sam.mcwhorter

Thanks for both for reading my madness and getting me out of my own head! Just got my first winger to winger low cross goal (against man city no less), and not perfectly happy with things but we're moving in the right direction. For that specifically it seems the cut inside with ball instruction was really important for the wingers, as they're now receiving the ball with a head start on the fullback and running toward the edge of the penalty area. Now to see how high I can drag my possession statistics!

That's interesting, I'll take a look at what some of those changes do and report back! I'm using the current positions actually more for defense, as I've found a 4-1-4-1 is often a really effective press- it's essentially a 4-3-3 in practice with specific attack/defense structures. Absolutely love the idea of the SV in the middle, and the change off a PF (that's definitely my usual way of doing things getting in the way).

Hi everyone! In advance, sorry for the monologue. I've gotten fairly good at winning in FM, but not with tactics I like. I always end up with really uptempo stuff, or inside forwards running from deep, pressing machines, etc. I'm playing as Spurs in a new playthrough and wanted to do something a bit different. I want to choke the opposition on the edge of their own area for basically the whole game (and score enough for it to not draw or lose to the counter all the time). I've made decent progress, but I'm at a bit of a loss at this point. Against bad teams, we dominate (our avg. possession in our Europa League Group is not where I want it yet, but about 61% on average), although a lot of the goals we score are just "we're better than you" goals (headers from very wide crosses, set pieces, long shots, etc.). Every once in a while we score a maravilloso gol, but not often. Below is the setup I'm currently using, and even against the best teams in the Prem we hold around 50-52% possession with our strange 4-1-4-1, but we create nothing (also, I really want to aim for 70% even in the Prem overall eventually). Here are my concepts: I want my wingers to stretch the opposition, even deep into the final third, my striker to split their centerbacks and push them back, and have my attacking midfielders exploit the gaps in between them. The fullbacks dip into midfield to give me a 2-3-5 formation in attack, and make neat little triangles for circulation. My platonic ideal goal to score is basically (other than the chaos of quick circulation finding a pocket) moving the ball quickly from side to side and then the opposite side winger beating a man and either pulling back to an AM, or finding the ST or W through corridor of uncertainty. Slightly less preferred, and not sure I've seen someone be able to replicate in FM, is the de Bruyne to Sterling goal where a short cross is swung from the edge of the box onto the run of a winger (though in this case, I want my IWB to make this cross). Here is what I don't want, but am getting a lot of: floated crosses from wide, long shots from the edge of the box, a series of really ****** passes that give the opposition the ball. Would love to hear different thoughts/ideas! (Just to be clear, I know I am setting myself a handicap. There are a million easy ways to get this formation to dominate the premier league with worse players, I'm just bored of that. Also, no, the defense is not an issue, though I think it could get better if my players didn't just meander around and then give up and try to chuck a hopeless cross into the box. CBs on stopper to raise their mentality to cautious so they will pass the dreaded halfway line, not sure it's working though.) (Things I've noticed but am not sure are a problem: The striker is always deeper than the other four on average positions, the IWBs still overlap quite a bit which is odd, and often my players will just straight up turn down open passes (specifically to the AMs) who are in the gap between two defenders and could either make a run or draw defensive attention to send another player through)

It was floated in the US as a joint federation league champions cup, not sure where it started or if it got anywhere beyond that. I think they were just going to add the CONCACAF nations into the system and bring in more US money while the USSF attempted to build up the MLS. I'll try to find an article, but I'm a bit too young to remember it as anything other than something I heard on ESPN at the barbershop lol.

Does anyone know of a fantasy Champions League edit based on the early 2010s idea of the North Atlantic Champions League that was floated? It was basically going to be CONCACAF+UEFA, though that really just meant adding the US, Canada, and Mexico. I'm hoping to combine it with owencredible's awesome USA pyramid and take my local team from the bottom step to the champions league. I've tried myself, but when I got to teams that are bumped out of the Champions League dropping into the Europa League equivalent (I think it was going to be called the Atlantica?) my brain broke. Thanks in advance for any help/pointing in the right direction!