[FM20 - Athletic Club - Basque in the Bilbao Sunshine]

On 15/04/2020 at 02:51, rafaelbenitez said:

Does anybody else have trouble filling the staff roles for the B Team and Basconia in the first season? Almost all the applicants are newgens (and pretty crap) but they ask for wages well in excess of the board limits.

Yes except in my case I start the game with the best B Team and U19 staff in both of their respective leagues; the board decides that the staff for both teams is too large and downsizes. Even as I let contracts expire its difficult to bring in quality to offset the lack of quantity due to staff wage restrictions. The board will not entertain my request for expanding staff wage caps (no problems breaking ground on a €9-million youth facility upgrade) and the board blocks the signing of any staff that I can get to agree to a salary under the cap. 

Im curious when you say "applicants", do you place job adverts for youth coaching positions or manually find staff either through recommendation or through a search? If you find a way to fix this issue Id be very interested.

[FM20 - Athletic Club - Basque in the Bilbao Sunshine]

On 29/03/2020 at 08:18, Spenky said:

Hello, thought id give this a go but try something a bit different, as super bored of 4123/ 4231 in my other saves. What do people think of this?  

This looks good! You can also play Iñigo (or Javi if you have him) Martínez as a Libero which can take advantage of some of his less utilized PPMs. Arguably you might be getting slightly better preformance by using 2 BPD instead but it can be a helpful tactical switch depending on how the opposition formation/press. 

If you want to play wingers (Cordoba's talent is a horrible thing to waste) Ive been tinkering with using a "4123" except with the DM role moved back into CB so it forms a back 5 with Raul Garcia playing as a CM(a) and then either a mezzala or AP. 

I am curious though how Beñat preforms as a RPM and how you will replace him once his contract expires/he comes to the end of his career?

 

On 30/03/2020 at 08:57, dothestrand said:

@Spenky Athletic Club have played with three at the back this season quite a bit too, though not sure it really worked that well. 

They did for a spell and I think it worked somewhat (notably against Barcelona in the cup) mainly because Athletic's fullbacks have been excellent this season but over time it just failed to get results/wasnt developed enough to be a consistent tactic so they reverted back to the traditional 433/4231.

[FM20 - Athletic Club - Basque in the Bilbao Sunshine]

On 07/03/2020 at 04:24, TOMetz said:

This is very interesting. I just can't seem to get Raul Garcia to work, on any position. He gets frequent touches during games but doesn't make any game-changing plays. Shame of his insane attribute spread. I absolutely love this guy, also IRL, but with an average of 6.64, I just can't be happy.

Apologies for incredibly belated response and for the wall of text.

So this is my 3rd Bilbao save and the first one where I feel like I actually am getting results from him. Because he is so unique I think its really easy to misunderstand him and difficult to get good results out of him - The temptation is to play him at AM or SS basically use him as focal point for your attack. Simply put, he just isn't that good there or at least not consistently good. He tends to move into positions where he can't get a shot off and he isnt quick enough to lose a defender. I had some success playing him as an AP(s) which despite its hard coded "shoot less often" instruction saw him score far more than when I played him as a AM(A) all of a sudden though he just stopped scoring and had a string of abysmal games. 

What I found is that his lack of speed was the key to getting him to preform, he is the ultimate negative player. Instead of using him to link my attack and score goals I used him to nullify the opposition. He is an absolute nightmare for defenses which rely on a DLP to transition the ball. The trick to using him is to identify the the most essential player to the opposition buildup and move Garcia into a position where he can mark that player out of the game.  I tend to identify  and select the guy they want to get the ball to or the guy who dictates their play, Normally when you select a negative player the trade off is that they will be too deep to assist with the attack or that they tend to be weaker with the ball, in addition you cannot usually play these defensive players in the AM strata. Rulo is the exception. He is intelligent enough to find positions off the ball to recieve the pass and strong enough to keep hold of it. Even when he is staying next to his marker he rarely loses the ball and can frequently find a positive pass centrally or into a overlapping fullback (usually Capa) His combination of "shoots with power" longshots, and finishing stats sees him score some phenomenal golazos from range. While his defensive stats do have some issues his other stats usually make up for it: i.e marking is weak but decisions, workrate, and positioning make up for it, he's not the best jumper but he is fairly tall and his heading is excellent, etc. While he tends to work best against big teams (ATM, Real, Barca) marking players like Rakatic or Koke (or Griezmann in combination with Capa as I outlined above). He can absolutely help you to lessen defeats and even scrape out essential draws and wins agains the big 3 that you absolutely NEED when playing Athletic Club. Using him in this way he usually manages to get a 7.2-7.4 player rating without scoring/assisting.

TLDR: he has enough composite stats that he tends to win defensive battles when played against other midfielders and he has enough intelligence to make the correct decision in any given play. Place him so that he is next to the opposition's most essential player, select "Mark specific player" in the player instructions, and watch him rack up tackles and ruin that player's time on the ball. Think of him as a Defensive Advanced Playmaker.

[FM20 - Athletic Club - Basque in the Bilbao Sunshine]

Just wanted to write a post in deep appreciation of Raul Garcia and how wonderfully unique of a player he is. I will be incredibly sad when SI neuter him in coming editions as they did with Muniain and Mikel San Jose in FM2020

I just played at home against Barcelona. Barca lined up in their usual 433 - It was their strongest lineup featuring Griezmann Suarez Messi playing left to right. Their midfield consisted of Rakatic Busquets and Arthur again from left to right. 

I opted for a 532 with counter attacking instructions. Aduriz playing TM(s) with Williams tucked behind as SS and Muniain playing as a attacking mezzala With Raul Garcia playing advanced playmaker. Early on in the match I got ahead by means of a successful counter with Williams actually managing to convert a chance for once. From there I made the decision to try to maintain possession and frustrate Barca. Since the AI was playing Messi deep and in the channel between my strongest wingback -there was nobody really for him to pass it to. I opted to employ Raul Garcia to man mark Griezmann just on gut instinct. This more of less changed the entire game for me. One or both of Ander Capa or Rulo managed to keep Barcelona's #7 marked while the other would pick up late runs of Jordi Alba - While this gave Rakatic loads of space, he would rarely dribble with it and would cycle the ball between Jordi Alba. The Croatian was too intelligent to make a wasteful pass that would be intercepted, but also had no idea where or who to pass the ball to - usually to Jordi Alba who would make a unsuccessful run or pass back to the centerbacks. Raul Garcia and Ander Capa managed to shut down Barcelona's entire left flank and more or less neutralized Messi in the process since the front 3 had an impossible time connecting. I rarely played him anywhere but the AM strata or with a free role but since San Jose has gotten nerfed hes the last of Atleti's total midfielders. I love his shithousery.