ricardomac

I have a question. How do you find players for your teams? Especially when playing in the lower leagues.

Yeah! I probably should be looking at some of my TI's, but since coming back to this system, in the Sporting CP match, I have only lost one. In the penalties, to Paços de Ferreira, for the Portuguese Cup. That kind of sucks.

So, I guess we can say that a simple change of team mentality, adapting it to the current of the match, is enough, I guess. I just beat Sporting CP, 2-0, and only changed my team's mentality. Ok, I'm Benfica, and am a lot better, but that is not the point. I'll keep on going this way and see how the league ends.

I've been too quíte. But now, a something came to my mind. So I decided to create this little thread. Both to seek for help and, hopefuly, to start a discussion. A few years back, I guess it was the 2011 version of the game, I watched a vídeo, made by Uncle Sam, on how he played. His idea was that what you needed to do was, simply addapt your team's mentality acording to the match events. I decided to follow and ended um há vingança lots of success. Lately I read that Cleon does the same thing, sometimes, I guess. I wonder, is it possible to just change your team's mentality, o is the game, these days, só complex that you need a lot more than that? What do you guys think?

You should definitely analyse the Chilean tactic. I might be wrong, but this World Cup is showing a prominence of the 3 at the back tactics, just like yonko pointed out. Chile, when attacking, left 3 man at defence, and when defending, the wide midfielders dropped back to help the CB. I believe Costa Rica, against Uruguay, played a 5 men defence, with the wide men going forward when attacking. I'm starting to believe that every World Cup edition brings new tactics. It's the evolution of the game.

I wasn't going to, but I have to update you on my quest with these tactics. After my last post I decided to start a new save, and as I said I'm too lazy, lately, so I went with the classic version of the game, taking charge, this time around, of Varzim. Varzim are a well known team in Portugal. They have already played the top tier of our football but have been in the II Division (now known as Campeonato Nacional de Seniores) for the last couple of years. In fact, last season they achieved promotion but due to not having money and having a lot of financial problems, they refused to register for the Second League and to keep on playing in the II Division with semi-professional players. So, a good team, but not a great team. First season was a charm. It saw us take 1st place in the 1st phase of the league. In the second phase we got the second place, due to a few bad results here and there, and secure a promotion playoff spot. Playoff we won comfortably. Since in FM you can not refuse to play the professional leagues, on we went to the second league. But it wasn't easy. The new more realistic transfer market makes it a little harder for teams that get to the professional leagues for the first time. And in Portugal, the difference between a team from II Division and Second League is huge. At least is what I've felt, the times I got teams promoted. First season in the Portuguese Second League was consolidation season and went like this: Second season was a different story. I knew I could push for promotion and that was what I told the board. Did we get it? Yes we did. On top of the table. A few signings here and there and we started our first season back at the top tier a little shaky. With three games to go, this is how we stand. To top all this, I am to play the League Cup final against Sporting Lisbon. And to make it even better my complete forward has been one of the top goalscorers of the league in all seasons, being appointed top goalscorer of the portuguese cup in the first season. I ended up having to re-sign him at my second season, because I didn't notice his contract was ending and he got released. Shame on me. He is a player that had scored 17 goals, prior to signing for my team, this is 10 seasons before. In 4 years of playing for me he has 74 goals. His name is Vitor Hugo. The ones playing the portuguese league can take a look at him, he plays for Vizela at the begining of the game. He is not an awesome striker, but he came with me from the lower leagues and is still top of the goalscoring table in the Premier League. I play like this: Silk & Still every time I'm the underdog and Rainmaker every time I'm favorite. Home or away. You don't win all the time, but you win most of the times. And, to end, two very important victories. Against Porto, League Coup group stage first game: And for the league, away at Estádio de Alvalade, against Sporting Lisbon: I'm loving your tactics. So, thanks for the good work.

Yes he is. He is as female as I am Joffrey Baratheon. I've seen it.

What? Cleon is "retiring"? No way! Well thanks for the things I learnt from what you wrote and welcome to the new guys. Who aren't that new, because they have been around for a while.

Hey! Little feedback from this old lurker, occasional poster. A bit of background. Having missed on last year's edition of the game, I decided to take the lazy approach this year, so decided to download a few tactics and see what worked. At my forth season in the game, I took a job at my home town team, recently promoted to the National Seniors Championship (Campeonato Nacional de Seniores) in Portugal. Ermesinde, the team, is a really weak team, with no money and a really low reputation. But, since in my first two seasons I had gotten a modest Operário dos Açores and another recently promoted Campomaiorense teams to the second place in the league (these ones with tactics of mine), I knew I could do something for a team I love. So, about the league. This is the third division of Portuguese football. It is played in two phases, composed of eight groups. Only the two first teams of each group will qualify for the promotion phase. In the first season I used another forum member tactic and got my team safe from relegation and getting the first place of the league, in the Relegation phase. Got the best scorer of the league. Second season, I played the same tactic... 'till halfway through the season. That's when I found Silk & Steel. I finished 4th in the first phase of the league and second in the second phase. I sticked (is this right?) to it and third season was a charm. Halfway through, got V2 running and took second place in the first phase, qualifying for the promotion phase. Second phase saw my team run away with the first place and a place in the Champions Final, which I also won. This season, I'm playing Silk & Steel away, and Rainmaker home, like last season. Home is not going too well, but away is going fine. Although, I'm siting 8th place with a team that has no money to hire players and the highest attribute I can get for the key attributes is 9. I'm playing mostly youngsters and old, decrepit, players that can barely hold the 90 minutes of the match. So I "blame" your tactics for my current success. Thanks. Cheers. P.S.: As I said above, I'm too lazy these days, so there are no pictures.

If I'm not mistaken, and I might be, he will not be as adventurous as he would with an attacking mentality. And even if you change his duty his mentality will always be the same, since ticked orders are not afected by shouts, nor TC changes in duty.

I'm still playing last year's version, 'cause I didn't want to buy the new one (shame on me). But, as I said before, you're threads are an incredible source of information and FM knowledge. Thanks for taking the time to post these things. Cheers.

And suddenly dimartino is back with his strikerless versions of famous forum tactics. Gonna try it.

Yeah, it's helping me to, at least, enjoy the game a lot more. Though I do not win all the games, or almost all, like you do, I enjoy this way much more than just pressing the "continue" button all the time.

I had to post this. Hope it's ok. Playing the game your way, well my way but based on what you do, I have recently had a lot more fun playing and good success. Admiting I used someone else's tactic through the first three seasons of my career, I was getting bored, but it was the simpler way to play since I play most at work (shame on me). Or so I thought. It isn't that hard to play your formations and ideas. In fact, like many of you "gurus" defend, keeping simple will make it more successful. And in fact it did. I reached a 3rd place in China with a reletively weak tianjin team in my first season and the champions league quarter finals in my second, leaving after that and joining Changchun for only 6 games, but with 5 wins and 1 draw, raising from 8th to 6th. But my reason to post in here is this next match. Last (in game) year I took over Algeria. My last match, before this one, saw us beating Russia 1-0 and now I have to face Spain. image host Ok, I know I lost the match and it was a friendly. But i kept Spain away from my goal for most of the time. And they only had one clear cut chance, which was not the play that originated their goal. It was a really awful game from my team, with no beauty at all, but, for most of time, it was effective. I was happy to steal a draw. Unfortunately we lost, but I know I did the right thing and it was fun to watch Spain shooting from range and throwing crosses from one side of the box to the other. I'm getting my fun playing back, thanks to reading your threads and others like you. Thanks Cleon.

I don't want to get in the discussion, or get an infraction. And I might not add relevant stuff to this thread, but I have to write what I'm thinking. I don't know why almost all football players think they are good managers, or why they think that, to be a football manager, you need to have played the game. You don't. All you need is to love the game and study a lot. Football is not all about tactics, in fact I think it has, nowadays, a lot to do with people more than tactics. You need to be a great at human relationships (not in a gay way) and you need to be analytical. Well, in short, you need to be smart and what most players aren't (sorry to those of you who play and don't fit the example) is smart. To the point now. 4-2-3-1 might not be modern. It might not even be great, but it is, these days, the most used formation. Tactics vary, but the formation is the same. And in different variants of the formation. Narrow, with two DMs, a DM and a CM, etc. There are many variants of the 4-2-3-1 formation. Even in the lower leagues, and I'm talking of my Portuguese football, teams are using this formation. And using short passes. Arsenal used it, Spain uses it, Germany, even Jorge Jesus got my Benfica team playing 4-2-3-1 with short passes, and I could keep on going. In FM, unfortunately, you can not command your players to do everything you want. But it is a great tactic to use even though. With the right ballance of roles and duties you can have a solid defensive formation as well as an attacking threat. I used to use a DLP on defend in one of the CM roles and CM on support. The DLP stayed in the hole (at least some of the time) close to my central defenders, both in stopping and covering roles (or duties, I don0t care). And mt AMC sometimes was an Advanced Playmaker, others an Inside Forward, and other a simple AMC. Duties switched as I needed it. My wingers proveded crosses, my Full backs cover from the flanks. I scored plenty and conceded few. All this in FM 2010 and playing a short passing game with lots of pressure and a high defensive line. In the late versions of the game I got back to my beloved 4-4-2 and its variations. But, though it may not be the furture, 4-2-3-1 s a great formation to play. As long as you know what your doing. And yeah, I never played football professionaly, nor even as an amateur. But I know a lot about street football, played at my house door for decades. And I watch a lot of football games. Sorry for entering a stupid discussion. Hope what I wrote about the formation is helpful. And if there are any errors, English is not my language.