OspreyJ

I did try this, didn't really work No. That's another good idea

Direct passing means long balls? That's the opposite of what I want! (This is why I put the instruction as 'Work Ball into Box') Ok thank you, this makes a lot of sense, although I never watched Riquelme play, because he was playing for Villareal when I was born -- Also, because I want to know how to do this myself, how did you know that those roles are static? Is it said somewhere in FM? Or is it something you learned from listening to how commentators describe players like Xabi Alonso? This is the one thing I don't understand. Does the Box2Box Midfielder drift wide by nature, or is it just a less static role? -- Thank you so much!

So, a couple years ago, I posted a tactic I was trying and people rightly pointed out that it was kind of terrible. I hadn't really given any thought to the roles I gave players, and I was attempting to play a high-intensity tactic in with players that simply couldn't handle that kind of play. Well, this year, I actually really tried to come up with a good, fun tactic that would score me goals. I would never try this tactic against a team that's better than me. This is meant to annihilate teams that I should be beating. It worked for a couple games, but then the lowest team in the league (a team my scouts assured me I should be able to defeat with my eyes closed) smashed me 4-0 when I was at home, and I almost lost to another low-level team, but I was saved by luck, a good goalie, and quick thinking whereby I abandoned this tactic and tried a more possession based one. -- I'm going to explain to you now why I've chosen the roles and positions I have, because I don't want you to just tell me what would be a better way to play this sort of soccer, I want to be able to understand your criticism to the extent that I can make improvements even to other tactics. Basically, I want to improve my tactical thinking, so I am telling you my current thoughts. -- I set up my defenders as regular old center-backs with the defend duty. They defend and not much else. I felt this was important because the rest of the tactic is so high up the field I was vulnerable to counterattacks. I used wing-backs because I love defensive players that can get forward and actually pose a threat on the wings, but I set them on a defend duty because I didn't want to be super vulnerable down the flanks. After all, I do have attacking wingers. My wing-backs main goal should be defend, but I also don't want them afraid of getting forward (which is why I made them wingbacks) I have two central midfielders. I made one a Box2Box midfielder because I wanted him to act almost as a shuttle between defense and offence. I also added a deep-lying playmaker, to fill in the hole left by not playing a CDM (more on that later), but also to get the ball from a defensive position to an offensive one. I have two attacking wingers. I want them to basically cover off the wings so that the opposition can not even start an attack down there; and I want them to take the ball from my wing-backs to the central striker or the CAM. I will admit that this is one position I don't really know what to do with. I didn't really want to make them inverted wingers or whatever because I didn't want my team to be vulnerable on the wings if the other team breaks on a counter. My CAM is an interesting one. I initially played the same formation but with a CDM rather than a CAM. What happened in that instance was my striker was too isolated. He was never involved in plays. Initially I tried to fix this by making my wingers cut in (Inverted Winger or Inside Forward), but that didn't really work. So instead I made a CAM with the role of Enganche, which FM tells me means, he's a creator. This is exactly what I needed and it worked well for a couple games. Finally, my striker. I made him an advanced forward, but this is another decision I didn't put much thought into. I just wanted him to really get up there and, as FM puts it, 'spearhead' the attack. I didn't want a poacher because I was afraid that he would just never get involved if that was the case. -- This is what this tactic looks like when it works, I think, unless there's a problem here I'm missing This is what this tactic looks like when it doesn't work. My team looks so disconnected, my CBs are not lining up, and I'm sure there are other problems. -- My instructions are pretty sparse, this may be a problem. The main comment I got last time was that I overloaded the players w/ instructions and didn't make their roles well, but maybe I went too far in the opposite direction. One idea I do have is maybe I should tell the players to distribute to the wings, If I'm going to be playing wingers and wing-backs. But I'm afraid that if I do that, they will never go down the middle, which would also be annoying. Another idea I had is maybe I don't need those wingers at all and the wing-backs can do all that, allowing me to instead have a back three and maybe two strikers. My problem with this is I am afraid that will leave me too open to countering on the wings. Thanks in advance for your help. I hope I can learn something.

Oh I found it, thank you!

Hmm then Gainsborough were the top team in the cup that hadn't already qualified for Europe. I think its supposed to default to the fourth placed team then, but it seems to go to both the cup team and the fourth placed team? (I have no answers, just thoughts)

My Football Manager 2023 file is really hard to work with, mainly because I can't find it in Finder, I have to go to the command line and use all the Unix Commands (which is annoying because I only know a few easy ones). That said, the file Football Manager has no file called 'data,' and no file under 'data' called 'comp editor.fmf'. The reason I'm looking for these is because messing with the file 'nation.xml' in 'comp editor.fmf' is the only way to let nations change continents, and I want to be able to play with an extinct nation. Can anyone think of a different place where that file may be? These are the files under Football Manager 2023

I'd say all the stuff on the 'details' tab, most or all of the stuff in 'Stadium - General,' the balance in the finances tab (although I often fill in the transfer budget too but I'm sure the game can figure that out from the balance), the competition they're in, obviously, and the jersey if you care about that.

Why didn't you add it to a league? I feel like that's the next thing I'd try personally

Yeah you'd create players in the editor, one thing you could do is set their CAs and PAs to a Conference South level, and fill in the role for autofill (it's a pretty easy setting to find). That way you don't have to fill in all their stats yourself. I will admit I've only ever toyed with this and never tried to make an entire team so it may take some trial and error