ZaZ

High defensive line makes you vulnerable to long balls and Drop Off More makes sure players try to cover against those situations. In the end, it gave better results in my experiments.

As long as you are also using the automatic rest, then you can safely ignore their complaints.

Thank you for testing!

Water is a high intensity defensive tactic based on Fire, but with wingers and attacking midfielder dropped to a deeper position. For tips and extra information, check the Fire thread. When in possession, inverted wingbacks cut inside to become midfielders while both volantes will infiltrate through the middle and cause confusion. The tactic scores goals from inside the box and distributes them evenly between advanced forwards, with assists distributed evenly between middle and flanks. You should use Water Light when you want to rest your players and avoid bookings, thinking about the rest of the season. I recommend using it anytime you think a match is under control, like two or three goals of difference. If your aim is to hold a score, just set mentality from Water to Cautious instead. Leave a comment below if you liked the tactic and make sure to share your results. Enjoy! ZaZ - Water 1.0 Light.fmf ZaZ - Water 1.0.fmf

Fire 1.0 is Fire 0.3. The difference is just because 0.3 was the beta name, but since the game will be released tomorrow and I am not going to change, I decided to make it 1.0. About training schedule, you should use it on both youth and U21, and remember to also set up your coach assignments.

Click on the first "Reveal Hidden Contents".

I was comparing Fire 1.0 to Blue 4.0. Fire has way higher dribbles per game and interceptions, and smaller pass accuracy, clearances and tackle won rate. That might be evidence that players retain better the ball and intercept better, which could benefit tactics based on individuality of players.

Set Pieces

Instructions

Fire is a high intensity tactic based on the successful Blue 4.0 from FM22. When in possession, inverted wingbacks cut inside to become midfielders while shadow striker becomes a third striker. Roaming playmaker is one of the most important players, covering the entire midfield to offer a short option for passing. The tactic scores goals from inside the box and distributes them evenly between advanced forwards and shadow striker, with assists distributed evenly between middle and flanks. Use Focus Play Down the Left/Right whenever you have an advantage on that side (when your opponent has a weakness on that side, or when one of your flanks is clearly stronger than the other). Do not use Focus Play Through The Middle, as it does not give any benefit even when your opponent has a weak midfield. You should use Fire Light when you want to rest your players and avoid bookings, thinking about the rest of the season. I recommend using it anytime you think a match is under control, like two or three goals of difference. If your aim is to hold a score, just set mentality from Fire to Cautious instead. Until further testing, I assume most findings from FM22 are still valid. Instructions Check next post for screenshots of instructions for team and players. Set Pieces Takers should be the best available. For throw ins, give preference to wingbacks of respective side, and for corners, give preference to wingers of respective side (unless someone has way higher corners, then leave it to better taker). Check next post for screenshots of set pieces. Training After some experimentation with training, I found the training schedule below to be the most efficient for player growth (for the whole year, including pre-season). Set players to rest automatically when condition is not excellent. The schedule is attached to this post. (Credits to Max for testing the effects of each individual training session.) For additional focus, goalkeepers train reactions, wing backs and defensive midfielders train endurance, and all other players train quickness. Keep in mind that some players might be unhappy with the training schedule, complaining of lack of technical training, excess of quickness or something like that. Just ignore them! Important Attributes GK: Agility, Reflexes, Strength, Acceleration DC: Acceleration, Pace, Composure, Jumping Reach WB: Stamina, Acceleration, Work Rate, Pace DM: Work Rate, Stamina, Pace, Acceleration AM: Acceleration, Pace, Stamina, Work Rate W: Acceleration, Pace, Stamina, Work Rate ST: Acceleration, Finishing, Dribbling, Pace Suggested Players --- Preferred Foot Difference is minimal even for wing backs or wingers. Role Ability Ignore role ability, or the stars showing how good a player is in his role. It is just cosmetic, showing the opinion of your assistant manager based on current ability and the role attributes. It is always going to be low for IWB using the same foot as side, despite making no difference in performance. In the end, what really matters is position rating, which should be at least accomplished (dark green). Remember, the important attributes are not the ones highlighted in a player's role, but those that actually affect performance. Player Traits Use player traits that promote player instructions. For example, if a role has "Move Into Channels", consider getting the trait with the same name. Avoid getting contradicting traits, like "Stays Back At All Times" or "Comes Deep To Get Ball" for players with the instruction "Get Further Forward". Traits without corresponding instructions, like "Plays One-Twos", are optional and should use common sense based on player attributes. Opposition Instructions Empty. Change if you know what you are doing, but don't listen to your assistant manager. Squad Management To be successful in football manager, you need to manage your team's playing time, which affects happiness, match sharpness, fatigue (can only see with sports scientist) and condition. Manage happiness and sharpness by making sure each player is getting enough minutes, and fatigue and condition by avoiding giving more minutes per week than they should play. Note that you can use friendlies and reserve matches to keep players sharp, but those matches have no effect on happiness. My suggestion to manage the squad properly is to add two columns to selection info: "fitness and injuries > fatigue" and "stats (general) > general > games missed in a row". You can do that by right clicking any column name in squad screen, e.g., name, position, and selecting insert column. Make sure you don't use players with high fatigue and don't let any player reach too many games missed in a row (between 3 to 5 depending on your squad size). To keep players fresh during the season and avoid injuries, I also recommend setting automatic training intensity to rest all players below excellent condition, as in the picture under "Training" section. Morale is another characteristic that needs management. The easiest way to increase morale is by winning, but you can also praise last (official) match, recent form (last 5 games) and training level, as well as criticize the same things. For last match and training level, threshold rating for increasing morale is 8.05+ for praising and 6.3- for warning. For recent form, you can safely praise anyone with rating 7.5+. Finally, you also need to manage complacency and anxiety. Do that through team talks and shouts. The effect is based on players' hidden status and match odds, but some talks and shouts are usually more positive than others. For example, praising a winning team with shouts usually gives a positive response, as well as encouraging your team when not winning (losing or tie). For team talk, I usually prefer to relieve pressure by telling them to play their natural game, then tell them individually that I have faith in them. At half time, I praise them if winning by at least two goals, otherwise I tell them I'm not happy. After match, I praise them for victories, tell them I'm unhappy when we don't win and sometimes warn against complacency after big wins. Keep in mind that you should be a little lighter with your team when playing against stronger opponents. If one of your players gets a yellow card during a match, it might be a good idea to change his player's instruction to Ease Off Tackles to avoid being sent off. To do so, click on the player card by the bottom of match view, then click player instructions. You can also do the same for exhausted players if you run out of subs, as well as reducing his individual pressing trigger, to avoid injuries. Bad Results It's very common for some people to have a series of poor results during a season and think the tactic stopped working. Below are ten reasons your team might stop winning for a while. 1. Complacency: When a team wins too much, players take victories for granted, not giving their best. To avoid that, you must motivate them with team talk, shouts and media handling. 2. Pressure: When playing against stronger teams, your players might feel pressured and perform worse. To avoid that, you need to relieve pressure on team talk, shouts and media handling. 3. Fatigue: When a player has high match and training loads, he builds fatigue. It's not the same of condition or match fitness and you need a sports scientist to see it in the medical centre. To avoid that, you need to rest from training and rotate your squad. 4. Morale: When you lose matches or certain events happen (like player getting unhappy), players lose morale. It is one thing that affects performance a lot, so it can create a bad spiral if not managed properly. To avoid that, praise and warn players based on last match score, form (last 5 matches) and training. You can also increase morale with team talk after matches, team meetings and other forms of interaction. 5. Poor form of players: Sometimes, strikers can get into a poor form that lasts a long time, like ten matches without scoring or more. I am not sure if there is an internal mechanic for that, but it certainly happens fairly often. If both your strikers get into poor form at once, it can get really hard to win matches. To avoid that, I believe you need to score to avoid the poor form, but it might also be just RNG. 6. Injuries: It is fairly common to have injuries by the mid of season, forcing you to use worse players or play in lower condition. To avoid that, you need good physios, lighter training during season, rest and rotate players. 7. Condition: By the middle of season, you usually have several championships being played at once, forcing you to play 2 or 3 matches a week for several weeks in a row. That can force you to rotate to players of lower quality or use players with lower condition. To avoid that, you need to rest players from training and build a balanced squad to rotate. 8. Match fitness: Injuries and lack of rotation can make your players lack match fitness, decreasing their performance. That can cause your team to suffer when you are forced to rotate because of injuries or tight schedule. To avoid that, either rotate your squad or use those players in reserve friendlies. 9. Hidden attributes: There are hidden attributes like consistency and important matches that make your players not have maximum performance during some matches. There are other attributes like injury proneness and dirtiness which can harm your chances of winning some matches. You cannot avoid that unless you hire players with better hidden attributes. 10. RNG (or randomness): Sometimes, your luck is just bad during certain matches. There is no way to avoid that, just keep playing and results should normalize eventually. Changelog --- Leave a comment below if you liked the tactic and make sure to share your results. Enjoy! ZaZ - Training.fmf ZaZ - Fire 1.0 Light.fmf ZaZ - Fire 1.0.fmf

I'll try to get some defensive solution later, but right now I'm just testing how to optimize this.

Just updating with my best version to the moment. ZaZ - Fire 0.3.fmf

It only happened once, right after game crashed. I relaunched the game, and avatar was black. (P.S.: Next time I launched the game after, it was fixed, just to be clear.)

Found a slight improvement to Fire (former Blue). It seems as strong as in FM22. ZaZ - Fire 0.2.fmf

Here are some results with Blue 4.0 from FM22. I have decided to rename it to Fire for FM23, to avoid confusing players from FM22.

I am showing the minimal requirements to be a top coach, but you can have lots more points if you choose to play with top badge and experience level. Keep in mind that coaching attributes are only useful for training, and usually you will train only a single category to maximize your rating. That means you choose either tactical or technical, and one of attacking, defending and mental. Those two attributes (in any combination) will give your rating of training, together with Determination, Motivation and Level of Discipline. The other option is to be a GK coach, or a Fitness coach, but like I said before, those two roles allow training all teams (including youth), so it's better to leave them for other staff members.

Here are the initial versions of Blue 4.0 and Green 5.0, converted to FM23. I'm currently testing the new instructions from out of possession to see how they perform. ZaZ - Blue 0.1.fmf ZaZ - Green 0.1.fmf

Welcome to ZaZ FC! It's great to have you here. As your guide, I'm responsible for your induction program, explaining the culture of our club, and how you can achieve maximum performance here. Below is the type of manager I expect you to be. - Determination: Get what you want from board. - People Management: Increase morale with praise / warn. - Level Discipline: Less unhappy players. - Motivating: Team talks and shouts. - Training: Any 5 star and Working With Youngsters. For training, I prefer if you avoid GK training and Fitness, because coaches for those positions can also train youth and reserve teams. Having you as a coach for Attacking, Defending and Mental can potentially give us one extra coach for youth and reserve teams.

Nevermind, it was only blocked in the exact same day I got promoted. In that picture, it was blocked because of contract length.

It's very easy to reproduce and often happens after injuries. It usually happens more with players training a different position than they are playing.

It happens during normal play, several times during the season.

This one is not so hard to reproduce. Just start a game, set all players to train the same role under individual training, like IF-At (L), then go on vacation for a while. When you come back, part of the players will not be training for the position anymore, but instead set to default. In the picture below, Liam MacAlinden was training as IF-At (L), but the game has reset his training to AM (R).