CARRERA

I mean you can go for higher rep leagues, but often players don’t want to join a lower reputation club / league. Also players might be very costly compared to your financial strength. But basicly do whatever might work and whatever you like. It’s a game.

Well, Redbull basicly has partnered clubs in every region of the world to pick up local talents. What you can do is to look for affiliate clubs around the world with good youth training / recruitment and pick up their players, or you could set up scouting assignments around the world for young, high potential players in low / equal rep leagues (compared to your league).

Of course I have no deep insights, but you have to consider, that there is a difference between the player having the ball or not. Be more disciplined will make the player sticking more rigidly to his position (roaming is reduced). On the ball, he will carry out his responsibilities more rigidly as well. The mezzala will still roam more compared to his team mates, as it’s a creative role, but he won’t be roaming as much as he would in more creative approach. Someone else on this thread was talking about scales behind the scenes and that’s exactly what happens

Be more Expressive will increase the level of creative freedom that players are allowed to play with, compared to your current level (depending on Team Mentality and individual Roles). Players will roam more freely from their position and try to force unexpected, risky moves by using their flair and vision. Overall, this is a high risk instruction, as your team may concede possession more easily due to their playstyle. Defensive transitions may suffer as well, due to players not staying within the tactical shape. However, acting more fluid and being unpredictable, will hopefully help your team to create more opportunities. Be more Disciplined will decrease the level of creative freedom that players are allowed to play with, compared to your current level (depending on Team Mentality and individual Roles). Players will stick more cloesly to their desired position and will carry out their assigned responsibilities more accurately by being more predictable. Overall, this is a low risk instruction, as your players will stick to the tactical shape which may help to transition more quickly. Due to their tactical discipline it may be easier to keep possession, at the cost of creating high quality chances from being more predictable. Team Mentality sets the base level of your teams creative freedom. A high Team Mentality comes with high Creative Freedom. A low Team Mentality comes with low Creative Freedom. Creative Freedom / discipline is one of the attacking principles, on which your team may rely on or not. Don't look at it in isolation. There is a very good chance for being sucessful by using either one.

What could you observe so far? How do you score and concede compared to the other teams who are predicted to finish in the lower third?

How is the morale of your squad? Are the players fresh? (Or jaded) Is there a good team cohesion? Does the squad Support you? How is the atmosphere? Is your team familiar with their roles and the tactic? Did you make heavy changes to the squad by bringing in many new players? (Players may need time to perform well at the new club) All those affect the performance of your team aside from the tactic itself. However, you should also dive into the matches and check if tiki-taka really is the best way to go for your team at its current state. It can be beneficial for players (especially if they lack skill compared to the opposition), to take their opportunities while having more space available. That can be achieved by transitioning more quickly and playing vertical passes rather then playing sideways.

Yeah, lowering the training load and/or resting players is a way to go. However, I find it way more effective to have (max.) 3 rotations in the starting 11 against weaker opponents and substitute important players early if there is a safe lead against any opponent, even if they still have energy. Works well for me

One or two weeks boot camp, then friendlies until 1 week before the Frist official match. Depending on their personal state of fitness, I’m gonna rotate my players so that everyone is match fit by the end of preseason. That may contain swapping the whole squad at half time or just a few players. However, there is no need to keep players playing that are already matchfit. The training will focus on building team cohesion and tactical familiarity after bootcamp. No fancy stuff, I just edit the default schedules by a bit.

Keep him in the U Squad, thats more important for him. Personality will grow over time an when he turns 18/19 and moves up to the senior squad you can mentor him.

You are not too far off, the duty does not only assign some additional PI's to the role, but does also affect the individual mentality of the player. In Football Manager, almost everything is on a Scale behind the scenes and the base modifier is mentality (not only for your team, but also for individual players). That said, e.g. Move further forward on a support duty is not exactly the same as it would be on an attack duty. Another way to look at it, is to think about the structure of your team. Who do you want to attack space (attack duty), who do you want to protect space (defend duty), who do you want to like up play (support duty). Its also important, to understand how the dispersal of duties can create space or compactness. Assigning several support duties into one area, will help your team to stay compact and offer safe passing options to keep the ball. However, against deep and compact defences, you may lack depth and space to actually find a way to score. Basicly said, attack duties create depth ahead of the ball and defend duties create depth behind the ball. If done correctly, you can achieve great space between the lines to either have the opposition move out of position, or to have players completely free for a pass. There are of course some exceptions, as some roles are between certain duties, but you could take those as a rule of thump or a broad idea of how to set up your team duty wise.

yeah, sorry. shouldnt have used shortcuts. Its what @warlocksaid.

One of the Headline features was to create the chaotic of football in the ME and now they went back to tiki-taka for everyone?! What happened?

I usually don’t stay too long at a club anyway, so sometimes I just move on more quickly

Your tactic is very transition heavy. The focus is on quickly creating chances or conceding possession to then win it back quickly in fast cycles and exclusively direct partnerships. PooD and WBIB don’t really fit that style and can’t really „fix the problem“, if there even is one. That style is not bad per se, but that’s the reason for your bad on target / conversion ratio. What you can do is to fully commit to that style and remove PooD and WBIB or pick a more balanced approach between quick transitions and a well thought build up with players overlapping and attacking from different angles and deeper areas. Properbly remove Counter, pass into space and decrease passing directness by one notch. check if BME is really nessecary for both styles, as Attacking mentality already comes with a relative high creative freedom.

Whatever works is right.. Anyway, most likely I‘m making changes to TI‘s and duties. In a very few cases I’ll make changes to the formation and team mentality.

There is no problem with using more than one playmaker if they are spread out by position or duty.

Maybe get a basic tactic and share it here so people can help you improve it. I would start with a high press to make it hard for the opposition to play out from the back and a high tempo to unsettle their defensive block. Using a top heavy or at least balanced formation will be beneficial. Look for a great dispersal of your roles & duties. You want players to create space by using the principles of depth (attack & defend duties / at least move further forward & hold position), width (staying wide, dribbling down the line; your typical wingback or Winger) and attacking movement from different angles by using all 5 channels (wide players cutting inside, central players moving into channels. Make sure tho someone is still attacking the center). Hope that was helpful.

As SI approached to have better match AI, I think they removed formations which performed poorly for AI Managers and weren't played much by Human Managers.

4-2-3-1 is properbly the wrong formation for what you are trying to achieve. However, I would start looking to create a defensively more solid midfield if you want both fullbacks to attack the final third.

I would always suggest to play to your teams strength, as thats a consitancy for familiarity. Only if you feel like its not working ingame vs a specific opponent, then make adjustments.

Try using to Opposition instructions to always trigger press and mark him tightly. If that doesn’t do the trick, it’s not possible without killing your defensive balance. Marking and defensive behavior is down to the ME at least to a very big part.

Properbly come up with some sort of starting point and work from there with the community.

Properbly open a thread then with more detailed information, if ad-hoc adjustments doesn't help. Maybe its something more deep in your tactical setup.

Sometimes the team is just on a bad run. I think you already did the right actions, you could just check however, if there really is enough support around to lay off balls when WBIB. Another thing that can help if you select the match preperation for attacking play as it "boots" (or whatever you wanna call it) your attacking play.