CARRERA

Does the player actually still improve in those attributes? I’m not 100% certain, but I think every player is very unique in terms of their potential development. Your player might have hit his personal ceiling for those attributes and can’t improve much further.

It’s too cautious. I would up to Positive Mentality, so your team acts more progressive overall increase Tempo, to make it harder for the defense to adjust their positioning Remove time wasting (why would add that anyway unless you want to bring home a game or just slow it down) make the left FB an attack duty to create width on the left flank (could also try a wingback) properbly make the AM an attack duty as well to penetrate the central area while the PF moves into channels and to create more depth in central midfield. From there on you need to re-evaluate your situation

Both crosses and cut-backs, are common patterns and you dont really need specific instructions to set them up. One way of using corsses effectively is to have at least one striker who has good jumping reach, strength and heading with a role that is looking to be in a scoring position inside the box e.g. a Poacher. On the Wings you basicly want to create situations, where a wide player actually gets the space to cross e.g. an overlapping fullback. To achieve the cut-backs, you need to support the widest player and give him a relative close passing option. You can either have a central player supporting wide areas or a wide player moving into channels. Also a more narrow attacking width can help as you are forcing your team to play the ball through central areas.

You always have to concider, that almost every save is unique in terms of results and how different things play out, as it also depends on how the AI acts tactically and what players are to your disposal. Thats why its hard to actually copy tactics from a forum. What you can expect from the forum is some general advice or a good starting point for you to move on from. As dumb as it sounds, properbly by trial and error. SI doesn't really do (or doesn't want to do) a great job at explaining footballing principles and game mechanics. Unfortunately the manual for FM 17 is not available anymore. And as someone already mentioned, FM17 was very different from FM23. Not by its principles, but how they were technically implemented. However, having more players on an attack duty did always lead to an more attacking approach.

@HailieThere is no right or wrong for how & how many duties you assign. Its always dependend on what you are trying to achieve. The distribution of duties just sets the frame of your teams structure and alters your approach of being more attacking or more defensive. The general principles of football did and do still apply (at least to some extend). And of course attacking space is important if you are looking to bring players into scoring / advantageous position. However, there are also support duty roles who can take that responsibility (most likely those who get forward more often). And there are also attack duty players who cant take on that responsibility as good as others, like the DLFa or T

I meant, that a maxed out P/R/D Familiarity is just one piece of many for you team to perform at their best level. If your team is good enough so you don’t care about them playing at their best level, then train whatever you want. If you are looking for maximum performance, you should train them by their assigned roles and duties Does that make more sense?!

Direct passing is not per se long passing, it’s exactly what you stated earlier about Bayern. It’s more progressive passing. Of course it can contain the option of long passes, especially if you advice your team to not build from the back.

According to the Manual it does. They changed that from FM22 to FM23 FM23 FM22

FM23 is nice, some Qol improvements, some animations but don’t expect any major differences to FM22. I‘d suggest to try the demo. If you like it, you can even carry on the save after full purchase

Its one piece of many. If you can afford to not play to your full potential, just dont bother.

Unfortunately its not that easy as others mentioned already and for some reason FM is really bad at explaining their mechanics for whatever reason. I would always recommend to use the official manual additionally to the information provided ingame.

A DLPs is quite agile and doesn’t provide as much depth as you might think. Your attacking shape might get too compressed under certain circumstances. You could compensate that by immediately exploiting the natural depth of a 433 by transitioning fast and direct. You can try it out anyway, if it works - it works

You have to look at basicly every instruction as to do more or less of something compared to your team mentality setting. So its basicly tighter compared to your base setting. At least that is how it used to work and I didnt notice any communication of whether this mechanics changed or not. Its basicly in the sense of who they are defensively responsible for. You actually can't assign anything as the basic method of defence is a zonal one.

Tight Marking is a high risk style of play. Your defender will give up space to mark a player tightly which may lead to gaps between your lines. Also if an attacker manages to beat your defender, he will find a lot of space to move into. Tight marking is particular useful against player who are technical incapable of handling the ball under pressure or if you are looking for a very aggressive defensive style.

Tighter Marking PI = Whoever joins that players zone of Defence, will be marked tightly Tighter Marking OI = the player will be marked tightly no matter who is responsible of marking that player

The first thing I would look at: Does this happen quite often? If it was an one off event, I wouldnt care too much, as it might be down to luck or bad performance. In terms you suffer quite often from conceding a lot of goals, I would primarily look at your transitional and defensive settings. A few things you might take into account: You ask your team to perform a high risk defensive transition by counter pressing immediately after possession was conceded. Just from the looks of your formation, you wont be able to provide defensive pressure in the final third without heavily disrupting your shape. Also there is noone to protect the space in front of your defensive line, while your midfielders move up to press the opposition. After transitioning into the defensive phase, your team will fall back into a mid block, which isn't bad at all, but gives space to the opposition to build their attack. However, you ask your defensive line to sit high and compress space which might leave your team vulnerable behind the defesive line. And as you are not providing pressure in certain areas of the pitch, there might be opportunities for the opposition to use that space with a vertical pass behind the lines.

No, the label "Team Shape" is not what it meant to be in earlier versions of football manager. Its just a visual representation of how you set up your team. In older versions, you could set up like 8 defend / attack duties and still use a more fluid shape to narrow down players mentality and play in a certain way. Now its different, the duties you apply around the pitch will determin how fluid or rigid your team will play. If you want your team to be more fluid and move in a compact shape, you may want many support duties. If you are looking for a more rigid apporach with strict responsibilites for each player you have to define duties accordingly.

If you are looking for a more rigid approach, you need to be more rigid in terms of distributing duties to your players. Setting up more Defend/Attack Duties, will make your approach more rigid, while setting up more support duties will make your team more fluid. You can also alter the fluidity of your team by using be more expressive / be more disciplined, to define the rigidness in the final third. To make the most use out of triangles, you should pick a formation, that naturally provides a lot of them, like a 4-3-3. It can be helpful to have one support duty player being involed in each triangle. You can see how one cleverly placed support duty player, can help to support a lot of triangles. So by already assigning two support duty players, you will be offering safe passing options to most triangles.

I occasionally use the DLP as a pivot in a possession based system to recycle the ball and rebuild the attack with a createive player.

HB if you want to build up with a back 3 and have both fullbacks participating in the final third Anchor if your match plan is around protecting space instead of pressing aggressively. DM if you are more into an aggressive defensive style.

Formation, Roles & Duties, as well as Mentality and individual Instructions do always go hand in hand. It can be devastating to just make a few defensive adjustments to your instructions, if your formation and roles are still very aggressive. Just keep that in mind. Try to make slight adjustments, maybe lower 1-2 Player duties, drop DL by one noth or decrase pressing triggers and transitional instructions. Not even close FBa is trying to attack space while WBd is trying to protect space

I don’t really want to dive too deep into that discussion about the purpose of possession, but I just want to add, that the purpose doesn’t always have to contain creating lots of chances and scoring goals. The purpose could also be to simply defend with the ball and or / rest your players by not giving the ball to the opposition. That’s a common approach under certain circumstances.

is there actually a way to check which rules do apply for regions / coutries ingame? I couldnt really find anything under league rules.

While it’s true, that the AI seems to be more aware tactically, I don’t see too much of change in terms of difficulty. If you know how to set up a tactic and manage the squad well (fatigue, morale, …), it will be still easy to overachieve. Probably pick the Demo and try out yourself. (If there is one yet)

There is no right or wrong, it just depends on your personal liking of how strictly responsibilities are shared throughout the squad. And how much you want to shift your approach to an attacking or defensive one.