ifoundthatessence

Urbiscuit - so would you just go very fluid then instead of fluid + roaming ? My logic for retain + pass into space, is that retain shortens the passing length, whereas pass into space is about frequency of through balls. Betis do play short passing, but definitely not afraid to play those killer balls. denen123 - as I say in the blog, wasn't sure if the overlap does help the full backs go beyond the wide centre-mids, if you're sure not, then obviously can be turned off. Retained shortens passing even further, as far as I was aware work into box is about mode of chance creation rather than just passing length ? Also as regards the two dlp's - I would say that when Garcia and Fabian play together that is what they essentially have, I mean I know it's not great to have two in the same tactic, but if it's what they do ? perhaps fabian could be seen as an RPM. I would like Garcia to receive from CB's then lay off to Fabian essentially.

This season, I’ve been really taken with Real Betis and their attempts to play attacking football that utilises the technical abilities of their players. Setien is a maverick, a man who has stated his sole purpose is to produce produce entertaining football and score goals, even at the expense of getting results. A man who has said he is left cold by modern football, he is a purist, a man who idolises Johann Cruyff and Luis Aragones. His Betis side, at times have played football at least comparable to anything produced by Guardiola’s City and Sarri’s Napoli. Here’s a video from Tifo, attempting to explain the principles behind the thinking of their manager Quique Setien. It is important to note that Betis have moved away from that 4-1-2-2-1 formation now, and are playing a 3-5-1-1 or 3-4-2-1, which is what i’m aiming to create with Inter Milan in my first season. The move to the back 3 has massively improved Betis’s defensive performance, and enabled them to push on and challenge for a European place. Tactics is available for subscription from Steam Workshop here. Please see opposition instructions below for the tactic. Blog post for this tactic available at https://footballmanager2017dotblog.wordpress.com/2018/04/09/quique-setiens-3-5-1-1-possession-based-tactic-title-italian-cup-in-first-season/ Inter are a good team to try this with, because in Perisic, Valero, Brozovic, Skriniar, and Icardi they have some players who have good technique. Rafinha is also there on loan for the first season, and they have a lot of talented young players. Their current U20 team is arguably the best in Europe right now. All in all, a great team to start FM18 with. The Formation Betis play either a 3-4-2-1 or a 3-5-1-1 which I will use for this tactic, given the player’s I’ve got at Inter in the first season. To recreate this tactic in FM, I’ve used a DLF-Su to essentially recreate the Boudebouz position. This is because at Inter, you’ve got Icardi, Pinamonti, and I signed Martinez as they have in real life, none of which are adept at playing in the AM role. But obviously if you had the players to do it, then the AM-A can work quite well. Occasionally, i’ll drop the DLF-Su into an AM-A if i’m playing Franco Vazquez there, and he feeds the AF-A quite nicely. To play as Betis do, as you can see I’ve signed ball playing centre-backs with good first touch, composure, decisions, and passing. Given the high line it helps if the BPD-Co has good pace, and you don’t really want any CB’s who are slow. I have a better keeper, Rulli, although Handanovic is a world class stopper. I’ve also signed two new wing-backs, with good dribbling, crossing, first touch, composure, passing, and off the ball. You want your AF-A to have good pace, finishing and heading, and your DLF-Su to have good passing and vision as well as dribbling and off the ball. Central midfielders should all have the standard attributes for ball playing teams, e.g. passing, first touch, decisions, composure, technique, off the ball. I’m pretty happy with this team now, have some other unavailable players (Frenkie de Jong, and Carlos Soler in CM). Team Instructions Mentality I would say control is the best tactic to recreate Setien. Perhaps you might deem his tactics “attacking” in orientation, but we all know that Attacking is a VERY attacking orientation in FM. You can set up an attacking version of the same tactic, just for games in which you are losing, but attacking basically causes too many forward passes and the tempo to be far too quick, you’re going a bit too direct with it. Remember Setein cites Aragones as his major influence. BUT you do want to use pass into pass here, Setein I would say is a little more direct than the traditional tiki-taka ball retention styles of Spain in the early 2010s. I mean you could use attacking, slowing the the tempo and restricting width ticking off “pass into space”, you might get the same effect. Attacking also has the effect of intensifying the press and raising the defensive line. And yes, there are many ways to create the same style. This is just one. If you toggle between control and attack, you will see many things happen to the other instructions, it’s good to understand the linkages. Team Shape Having a fluid team shape does two things crucial to Setien’s style. Firstly, it raises the creative freedom of the players, and secondly, it ensures that Defenders and particularly full backs make attacking contributions, whilst attackers will contribute to the defensive phases also. Tempo Having a normal tempo was the best way I found to recreate the appropriate passing speeds. Setien does not rush things, but he is far from slow possession for possession-sakes passing we see at teams like Swansea. Having normal tempo allows a team full of good decision makers to make decisions about the speed of the game and make passes which are appropriate to the situation, as per Setien. If you create an attacking version of this tactic, the tempo will automatically rise. Width The wing-backs are an important feature of Setien’s betis in this 3 at the back system, therefore it’s important I think to get a balanced approach here. Possession based control tactics can function better playing with less width, especially with 3 CM’s and 2 strikers, but I think if you have two good wing-backs you gain fidelity to Setien by using balanced. If you’ve got an AF-A with good heading, you’ll score a few from crosses also, and get some nice triangles with the CBs, CM’s and WB’s. Defensive Line & Offside Trap Highest line you can have with control is slightly higher. If you use attacking you can go one higher. I wouldn’t say Betis use as high a line as Sarri, so perhaps slightly higher is OK, i’d like to go one notch higher though still. Again, offside trap should be ticked, although I wouldn’t say Setien is as obsessive as say, Saachi in his use of the offside trap. Would be nice to have different measures of offside trap, e.g. Aggressive, moderate, weak offside trap. Closing Down & Prevent GK distribution. Again, Betis do a lot of closing down and the attackers contribute to this. See the opposition instructions will help achieve the desired effect of closing down in the opposition defensive areas and attacking wide areas. If you use attacking, you can go one notch more aggressive in your press. Note, you need to have players with high team work and work rate to execute pressing properly, if you don’t have these players it won’t work properly. Even 12’s are not good enough, hence I sold Icardi, Perisic, and Candreva second season. Use your pre-match sessions also to focus upon the pressing. GK distribution will help press the opposition back line, and you will recover a ball once or twice a game doing so, obviously tires your strikers out doing this, and you’ll need to keep an eye on their fitness. Get Stuck In I wouldn’t say this is a feature of Betis’s play, I just like to have it ticked. You could undo it if you wanted to, and you wouldn’t lose fidelity. Build Up play To get the Setien build up style, you’ll first need to ensure that the GK is playing the ball out to the central CB. This can be done in player instructions as follows. The use of sweeper keeper in FM is interesting, because you can’t have a sweeper keeper who plays no risky passes, so arguable a Goalkeeper will give you better fidelity in the playing sense. Although there are times that you can get caught out when your CB’s are high, and the GK is too withdrawn. But if you use a Sweeper keeper, you will find him playing too many long passes, like Ederson does for Man City. It’s a trade off I guess. The other features of build up are obviously, play out from the back, with shorter passing and retain possession ticked. I’ve ticked pass into space, just so that we get the verticality we see with Setien’s style. I’ve ticked more expressive as Setien does like his teams to entertain, and has even said he prioritises entertainment over results, we want to maximise flair for sure. Attacking In terms of our attacks, obviously we want to work the ball into the box. I’m not sure if overlap does anything when you are not playing wingers, but it might help the wing-backs overlap the wide CM’s possibly, so I’ve left it ticked. Again, we want to see fluid and creative movements from our players, so I’ve ticked roam from positions. Opposition Instructions Purpose of these instructions is to recreate the tight closing down on opposition defenders and deeper midfielders, and the pressing of wide players. Players are also either to be shown inside, or pushed onto their weaker feet. All players are to be greeted with aggressive tackling. Training I would argue that general training on Team Cohesion at High Intensity should be done until you get to Very Good Match cohesion. At this point, you can then switch to a mix of attacking, tactical and ball control training, which will develop the attributes needed to play this tactic. Player training will be by their roles, and firstly focus upon compsure for defenders, off the ball for midfielders and strikers, at whatever intensity level you can get them to train before they start moaning. ALSO GET GOOD COACHES IN ON THE FIRST DAY YOU ARRIVE THERE. Five star coaches are easy to find, just go into staff search and select filter, and click on attributes, and select motivation, determination and level of discipline at 15, and click match 2 from 3. Then you need a coach that has a sum of 60 across four attributes; (i) for the thing you want him to coach, e.g. attacking, (ii) motivation, (iii) determination, and (iv) level of discipline. So you could have 20 for attacking coaching, 20 for motivation, and 19 for determination, and 1 for discipline, he’d be a 4 star coach. Also always ask your board for extra coaches, so you can get the workload down ASAP. Check this every month or so, to keep getting more. I’ve got like 15 now at Inter in two years, we started on nine. Also once you’ve won a fair few games, say, around Xmas, ask them to improve the training facilities. If you’re like me, and focus upon young talent, the training facilities have to be very strong, or you won’t improve the players quick enough to justify selecting them over established players. Use tutoring also, select older players over 25, with outstanding mental attributes, and try to tutor every youngster at the club at least once. Determination is one attribute that get’s passed on well in training, so use highly determined players to develop less determined youngsters PPM’s All CB’s Brings ball out from the back Tries long range passes (if good passing stats) Switches ball to the other flank Runs forward with ball often (if good dribbling) Both WB’s Gets forward whenever possible Plays one-Twos Runs with ball down their flank (if good dribbling) or Knocks ball past opponent (if good pace but poor dribbling) DLP-D Comes deep to get ball Stays back at all times Dictates tempo Plays simple short passes DLP-S Comes deep to get ball Dictates tempo Plays one-twos Tries long range passes & switches ball to other flank & tries killer passes (if good passing /. vision) or shoots from distance (if good long shots) CM-A Arrives late in opposition area Plays one-twos Tries Killer Balls DLF-Su Drops deep to get ball Dictates tempo Runs with ball often Tries Killer Balls Plays one-twos AF-A Beats the offside trap Plays one-twos Tries first time shots

Hello mate, of course I can. Just working on developing a Simeone at the moment, which is tricky and taking up a lot of time !! Do remind me if I forget. J

looks very similar to what i was doing at palace, had tonnes of success there with 442 counter, trying to set up a dalgleish style tactic from the Blackburn days.

Absolutely yeah. It's on the list for sure. Just working on Grande Inter, have given up on the diamond Ancelotti, cos it's annoying me.

it's bad defensively, but i don't think I've lost a game yet with any team with it. Lot of 3-1s, 4-2s, 5-3s, 6-1's....

Hey buddy How do you think of a Segundo ? I gave him that because i thought a ball winning mid would limit him defensively ? Segundo seems to fit what he did ? Charging around winning tackles and getting up in support ? Still struggling with this atm, it's nowhere near as effective as Sacchi and Guttmann.

Cain Yeah i can, although it's not as good as the 3-2-5 Guttmann or the Saachi so far, i'd prefer to have a play around, gonna start at Man City cos they have enough cash to quickly bring in the right players for it. I have totally the wrong team for the tactic @ AC, and i don't wanna start ****ing around with the playing squad in that game. So far, i played 5, won 3 drew 2 versus Man City home, and away at Sassuolo, so not convinced of it atm, but could be because of the playing squad. Will have a muck around with City now, tweak it tomorrow, and post tomorrow evening.

Traveling ATM but tactic worked amazingly well - see screenshots added to original post. Amazing considering it's unfamiliar and I don't have the right players at all

Hey buddy i quite like your interpretation with regards roles, obviously cain89 wants kaka in behind shev(dlf-a) and pippo (p-a). Also I'm putting Gattuso as a DMCR Segundo, and Seedorf as MCL CM- A, to move from a Xmas tree to asymmetrical diamond. Cafu a higher mentality than Maldini. however I think the critical issue with your interpretation is how you get the slow build up in front of defence with faster counter attacks cos in essence the engine doesn't want to do this. I did this to a degree in my FM17 Sarri tactic so will be interesting to see if this can be done with counter attack. Set most TIs to create a short passing game, but then use midfielders and attackers PIs to create a counter game, on counter mentality with mixed passing (PIs for shorter passing for defenders). Midfielders more risky passes mixed. Tempo is normal cos you can slow it down in first third using instructions and speeds it up in final using instructions. To get the structure play highly structured with stick to positions, but give kaka and seedorf More roaming. Defensive line looks slightly deeper with some closing down and zonal marking. Get stuck in can be used, and ease off for some players i.e. Forwards. Pirlo set to more risky and more direct passes, does anyone know if a regista is as magnetic as a DLP ? I might run a few replications of the same game and see. Pirlo needs PPMs - comes deep dictates plays killers and tries long range passes. Inzaghi needs beats offside. Kaka runs with ball gets into oppo area and 1-2s. Shev cuts inside and 1-2s. Cafu get forward whenever and 1-2s. Gattuso dives in + gets forward whenever. Seedorf plays 1-2s and gets forward. Maldini crosses from deep.

here you go pal

definitely, it's on my agenda. Will do it next time i play with Milan actually. This one you mean ?

Good idea cez - i will do the tactics with each of the correct teams. Just starting now with Benfica for the Guttmann tactic. Then i'll do Grande @ Inter Guttmann actually cursed the club, saying they'd never win a European trophy for 100 years, so it's added element to the tactic.

Hey guys, So after my Sacchi tactic was completely dominant, winning Serie A by 13 points in Season 2 and the Champions League, i got a bit bored, and thought i'd go through all of UEFA's Greatest Ever Teams. The entire list published by UEFA is as follows: · Hungary 1950-56: the Magical Magyars · Real Madrid 1956-60: the European pioneers · Benfica 1960-62: Eusébio's Lisbon marvels · Inter Milan 1962-67: the 'Grande Inter' · Ajax 1971-73: the kings of 'total football' · Bayern 1973-76: Germany's first world-beaters · AC Milan 1988-1990: See my replication here · Real Madrid 1998-2002: the Galácticos · Barcelona 2008-12: Guardiola's greatest Bela Guttmann's Benfica is an exciting tactic to replicate. Watching them on YouTube, they score A LOT of goals, and do concede a lot to. Under Guttmann Benfica won two league titles in 1959/60 and 1960/61 as well as a Portuguese Cup in 61/62, historic back-to-back European Cups in 61 and 62, beating Barcelona 3-2 at the Wankdorf Stadium in Bern and Real Madrid 5-3 in Amsterdam’s Olympisch Stadion I'm starting from ground zero here, since no users seem to have replicated this tactic before. So if you know a bit about his approach, feel free to let me know, and i can improve the fidelity of the tactic. The formation Here we can see Benfica lining up in a 3-2-4-1 formation. Perhaps the defining feature of the tactic was the role of Eusebio, his role being disguinshed from that of Mario Coluna who played in a deeper role. Together this team "created some of the most beautiful attacking, flowing football the world had ever seen". Watching some of the games on YouTube, we can see them playing 2 out and out wingers, whilst the full backs contribute mostly in a defensive capacity, with the two holding midfilders assisting with defensive phases. Forwards do get involved in defensive work also. What do we know about the Playing Style ? When Guttman was asked what the essence of his tactic was, he replied In this case we must use the attacking, or even overload mentality, with tighter marking and some losing down, as well as pass into space, with player instructions set to more risky passes. These football times noted that: We therefore need to play a wide system, with out and out wingers, as well as playing a defensive midfilder in front of the back three. Although as noted below, the false nine was not a feature of Benfica per se. I would go for a Complete Forward. World Soccer noted that I think in this case, Guttmann should be considered as belonging to the school of quick possession football, with a very fluid structure. Note that, at Benfica, he doesn't use the false 9, the striker José Águas: Known as 'Golden Head' for his aerial ability, forward Águas enjoyed European success at the very end of his Benfica career, scoring in both of his side's final victories. António Lobo Antunes, one of Portugal's most important contemporary writers, said of him: " Here i'm thinking Andre Silva. Obviously replicating Eusébio: said Alfredo Di Stéfano after Eusébio's death in January 2014. Eusébio had amazing control, physical power and thunderous finish scoring 41 goals in 64 games for Portugal, will be difficult for now I've got Deli Alli, and if i intend to take Milan forward using both the Sacchi tactic, as well as the Guttmann, then it might be the case i need to find a more suitable player. The squad were also known for their togetherness and work rate and determination. In the final against Real for example they were 2-0 down, and turned it around to win 5-3, with Bela Guttman noting "I never found players who felt their shirt so strongly as the ones at Benfica" Watching the games, for others games check for links in the side bar of the YouTube videos, Their is a lot of dribbling to carry the ball forward, especially from their 4 attacking midfilders. And they play at a very high tempo. The FM replication Tactic is available from http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1222378453, if you download it, you can also see how I've tailored the PI's for this formation, in order to get Alli more involved, as the Eusebio. The Results Perhaps a little too much Guttmann !!! Just beat City at the Etihad 3-2 4mins in total football

As the quality of the whole team is improving, and all are linked by green lines, and we bring in very determined, hard working players, the defence is improving incredibly. Just done five clean sheets, i can visibly see the press happening now against their defenders, keeper, and midfielders. And six clean in last nine games. It takes ages to move out players with 12's and below for determination, work rate and team work though. I've just seen Andre Silva charge about 40 yards back after a guy and won the ball off him !! Obviously, you won't get Ibrahimovic doing that !! Pressing seems to be partially determined by player mental stats as it does by the instructions (which is realistic, e.g. why Wenger said he started Sanchez in attack Vs City). Whether this could be replicated by lesser teams, who's CB's have good mental stats, and who have a cohesive and determined team i'd be interested to know. I'm pretty unsure about why some are saying that pressing can't be done - i'll post some videos soon, when I've finished this season, showing what you can achieve with pressing. I would say between 5-10 of the comprehensive highlights are chances we created from pressurising them into making a mistake.