Fundamental Attacking Tactics:

[SFraser]

Depending how this thread goes it might be the first of a few, with fundamental defensive tactics followed by the beast that is fundamental midfield tactics. Either way I think it is worth discussing these fundamental attacking tactics and their Tactical Instruction counterparts. Hopefully it might make some people see the game in a much simpler and more easilly understood fashion.

This is not a complex topic, so do not be too disappointed if there is not immense and complex depth.

There is, in my opinion, pretty much three key and different "principles" of attacking an opponent in Football, and I mean that in terms of actual usage of the ball and creation of attacking opportunities and not the destruction of morale, stamina, motivation and all other more complex but highly effective factors in FM.

Number One: The Throughball

Think Gerrard and his raking, exhuberant and often over-hit delivery from about 40 yards from goal. The throughball or the attacking pass to the attacking run is one of the key attacking principles in football. You have a guy on the ball some distance from goal, and he is attempting to pick out runners behind or through the defence into goalscoring positions or superior attacking areas.

This might sound very obvious and simple, but it is an absolutely crucial and key aspect of attacking football, and entire teams can be and are built around this.

Gerrard is one example, but still the cream of the crop in this respect is Paul Scholes, especially now in his deeper "deep lying playmaker" role. Who can possibly forget his chipped pass over the heads of Nesta and Maldini to Rooney 4 years ago? Who in the world could make a veteran Maldini at his peak of experience look like a newcomer to the game of football? Paul Scholes on the edge of the box.

The throughball takes many forms, the obvious one being the throughball from the playmaker to the striker, but equally crosses or longballs or direct counter-attacking play is in this vein of football.

The throughball style of football is all about the accurate and quality pass from deep to the accurate and quality advanced run. It is a fundamental component of attacking in football, and an issue entire teams are based around.

Number Two: The Run From Deep

In contrast to picking out the great run from a striker with a great pass from a deep playmaker, we have a mass of players rampaging forward from deep positions, ideally causing marking havoc and disrupting lines of defence meaning that only a decently hit pass to a good option is neccessary to create a goalscoring chance as runners overload defenders. Again entire teams are setup to play this way, with mad dashes from deep and high workrate. This is another key component to counter-attacking football, after the successful initial throughball to the lone striker. He holds it up and waits for the cavalry to arrive.

The well judged, well constructed, well instructed Run From Deep is often the decisive move in any attack, as someone pops up unmarked in the box to slot home an absolute sitter.

Less ability is required, but likewise more risk is taken with players moving out of position. The key element here is that instead of beating the defence through your own skill at passing and moving, you beat the defense through their inability to concentrate, focus, mark runs or adapt their shape to the rapidly emerging threat.

Runs from deep are potent. Punt the ball up to your targetman and then get seven players to run past him and attack the defence. That leaves you with two defenders back to cover the counter, and leaves the opponent back four with three attackers free in the box.

This particular form of attacking football is also one of the major sources of failure in a lot of tactics. Alot of people commit just enough people to attacking runs to leave no passing options in midfield and not enough targets upfront. Be aware of this. RFD is all about penetration, and should not be used willy-nilly.

Number Three: The Dribble

You are dragged into a tight tactical affair with neither side commiting men forward, everyone man marked, and the whole match is a game of chess. What better way to checkmate the opponent in 3 moves than by skinning your marker?

Think Arsenal for this fundamental attacking tactical principle. You receive the ball, and the first thing you do is take one of the oppositions defenders completely out of the game. Get the ball deep, then destroy his expertly set up defensive system by simply dancing past his whole "triangle DM" midfield.

Unfortunately for Arsenal that is pretty much what all their attackers try to do, and when it comes off it looks amazing, but I am sure Wenger would like a bit less "whose the daddy?" in his side.

Skinning an opponent, skinning your marker, suddenly puts the whole shape and organisation of the opponent under immense threat. Skin the next guy and the team is on the ropes. Good use of dribbling ability at critical areas is a huge benefit to the attacking potential of the side.

That's the only reason I can come up with to explain Ancelotti using Anelka in a midfield starting position. He isn't exactly Pirlo.

So in short it's simple and obvious stuff, but every single attacking plan and team you design in your FM career is going to based on using these elements and using them properly. It's worth pointing out because very little else really matters when it comes to designing how your team is going to attack. Are you going to dissect, overload, or skin or a combination of all? Whatever you do the key event that scores you goals, or the entire gameplan that scores you goals, is based on this. So make sure you understand it properly, and just how important these things are.

[Jenko_EFC]

Nice thread . I think about these roles moreso when using the Classic tactics which may be rare but I like to keep things fresh! I'll often use the setting so I have a 'distributer' ie; an Xavi, Fabregas etc. A player who is good at 'being a distraction' and not much more and the 'dribbler'. If anyone seen Cleon's tactic CH_Evo he used a 'dribbler' to great effect I found with similar settings!

All three combined become an awesome attacking force and opens potentially into the Barca style with the dribbler and distraction cutting in with the distributer able to be a trequarista even but usually a deep-lying playmaker.

[batata169]

Great thread as always SFraser, i'd be interested in reading your future posts about the defence and the midfield.

[Nr. 9]

I always found it difficult to set up a particular attacking system. This has inspired me to try some different things tonight. Can't wait for the midfield and defence post.

[lam]

SFraser,

Any comments on what you think is effective against which style of opposition team? Also, what combination do you think work well.

Regards

Lee

[SFraser]

SFraser,

Any comments on what you think is effective against which style of opposition team? Also, what combination do you think work well.

Regards

Lee

In general I would say that "mad rushes" through the opponent is good against teams that defend en-mass against you, while picking accurate passes is good against those setup to attack you, and attempting to defeat players individually is good for teams that try to match you, but it's never really that simple in practice.

With sufficient levels of physical ability in your side, especially midfield, you could defend en-mass against a top side and then counter-attack with vast numbers pouring into the box, and still be able to get back in time to defend.

Personally I would say that the best tactics employ all of the above in the right manner at the right time, and do it intelligently. The ideal situation would be a good, crisp accurate pass out of defence to start a move, then a defence ripping and defender destroying dribble taking players out of the game prior to sending in a ball to hoardes of players rushing into the box. But then not everyone sets up to leave space and if you are already starting your play from 40 yards out it's not going to help much.

If you are attacking packed defences then what you are looking for is overloading and dribbling to create the space for the accurate final ball to the good striker, rather than exploiting space in the first place. That's pretty much the difference between defensive and attacking football. When you are the "inferior" team you can exploit space that exists, when you are the "superior" team you need to create space.

[aderow]

Where would you say tempo goes in this discussion?

A good dribbler is good anywhere in attack as, if he is persistent enough, he can definitely find holes in a defense.

Also superior movement (would this be a part of 'run from deep'?) gives all 3 aspects a higher success rate.

[Simply... Awesome!]

Where would you say tempo goes in this discussion?

A good dribbler is good anywhere in attack as, if he is persistent enough, he can definitely find holes in a defense.

Also superior movement (would this be a part of 'run from deep'?) gives all 3 aspects a higher success rate.

Agree three times.

In addition how do you attack with disadvantages like:

a team of low stamina?

a team of low creative talent - particularly in midfield?

how do you control movement in a team without pace in their FC and AMC/L/R?

how can you effectively attack without being concerned about the counter-attacking strength of the opponent when one posses DC and DM with low height?

[Jenko_EFC]

Sad to see this thread die with only 7 or so replies so here's something I did whilst playing a few friendlies.

This was a friendly so excuse the strange squad numbers.

Number 20 Park Ji-Sung is instructed with a low mentality and RFD often, he makes bursts behind his fullback all the time whilst Rooney drops deep and plays a few passes with the midfield as I intended to win the midfield battle today, here, Evra picks up the ball and looks down the line, (his first touch was poor so it looks like the ball got away but it didn't) the number 2 for Antwerp moves down their right side to cover that possibility, number 9 picks up Giggs and 6 closes. My number 20 Park Ji-Sung makes a run from deep taking number 3 and 9 with him and Rooney uses his intelligence to get behind his marker number 5, this leaves Rooney on his own whilst Park battles two and we have Fletcher number 9 for us making a run from deep.

This leads to Evra hitting a hopeful cross behind their defender and onto Rooney's head who scores to make it 1-0. Nothing special but I thought it was a good example of low mentality + RFD often and even though Rooney isn't the tallest, he gets alot of headers from "Move into channels", Mentality high, RFD rare, roaming and being target man mixed, he still makes RFD's but when he does he is deadly, he gets the ball in the air and wins the header with swift movment and plays balls into my packed midfield when he gets it to feet.

[Brick_Tamland]

Jenko thank you for the awesome explanation. This is where I struggle BIG time in creating my own tactics.

How to turn the sliders and instructions into on field play.

I generally can shut down most major opponents real well.........however...I cannot score at all in my tactics. EVER.

I am terrible at linking up my MF to the attackers. I got blanked 3 games in a row all 1-0 the other day.

Got so frustrated I switched to Goalstorms tactic and then won 5 in a row scoring 3+ goals each match.

I don't get it. I don't know how to use the tactic creator to link up.

I assign all the roles that highlight the major attributes but nothing seems to work when I create it myself.

[The Tactician]

Hello, I'm new here and I'm reading everything possible in these forums to get "tactically astute".

Jenko_EFC, that looked quite an interesting screenshot and good explanation . I assume you do what SFraser says he does in other threads by un-ticking a few of the settings to design that "fundamental attacking tactic". I'd like to know how you design your wings, with Rooney and Park in the box I was reading and thought "Evra's picked up the ball and there's no left-winger asking for the ball and he can't make a run down the wing, Rooney and Park aren't the biggest and everyone else is being marked" so was surprised when you scored. They certainly parked the bus against you and you certainly packed the midfield. Do you think packing the midfield is good against smaller sides? You said it was a friendly so I assume it was a rubbish team.

Jenko thank you for the awesome explanation. This is where I struggle BIG time in creating my own tactics.

How to turn the sliders and instructions into on field play.

I generally can shut down most major opponents real well.........however...I cannot score at all in my tactics. EVER.

I am terrible at linking up my MF to the attackers. I got blanked 3 games in a row all 1-0 the other day.

Got so frustrated I switched to Goalstorms tactic and then won 5 in a row scoring 3+ goals each match.

I don't get it. I don't know how to use the tactic creator to link up.

I assign all the roles that highlight the major attributes but nothing seems to work when I create it myself.

Whilst I understand you'd want Jenko's explanation, I will try my best because he hasn't posted in a few days but I hope he'll be back soon .

I think what SFraser says in his awesome threads is that you need to use RFD + Mentality to link play together, one thing I'm using in my tactics where I want to dominate the midfield is a high mentality RFD rare+ Low Mentality + RFD often player to get forward + if you ever did biology in school a "Motor Neurone" the best I could describe it, who makes runs back and forth "linking up" the two when the DLF stays back, the latter makes RFD's mixed and normal mentality like a box-to-box and makes runs, lays it off and he plays in the attacking player. This creates my low mentality player to take the ball, play a one-two with the high mentality midfielder who stays still in an advanced position who passes it back to the low mentality player making an forward run. The box-to-box-esque player plays in the AM spot and takes the ball off the RFD often player who either recieves it back because he's carrying on his run or he links up with the strikers because he's close to them. You could do the same if you want to link them up.

Another thing I'm learing and do is un-tick any settings I want to choose manually in team and player instructions and un-tick all settings from RFD down on a players' instructions screen, this gives me total control whilst leaving mentality, passing, closing down and tackling to shouts. As I say, I'm still learning off people like SFraser, Cleon, Jenko and others who could all give a much, much better explanation than me but I hope I helped anyway .

[KrisL]

Some of these Instructions are really good and work really well but the only one I struggle with is beating and opponent because when I watch the highlights the player runs up to the defender and turns back and passes, or is your interpretation of this that the winger beats the fullback and puts in a cross or that he beats the full back which draws a defender out to close down the winger which lets your striker in space and able to take a free shot

[The Tactician]

If you want a winger not an inside forward, to beat a fullback and your winger is fast, try putting him with cross from : Byline, RWB often which should mean he runs to the byline and in-effect beats his man if he comes up against him.

[KrisL]

when I play wingers they do that but if I have a midfielder who can dribble surely he should be able to beat his opposite number and be faced with a now frightened defence with no protection but all he does is dribble about then pass in back.

In Cleons thread about player attributes his example is james milner taking on stephen ireland which forced a defender to close him down which left an easy pass open to the striker

[The Tactician]

RWB often although I assume you already set that, I read somewhere that defensive mentality produces this kind of behaviour maybe set to attacking if not already? Sounds silly but iif he's a midfielder I read in one of Cleon's threads that with direct passing he'll look to pass to the forwards and not behind him, possibly try that.

[KrisL]

with direct passing players look to quickly hit the balls to the strikers the ball milner plays is a through pass that any settings would produce given the chance for the right players

[Cleon]

Direct passing means there more likely to pass the ball forward. I.e if a defender as the ball he will look to play it to a midfielder, then a striker. It doesn't mean how quick someone passes the ball. If you’re looking to play a direct game with an attacking mentality, your players may be launching longer passes from positions further up the pitch, which may prove wasteful.

[cragswfc]

yeah i found that out cleon. also if you using that with a quick tempo aswell you tend have 40% possession, but if you use slow tempo you seem to have alot more possession like eg spian. but itd hard to have it looking good on the eye with quick passing football. but like cleon say's it doesn't mean long balls it maen first thing get it forward ( in a pass ) in stead of side ways are backwards.

[John_Cro]

I thought through ball and run from deep are one theory, in fact. You can't have a through ball without a run. So, it would be better to call a second theory something else or, better to say, first and second are one theory.

If you ask me, I think that second theory is more about the whole team atacking and defending as a unit. Something like float system in which a lot of players have RFD set on much.

Cheers

[KrisL]

thanks for the tip about direct passing, im seeing the passes that I want to see but never do and also helps anderson in particular have really good ratings and also stops useless shots from outside the box