crusadertsar

I actually find that "no pressure" individual shout works almost every time to dispell nervousness. The effectiveness could depend on the personality though.

You would be surprised how much your tactic has to do with it. It's rather hard to help you without seeing and analyzing your tactic. No tactic is perfect in FM and there's always something that can be improved.

I'm thinking of recreating a typical Brazilian "diagonals". So that would mean support under support and attack under attack to give that distinct assymetric lopsided look in attack.

I could share but not sure if it would be helpful. I use a different narrow shape. I don't have the exact number but last time I checked it was in low 60s. Would need to check how many passes we are getting on average. But I also think it's usually hovering around 500-600 per game. My approach is much more vertical tiki-taka to get the ball close to opposition goal with as few touches as possible and cut out sideways and backwards passes. But game tends to label our approach as "possession football" anyway.

And he has gotten even better in the last two months since I took that screenshot. Definitely a Trequartista. Im just not completely sure about the tactic. Been experimenting with a more Brazilian-inspired Narrow 4-2-2-2 to try to integrate Chechu better into it. Will try to report on it soon but have been rather busy with work lately.

I love the way narrow diamond plays in FM24. Great verticality to progressing the ball and controlling the midfield. And surprisingly solid in defence. I actually did quite a bit of tinkering with narrow diamond recently (4-3-1-2 actually) and documented my findings and results in my Defence-First Football thread. If you are interested.

@Cleon As always lovely stuff mate! Really enjoyed it. I especially like your 4-2-2-2 Brazilian Box tactic version. It's funny but it seems that we woke up on same side of bed today because I have been obsessing about 4-2-2-2 narrow all day today. And then saw your thread What a lovely coincidence! This definitely gave me more tactical inspiration.

I say when you cannot beat them then become them Barcelona has dominated my Real Sociedad side with its exotic Brazilian-style 4-2-2-2 (two DMs and 2 AMCs) for two games. They used a deadly combo of DLF Lewandowski and AF Victor Osimhen upfront! I was intrigued because never saw AI use this formation before. Decided to try it out and now cannot go back. Winning games for fun. Will be writing a proper tactical guide about it in my Jogo Bonito thread soon.

Revisiting Jogo Bonito: FM 24 Update So I have been playing with a narrow diamond formation in FM24 for two seasons now and I'm really liking the solid style of football it produces. It offers just the sort of decisive verticality that I look for in my possession-oriented tactics. Something that is very doable, but much more tricky to achieve, with the traditional 433 which tends to get bogged down with wing play even when you don't want your players to attack by flanks. Maybe it's ME thing. While 4-4-2 diamond or Brazilian-style 4-2-2-2 allows you to easily and completely dominate the central area, to launch quick attacks and get to the opponents half in only a few touches. Vertical Tiki Taka at its finest! Two quick strikers and two creative hard-working AMCs with excellent Off the ball who always look to press high and flood the half-spaces. Beautiful Brazilian Game! Just a little peek at what's brewing The tactic that made me move away somewhat from my recent obsession with Defence-First football and move towards something with more flair and attacking punch. And I'm looking forward to sharing my tactical findings in the next couple of days.

I really like the way it works now. Couldn't stand how in previous sessions you could increase young player's determination from virtually non-existent singe-digit value up to almost godly 20 in just a few years via mentoring and fining. Now it actually makes sense and players with high determination and workrate actually have great value that somewhat offesets some of their other weaker attributes. Like in real life sometimes you gotta give a hard-working player a chance over a pure talented player. Personally I will take Ryan Giggs over fickle Naymar any day of the week. Besides Ryan Giggs would work better in the tactical systems I prefer

I'll check as soon as I can. I actually started a parallel save where I'm working on a 433 that's geared for underdog. RB Salzburg in Champions League so not quite the same as your situation but I'm sure I could apply some concepts. It's an evolution of my previous La Verrou 433 tactic from this thread. So will let you know soon.

Nice! Thanks for the inspiration mate. That sort of sounds like Maradona role in Napoli's narrow formation in 1985-86. The fantasista AMC in the hole with the two strikers up top creating space for him. Napoli manager Ottavio Bianchi created that narrow diamond tactic specifically with Maradona in mind. Maybe I should adapt mine with the same goal

Yeah for sure like his strength and teamwork would need some development. Strength because it will go well with his superior balance and dribbling. And teamwork if he is to act in a more creative/supportive role.

How would you play this young player? In what role? His biggest weakness right now is definitely his physical attributes, primarily lack of acceleration and pace. Although interestingly he has very good balance. One of the things I love about playing with a strict Basque-only policy, whether in the traditional Athletic Bilbao challenge or my self-imposed Real Sociedad one, is discovering exciting Basque newgens. It's like Christmas every time! And you cherish them that much more because there is a rather limited pool of young Basque players. Chechu is definitely this kind of player in my save. He is probably the most exciting Basque prospect in this whole save and he is mine at La Real Actually forget about that, he is the best potential newgen I have seen in all of my saves in FM24 so far. PS: He already starred in a few games for us (even scoring a goal in Champions League at 16 y.o. !) but I might just have to rework my tactic in the future in order to aid his development and get the best out of his talents. Just not sure how to go about it. He is not really ideal as Advance Forward (lack of speed and jumping ability) or hard-working enough and fast enough to be good at Shadow Striker role. I foresee him more as a future Maradona-like offensive creator. Fantasista Trequartista perhaps?

Finally somebody said it very well. AF is not very good for 433 at all. If they are really looking for a more goalscoring striker then PF(A) would be a little better although not ideal. My go to choice in any 433 has always been DLF (A) for a good balance of support and attacking movement.

Wow! That's an amazing result mate . I'm glad it worked so well for you

Switch to 442 then? No matter which FM you can never go wrong with the good old 442

Haven't really tried this kind of set up in FM24 yet. But it's definitely something to test in the future.

I figure you are using the 433 version of this tactic. I don't know if you saw the more recent posts but i kind of settled on narrow diamond style and because of its effectiveness it's kind of hard to go back to previous tactic. It's been that good! But guess my advice would be to use DLF(A) i find that role to be one of the most versatile in the game and a good alternative to CF. Can also be used with two wide attackers.

It will do as well as any tactic would against world's best teams. That is you will often lose until you start getting better players, especially ones with better mental attributes to defend better.

@Bumble.Ree I prefer not to have a central striker with Move into Channels instructions because then all 3 of my attackers would be moving into channels. So CF probably wouldn't work. False9 probably would though but I haven't tested that role. Regarding the more expressive instruction, it depends on players you have. I have a few attackers with high flair attribute so I think that giving them a bit more freedom can't hurt. It's not a big factor in the final tactic though. In tougher away games or against stronger opposition I usually replace it with more disciplined instruction.

@fraudiola AF is just doing what it is supposed to be doing as a striker spearhead. Its a role that is supposed to push the opposition defensive line and dribble and run at defenders and even give support to other attackers at times. Read the role's in-game description. It's meant to be a very versatile role for your star striker. When you look at the attribute profile for a typical AF you will see that its a very demanding role requiring technical, mental and physical attributes in equal measures unlike some other striker roles who are more technically (Poacher or False9) or physically focused (TF). But at the same time this means that AF will be absolutely deadly if you find a player that fits all the AF criteria, meaning fast, tall, technical and intelligent. Think someone like Haaland and how well he plays in real life. He is a perfect example of AF, spearhead role. Trust me just by playing any striker in AF role, it won't guarantee goals. You need the right player but when you do then he surely will be a threat to opposition. And that is no exploit, just playing the game well and putting players into roles they are most suited to, as is intended by game devs.

End of Season 2 Update: Continuing with Narrow Diamond Tactic Hopefully everyone is having a very nice holiday period I thought I would give you guys a little summary of how my team improved tactically after the end of 2nd full season. Just below you can see my team stats from last season. I mainly used my initial 4411tactic for the majority of the games in that season. Our defensive stats were very good as expected with Defence-First focus. But offensive ones such as goals scored and number of points (especially wins) we got in the season definitely left something to be desired. Now below our current, almost a year later, stats present an interesting picture, both very similar and at the same different from last season. Despite the switch to a more top-heavy and risky 4-4-2 Narrow Diamond tactic, our defensive solidity remained largely unchanged. We conceded 2 more goals but still maintained same spectacular record in number of yellow (15) and red (none!) cards received. Discipline is definitely not an issue with this squad. Our 1st choice keeper Alex Remiro played a big part in maintaining this defensive record. In his 30 LaLiga appearances he only conceeded 24 times and racked up an impressive 18 clean sheets. It was also the season when he won World Goalkeeper of the Year award for the first time in his career. But as impressive as our defensive record has been, it's attacking output that I'm most impressed with. Our top striker Sadiq almost doubled his goal output in the same number of games! Overall, the team scored 10 more goals than last year and more importantly won 8 more league games. Despite this, we could not improve on last season's 3rd place finish. But that speaks more for the quality of competition in LaLiga rather than failings on our part. Funnily enough, our 84 points in this season would have probably won us the league title in previous season where Barcelona won it with the same amount (and less goals scored). I feel like after this sophomore season with Real Socieadad, I finally settled on a tactic that is very well balanced in both defence and attack. And despite the name of this thread, that is the ultimate aim of my tactical system. It is not to neglect offence in favour of defence. Rather by keeping strong attack, your players will have an easier time defending. But if you sit back passively near your own goal you will be letting opposition a free reign to bombard you with shots. At the same time I am not preaching high pressing attacking game here. Rather I just want my players to be very difficult to break down in our own half by maintaining a rather aggressive midblock. And use it as a solid platform to launch fluid counters into the opposition half. In this update, I hope to cast a bit more light on how my tactical change allowed the team to be more dangerous in offence while maintaining same solid defence. Hopefully this will aid you in your own tactical endeavors in FM24. So without further ado, I will try to show what I do to help my teams to score more goals in FM24. I generally follow 2 simple rules: 1) Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One-Basket I see the following question asked often on the SI’s Football Manager forum. How can I make this player into my primary goal-scorer? Or how can I get my central striker to score more goals? Or any number of the variations on the same theme. I think that no matter which answer you choose, it will always be wrong. Simply because the original question is wrong. If you want long-term success in FM24 you should not be asking how to get a specific player to score more goals but instead how to get your whole team to score more goals. Tactics are best when they are designed with multiple avenues to goals. The more the better. For example in this tactic, the goal-scoring responsibility is shared between Advanced Forward, Pressing Forward, Shadow Striker and, to a lesser degree, Mezzala. Also, dur to the variety of roles, we can also inject variety in the types of goals they can score. In AF role you can slot your tall target-forward-type striker. So he can take advantage of all the crosses coming from your wide players. He is the most forward of your attackers and thus a big header threat for the opposition. The Mezzala role is where you can place your longshooting expert. He can arrive late into the penalty area and finish off any chances created by the more advance players. On the other hand, the Shadow Striker role is best used by an intelligent player with exceptional Off-the-ball and other mental attributes, such as anticipation and work rate (good to have but not necessary). He will act as another deeper threat by finding open spaces not already used by your other attackers or opposition defenders. Thus these three modes of attack ensure that your opponent is constantly dealing with goals-scoring threats. They cannot become too complacent in their defending. Any lapse in concentration (or eventual fatigue, especially given how strong AI teams tend to play) will give you a chance to go one goal up. And if the opposition tries to close down any one attacking player, there will be at least two others that are unmarked. Using different roles for your attacking players also ensures that they are occupying and moving into different spaces on the pitch. I am a big fan of organizing three-pronged attacking formations. You might remember me writing quite a bit on this in FM22 and FM23 (specifically in context of 433 formation). But 442 Narrow Diamond could also offer a three pronged attack potential. Why am I obsessed with having three attackers you might ask? Well, in any tactical system, irrespective of the actual formation, I like to have mu attacking players occupying each of the two half-spaces as well as the central space. 2) Good Goalscorers Must Be Fed By Good Supporters They might be very tempting to use but tactics which are filled with attack duties, are not that good at creating goals. My one rule of thumb for crafting balanced tactics, is that for each Attack duty you employ you must have at least two players on Support duty in close proximity. Not only can you ensure that your attacking players get sufficient support but this can also lead to creation of passing triangles on the pitch. Some formations such as 4-3-3 are especially conductive to this type of build-up. Just as you want variety in attack, and in goals scored, you want your support to come in varied forms. For best results, your attackers should be receiving all kinds of assists from crosses, short passes, lay-offs and long through balls. I am not going to bore you on going into more detail here because it should be rather self-explanatory. If you take a look at my tactic above you could probably guess which roles would provide which kind of support. Such as fullbacks/wingbacks giving crosses or attacking midfielder - one-two passes. Also note the positioning of my attack and support duty roles and see how they are located in proximity to each other. This is most definitely not random. A little detail to note here is that I usually instruct my Mezzala to take more risks and to run wide with the ball. The aim is to have him act as creative "needle" player providing both long-pass and short passing (combined with dribbling) support to our attackers. In terms of other important individual instructions, Shadow Striker is told to "stay wider" while Carrilero is instructed to "tackle harder". No other individual instructions or opposition instructions are used.

It's not really supposed to be a plug-and-win tactic. I designed it specifically with Real Sociedad players in mind. I have not managed in Premier League in years so I'm not really familiar with the players you mentioned but my first question would be if they possess sufficient mental attributes for Defence-First football. Like I outlined in the first post of this thread. Also, which opponents are dribbling through you easily? If it's Liverpool and Man City then it's quite normal. If it's Bournemouth then I would be worried. Make sure to have high tempo selected and play out of the back deselected when engaging such opponents. Also maybe reduce tactical width to normal rather then wide.

That's what I guessed you meant. Just didn't want others to misunderstand since this is the exploit thread. It's just good use of the role so I'm not surprised you get better movement.