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Hi everybody, Introduction After a hiatus of a few years I started playing Football Manager again. I've been pretty active in this community, posting tactics etc. Anybody here still who remembers me from a few years back? Anyway, I am playing more casually now, and I didn't expect to be uploading a new tactic. But after finding a highly aesthetical style of playing that was actually very successful (well, at least for me) I thought I would share. General information It a set of three formations, all with the same tactical principles at its core. We are going for a high tempo short passing play, trying to outplay opposition in every place while looking for the perfect attacking move. It's an expressive and energetical style of playing. I love that there is lots of attacking prowess added from the deep, with fullbacks and a volante arriving at the opponents box, which is very hard to defend against. Formations look like this: This is my standard tactic used to start most matches with. This is very similar. I usually employ this formation to add more attacking intent. Finally the 3-3-3-1. With the formations above you can sometimes be outposessed by a 4-4-2, or face risky one on ones when playing against a formation with two strikers. If this happens or I expect it to happen I use this formation with three defenders to guard against it. Created and tested on patch 19.2.1. What players do you need? Generally you are looking for players with excellent passing, decision making, and off the ball. GK: we are using a high defensive line, so look for a sweeper keeper. DCs: We are using ball playing defenders, so their passing should be above average. At least one should be good in the air, and at least one should be pacey because we will be playing the offside trap. Wing Backs: they are attacking and defending both. Good players in these positions really make a difference, so it is a good decision to invest some cash here if you don't have the right players. DMs: One is a more traditional playmaker. The volante should have good attacking stats as well. Both need good passing, and should be adept at winning the ball back too. The tactics pose some considerable demands in the skills of these players. Witsel and Delaney have been fantastic for me, and Weigl doing very well too. AMC: an attacking playmaker that will be spreading the passes out to better positioned players, looking for deadly throughballs, and trying the odd shot or dribbling. Wingers: These are playmaker type players too. Should be good at one on ones, and at finishing ideally. They will get chances to score every game - the more they can convert the better. Forward: Despite scoring some for himself, he will be used to lay off passes, draw defenders, and create space for the other players. Don't expect him to score too much - your midfielders and Wing Backs will strike all the more for it. I let the assistant handle training and opposition instructions. Results The season has been crazy for me, with winning the league as well as the Champions League. Highlights were the 5-1 thrashing of Bayern Munich, and the 4-0 against Paris St. Germain. There were quite some draws during the second half of the season due to resting key players for the Champions League knockout games, and playing with backup players. I guess I was pretty lucky with the opponents I faced in the knockout stage. The Champions League final was nerve racking going behind in overtime, but managing to come back. With the penalties luck involved again. Somewhat stupidly I sold Raphael Guerreiro (which I would advise against doing if you are playing with Dortmund!), and brought in De Light. In winter I bought Milinkovic-Savic, which, again, was not the smartest move given I already have Goetze and Kagawa in that position. Other than that I only bought young players who are not on first team level yet. The Falcon Tactics v1: Falcon 4-4-1-1 .fmf Falcon 4-2-3-1.fmf Falcon 3-3-3-1.fmf Hope you enjoy. Let me know how it goes for you.

Hi there, as the title suggests I'm having tactical issues in game which seem to constantly plague any save I have started on this years version and the previous, invariably leading to a much lower play-time compared to previous iterations of the game. Any suggestions or input as to how I can change my current set-up or my own thinking into just approaching it would be very much appreciated! Thanks P.S. I will try to keep this as short as I can, but I think maybe giving a detailed background might help me remember what the original plan was as I started the save a while back, and through all the quitting and coming back it's hard to remember what that plan was. So. I'm managing Portsmouth currently three seasons in. The first season in League One we gained promotion via the play-offs, which ended up being disappointing considering for much of the campaign we were leading the pack, but results against defensive teams (not surprising) led to frustration and a stuttering end. However, we did get promoted which on one hand let the save continue but also probably led me to ignore the issues. My thinking here was that I'm trying to manage expectations, we were expected to get promoted and so I shouldn't be too disheartened by the fact we achieved our goal, but just watching games where I know something isn't right and can see problems but unsure how to approach them gets the better of me a lot of the time, and it has got to the stage where one loss stops me from wanting to play for months. Second season, the first in the Championship, we were expected to finish in the relegation zones but ending up again sneaking into the last play-off spot making it to the final but losing out, which is fair my team are nowhere near ready for the Premier League anyhow. I can accept that we over-achieved a bit in the season, I would of been happy with a mid-table to top half finish in all honesty. My biggest problem with this season was that the results never felt consistent, we scored a lot of goals from corners or free-kicks and generally our play was either great or scrappy, depending how the other team was set-up. We won 23, drew 9 and lost 14 with a GD of just 10, we scored a fair few but shipped a lot as well because of the set-up which I think I've addressed, I hope at least. Finally onto my current season, only just started. I switched from playing Control to Standard because I knew we were pressing too much. This was an incorrect decision I feel as the mentality switch affected us going forward I believe I should have just taken off Push Higher Up and Close Down More as my slowish CB's couldn't take the extra load. I have sinced switch this and we've only conceded 1 goal in three games and just in general look a lot better at the back. The biggest problems I'm having are any matches against more defensive teams because of the link-up and support between midfield and attack, I think. Okay so the original plan is as follows. I really liked the 4231 Pochettino installed at Spurs with Son, Alli and Eriksen behind Kane and with Dembele and Dier/Wanyama holding behind which freed up the full-backs and I wanted to implement this with Portsmouth as they are the team I support and for the most part the players suited this formation and most of the roles. After reading @Cleon's thread about 4231 and the bit about control vs standard, I decided to give it a go using the 4411 formation, one that I have never been successful with also I think it represents a real life 4231 a lot maybe the CM's (and AM) could drop further down but I didn't think it would be a problem. I want to play aggressive football like Spurs, without relying on possession as much but I understand that my closing down more I would naturally more likely be in control of the game. I believe that the pairing of DLP(S) and CM(D) is a solid base to this style, so that they can recycle possession back into the more creative front four, and full backs. My concern here though is that because of this I have no deep movement,compared to @Cleon and this is obviously something he mentions a lot when opening up defensive sides. But I thought it would come from the full backs, this is where I'm struggling to understand how I should of approached this part of the formation. This also ties into my role's of AM(A) and DLF(A) at times in games its clear neither are an option to pass too both on the last line of defence, which is obviously coming from their role/duty allocation. I tried switching to an AM(S) but i felt the midfield three just passed it between them not going anywhere because a DLP(S) isn't bursting forward but I'm stubborn to change it because I thought it was a good base as mentioned before. I'm wary of maybe dragging on and just confusing everyone reading and myself! So this is the crux of the issues, in short against defensive teams we turn into a crossing bonanza as obviously the only player available is the W(S) whose job it is to cross but that isn't varied enough to open up a tight defence.

Hello guys, First of all i would like to clear the air of the statement, "the formation you set is the look in the defensive shape" as incorrect as i feel it can be tweaked to look however you want it to be just be setting a simple PI to your wide attacking forwards "mark tighter". this will instruct your wide forwards to track back their opposite numbers. Therefore the below tactic can also be tweaked to resemble a 4-2-3-1 if you fully understand how the tactic works. So for instance if you are using a 4-2-3-1 formation and you apply the PI "mark tighter" to your wide forwards your defensive shape would look like a 4-4-1-1 or 4-5-1 depending on the role set to your AMC. So if you use a 4-3-3 your defensive shape would look like a 4-5-1/4-1-4-1. Secondly, this is my version of the mourinho man utd system, though it isn't purely the system as I tweaked it to suit my type of gameplay. So the below is just what I feel of how we play, it includes the 4-2-3-1 (4-4-1-1 here to get specific movement of players) and the 3-4-1-2 based solely on the Arsenal vs United game and designed solely to play against teams with attacking intent. So lets get to it, shall we? 4-4-1-1 i believe the best way to assign a player to guard your defense when the team is attacking is to put him on a DLP(def) duty and that is exactly what matic does when pogba plays alongside him, even as at that, he still comes forward occasionally and takes long range efforts scarcely. Like i said earlier, when we are defending with low block, miki doesn't track back so ive given him the trequartista role. Pogba for me is a central midfielder with a support duty which i have heavily customized to have the passing freedom of a playmaker and the tenacity of a box-to-box midfielder. Lukaku simple enough a complete forward on support duty. Now addressing the fullbacks issue, I strongly disagree mourinho uses complete wingbacks, i myself consider them defensively irresponsible, which is why i went with a wingback with support duty as I've watched the play like valencia. i changed the leftback from fullback on support duty to wing-back because of solely luke shaw's talent. Defensively we're capable, second best defense in the league goals mainly come from rebounds from set pieces. Team Instructions. Simple enough, normal tempo(if not lower at times. I don't think we've ever played a high tempo game this season), mixed passing, be more disciplined (preserve team shape, the mourinho way). Against teams that aims to defend and sit deep, i lower the tempo of the game to much lower to drag them out of position. i credit my style of defense to my player instructions; Front two asked to close down much more, midfield four asked to close down more fullbacks told to close down sometimes, center backs told to close down less/much less. i use opposition instructions that tell team to mark tightly the central midfield players of the opposition in order to win the the ball back in the best place to create play, the middle of the pitch. then tackle hard the opposition central midfield players, and all players are shown to their respective flanks because given the formation it is easier to defend the flanks. All this combines with the individual player instructions given to all wide men in the system which is to mark tighter an tackle harder, this ensures that they track back their opposite numbers in order to increase the possibilities of a turnover in the wider areas with the touchline being the third man a 3v2 will be created out wide. As you can see this is a match against arsenal, tbf i didnt have the time to dig deep for the perfect example for our defensive shape, but this is close, as i said the trequartista will stay with the striker to have an extra man for the counter attack, (its also important that you use a good and "well inducted into your system" kind of player for this role as he is a key figure) the wide forward are already placed inline with the CMs but as at that i told them to mark tighter so as to make sure they don't lose track of their opposite numbers. from the opposition instructions, the aims is to shift the opposition wide because it easier to defend the flanks, trying to cause a 3v2 in our favour with the touchline as 3rd man. Wherever the ball is won back, theres sure to be a burst of energy when the chance for a counter arises. usually a 4v3 or 4v4 in our favour. We scored quite a number of goals on the break. Example... won the ball abck in defense and ball played to Ibra, Ibra plays Luan (Trequartista) through, Gets his goal clean. So now the 3-4-1-2 tactic. Based solely on the match against arsenal, this is a refined form of the tactic as I made it to beat big teams, summary is, we defend with 8 men and attack with 2 men, now logically of the opposition wants goals they would have to commit men forward to break us down which in turn would would leave them at risk at the back against two quick forwards. Now the application of "get stuck in" TI would make players want the ball more and improve our chances of a turnover. Followed by a couple of direct passes and we get to the opposing goal an it ends with a shot. Team Instructions Glimpse of Defensive shape; Counter Attacks; SI restricts too many files, but one thing ;leads to another rashford gets a shot in the 6-yard area from a cross from valencia and scores. Results; Arsenal EFL cup second leg behind of a 1-0 home win, we won the return tie 2-0 both from counters. Also at OT we beat sevilla in the 2nd leg of the europa league 2-0 comin back with a 2-2 draw at seville in the 1st leg. Like I earlier said, This is not exactly how united play but more of an inspired system. If you made it up to this point thank you for your time. Yours Truly, Sherifddin Apampa, Twitter: TheEngancheexpress, Sherifddin's Interlude.

INTRODUCTION It's rare to see a system in football manager built around the philosophy of Jose Mourinho. The less than glamorous tactician has an unfair reputation in my opinion. Despite the guarantee of trophies wherever he goes, many prefer to emulate the more exciting coaches like Klopp or Guardiola. With this in mind, I decided to attempt to replicate Mourinho's successful 4-2-3-1 with which he continues to use with great success. However, it is important to stress that this system is not a like-for-like, rather it is a Mourinho inspired system; therefore you might see some player roles and instructions that you might not agree with. However, I'm open to having a healthy debate on anything I've presented below. I'll jump straight into the system below, talk a bit about Mourinho, and then how I replicate this philosophy in game. To get the obvious out of the way first, we play with a control mentality and a structured shape. I want to ensure that the structural integrity of the shape is maintained. I will tailor my instructions via each player so that they know what their responsibility is. With a structured shape, we are more disciplined in defence, e.g., we're less committal going forwards and there's more space for us to operate in. So let's look at some of the key characteristics of a Mourinho system and see how I have tried to slide these into my setup at Barcelona. I will talk about the instructions Mourinho uses and note observations against them, so I can reference these from my tactical instructions. IN DEFENCE AND TRANSITION FROM ATTACK TO DEFENCE Arguably one of the best defensive coaches of the modern era. Mourinho typically builds his team around a two-man midfield. His system typically deploys a deep playmaker alongside a more defensive midfielder who is tasked with winning the ball back and releasing it to more creative players. At Manchester United, this responsibility has predominately fallen to Matić and Paul Pogba respectively. [Observation 1] When in their defensive shape, a Mourinho side will utilise a 4-4-2/4-4-1-1 formation with the central attacking midfielder staying with the striker in order to have players available for the counter attack, should his team turnover the ball in an advantageous position. The wide attackers will fall back in line with the central midfielders in front of the defence to create two solid banks of four. [Observation 2] In the early phase of defence, the aim is to shift the opposition out wide when they have the ball since it is easier to defend the flanks. This is due to the limited options to progress the ball compared with the central areas and the natural player match up (1v1 or 2v2). A way of achieving this is by having the two furthest central attacking players block the passing lanes for progression of the ball through the central areas and to put pressure on the defence. Moreover, when the play does get out to the wide areas, this is where the overloads become more effective. It is less detrimental to your shape by overloading the wide areas than it is in the middle, simply because there are fewer passing lanes for progression of the ball (since the side of the pitch blocks passes in that direction). [Observation 3] When it comes to pressing the opposition the two key objectives are to reduce space for wide players and reduce the time on the ball for central players. In wider areas space is reduced by tightly marking the wide player and closing down aggressively. Increasing numbers out wide will reduce the space the opposition can move into. To reduce time on the ball for the central areas an aggressive approach to closing down will achieve this, however, with more and more coaches increasing numbers in the central areas, this can cause your shape some problems if you're not closing down intelligently. Furthermore, tightly marking the central players will lead to an increase in interceptions. [Observation 4] The defensive line is neither deep nor high, usually situationally adapting. So let's look at some of my tactical instructions and relate these back to the observations above. [Observation 1] To achieve some defensive solidity, and to match the asymmetry of the midfield two, I use a Central Midfielder with a Defend duty and a Deep Lying Playmaker with a Support duty. This gives me the solidity in front of the back four, with a risk averse two who will be the first line of cover should the opposition turnover the ball and break the first lines with a counter attack. [Observation 2] When playing against two wide men on each flank, e.g., a left back and a left winger, I will instruct my attacking wingers to specifically man mark his opposite to increase our chances of ball turnover. We want to be winning the ball in the central midfield or out wide. We don't want to rely on the last man of defence to make the last tackle. Since the wide men track their opposite number, this brings them down in line with the central midfield pairing and giving us what looks like a 4-4-1-1 [Observation 3] I use the opposition instructions to show the defenders out wide, so the left sided central defender is shown onto his left foot, and the right sided onto his right foot. With the passing lanes into the midfield covered by my central attacking midfielder and my striker closing down the defence, the ball is moved out to the wider areas where you can safely press with more numbers with less impact on the defensive shape. Moreover, the central midfielders are instructed to close down more, increasing their determination to move into the wider areas when the opposition progresses the ball here, creating 3v2 overloads against the opposition wide men. [Observation 4] Wide players are closed down always as defined by the generic opposition instructions. Additionally, my wide attacking wingers are set to man mark their opposite number when the opposition plays with wingers (most teams in Spain). Hard tackling is also instructed against the opposition central midfielders. Similarly to the central defenders, the central midfielders are down onto their outside foot, e.g., the left central midfielder is shown onto his left foot. This is to try progress the opposition build-up down the flanks. Simplistically, we play with a very conservative back four. We have two Central Defenders with a Defend duty, and two Full Backs with Support duty. Ahead we use a Central Midfielder with Defend duty and a Deep Lying Playmaker on Support. We aim to get into our shape quickly. Forcing progression of the opposition attack down the flanks if we can, where we create overloads in an attempt to win the ball back before the opposition can get a cross in. If the ball is progressed into the middle, we are quick to close down the opposition midfielders in an attempt to win the ball back before it progresses through to my defensive line. With these observations my defensive team instructions look like this: Defensive Line Defensive line is set to normal Use offside trap enabled Closing Down Closing down is set to sometimes, but this is governed by specific opposition instructions Tackling No specific instructions at a team level My player roles and instructions for the defensive players: My defence is pretty standard. I want my central defenders passing it short to my central midfielders or our wide to the Full backs. I don't want them hoofing it the field so that is why they're set to pass it shorter (since we use mixed team passing). My Full Backs have a few instructions. Fewer risky passing to help control the safe possession when they receive the ball in deeper areas in the build-up. I don't want them spraying fancy cross-field passes to players where there is a high-risk attached to the pass. I need them up supporting play, but also very mindful of their defensive responsibilities so we allow them to get further forward, but we keep the support duty to ensure their starting position is deeper in line with the defence. EXAMPLES OF OUR DEFENSIVE PLAY In a recent game against Real Madrid we came up against a stubborn 4-4-1-1 system. Below is an example of our defensive shape in action. The backline is relatively flat around the midpoint of our half. Playing with a control mentality and a normal defensive line it is slightly higher than normal. My Trequartista (the midfielder circled) is covering the inside of the pitch as he moves the midfielder towards the wide areas with the ball. My striker, meanwhile, is occupying the central defenders to ensure a pass isn't easily recycled. In this particular passage of play, Marchetti plays the ball into the winger, who almost instantly has my left back on his toes, who wins the ball back cleanly. In this next phase of play Madrid have just won the ball back and are looking to progress. My Advanced Playmaker highlighted positions himself between the ball carrier and the central midfielders. Moving the ball out wide where the player is already being tightly marked. With the alternative being a long ball forward, the player attempts a high-risk pass into the winger despite the presence of my defender. Sasic is closed down quickly and ordinarily would have probably lost the ball here. However, we're playing Madrid so have to expect that at some points in the match they're going to beat the man or pass when it seems almost impossible to do so. However, because of the high closing down and structural discipline, when the pass is made into the midfield, my Deep Lying Playmaker (with closing down more activated) makes a good interception to win the ball back for us. All the while my Central Midfielder maintains his position in front of the defenders as a second line of defence if the pass is successful. During this game we made 62 interceptions across the pitch, most of which in our own half. IN ATTACK AND TRANSITION FROM DEFENCE TO ATTACK The defensive shape and team instructions allow for more efficiency in a quick transition from defence and counter attacking. With the shortest distance to goal on the counter being through the middle, an efficient counter system would require at least two central players in attacking positions during the defensive phase, with a supporting wide player along one flank to join in if progression through the middle is restricted. At United, Mkhitaryan and Lukaku are usually the furthest forward when the team is defending. Sometimes the left sided attacking midfielder will be somewhat advanced. [Observation 1] With Juan Mata operating more as a playmaker a lot of the slower and more patient build-up was directed to the right side of the pitch. United created overloads on this side with Pogba and Valencia supporting Mata and Mkhitaryan in the attack. Furthermore, with the approach directed to guide the ball towards one flank with clear overloads, this frees up the player on the opposite side to almost inevitably be free for a quick break. [Observation 2] This season it appears that Mkhitaryan has more confidence from his manager and this has shown with his free role to create and dictate play from the central areas. He is registering high chance creation and assists already. This free role to roam and be less involved in the defensive side suits his style. A similar role has been afforded the number 10 at Madrid and Inter. [Observation 3] So let's look at some of my tactical instructions and relate these back to the observations above. [Observation 1] I leave my Trequartista and Complete Forward high during the defensive phase. This allows our transitions from defence to attack to be quick and sharp and triggers good counter attacking opportunities with Raumdeuter being fairly advanced, too. With the team instructed to pass into space, we look to progress the ball forwards quicker than we would if we passed into feet. [Observation 2] We have also adopted an Advanced Playmaker on the right. With our right sided central midfielder and right sided winger being playmakers a lot of the ball and progression is down the right flanks. This leaves the Raumdeuter with more space to exploit. And given his pace, acceleration and dribbling, he takes full advantage of this. He is currently second in the scoring charts. [Observation 3] My Trequartista is there for attacks. I afford him the freedom to dictate the game from the middle. I'm less concerned about his role defensively, which is just as well, given he is assigned a role that has less emphasis on defence and more on offence. However, this does not mean that he is ineffective defensively, on the contrary, he is key in the first phase of defence in moving the ball into wide positions. When we transition to attack, if we're quick enough to break into a counter then it is usually through my Trequartista that play progresses before the ball is switched out wide to my Raumdeuter. At this point we usually trigger a 3v3 or 3v4 attack, of which we're usually favourites to come out on top. When we progress with the ball we have a natural inclination to progress to the right with quick switches to the left when the Raumdeuter is in space and 1v1 situations. We are comfortable on the ball and happy to play the patient game looking for clear openings. Typically, this will see us dominate in the possession and passing stats for most games. With these observations my offensive team instructions look like this: Passing Exploit the middle Play out of defence Pass into space Passing Directness Mixed passing Creative Freedom Be more disciplined My player roles and instructions for the defensive players: My Central Midfielder is instructed to pass it shorter as he needs to keep things simple. His prime role is ball winner and defence protector. I don't need him doing anything fancy. Alongside him is my Deep Lying Playmaker. He has a bit of freedom but not too much. He is instructed to close down more to keep up the pressing when the ball moves into the middle of the pitch and to help support the overloads on the flank. My Trequartista doesn't have instructions as it isn't really needed. My Advanced playmaker is instructed to sit narrower as I want to really congest this side of the pitch and draw in the opposition to the half-spaces where he will be operating. My Raumdeuter is instructed to shoot less, purely because of the positions he can get into. I need him to be more decisive when he is in the box and to only shoot when it is a high chance shot. My Complete Forward is instructed to move into channels to support the build up and to move the defence with him to open up spaces for the on-rushing players behind him. EXAMPLES OF OUR OFFENSIVE PLAY In the next passage of play I will highlight how out players use the short passing abilities of my playmakers to move the ball about and manipulate the shape of the oppositions. I will show the intelligence of my Raumdeuter to isolate the right back and subsequently unmark himself to break free and score a simple goal. To set the scene, my Central Midfielder makes a short pass into my Deep Lying Playmaker. This is a common pattern between the two. My left back has the attention of the opposition winger and my Raumdeuter is in-line with my striker, pressing the defensive line back. My Deep Lying Playmaker now progresses the ball into my Trequartista. He is a very technically gifted player and is the key creator in the side, both scoring and creating goals. You will notice that my Raumdeuter has now drifted into space in order to move into a better position to attack the ball. All the while the defender who was meant to be watching him is now ball watching. My Trequartista wastes no time in playing a first time pass into space for my Raumdeuter to run onto. Who has this time unmarked himself and snuck in behind for a very nicely worked goal. This is one of the more simple patterns of play we create by overloading the right and central sides of the pitch before playing the ball to the left side where my Raumdeuter will have isolated the defender. The supporting Full Back is key in occupying the attention of the winger to ensure there's little in the way of obstacles. Here is another example from the same game, where my Raumdeuter actually scored four goals. Again, play is moved from my Advanced Playmaker on the right, into my Trequartista. My Raumdeuter is running in behind the defender, and waits for the pass to come in from the Trequartista. A really simple, yet effective pattern of play. IN CONCLUSION I've tried to keep this fairly brief without going over the top with examples and images, so if anyone is curious about how I've setup or why, just drop a reply and I'll see what I can do to answer anything. It's a really simple system and one that is very effective. Finally, I have posted our results from our season so far. We're defensively strong and offensively potent. I have also included the complete team instructions and opposition instructions, since I've already posted the roles and player instructions above. Team Instructions Opposition Instructions Results so far Thanks for reading, Ciao

Intro: I've had this idea of making a tactic inspired by the real life roles of some of my favourite CM/FM players. I have intentionally stayed clear of a lot of the typical "heroes" of CM and FM such as; Bakayoko, Svindal Larsen, Duff, Tsigalko, Nikiforenko, Chiotis, Adu etc. Simply because I have no idea of how they played in real life (some are even fictional). I first came up with this idea playing FM 13 or 14, but didn't try it until FM15, because I struggled to decide upon a "framework" to work with. To give you a glimps of where most of my ispiration with regards to players come from I've added two pictures of some CM favourites: (Left: CM 97/98, Right: CM 01/02) I finally landed on this team in FM15: It shouldn't be to difficult to see whose "framework" inspired this tactic. Just look at the DM... The project was quite successfull and one of the saves I've had the most fun with since a VERY long save on FM08 (I tried to get LFC to a 100 PL titles) My intention is not to replicate a specific tactic. It's more about picking players, who you at some point probably wished played for your team, and fitting them into a template based on real life tactics. Having just read Ozil's brilliant Sacchi thread, I thought about doing this experiment with a Sacchi inspired system, but then decided to do something a bit more conservative. So I started looking back at Benitez' Liverpool side from 08/09 for inspiration. Imagine having a few more goals in that team, or even just better understudies to the first 11. Liverpool under Benitez played a fairly compact 4-4-1-1. Some may argue it was more of a 4-2-3-1, but I think the 4-4-1-1 best represents their formation in defence. I have decided to start out with a 4-4-2, and try to make a more solid 4-4-1-1 long term. Fluid shape in keeping with the compactness of Benitez' team, and control/standard as a starting mentality. Some of the TI's I have in mind are: - Higher or Much higher d-line - Be more disciplined - Play out of defence Here are some of examples of players/teams I considered basing my tactic on: But ended up with this:

Hi guys. Generally I'm quite happy with the results, but I was wondering if my 4-4-1-1 can be improved. Any feedback is welcome. I dominate in Portugal, but I struggle in the champions league. Because I really like counter attacking, but I don't want heavily rely on counter attacks, I play standard. Regarding the team shape, I play flexible. Pretty basic, i know, but I don't see simplicity as a problem. My only TI's are: Play out of defence Push higher up (because I felt my team was just giving too much space to the opposition ) Prevent short GK distribution At home against weaker teams, I often play control and away against equal or superior teams, I often play counter. When I play control, sometimes I replace the BWM(D) with a DLP(D). Thanks in advance