order every time you buy a new player.

Isn't the 2 options pretty clear? To close a gap, bring either of the 2 sides closer. Defence higher or midfield lower. There is never 1 clear best option, too high defensive line with big slow CBs brings trouble, same as lower defensive line with smaller quicker CBs spell trouble against a Burnley type 2 TF strikers teams.

Its been like this for a long time though, and IME it seems to have a lot to do with who is managing the team. When the AI sacks their manager they often get completely different results. And not because the new manager is "better" or "worse" but has a different setup that might suit the team better. I dont think its possible to make AI managers act exactly like the real life managers and therefore getting real life end results on the division table (minus the ref mistakes and injuries as you mentioned). It's 380 games being simulated by a computer with probably a lot of RNG going on under the hood. I'm sure there are ways to make the game harder without having to make all league tables end pretty much exactly like they did IRL through 97 leagues from 53 nations. It just doesnt seem feasible to me.

I dont agree with this, IRL a manager can tell their players to do whatever the manager wants, and it may differ from match to match depending on opponent. in FM you have 6-7 roles pr position with corresponding TIs that arent even available for all roles. So FM has to translate what managers do IRL into the available options that FM has. I also think it would be impossible to make a ME that doesnt favor some tactics or setups over others and in turn give some surprise results. Man marking is really effective in FM, so real life managers that uses zonal markings only will struggle to win matches with that tactic translated into FM language f.ex. The list is endless.

the ass.man/coach maybe trains your B/reserve teams and youth teams as well while the regular coach only handles 1st team training? Cant remember the rules for germany now..

The point in managing a smaller team as I see it is to avoid that instant success/overachievement. It's kinda off-putting when there's no challenge, just use a clean slate tactic, substitute tired players and win back to back promotions even without buying a single player. The promotions would feel so much more rewarding if they came hard bought and you feel like you climbed a mountain rather than handed to you in every single save game. edit: I have no suggestions on how to make your team win fewer matches, I dont know how to make a football simulator game (or any other for that matter)

It seems weird to me to get a gap between mid and def with those midfield roles and even a DM, but try removing the "lower defensive line" to make your team more compact?

spot on! I had forgot I downloaded that "3rd party license fix", became a habit a while back when it was needed for the german national team.

Hey man, thanks for these db's, really loving these lower leagues! Just 2 small questions, is there a mistake in the rules for next season when starting in 2021? Next season rules says we are back to 3 subs from 7, but IRL in 2022 we still have 5 from 7 in 3 stoppages? Not sure if this hickup happens because I used a 22.4 db to start in 2021, not sure how the sub rules are IRL for the 2023 season though. Also noticed this little thing, but you say you havent changed any u19 stuff so is this a mistake from SI? Theres 1 G19 regional division called Østfold with all the Østfoldian teams in it, and then theres Indre Østfold with all the Oppland/hedmark teams?

I didn't mean better or worse, rather more suitable to the team or that their prefered tactics are succesful on FM. We FM players know how to score goals, the AI just sets up the tactics like the manager does in real life with no regards to whether or not its gonna work on FM.