How do i stop the AI scoring long shots?

[Jay007]

Im playing a 4-4-2 formation. A lot of the goals i concede are long range shots. It doesnt seem to make a difference if i play a flat midfield. With one mid playing as def mid with a low mentatilty and high cloing down or as an anchor man, just in front of the back 4. Ive also just left the sliders as the tactics creator sets up the positions, but it makes no difference the AI still scores long shots.

I have tried pushing my Defense Line up to give the AI less time and space to have shot, but then i just cut me open with through balls behind my defense as my DL is to high. I have tried high closing down, but again that leaves massive spaces.

My 2 center backs are on zonal marking with no tight marking. I did have them on tight marking before, but that didnt seem to make much of difference. They were just getting turned and the AI striker was letting fly with a long range shot into the net. Its not like my defenders are poor for the league i play in as well. They are both reasonably fast, can tackle, mark and have good mental stats. Ive also tried man marking, but they seem to get pulled out of position to much.

Any help big or small would be very appreciated, as i feel my 4-4-2 is pretty solid apart from this. Thanks.

[smex36]

Have you looked at nike defense system?

Im playing a 4-4-2 formation. A lot of the goals i concede are long range shots. It doesnt seem to make a difference if i play a flat midfield. With one mid playing as def mid with a low mentatilty and high cloing down or as an anchor man, just in front of the back 4. Ive also just left the sliders as the tactics creator sets up the positions, but it makes no difference the AI still scores long shots.

I have tried pushing my Defense Line up to give the AI less time and space to have shot, but then i just cut me open with through balls behind my defense as my DL is to high. I have tried high closing down, but again that leaves massive spaces.

My 2 center backs are on zonal marking with no tight marking. I did have them on tight marking before, but that didnt seem to make much of difference. They were just getting turned and the AI striker was letting fly with a long range shot into the net. Its not like my defenders are poor for the league i play in as well. They are both reasonably fast, can tackle, mark and have good mental stats. Ive also tried man marking, but they seem to get pulled out of position to much.

Any help big or small would be very appreciated, as i feel my 4-4-2 is pretty solid apart from this. Thanks.

[JEinchy]

Im playing a 4-4-2 formation. A lot of the goals i concede are long range shots. It doesnt seem to make a difference if i play a flat midfield. With one mid playing as def mid with a low mentatilty and high cloing down or as an anchor man, just in front of the back 4. Ive also just left the sliders as the tactics creator sets up the positions, but it makes no difference the AI still scores long shots.

I have tried pushing my Defense Line up to give the AI less time and space to have shot, but then i just cut me open with through balls behind my defense as my DL is to high. I have tried high closing down, but again that leaves massive spaces.

My 2 center backs are on zonal marking with no tight marking. I did have them on tight marking before, but that didnt seem to make much of difference. They were just getting turned and the AI striker was letting fly with a long range shot into the net. Its not like my defenders are poor for the league i play in as well. They are both reasonably fast, can tackle, mark and have good mental stats. Ive also tried man marking, but they seem to get pulled out of position to much.

Any help big or small would be very appreciated, as i feel my 4-4-2 is pretty solid apart from this. Thanks.

Maybe it would help if you identify where exactly the long shots are coming from. For example, are they coming from the strikers in the centre, or from the wingers cutting inside , or maybe from a central midfielder arriving late of lurking outside of the area? Once you recognise the most common area where the long shots are coming from, then you can combat them better.

Chances are that you are conceding too much space to the opposition in deeper area of the pitch. This could be because your back line is not pushing out fast enough. Alternatively, the gap between the defence and midfield might be too large, or your full backs are being caught too far up the pitch and leaving space in behind. You would have to re-watch the games where you have conceded from long shots to find out. You'll need to close down the space, whilst making sure that you have a spare man somewhere that can cover for the gap left behind.

I hope that helps somewhat.

[Simply... Awesome!]

off the top of my head:

- push higher up

- hassle opponents

- close down often

- play with a higher tempo

- play narrower

- have a short pitch

- have two DM's

- beware of wingers cutting inside

- beware of strikers dropping into space

- showing midfielders (and strikers) unto their weaker foot

The general idea is to reduce both the time and space and "practical opportunity" that the opponents midfield has on the ball.

Bear in mind that doing any of the above in excess would leave you disadvantaged in a lot of areas!!!

Yes, it would not hurt to have world class players, especial in DM, DC and Goal positions

[Rupal]

The answer might actually and depressingly be that you can't.

The tendency of the AI to score a disproportionate number of long shots has been mentioned in posts for a pretty long time, going back at least to 09 and probably a lot further.

What is really annoying about it is that the player who scores the wonder goal often doesn't have a good long shot stat.

I've just had a game where an opposition striker thundered the ball against the bar from 30 yards and it bounced off, hit my goalkeeper and trickled into the net. So I drew a game which I really thoroughly deserved to win.

He has a long shot stat of 2.

Enough said.

Aaaaaaaaagh !

[SFraser]

The only time teams defend with 2 Centrebacks and a DM is when they are attacking, or have been ripped open and are last-ditch defending the penalty spot. If the only players you set up defensively are your Centrebacks and a low Mentality CM, and your sole defensive strategy is to park a lad infront of the back two, you are going to ripped open constantly.

The problems you describe of being opened by throughballs, or leaving massive gaps infront of the defence as you try to solve that problem, or being turned and having a great shooting opportunity when you try to solve that problem, all stem from the exact same root and this is not having enough players defending properly. There are no instructions in the game for 2 Centrebacks and a DM to nullify and break down any sort of well constructed team attack. Using only 3 men means that if the opponent attacks with 4 men, or gets past one of your 3, or one of your 3 makes a mistake, etc. etc. then your entire defence is destroyed. Not to mention the very Longshots issue of this thread.

You need to defend as a team and as a complete unit. In a 4-4-2 this usually means 2 lines of four, with all of your midfielders behind the ball so that as the ball is moved around your midfielders are facing the ball player and cutting off options while your defenders are picking up runners. If the ball is played forward the defender attempts to win the ball early while the rest of the defence backs off and your midfielders drop deep quickly and close down. Quite clearly you cannot do this with only 3 Players instructed in defensive behaviour, nor can you do it with a CM that is dropped deeper than the rest.

To set this up in FM you would go with something like your entire back four instructed to Tight Zonal Mark, Hard Tackle, Low Closing Down. Your entire midfield four would be Loose Zonal Marking, Light Tackling, Medium Closing Down.

As you come up against teams employing different tactics from a basic 4-4-2 you come up against the age old problem that the 4-4-2 has in defence, and that is space between the lines where deep forwards or amcs or deep playmakers occupy. This single issue is one of the major factors why 4-4-2 is rarely used at the top levels or between two closely matched teams, and why it is almost never used in the European Cup. Two simple solutions to this problem is to play a straight up 4-1-4-1 or 4-1-2-3 style formation like Mourinho's Chelsea, or to adapt your 4-4-2 to man mark specific key men with specific players, such as for example dropping your forward deep to man mark their deep playmaker, and playing a Stopper/Sweeper combination in Central Defence to man mark the player dropping into that gap between midfield and defence.

These are still basic strategies and should never be expected to work consistently by just plonking them down at the start of Pre-Season and leaving them running for 50 odd games, but they will form the bedrock of your defensive system and you need to find and decide upon a way of generally playing defence as a whole team.

[Rupal]

SFraser's analysis, is very interesting and few would disagree with the basics of what he is saying. Personally, however, I'm not too attracted by the idea of setting one's back 4 to hard tackling as I'd be a bit concerned about the possibility of giving away free kicks in dangerous areas. But there again, any decision which you make will have a balance of advantages and disadvantages, I suppose.

Personally, I don't use 4-4-2 even though it might be considered by many to be an appropriate 'basic' strategy for the lower leagues where I manage. This is not so much because of long shots but rather to help to prevent some of those infuriating goals which are scored by a through ball between one's DCs relatively close to the edge of the penalty area.

Now I appreciate that the ME is only a representation. It's the manner in which it represents things which aggravates me though - illogical maybe but that's how I am. I don't like seeing my DCs politely step aside to allow an opposition forward to latch onto a pass between them and to score from close range 1 on 1 with the keeper. This, from my observations, happens a lot in formations with 4 at the back. I know that it's just a representation as I said but it annoys me nevertheless.

In reality, my entirely subjective impression is that relatively few goals (not none) are scored from this type of through ball in the football matches that I watch. Goals from through balls between one of the fullbacks and a DC seem to be far more frequent (we gave one away yesterday at Rushden against Luton and scored one ourselves - 2 examples don't prove anything of course).

As a consequence, I try to employ a system using a sweeper (3-2-3-2) which helps to eliminate this annoyance, although it isn't easy at BSN level because there is a dearth of sweepers available (especially if you are using LLM principles and only rely on scout reports). I have been doing a fair bit of tinkering in order to get a system which is workable at this sort of level with the players available. It's still work in progress, I hasten to add.

What has this to do with long shots? Well, I have found a system with a libero and two DC stoppers to be the most effective thus far in generally being mean at the back and getting some sort of co-ordination further up the pitch. A side effect has been that the number of long shot goals scored against me appears to have reduced.

I'm not in any way suggesting that this is a complete solution or even that anybody should adopt it themselves (there are downsides to playing this way of course) and if people like 4 at the back formations it won't help them, obviously. Still, that's the best I can do in offering any sort of possible solution to the OP's problem, which I still feel is at least partially down to programming in the ME.

[Zipflashly]

What is really annoying about it is that the player who scores the wonder goal often doesn't have a good long shot stat.

I've just had a game where an opposition striker thundered the ball against the bar from 30 yards and it bounced off, hit my goalkeeper and trickled into the net. So I drew a game which I really thoroughly deserved to win.

He has a long shot stat of 2.

Enough said.

Aaaaaaaaagh !

Yep, I can sooooo agree with that.

Playing against Manchester United this morning, Wes Brown scored a 35 yarder with the last kick of the game

he has 'Long shots' 1 and 'Finishing' 2

It was also the 7th minute of 4 minutes of extra time-there had been no substitutions or goals in extra time...

[Rupal]

Yep, I can sooooo agree with that.

Playing against Manchester United this morning, Wes Brown scored a 35 yarder with the last kick of the game

he has 'Long shots' 1 and 'Finishing' 2

It was also the 7th minute of 4 minutes of extra time-there had been no substitutions or goals in extra time...

That's bad.

Just lost a game 2-1 to a penalty in the 95th minute - were supposed to be 3 minutes of extra time so I know how you feel. It's something you can do absolutely nothing about. I don't have my defenders on hard tackling at all.

[Guti]

I would say Hassle opponents and zonal marking, thats what I do

[mg539]

Whilst there are some limitations to 4-4-2, it is probably one of the most versatile formations around, and you can certainly win the Premier league with it!

If you are playing with a flat 4-4-2 i'd suggest having a ball-winning CM, then asking your side to "Press more" on the Tactics Creator, which makes your defensive line higher, and makes your team close down more. Also on the OI's you can set closing down on their centre-mids to "always".

Of course all of these suggestions are risky if they're not applied consistently with your defensive unit, and could result in getting your defense pulled around the pitch, but you can get them to work!!

[Zico10]

The answer is you can't. You can minimise the number of shots with different strategies but you can't stop the AI scoring. This is just a game managed by variables and coded programing. You are watching a game that have been calculated already, so you can make substitutions and change in-game tactics to force the the AI to re-calculate, but if the AI calculations decide they have to score, they will score no matter what, and doesn't matter if the player has 1 as Long Shots stats, or you have 11 GK's.

I just finished a Getafe save game v Barcelona at Nou Camp, packed the center midfield to stop long shots, 0-0 93th minute (although 1 minute injury time) Carlos Puyol pick the ball headed away from a corner near the halfway line close to the subs bench, and unleash a Scud missile from 45 yards to top corner. 1-0 Barcelona

94th minute (still 1 minute injury time) Busquets gets the ball with back to goal near the center circle, 3 players close him down tight and without turning??? he fires a thunderbolt against the bar, rebound to GK back and 2-0. Game finished. What a beauty!!

Is this a real football? No, any similarity is pure coincidence, so don't take this too serious. Just look at it under an arcade games perspective, just like playing Donkey Kong or SuperMario.This game is a very simple game to play. You just have to laugh when they score like that. Brilliant.

[Rupal]

Yes that sort of thing sounds very familiar (though it happens to me at a much less exalted level!). The other way it 'gets you' is the 95th minute penalty in a game where there were 3 minutes of added time........

[SFraser]

Concentration is the attribute that deals directly with maintaining focus in late stages of the game. Likewise Condition and Stamina reduce performance levels and Mental attributes as the match progresses.

As for match calculations, the shooting attributes (Longshots, Finishing, Free Kick Taking) only determine the accuracy of the shot versus chosen target. 1 Longshots does not mean the player cannot score from range, it means he is highly unlikely to get the ball where he aimed.

Take Cristiano Ronaldo as an example, he already has attributes and PPM's that make a Free Kick that is between the posts incredibly difficult to stop through power and technique. It would be significantly overpowered if he also had laser guided accuracy.

If someone "unleashes a scud missile" that actually has nothing to do with the Longshots attribute whatsoever. You can only hope that the accuracy attribute takes the ball away from goal or puts it straight at the keeper. If he aims for the top left and it rockets into the bottom right, you are in trouble.

[Rupal]

It always seems that I concede more goals from long shots than I score. Maybe it's just my persecution mania though!