[Defence-First Football Tactics]

Am 5.1.2024 um 17:45 schrieb srtbkr:

Thank you for your thread. I played with your tactics (or at least very similar) a season in League One: Invincible, most goals scored, least conceded. As a disclaimer: Media expectation was finishing first, on the other hand my squad isn’t perfect for this style (not good technically and tend to press quite a lot). Also “Pass into space” helped me playing lower league.

Same team, now in 2nd devision: Media expectation 22. Bit harsh… Finished first (well it was the only day we were on top, but there is no better day for that). Still the narrow diamond of @crusadertsar, very little tweaks. 

[Defence-First Football Tactics]

Am 29.12.2023 um 18:31 schrieb crusadertsar:

End of Season 2 Update: Continuing with Narrow Diamond Tactic

Hopefully everyone is having a very nice holiday period  I thought I would give you guys a little summary of how my team improved tactically after the end of 2nd full season. Just below you can see my team stats from last season. I mainly used my initial 4411tactic for the majority of the games in that season. Our defensive stats were very good as expected with Defence-First focus. But offensive ones such as goals scored and number of points (especially wins) we got in the season definitely left something to be desired.

Now below our current, almost a year later, stats present an interesting picture, both very similar and at the same different from last season. Despite the switch to a more top-heavy and risky 4-4-2 Narrow Diamond tactic, our defensive solidity remained largely unchanged. We conceded 2 more goals but still maintained same spectacular record in number of yellow (15) and red (none!) cards received. Discipline is definitely not an issue with this squad. Our 1st choice keeper Alex Remiro played a big part in maintaining this defensive record. In his 30 LaLiga appearances he only conceeded 24 times and racked up an impressive 18 clean sheets. It was also the season when he won World Goalkeeper of the Year award for the first time in his career. 

But as impressive as our defensive record has been, it's attacking output that I'm most impressed with. Our top striker Sadiq almost doubled his goal output in the same number of games! Overall, the team scored 10 more goals than last year and more importantly won 8 more league games. Despite this, we could not improve on last season's 3rd place finish. But that speaks more for the quality of competition in LaLiga rather than failings on our part. Funnily enough, our 84 points in this season would have probably won us the league title in previous season where Barcelona won it with the same amount (and less goals scored). 

I feel like after this sophomore season with Real Socieadad, I finally settled on a tactic that is very well balanced in both defence and attack. And despite the name of this thread, that is the ultimate aim of my tactical system. It is not to neglect offence in favour of defence. Rather by keeping strong attack, your players will have an easier time defending. But if you sit back passively near your own goal you will be letting opposition a free reign to bombard you with shots. At the same time I am not preaching high pressing attacking game here. Rather I just want my players to be very difficult to break down in our own half by maintaining a rather aggressive midblock. And use it as a solid platform to launch fluid counters into the opposition half. 

In this update, I hope to cast a bit more light on how my tactical change allowed the team to be more dangerous in offence while maintaining same solid defence. Hopefully this will aid you in your own tactical endeavors in FM24. So without further ado, I will try to show what I do to help my teams to score more goals in FM24. I generally follow 2 simple rules:

 

1) Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One-Basket

I see the following question asked often on the SI’s Football Manager forum. How can I make this player into my primary goal-scorer? Or how can I get my central striker to score more goals? Or any number of the variations on the same theme. I think that no matter which answer you choose, it will always be wrong. Simply because the original question is wrong. If you want long-term success in FM24 you should not be asking how to get a specific player to score more goals but instead how to get your whole team to score more goals. Tactics are best when they are designed with multiple avenues to goals. The more the better.

For example in this tactic, the goal-scoring responsibility is shared between Advanced Forward, Pressing Forward, Shadow Striker and, to a lesser degree, Mezzala. Also, dur to the variety of roles, we can also inject variety in the types of goals they can score. In AF role you can slot your tall target-forward-type striker. So he can take advantage of all the crosses coming from your wide players. He is the most forward of your attackers and thus a big header threat for the opposition. The Mezzala role is where you can place your longshooting expert. He can arrive late into the penalty area and finish off any chances created by the more advance players. On the other hand, the Shadow Striker role is best used by an intelligent player with exceptional Off-the-ball and other mental attributes, such as anticipation and work rate (good to have but not necessary). He will act as another deeper threat by finding open spaces not already used by your other attackers or opposition defenders. Thus these three modes of attack ensure that your opponent is constantly dealing with goals-scoring threats. They cannot become too complacent in their defending. Any lapse in concentration (or eventual fatigue, especially given how strong AI teams tend to play) will give you a chance to go one goal up. And if the opposition tries to close down any one attacking player, there will be at least two others that are unmarked.

Using different roles for your attacking players also ensures that they are occupying and moving into different spaces on the pitch. I am a big fan of organizing three-pronged attacking formations. You might remember me writing quite a bit on this in FM22 and FM23 (specifically in context of 433 formation).

But 442 Narrow Diamond could also offer a three pronged attack potential. Why am I obsessed with having three attackers you might ask? Well, in any tactical system, irrespective of the actual formation, I like to have mu attacking players occupying each of the two half-spaces as well as the central space.

2) Good Goalscorers Must Be Fed By Good Supporters

They might be very tempting to use but tactics which are filled with attack duties, are not that good at creating goals. My one rule of thumb for crafting balanced tactics, is that for each Attack duty you employ you must have at least two players on Support duty in close proximity. Not only can you ensure that your attacking players get sufficient support but this can also lead to creation of passing triangles on the pitch. Some formations such as 4-3-3 are especially conductive to this type of build-up.

Just as you want variety in attack, and in goals scored, you want your support to come in varied forms. For best results, your attackers should be receiving all kinds of assists from crosses, short passes, lay-offs and long through balls.

I am not going to bore you on going into more detail here because it should be rather self-explanatory. If you take a look at my tactic above you could probably guess which roles would provide which kind of support. Such as fullbacks/wingbacks giving crosses or attacking midfielder - one-two passes. Also note the positioning of my attack and support duty roles and see how they are located in proximity to each other. This is most definitely not random. 

A little detail to note here is that I usually instruct my Mezzala to take more risks and to run wide with the ball. The aim is to have him act as creative "needle" player providing both long-pass and short passing (combined with dribbling) support to our attackers. In terms of other important individual instructions, Shadow Striker is told to "stay wider" while Carrilero is instructed to "tackle harder". No other individual instructions or opposition instructions are used. 

Thank you for your thread. I played with your tactics (or at least very similar) a season in League One: Invincible, most goals scored, least conceded. As a disclaimer: Media expectation was finishing first, on the other hand my squad isn’t perfect for this style (not good technically and tend to press quite a lot). Also “Pass into space” helped me playing lower league.

[FM24 Performance Benchmarking Thread]

My try:

Type: Laptop

Model: Macbook Pro 14 inch

CPU Model: M3 Max, 16 core

CPU Base Frequency: ?

CPU Turbo Frequency: ?

RAM: 48GB

RAM Clockspeed: ?

GPU: M3 Max, 40 core

Graphics Level in 3D: Very High

 

Benchmark 1 FM24: 00 min 31 Sec

 

Benchmark 2 FM24: 01 min 02 Sec

 

Benchmark 3 FM24: 02 min 38 Sec

 

Benchmark 4 FM24: 08 min 01 Sec

Fans can get noisy.
Edit: I dunno why benchmarks 3 and 4 are slightly faster than @stevemc usually the 16inch one is able to work a little bit longer on high power.