crusadertsar

You have to take off hit early crosses instruction. It will cause your fullbacks to be the primary crossers in the formation. To get the mezzalas to cross you will need to slow the pace of the tactic to allow the ball time to get to your midfielders.

It won't behave exactly like Mezzala. There is a good reason why Mezzala is such a good role in the game.

Yes that's probably the only example of a staff where favourite formation matters. But I thought you meant only coaches who are involved in the training.

Favoured formation for your coaches has absolutely no connection to how well your players develop from training. I still like to hire coaches whose fave formation is my team's formation for pure flavour/roleplay effect. Aside from your Assistant Coach who you will want to take over if you ever go on holiday or just sim the games.

Looks like a very nicely balanced tactic mate! I don't think you will have trouble staying up, especially if you improve your players to match the division. Eventually, you might have difficulty breaking down more defensive sides, especially as your reputation improves. For those times I would maybe switch one or both of your fullbacks to wingback role to improve your overlaps and give better support to your forwards. A very good BPD in the backline could do wonders too with his timely long balls to kick-start counterattacks. In terms of instructions I would play wider and with lower tempo when facing those pesky parked buses. But for now enjoy the promotion! La Liga is an amazing competitive division. It's never boring haha. And Roberto Lopez is an excellent attacking midfielder. I managed him for 4 seasons at Real Sociedad before replacing him with a better newgen.

Well unfortunately the only way to attempt to replicate what you want is with Mezzala. Especially with one that has specific traits like "runs along left/right flank". No other role is programmed to go wide like Mezzala is. You cannot really instruct a generic midfielder to do what Mezzala does, much less to actually run along a flank. And again like I said before with the right traits and in a narrow formations, Mezzala will go much wider then a half space.

Play him in Mezzala role. Simple. Especially in a narrow tactic with no wingers.

Exactly, unless you are Ronaldo, wingers/inside forwards don't generally score 44 goals in a season. That's true in real life and in FM too. Curiously, the narrow diamond would also be my assessment of Liverpool in that era.

That's exactly what I'm doing it's Summer 2029 in my save and Real Sociedad is completely Basque. Got some wonderful newgens too.

@trym.jorg If you want him to score like young Salah then by all means don't play him in a wide attacker role

That's been my favourite back four set up in FM24. Works very well in both 433 and 4231. And allowed to take my Real Sociedad to the next level in competing with the big three in La Liga. I'm in 2029 now, and good newgen IFBs are much easier to find than good WBs or IWBs. I just retrain CBs and strong DMs mostly. It's very helpful when playing with Basque-only policy.

No it increases the frequency of forward runs. But the defensive position should still remain the same, the player will be spending less time there because he will be focusing more on getting forward at every opportunity.

Regista is not affected by positional play changes. Also even with "get further" instruction regista never gets into AM strata. What you are looking for is Roaming Playmaker in DM position. It will get up into AM strata and push IW/IF wide.

Don't pay any attention to it. If the player is good enough (because of his attributes) to fill role in my tactic, I don't care if he has 3 or 4 stars, ect. As long as he is the best choice for it.

You could also try something simple like this and it would probably make you more threatening in attack then your previous 4-2-3-1 tactic. It's just a very simple balanced formation that's guaranteed to provide attacks from different strata, not just striker. It actually just allowed me to win second Super Cup trophy with Real Sociedad by beating a very strong Barcelona team. Albait I kind of exploited the fact that Barca was silly enough to use a narrow 4-2-2-2 formation against me. So us dominating against such a narrow shape was not so unexpected.

433 is a good idea. Because with a defensively-responsible DM, both of your CMs can act as number 8s to get forward and provide more attacking threat from deep.

@HanziZolomanIn FM sometimes you just have to score more than your opponent to win. With your very conservative double pivot your attack is not very threatening to the opposition. All they need to do is shut down your striker (or the moment their keeper has a great game). You need to have at least one other source of goal penetration from your midfield. Particularly when your attack is set up the way it is. Wings are not a consistent source of goals in the game. And you are only using one striker. While your AMC is a playmaker role (attack duty won't make him score more). So in this tactic you rely on all your goals from your AF. That's not good. The moment he has a bad day, your game plan goes out the window. At least with 442 you would have more chances of salvaging a game, if one of the strikers wasn't doing well.

Have you watched some of these matches in full or at least on comprehensive highlights to actually see what's happening on the pitch?

Stop looking at the heat map and actually test some of the advice we are giving you. I have tested and written about overloads and channelling ball into specific side on here before and trust me 80% of the time, the trick is in the roles you choose.

But you have more aggressive attacking duties on your right flank. While IW and DLP are not an ideal combo. DLP tends to launch cross-side thoroughballs rather then dynamically connect with your left attacker (via one-twos for example). If you want to play more down the left side then make sure to change the role of DLP to RPM or BBM.

My guess it's because of the increased individual mentality. I do the same thing myself. It helps the player make more risky decisions when it comes to passing, ect. Especially when you have a technical player. At the same time it's prevents player from getting marked out as often happens when you use a playmaking role there. So DM role on support is great. You can customize it to your heart's content and make him into a hybrid anchor/playmaker. DM(D) is just too conservative for what I need this player to do in a progressive possession 433 tactic. Especially when building up from the back.

Thanks for the kind words mate. I think we all secretly wish that we had @Rashidi 's footballing brain. He does make it look easy and it probably is if you have the time to watch matches in full, and analyze every minute detail ect. Unfortunately, a lot of us, myself included, who have been playing this game for over a decade just don't have that kind of time anymore. I don't play/stream FM for a living, wish I did haha. And the aspects that I enjoy the most are mostly youth development and growing my club longterm over time. Sometimes tactics get in the way of that. Like recently I have been struggling with Real Sociedad for past 5 seasons with barely any trophy to show for it (except one Spanish Cup). Just can't break the Barca Real Madrid deadlock on the league. Despite trying to include all those new Positional Play bells and whistles in my tactics. And I refuse to use those overpowered Geggenpress tactics. Maybe one day I'll finally give up and switch to one of those

True this. Can't help but notice that the forum has become more toxic then ever due that kind of "group speak". I play this game and write about it in this forum to have fun and to share this joy with other like-minded individuals, not to incessantly argue with those few angry players that keep saying that the game is broken because there is only one "meta" way to succeed. Sure there might exist some game-breaking strategies. They always did, even going back to days of Champ Manager. But this doesn't refute the fact that with some hard work other styles of football can be viable in FM. In fact there are threads every day on here that prove this.

I would just try a simple CM(s)

Personally I would not use a AP role in midfield in this formation. Because of Positional Play it will move up and stay mostly in advanced midfield strata leaving only your BWM to hold position in midfield. In a 442 thats not really ideal. You usually want two holding midfielders in a 2 player midfield, especially when the wingers are more aggressive. Besides you already have WP cutting into the same space from the flank. Let him be your sole playmaker. From the wide position it will also be easier for him to escape markers. The rest looks good though. Have fun testing it!