DarJ

Especially this year that F1 manager is releasing, if people could pick one I'd guess they would rather pay for F1 manager me included.

yes it was in FM 21 so I doubt they took it out for FM22

First of all I'm going to assume that you mean "is using defensive mentality for defensive football broken" because the example that was given was winning a game 2-0 then changing the mentality and few other things to try and hold on to the lead. I wouldn't say it's broken, I'll just say that it's difficult to pull off because most people don't actually know what they are doing. I'll try to explain using a tactic I've created recently in FM 21 (I'm not a fan of FM22 although I had one of the ideas for the tactic playing FM22) So this is the tactic Although the mentality on the screenshot is Balanced I normally switch between Defensive, Cautious and Balanced but I use Balanced the most. The tactic came about because I'm managing in the Polish league and 7 seasons in I'm always getting to the group stage of the champions league but I've never gotten out of the group so I was looking for a way to not lose games at all, my aim was to at least draw all 6 games since I'll at least get a point per draw and there is always the chance to beat one of the teams in the group; anyway long story short I put this together and it really worked, the 4-0 against Ajax was the game that made me come up with the tactic and even if it's meant to be defensive we still scored as much goals as the other good team and could have conceded less if I used it from the start and the only game I lost was on penalties. The only few thing I change depending on the game is mentality from balanced to defensive or counter, hold shape to counter and defensive line from low to standard I'm going to talk about some of the instructions I have in this tactic that all the youtubers and most of the people here will tell you not to ever do and how it can help you stay solid defensively. Lower mentality and lines (how we defend): Normally, when people try to defend, they lower their mentality and line of engagement and defensive line. There is nothing wrong with that, however, you need to understand that you have given the opposition space both in front of you and out wide (lower mentalities tend to play narrower) People try to solve this dilemma by having counter press on and having their pressing around 75% and while this could be a valuable way of trying to solve the problem especially if you have a top heavy formation, the downside to that is that your players leave gaps all over the pitch because you have told them to counter press (try to win the ball back as soon as they lose it) but also not press until the opposition is passed the half way line so it's all confusing. I on the other hand opted to embrace the fact I'm leaving the space in front and out wide, to fix the problem of the space out wide, I used opposition instructions to tight mark and press the opposition wide player, that way whenever the ball is wide depending on the zone of the pitch, my wingers or full backs will step out early to try and stop crosses. To solve the problem of leaving space in front I just decided to tell the players to hold their ground and keep shape; so the team is set to regroup and pressing a bit less. This is the most controversial part of the tactic, having lower lines and less pressing seems like a recipe for disaster but in this case it's not because I have players in every strata, I have players in the defensive strata, DM strata, CM strata, AM strata and ST strata so the formation is compact on its own and it's very difficult to pass through us, the only way we can concede is through long shots, freekicks or if they win the ball back when we are in their half attacking. Most long shots will be blocked because of the amount of players in front, freekicks is something I keep an eye on, if it's getting high I'll add "stay on feet", scoring from winning the ball back from us when we attack is not unique to my tactic, it will happen regardless of how you play, you just have to try and lower the frequency as much as you can. What we do when we win the ball: When most people try to defend leads they only try to think about the defensive side of it but never what their team will do when they have the ball or they think "I'm playing with lower lines so I'm inviting pressure so when I win the ball counter attack". Not thinking about what you team will do with the ball is a big mistake and trying to counter attack is not always the answer. First of all, you are trying to hold on to a lead because your players are not that good anyway so you don't trust them to keep playing how you normally play and win; for you to counter, you need a good players who are fast, can dribble and you can trust those 3 or 4 players to do the job. I decided to go for the opposite; chances are the team is going to win the ball deep in our half and the distance they will have to cover to try and score is much so if they moved the ball forward quickly they will have to rely only on the front 3 to try and score because the rest of the team won't get up in time in time to give them support due to how deep the team is playing. This is exactly what I did in the few games I played against teams that were very attacking and I saw space I could use. In these games I go for "counter" instead of "hold shape" so the ball goes to my striker quickly, he's decent in the air too and strong so he can fight off 2 defenders on his own sometimes. In most of the games however. the strategy was to bring the team up together by holding shape when they win the ball and working it in the box. What this does is that when they win the ball back players are not just running off on their own trying to do something, if the ball goes to the strike or inside forward for example they will slow down and wait for support from the midfielders and fullbacks so there is always an extra man to pass to. Some people will say I'm giving the opposition time to go into their defensive shape by not attacking immediately after winning the ball and they will be right, however, I've setup the formation in a way that every player has at least one other player close by and sometimes 2 so there is always options to pass to and different players are joining from different strata at different times. For example, on the right hand side if the ball was with the IW, he will delay his forward run until the BWM arrives and shortly after the FB. If I was playing the normal 4231 with 2 CMs it will take the FB longer to join the attack because he's far down and CM will be much closer to the IW to begin with. If people remember the old FM games, you used to be able to change the team shape from a range between highly structured and very fluid, with the way I set up the roles it is as if I selected fluid so the downside to that is that since since the team move up together, when they lose the ball everyone is up so there will be space to exploit depending on how fast they come back and this is how they score us the most.A In conclusion. defending passively is very possible, as you can see from the screenshot not only do I have lower lines I'm also pressing less and regrouping but you need the right formation to begin with, this won't work as well with the 442 for example but you need to be aware that you will have less possession and the opposition will have long shots and it's fine, it's the trade off you are making, the most important thing is decide what you will do with the ball once it's won because you might just be giving it back to the opposition to attack you again so you'll never leave you half and concede goals. I'm not trying to tell people to copy this, it worked for my players and might not work for yours and this is FM21 not 22

Not necessarily. I agree with you that theoretically, it should improve slightly but in practice, there are a lot of things that have to fall into place for it to work

I’m sorry but the more I read these comments, the more I’m convinced people don’t actually know how training is supposed to work. First of all, if you think there is any training schedule that makes you win more games you’re wrong. There is no where in the game where it says using match preparation increases your chances of winning. If you take attacking movement for example under it says it has an impact on the attacking movement and passing of your team, it doesn’t say you’ll score more goals or win more games. Training doesn’t directly help you win games, it’s solely to improve the attributes of your players. Now why would you want to use match preparation schedules in your training? You want them (specifically attacking movement, defensive shape and match practice) because I presume everyone have given their players specific roles to train in, and those are the only schedules that target the specific attributes of the roles you have chosen for your players to train in. So let’s say you have your defender training as a BPD, on those days where you have match prep training he’s only going to train in those attributes that are needed to play as a BPD. If you have enough of there every week, you can be more efficient with what attributes you want them to improve.

I used to do this but it's so time consuming and most players in the youth team have bad/average personalities anyway

out of curiosity, did you play FM 21 before playing FM22? The reason I'm asking is because I've been going back and forth with both of them and I wouldn't call it a huge improvement, I'll just say it's different. There are things I prefer in FM 21 over FM22 and vice versa

you could rewatch the full match until FM 21 if I'm not mistaken

no you cant take over initiating and finalizing offers for your u18 players

The wide midfielder role can do this but I’ve not used it in FM 22 yet so I don’t know if how they behave has changed

this is from Fbref

So this is all theory. starting from the back they like to play out with one of the double pivots (Tonali or Kessie) dropping deep to receive the ball. The GK’s (Maignan) distribution is really good so sometimes when they are under pressure or when there’s space, he launches the ball either towards the wing where Leao is or to the striker (Giroud/Zlatan). Calabria’s starting position (RB) is usually slightly deeper than that of Hernandez (LB). Theo Hernandez loves to run with the ball and because Leao playing in front of him likes to start very wide, you’ll see Hernandez driving through the middle a lot. on the wings, Leao likes to receive the ball deep and dribble past players to either cut in and cross or shoot. On the right hand side, Salemakers is more of a winger and the position he takes depends on what’s around him so will usually start wide and when the ball is in his side, the team will shift to that side and if he decides to hold width, Calabria makes runs insides while Tonali will usually cover for him on the right. The attacking midfielder has more of a free role, he drops deep to receive the ball, shift side to side to create overloads. The striker role is interesting because depending on who is playing there the team changes how they play. When Zlatan plays, he’s more of a DLF, he comes deep and helps in buildup drawing out defenders but when Giroud plays, they don’t use him much in build up but in the final third providing crosses for him. pressing wise they like to press from the front, they are one of the leading pressing teams in Serie A especially in the final third and if you watched the last game against Sassuolo all 3 goals came from them pressing.

You sound like you didn’t watch any of the games

Instead of having just 2 players back, you can add one more so when a counter occurs, one of the 3 will step up early

I focus on attributes and personalities

That’s how I want my IFs to play 90% of the time since they tend to be better dribblers than my fullbacks I want them to stay wide in buildup and revive the ball wide then dribble in with it. IFs in FM have always started their inside runs too early for my liking

@LCFCEaves31I setup my freekicks like my corners and I rarely concede from them

I don't pay too much attention to that unless I'm playing them as IF or IW but they do make a difference and you can watch the game in 3D to see that. I've purposely played my right footed RB in the LB position in some games because of how he tends to open up his body and play the ball over the top for my striker

That’s why I save every month and at the end of the season after the last game I save and then save again but with the season I’m about to start

For me it depends. Sometimes when they do that depending on the formation I’m playing I might have for example my AMC free so I just ask my GK to launch the ball to him. Try adding “play out of defence” to encourage your midfield players to drop more and see how the shape changes, it might give your wingers a bit more space or just try distributing to the fullbacks, if they lose the ball there you’re not in immediate danger

It’s the opposite for me. I prefer overachieving with average teams

I have a love/hate relationship with traits. They’re awesome when they fit your team and bad when they don’t. I don’t tend to train them, I just use the players as they come and try to integrate them. I once gave my playmakers “switch ball to the other flank” and “try risky pass” because that was the style I wanted to play then I decided to change to a slow buildup, possession style and I wanted to throw my laptop every time they tried playing the long ball

Do you have team training that focuses on that too?

I’m in this camp. I always play with lower ranked teams so money is not there to begin with until I start qualifying for the champions league regularly and my rule is no to sign players for more than I can sell my current players. So if on average I sell my players for 1M then I can’t spend more than that when I’m trying to buy someone

You shouldn’t listen to that. You shouldn’t even listen to your staff as their suggestions are based not on how you’ve set up your team but on their preferred style etc. I only look at them to see what they say in case I missed something but I generally do my things my way. I was surprised the other day when I was preparing for a game and I was looking at the opposition scout and analyst report and I made mental notes of things I wanted to change in my tactics and funny enough the assistant manager recommended the same changes