MBarbaric

Brazilian football is far more dynamic compared to European. There are more players moving clubs, more transfers, higher variety of transfers, especially loans... It seems to me like half of the teams change 50% of their squad between seasons. Plus, there is a huge drain of players towards Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Might be wrong on these, it is only my impression after two years following only the top league. Hope @PMLF can provide more competent insight.

deep/medium/high block is generally used to describe where the defending team starts to defend actively. When they engage in closing down, pressing... In high block, a team has high defensive line and is very aggressive in order to get in possession. Used when the team is losing and needs to take risks, when the team tries to intimidate the opposition... In deep block, a team has their defensive line deep (closer to the edge of their box). Usually avoids high press (unless in pressing traps), and preferes to keep their shape letting the opposition make a mistake instead of actively looking to provoke a mistake. Think of France in WC final against Croatia. In medium block, you can combine both these features. Think of Croatia in that same final. However, each team usually uses all three blocks during a match and it is only roughly describing where the team generally starts to engage the opposition. (i.e. Croatia-medium/high; France-medium/deep) What you are describing here is vertical compactness of the defensive unit. It is not strictly connected with the nature of the block. However, if you play in deep block, the distance between lines is naturally shorter as you try to deny space to the opposition. In high block, distances between lines tend to be bigger, especially when the defending team tries to press the opposition high.

more than good enough for next 5 years.

this isn't how defending works. attackers won't have all their players on one side of the pitch so you don't need to double up at all in order to defend. you simply deny space. if you have a team that is consistently able to defend with 3 players less, then there's something wrong with attacking as well. your initial point was that the defenders are too weak in 1v1, so having 3 players less to defend would surely mean the attacking team would destroy them in no time. yet, it doesn't happen. on contrary, team that defends, is able to soak the pressure against all the logic and win consistently. in all fairness, i don't think we will ever be able to understand how things work, and why something happens. FM, like real football, has far too many random events, mistakes, inputs... that we can't control. not sure even SI can do it. I think this part is the key: "Meanwhile, defending is much more freeform, you set your shape and you alter the defensive line but you can't really give or convey what you want your team to do defensively anywhere near as much detail as you can offensively. Mostly because its something that varies so much from game to game, how you're going to defend against this particular opposition." defending is essentially hardcoded in the ME. however, it isn't really hard coded in the way to resemble how it works in reality. it is hardcoded to produce realistic results in coexistence with attacking which also isn't really done how it is done in real. so, one way or the other, two unrealistic inputs are bound to produce unrealistic football.

Defence in football, like in any team sport, isn't about 1v1. Once you are in that situation it means you have already done something wrong. Defence works as unit, and I don't mean the defensive line, but the whole team. Just having, i.e. two banks of four, denies space for the attacking team. This is completely wrong. Team with the ball will come to attack with way more than 3 players, yet they don't score as they please. I don't know if there is an exploit in FM, what I do know is that defending isn't done as it is done in real (neither is attacking, but that is another matter). Anyway, if there are teams with two players scoring 50 goals a season, I'd say it is fairly obvious there is something wrong.

teams get from 15% to 35% chance of getting a shot on goal from a corner kick. If you fall into this range, that should be fine.

the problem isn't with a human user. it is mainly the AI that can't cope with it. moreover, the problems that allow fisherman's friends to be effective certainly spill over to other formations and overall ME behaviour.

The thing is, Pep is so successful due to the style of football his teams play. The style that is simply impossible to replicate in the ME. From proper high press, ball retention, off the ball movement and positioning of players on the field. The same goes for other managers/teams with the similar style. Man City, Napoli, BVB... they simply don't look like themselves in the game. And there is a reason, the ME isn't able to reproduce that. if you remember, a few years back when Pep was managing in Germany, German researchers had to change his preferred tactic in the database. That somewhat solved the problem with Bayern's results, but not with the way they play.

Indeed, but you will switch play even when you don't want to. if the players have those PPM's. Above is the diagram of Gremio. It might look a bit complicated but bear with me. They play 4-2-3-1: --------------90------------ 11-----------7----------17 ---------77------8-------- 12------4-------3-------2 When they enter the middle third on the left side (red rectangle), the winger (11) moves wide while the CAM (7) attacks the channel between the opposition FB and CB. This is the option they prefer and the FB (12) plays a direct ball towards CAM (7), red passing lane. However, this only happens if the opposition FB follows their winger (11) wide. If there is no space for the direct pass, they move the ball towards the other flank via #11, #77 or #8. The aim is to get the ball in the half-space on the other flank, (blue circle). The ball is played towards the CAM (#7) who cuts inside or RW (#17) who drops deep. The third option is a complete switch of play towards the full back on the weak flank (green circle). Hope this made some sense. Anyway, these are all prepared and trained moves and only for one phase of the attack in one specific zone. You can achieve all of these in FM, the problem is, there is no way you could do that deliberately the way the duties/roles work. Football is a team game and everything is done with whole team participating. In FM, everything is done with single players in isolation. There's no way you can replicate this with roles/duties with consistency.

I don't think it needs solving. It is just how the ME and TC are programmed. It isn't a fault but a design.

FM is way too primitive from the tactical viewpoint to replicate these things from real life. In real, coaches train their teams to do specific things. i.e. what Garry says above, you play towards the left flank in order to attract the opposition towards that zone. You coach specific movement to exploit certain scenarios. One of these is a switch of point of attack. (Bear in mind that switch of play is one option and, depending on reaction of the opposition, the team might have several others). So basically, whenever the ball goes to left flank, your players already know what to do. i.e. your right winger moves inside and drags the opposition full back inside while your right back moves higher up the pitch expecting that switch of play. In FM, there is no way to do that consistently. It doesn't happen as a result of a deliberate play like in real, it happens by chance and you have no real control over it. The way FM tactics work (roles/duties/mentality/shape) has nothing to do with how real tactics are coached and executed. Real tactics provide few different options to the team in each zone on the pitch. Each player knows what movement to make based on the position of the ball/opposition/team mates. In FM, each player has his own instructions regardless of the position of the ball/opposition/teammates. Therefore, you can only hope that in each situation these instructions produce what you want, but you don't have any real control.

no idea to be honest, I was talking about how it works in real.

an inside run? the idea behind overlapping full back is to attack the space in front of the winger in order to: a) drag away the marker from the winger, thus setting him free b) creating a passing option wide and high up the pitch (the underlap is the same thing except you don't exploit the space along the touch line but the space in the channel between the opposition CB/FB) The position of the winger is irrelevant as the aim of the move is to get access to the space ahead of him. Even if the winger stands on the touch line, that doesn't mean the full back can't run behind him (or in front of him) in order to get ahead of the winger.

underlapping/overlapping runs are off the ball moves. that was a run with the ball. anyway, when you chose an instruction, it doesn't mean the player will follow it 100% of the time.

If Trump somehow hears about this, I think Avrilia might find itself under sanctions from the USA and possible invasion. Freedom to Avrilia!!!