dubbed5

The new update is out, but it seems there are no fixes or improvements for the match engine (ME).

I really miss the timeline in the newer games. It was so convenient and useful. Found this vote here, about 70% want to have it back, while 18% want to have it but only after the match... Probably SI wanted the match day experience to be more realistic. But at least, we should have the timeline after the match, when watching and analyzing the replay.

Looks cool. I got FM 17 btw, and did a quick test. I set up a very defensive low block tactic using the 10th predicted PL team: I simulated until the end of the year, just to see how many goals the team would concede. Games (before being sacked): 19 Conceded: 22 Clean sheets: 10 Looks fine, better than conceding ~3 goals/game with a low block like in FM24. Will do a save later, but now I'm having a blast with FM 13, doing an Atleti 2015/16 challenge where they conceded only 18 goals. Mostly, I use this 4-1-4-1 setup, but sometimes I switch to a more defensive tactic in tough games or when I want to secure a lead. A rough start, but now we are doing very well. It's still early in the season, but our defense is very solid. However, we need to score more. Selling Falcao to Arsenal was a big mistake. I couldn't find a good replacement in time, so now I'm stuck with Costa as my only striker. Hopefully, he won't get injured before the next transfer window. Results seem more realistic, unlike in FM24, where even when playing defensively, you often see scores like 5-2 or 4-3. Bielsa's Athletic pressed hard and won the possession battle, but they couldn't break through our defense. Barca dominated us as expected, even without Messi who was injured. Real Sociedad had a great start with an on-form Griezmann, so I tried some mind games before our match. I called the press and praised Griezmann, highlighting him as Sociedad's main threat, you know just to put pressure on him. It worked. He didn't like being in the spotlight, and his morale dropped from good to okay. I also told my boys pre-match to go hard on him. He had a very quiet game and got injured at minute 37 by my DM's tackle. Sorry, Griezmann, nothing personal. Karma, though... Koke and Arda Turan got injured on our side. Sweet victory anyway.

Thanks for the recommendations, guys. Getting older FMs is so tough. I wish I could buy them on Steam. There are shady marketplaces like G2A selling Steam keys, but the prices can be outrageous. A global Steam key for FM 15 is $300+. Who would pay that much?

Irl teams employ low block often, for example when facing stronger opponents, securing a lead, or managing fatigue by dropping deeper and applying less pressing. It provides a compact and solid defensive structure that's hard to break down. Sometime even top teams like Real Madrid sit deeper and play more cautious. In FM, it's kind of upside down. See this FM Arena testing: Play a low block, and you will concede like crazy. Even a standard block is considerably worse than a high block. You must crank up that trigger press to "much more often." It's unrealistic and boring, as you don't have any tactical freedom. So, FM says that if you are an underdog and want to minimize the risk of conceding, you must play like this:

Of course you can compare. It's not like they totally rebuilt the engine from scratch, they just changed the menu from sliders to a more realistic text-based system. High-tempo pressing has been around for a long time. Klopp was influenced by managers like Ralf Rangnick and Arrigo Sacchi. Gegenpressing became very popular after Dortmund won the Bundesliga in 2011 and 2012. That time, Pep's Barca was also well-known for their high pressing. Is it more popular nowadays than 10 years ago? Yep. Is it some magic op formula, like it is in FM24? Nope. Even SI acknowledged that gegenpressing is op, but still haven't balanced things out. Btw the new patch will come in a few weeks, right?

Very good point, I fully agree. It's a tough and demanding style, both physically and mentally. You need stamina, fitness, concentration, and tactical understanding. Playing like this requires a great team and lots of practice. Fatigue and injuries are big issues during the season. Press too much, and you're out of position, giving the opposition a chance to exploit. It needs to be executed properly to avoid leaving the team vulnerable to counter-attacks. It can be very effective, but it's tricky, risky tactic, and has its own downsides. However, in FM24 we don't have any of these drawbacks. It's the holy grail that works for any team, even relegation sides. "FM24’s ME reflects that tactical dominance, which is in one way a shame but in another at least true to real life." I disagree with this. I don't see that tactical dominance in real life. For example, as @akkm pointed out, when Klopp's Pool faced Real Madrid, they lost every single time. Liverpool's success was also greatly propelled by substantial spending. Before signing world-class players, they finished around 4th or worse, with a big gap of around 20 points behind the champion team. "Football in 2024 is not the same as 2013. Gegenpress wasn’t a thing then." Klopp won the Bundesliga with Dortmund in 2011 and 2012. That's when gegenpressing became a buzzword.

Very true. How would Klopp's gegenpressing perform if he's managing a team like Luton or Sheffield, without the luxury of one of the strongest squads in the league? Many people seem to have forgotten that he didn't bring immediate success to Liverpool. 2015/16 - 8th (21 points behind Leicester) 2016/17 - 4th (17 points behind Conte's Chelsea) 2017/18 - 4th (25 points behind City; Mourinho did better with Man Utd, finishing 2nd) It took Klopp 3 years to put together a real title challenger team. Let's look at some of the most important signings: 2016 - Mané (€41), Wijnaldum (€27.5m) 2017 - Salah (€42m), Oxlade-Chamberlain (€38m), van Dijk (€84m - joined 2018 Jan) 2018 - Alisson (€62m), Keita (€60m), Fabinho (€45m), Shaqiri (€14.7m) After spending €400m+ in 3 years, Klopp started to win trophies: 2019 - Champions League 2020 - Premier League

I downloaded one of those top tactics to check how it performs with Luton (predicted to finish 20th). A crazy, reckless tactic that shouldn't work with the weakest team in the league. Maximum intensity, ultra-hard pressing for 90 minutes. Attacking mentality, a very high defensive line and hard tackling. Match engine loves it though: Jacob Brown scored more than Haaland and Ross Barkley is the league's best player. Bell has the 2nd highest assist count. This maestro... Setting up a similar tactic in FM 13 with the 20th predicted team. Seems way more realistic. Adopting a more cautious tactical approach, as opposed to an all-out attacking, high-pressing one, used to yield better results for underdog teams.

Some people look at it in black and white, that you either press like Liverpool or stand still and do nothing. Football is not like that. Of course, all of the teams press. Even Mourinho's teams do press. But differently, and not as much as Klopp's teams. For example, Simeone's Atletico Madrid is known for their disciplined and organized defensive structure. They do press, but their approach is not as immediate or intense as gegenpressing. They prioritize defensive shape and defend in a more compact and structured manner. They force opponents into less dangerous areas and then capitalize on turnovers. It's very different than the immediate, all-out press seen in gegenpressing. No, I'm not saying that I wanna park the bus in every single game for 90 mins. Nobody does that, not even Mourinho. But I do want a balanced ME where I can play defensive when I want to. And it's a fact that modern FMs favor gegenpressing. Also, someone earlier said that playing defensive in modern football would be suicide. This is just simply not true. Tell that to Mourinho, Simeone, Allegri, or Conte... Mourinho won way more trophies than Klopp. Football is so complex; it's not just about scoring goals and chasing the ball. We have FIFA for that...

Great idea. Or what about this one?

Somebody mentioned that SI acknowledged gegenpressing is currently overpowered and promised they would balance it, which, unfortunately, never happened. And just because it's a popular style nowadays doesn't mean they have to make it op. In the early 2010s, Barcelona/Spain's tiki-taka craze was at its peak, yet they didn't make that tactical style op in older FMs. I did some tiki-taka saves in FM 13, and it was actually one of the harder styles to pull off as you needed a very good squad with great mental and technical attributes. It was all fine and realistic because you can't expect a 3rd division team to play like prime Barca, right? If you had the right players, a slow-tempo tiki-taka worked well in FM 13, but it was a bad choice for a mid-level team or a lower-division team. Gegenpressing is also a challenging tactical style; not every team can replicate Guardiola's or Klopp's formula. However, in Gegenpress Manager 24, you can pick a random low division team and win trophies easily. You can go all out attacking, press non-stop for 90+ minutes, and dominate even stronger teams. It's nonsense. Besides, it's not some new holy grail tactic; we've seen very similar approaches in the past (Milan under Arrigo Sacchi, for example).

Congrats. Few weeks ago I won the Eredivisie with Vitesse (predicted to finish 9th or 10th?) with minimal signings. I also used the balanced mentality often (had 2 tactics, an attacking and a balanced one). And I used high pressing and tempo, as that's what the game forces us to do if we want to overachieve. Balanced, positive and attacking mentalities are all fine, and it seems like the defensive line instruction doesn't have much impact, according to FM Arena tests. Counter-pressing is also mostly cosmetic, with no noticeable difference between 'on' or 'off.' However, high pressing and high tempo are the two most imbalanced and broken tactical instructions. You can even get away with using the underpowered defensive mentality as long as you maintain high pressing and high tempo. The difference is night and day. Look at this, at first it might seem like a defensive tactic, but don't let the formation and mentality fool you. It's actually just another gegenpressing approach, using high tempo and 'much more' pressing: It performed reasonably well, not as good as when combined with a balanced, positive or attacking mentality, but still not bad: Now, let's reload to pre-season and change only two things: set tempo to lower and pressing to less often: Now it's a total disaster; notice by the end of November, West Ham is 18th: Sacked, without even a 'Goodbye': Btw, this guy whom I signed for dirt cheap in my Vitesse save turned out to be one of my key players for the season, averaging 7.47 in the league if I remember correctly: Terrible mental and poor technical attributes? Who cares; look at that acceleration and pace – that's what the ME cares about the most. Average stamina, and he gets spooked by his own shadow, but he can still press hard for 90 minutes every game. It's crazy that players/teams with poor attributes can play like Man City or Liverpool, and you don't have to worry too much about fatigue or injuries either. On the other hand, even with world-class defenders and midfielders, you still can't park the bus or play very defensively. Just a tip for a more suitable title:

I reinstalled FM13 and did a quick testing. I picked the team predicted to finish 10th in the PL, Aston Villa. I set up a simple 4-1-4-1 defensive tactic: -Defensive mentality, rigid philosophy -Deep defensive line, hold position, stand off (no pressing) -More direct passing, slow tempo, counter attack on Holidayed until end of the year, ticking on "use current tactic". The team sat at a decent 7th place: As you would expect from such a tactic, they had solid, reliable defense. And they didn't score much (besides 2 lucky games against Reading and Q.P.R.). FM13 felt like a tactical simulator, with balanced tactical styles. It was all logical. Basically, ANY tactical style worked as long as you had the right players. You could replicate almost any team's playing style. I jumped back to FM24, using the same tactic with the 10th predicted PL team, West Ham. Well, by the time I came back from my 6-month-long Hawaiian vacation, I was already sacked: Notice zero clean sheets in the PL, often conceding 3-4 goals. Okay, I decided to start a new save and test one of the official preset tactics. These were made by SI games; surely they know what they are doing. I picked the catenaccio, as I loved playing that style in FM13: Logic would tell us that playing such a compact defensive formation, with defensive mentality will result in good defense. Well, FM24 match engine disagrees: Actually I was sacked earlier this time. Look at those results, 0-4, 1-4, 0-4, 0-3. Oh my... I was curious what happens if I use the mighty gegenpressing tactic with the same team: Surprise, surprise, not only did I still have a job by the end of the year, but West Ham actually overachieved: The funny thing is, even though playing a high tempo, high d-line attacking football as a mid-level team, they had a very solid defense: Playing on defensive mentality and slow tempo is suicide in FM24. Basically, sitting back and absorbing pressure doesn't work anymore. The match engine is seriously unbalanced. Use high tempo, pressing, balanced/positive/attacking mentality and you will overachieve. Try anything else, and it's a struggle. The guys at fm-arena did tons of testing, millions of simulated games in fair testing league. The results are really eye-opening.

Yes, in FM13 I LOVED playing with defensive tactics, with either "counter" or "defensive" mentality. But in FM24 I failed with all my saves trying to do that. Then I read around, and people say gegenpressing with balanced, positive or attacking mentality is the only way that really works. I started a new save with FC Twente using the standard gegenpressing tactic, without changing anything. No new signings. In January, we were sitting 2nd in the league, 1 point below Feyenoord. We even beat Ajax, and only lost 0-1 to Feyenoord. In the European Conference League, we finished 1st place in the group. It was so easy that I stopped playing this save. There is testing about mentalities on fm-arena, simulating thousands of matches in testing leagues, and it verifies this. Cautious, defensive, and very defensive mentalities unfortunately don't perform well in newer FMs.