The Beauty of the Trequartista

[R0ca]

The Beauty of the Trequartista.

After seeing one of mine(Yes I play with 2) score 4 goals (It was only a pre-season friendly against Gillingham) I had to create a thread.

The Role.

I’m sure we all know about the role by now, but for those who don’t here is SI’s definition of the role:-

“The Trequartista can operate in the attacking midfield or the centre forward positions.

While similar to the advanced playmaker in that he aims to drop into the holes between the opposition’s midfield and defence, the Trequartista does far less defensively and simply drifts around looking for space when the team is not in possession.

As such, the rest of the team needs to carry him when defending, but use him as the main outlet when attacking...”

My View.

Looking at the definition and the nature of the roll, for these guys to be employed correctly we have to build our teams around them, not only are these guys the defining factor in our system they are our absolute skeleton key. They can unlock defences if you give them the right conditions to work within, they are individual players but the correct team environment is crucial to making them work correctly.

Making it work.

For me, the most important factor to getting this working effectively is the creation of space. When my Trequartista’s have no space their performance drops faster than Arsenal at the run-in. So as managers, Tacticians, Strategists (whatever we are going to call ourselves) we have to get this key factor right. Luckily we have tools to aid us and assist us in managing the space, or lack thereof.

The Ideal Scenario is playing against a team who leave a large space between defence and midfield. This gives our Treq’s opportunity to drop off the CB and into this vacant space, leaving the CB with a choice to either come out of his comfort zone and get tight or hold position and allow the man to turn. Getting too tight could lead to being spun, and dropping off allows the TQ to either run at the defence or thread a through ball.

Sounds easy right? Wrong sadly for us the AI isn’t just going to give us free reign to do so. We have to create this space and here’s how I do it.

When playing as a big club we have to un-park the proverbial bus or else our TQ’s are just going to be crowded out of the game. Here’s where our CM’s come into play. MY CM’s are set up to sit back and not go storming forward. This can lead to the AI simply having it’s strikers get tight to my CM’s leaving there own DC & CM’s to clog the area where I want to play in. If this does happen what I try to do is drop by defensive line slightly and advance my CM’s further forward by either increasing my entire team mentality or changing them individually. The idea is to get there entire team abit further up the pitch by dropping my own DL and by pushing my CM’s slightly more advanced make the AI’s CM’s come out to try and get the ball from them.

Another way is to incorporate more width, pretty much on the same principles as the above point, basically what you’re trying to do is get the opposition out of their comfort zone and move them around.

My TQ

I Think the second screen demonstrates why this guy is so good for the role in question.

A Couple of Examples of what a TQ Can do

http://www.mediafire.com/?n36tkdiito3747i

http://www.mediafire.com/?h1zn8sxgm87xxul

[sebastianz]

That regen looks like the best player ever, just look at him! his only "weakness" are his lack of acceleration ("lack") and finishing...

[R0ca]

That regen looks like the best player ever, just look at him! his only "weakness" are his lack of acceleration ("lack") and finishing...

I Don't even feel he's the best player in my 11 to be honest, Ender Can the guy who plays CM is a sight to behold if you see his stats.

[Tidd19]

Why do you feel he is best used as a trequartista? The reason I ask is that looking at his workrate, marking & positioning he looks like he could do a good job for you picking up the opposition DM. From my own understanding isn't a treq just a slightly more creative but defensively inept advanced playmaker? Surely with his stats and your continued attempts to create him space he would be best as an advanced playmaker? His contribution in the defensive phase making up for the little less freedom in movement he would achieve during the attacking phase.

[aderow]

I love the treuqartista role. Thats why I use 2 in my 4-4-2/4-2-4.

[R0ca]

Why do you feel he is best used as a trequartista? The reason I ask is that looking at his workrate, marking & positioning he looks like he could do a good job for you picking up the opposition DM. From my own understanding isn't a treq just a slightly more creative but defensively inept advanced playmaker? Surely with his stats and your continued attempts to create him space he would be best as an advanced playmaker? His contribution in the defensive phase making up for the little less freedom in movement he would achieve during the attacking phase.

Very good question, The reason is 2 fold really.

I'm quite late on in my game, and I'm sure like most f-mers i like to build a youthful team which can play together for years to come. Now this presents a problem because in my save regens coming through have a lack of Flair, in this role i feel it's one of the most crucial attributes to making it work, he's also very creative and his off the ball rating show's he's good at finding little pockets of space to play with in. To me these keys attributes would be wasted further back and he wouldn't be able to utilise them so well.

On top of that i've very lucky, the guys i have to play central midfield are pretty good to say the least. I say Rodrigo's stats and i just see a creative genius personally. i look at him playing further back and i see a much inferior play, his marking and tackling both suck he's not brave or aggressive and he can switch off at times.

I'll happy post up my CM's if anyone wants a look.

[bc1sjw]

Just 1 thing to note - Paulo Henrique is wasted as a striker normally, he plays better at AMC - hes not a striker.

[Marsupian]

Just 1 thing to note - Paulo Henrique is wasted as a striker normally, he plays better at AMC - hes not a striker.

Wether he plays best as striker or AMC is completely down to the tactic and team he plays in. Saying he is always better at AMC is close minded and simply not true. In my tactic I'd rather have Paulo Henrique as ST and a true striker as AMC. When his positional rating improves I'm sure he'll do great as a trequartista up top.

[R0ca]

Just 1 thing to note - Paulo Henrique is wasted as a striker normally, he plays better at AMC - hes not a striker.

For me personally in FM the Amc position is one which is so romantic but one I could never get working playing as a big club its just an area of the pitch which I find too crowded.

However playing with a tq who drops off the cb provides a better option from both a creative and a goal scoring point of view.

We need to remember that FM doesn't match reality, for me ganso has the ability to play tq very well in FM but as I've said in my Op there has to be space to operate in and options ahead of him as well. I'm currently experimenting with different striker combinations.

[Marsupian]

For me personally in FM the Amc position is one which is so romantic but one I could never get working playing as a big club its just an area of the pitch which I find too crowded.

However playing with a tq who drops off the cb provides a better option from both a creative and a goal scoring point of view.

We need to remember that FM doesn't match reality, for me ganso has the ability to play tq very well in FM but as I've said in my Op there has to be space to operate in and options ahead of him as well. I'm currently experimenting with different striker combinations.

I like to play a trequartista together with a more advanced forward who can push the D-line back to create even more space for the trequartista.

[R0ca]

I like to play a trequartista together with a more advanced forward who can push the D-line back to create even more space for the trequartista.

This is exactly what i was doing last season, worked a charm as well i must admit. at the moment i'm just playing around with several different aspect of the role whilst trying to bring my midfield into play as well.

[SFraser]

I like to play an AMC that is pushed right up close to the FC in attack, but the AMC position tends to pull the AMC behind the FC when defending.

The AMC slot is a beast though, I have nailed down First Teamers for most positions in my side but I have given up on a first choice AMC and I play my AMC according to the opponent and the match. A true first choice AMC would have to be some kind of ultimate God of football, and on top of that as ROca says, it's one mighty continuing tactical battle to generate the space for an AMC.

I think an FC TQ naturally benefits from the fact he is off-set, when he starts dropping deep or the FC starts bombing forward there is not only a variation in depth but the players start from different sides of the pitch and this automatically creates or exploits a bit more room. However I swear by a properly setup and properly "tacticalised" (awesome new word) AMC. The very fact the player is an AMC means he will help out your midfield when defending and is in a prime position to spark counter-attacks, and with a bit of tweaking and some sound formation "hinges" you can get this player to take up dangerous positions all over the pitch.

I have used Ozil, Rooney, Gourcuff, Wijnaldum, Pjanic, Aguero and a few well developed regens as my AMC but without a shadow of a doubt the best all round AMC I ever had in my current save was Berbatov. Retrained to Natural AMC this guy was an absolute genius for me. The near perfect cross between playmaker and striker, planted in the AMC slot and given instructions to pull him close to the FC but into the gaps the FC left, he was absolutely 100% lethal.

If I were to define a TQ in his key attributes, and I have spent a long time tweaking these kinds of players in full match replay, I would say the ideal TQ has these attributes at high levels:

Composure

Creativity

Decisions

Flair

Off The Ball

Teamwork

First Touch

Technique

And if you can find one that also has good levels in:

Dribbling

Finishing

Anticipation

Balance

Strength

Passing

Workrate

Then you have found yourself a God, but these players are RARE.

A properly set up, properly utilised, properly built TQ is in my opinion the epitome of football. In FM atleast. The only other player that gives me a comparable level of air punching or "number one" finger pointing is a properly set up, properly utilised, properly built CB. The first cannot be stopped, the second cannot be beaten.

[R0ca]

I like to play an AMC that is pushed right up close to the FC in attack, but the AMC position tends to pull the AMC behind the FC when defending.

The AMC slot is a beast though, I have nailed down First Teamers for most positions in my side but I have given up on a first choice AMC and I play my AMC according to the opponent and the match. A true first choice AMC would have to be some kind of ultimate God of football, and on top of that as ROca says, it's one mighty continuing tactical battle to generate the space for an AMC.

I think an FC TQ naturally benefits from the fact he is off-set, when he starts dropping deep or the FC starts bombing forward there is not only a variation in depth but the players start from different sides of the pitch and this automatically creates or exploits a bit more room. However I swear by a properly setup and properly "tacticalised" (awesome new word) AMC. The very fact the player is an AMC means he will help out your midfield when defending and is in a prime position to spark counter-attacks, and with a bit of tweaking and some sound formation "hinges" you can get this player to take up dangerous positions all over the pitch.

I have used Ozil, Rooney, Gourcuff, Wijnaldum, Pjanic, Aguero and a few well developed regens as my AMC but without a shadow of a doubt the best all round AMC I ever had in my current save was Berbatov. Retrained to Natural AMC this guy was an absolute genius for me. The near perfect cross between playmaker and striker, planted in the AMC slot and given instructions to pull him close to the FC but into the gaps the FC left, he was absolutely 100% lethal.

If I were to define a TQ in his key attributes, and I have spent a long time tweaking these kinds of players in full match replay, I would say the ideal TQ has these attributes at high levels:

Composure

Creativity

Decisions

Flair

Off The Ball

Teamwork

First Touch

Technique

And if you can find one that also has good levels in:

Dribbling

Finishing

Anticipation

Balance

Strength

Passing

Workrate

Then you have found yourself a God, but these players are RARE.

A properly set up, properly utilised, properly built TQ is in my opinion the epitome of football. In FM atleast. The only other player that gives me a comparable level of air punching or "number one" finger pointing is a properly set up, properly utilised, properly built CB. The first cannot be stopped, the second cannot be beaten.

Out of interest:-

How would you rate mine out of 10?

[SFraser]

Out of interest:-

How would you rate mine out of 10?

Out of 10? Tricky one.

He is almost a God, but the two stand out areas he is not very exciting in is Flair and Teamwork. He is a good but not great team player, and he is a good but not great "flamboyant" player.

I bet he plays like an awesomely gifted battleaxe, but not the magic wand waving defence ripping footballing God you hoped for, and that is simply because he isn't the most flamboyant and he isn't the greatest team player.

For me those two attributes are two of the most crucial in a TQ. Infact my top three attributes would be Creativity, Flair, Teamwork.

For that reason I would have to go 7.5 out of 10, despite the fact he is a truly awesome footballer.

You can always add on another point because I am stingy, harsh, and demand perfection

If it was me in charge of that guy I would be looking to shift some of his Strength and Aerobic attributes into his Tactics and Shooting. Shooting will give you increased composure, tactics will give you increased Anticipation, Decisions and Teamwork.

Alas Flair cannot be altered in this way, and Flair is a BIG attribute in those "godlike" attacking players.

He is still an absolute weapon of a player though. Great player. I have a tendency for the random and I would probably retrain him as a striker, then see if I could find one of those "flamboyant gods" to play AMC. Those two should link up well. And if you play goalscoring Inside Forward then that guy through the middle would be the God he is, just not a God like TQ.

I find that one of the fastest ways to figure out a player is to look at the two bottom Mental attributes. If Workrate is dark blue and Teamwork light blue then he is a battler. If teamwork is dark blue and workrate light blue then he is a creator. If both are dark blue then go look for where he is lacking attributes to make up those two, and find out what he is not. It's probably some key technical attribute...

If neither are dark blue he is a dud. At the higher levels anyway.

[R0ca]

Flair can be altered however it's like jumping it doesn't move easily at all, i've seen increases in players flair but it's really difficult to get any increments on.

I'm retraining him as a striker now as we speak I'll look at creating a custom schedule for him with very light fitness training to see if i can reduce these and increase the aforementioned stats.

I'm fortunate enough to have good players playing behind him which meant i could re-train him as a Striker. And in terms of lack of flair i think it's a issue wide thing within 11.3 regens with outrageous flair are few and far between sadly.

Thanks for the thoughts Fraser. I don't expect to be playing with a AMC I'm trying to create almost a hybrid tactic which is lob-sided if anyone gives a crap i'll post a pic of the current formation but like anything i'm doing at the moment it's very experimental.

[SFraser]

but like anything i'm doing at the moment it's very experimental.

If anything you do in FM is not experimental then either you don't understand the game or you have found a critical bug.

[R0ca]

If anything you do in FM is not experimental then either you don't understand the game or you have found a critical bug.

I think for me personally i get pretty frustrated when i see one of my players do something which isn't to my liking, which leads to alot of tweaking here and there to try and change the particular behaviour.

I think for me personally in my save i feel i've got some very good players so i'm having alot of fun trying to get the best out of them

[Tidd19]

I'd actually be really interested to see those CMs if you could post 'em up. Always fun to identify strengths & weaknesses in FM players and come up with plans on how you would personally play them.

[R0ca]

Certainly, like anything they ain't perfect but they sure as hell do a fine job!

Ender Can

Vitaliy Mikheev

Luca Mancini

Martinez

Saleh

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[R0ca]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Chronically lacking flair i know:(

Thats why they are playing further back in the midfield. I need to start developing younger player more efficiently though. The Registration rules are really becoming troublesome at this stage.

[SFraser]

That's some weaponlike DM's you have there.

But I have to win

[bc1sjw]

Are all these regens from your youth??

[R0ca]

That's some weaponlike DM's you have there.

But I have to win

Lol in my experience Fraser FM2010 produced "better" high end regens! out of interest do you have any Screen shots of ramirez when you first signed him? I'd just like to see how you choose to develop him and the sort of change we can get from what i call attribute shaping

@ bc1sjw

Nope none came through my actual academy, i think it's very hard to find many players who can become world class come via tha method.

I did however manage to get all apart from ender can cheaply

Martinez = 4.5 Mill

Saleh = 4.8 mill

Mikheev = 600k

Mancini 4.9mil

Scouting was the key to it. Although i think if i had these players again i would have developed them differently.

[Tidd19]

I think all your newgens look pretty damn good Roca (Sfraser we all know yours are brilliant, no need for me to repeat myself). They have absolutely god-like physical stats, so much so I'd be tempted to move some of their CA over into their mental or technical stats. Does a CM really need 17/18 for acceleration? That's just overkill. Give the opposition a chance.

However, I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to stick a Gattuso or Mascherano character into the middle of them to make up for their lack of aggression & bravery. Do you ever find them choking against more physical, hard-tackling midfields?

Also their Determination is immense, what are their personality descriptions and who has tutored them? I must have him!

[R0ca]

I think all your newgens look pretty damn good Roca (Sfraser we all know yours are brilliant, no need for me to repeat myself). They have absolutely god-like physical stats, so much so I'd be tempted to move some of their CA over into their mental or technical stats. Does a CM really need 17/18 for acceleration? That's just overkill. Give the opposition a chance.

However, I wouldn't be able to resist the urge to stick a Gattuso or Mascherano character into the middle of them to make up for their lack of aggression & bravery. Do you ever find them choking against more physical, hard-tackling midfields?

Also their Determination is immense, what are their personality descriptions and who has tutored them? I must have him!

Thanks for the praise, it's appreciated.

I fully understand what your saying about sticking someone in midfield to ruffle people up. but once again I'm not sure how u guys are doing on this front but I'm having issues finding people with stats so high in them area's who'd warrant a place in my team. As I'm playing as Man City Most teams are negative against me so i don't require someone with them traits as much as a lesser team may.

In Terms of mentors I had to build Man City from the ground up Pretty much, I'm not a great fan of the signings they've made since they aquired that arab money

So in my very first season i shipped in Philip Lahm & Giorgio Chiellini. Vincent Kompany makes a excellent tutor and due to his versatility he can play central midfield as well. What i've found however is most of the Youth's who look like something pretty special in my experience have usually had Determination of 15+ So what i did in these cases was to try and focus on other hidden stats especially professionalism and pressure.

In Terms of choking. I Can't say it's something I've noticed to be honest, but during most of my tenure I've been playing a 4-2-3-1 and i think as most times play quite a negative game against me I've never had too much of a slog there. I've had problems getting them to get ratings above 7.1's but i believe this be more down to the match engine and how it rates players than anything else.

In my Opinion as well Anticipation can make up for this as well couple with Positioning it gives such a edge when building a cohesive "unit".

[Tidd19]

I personally am finding good bravery stats but rarely do i get high aggression stats from the regens I've seen so far. I'm not very far into my game though only 3rd season so I'm going to give it a few more seasons before looking for trends in the newgens. Kompany might be worth a buy actually. I was almost tempted a while back by him as a ball-playing CB which he fits the role brilliantly but the scout reports put me off. He's definitely going to get another look.

Btw if you think Man City's buying policy in real life is bad you should see them when under computer AI. They are an absolute player hog, currently for LB in my game they have; Vargas (transfer listed 110,000 a week), Coentrao (loaned out), Baines (first team), Kolarov (transfer listed), a good up and coming newgen, & the usual bridge, lescott & Boateng. There's non left for the rest of us! The Icing on the cake is that i managed to get a v.good italian LB newgen, and guess who's been sniffing around him this summer?

[R0ca]

Doesn't suprise me. with the homegrown rules they won't even be able to field them all.

The newgen's i've just glanced at, well the ones with aggression and bravery are all severely lacking in other area's which make them worthless to me practically.

Back to the topic at hand!

I'm currently fiddling with playing a Lone TQ in a 4-2-3-1 formation. He's supported by an Attacking Midfielder in Attacking, And too Inside forwards who are playing with greatly reduced mentalities as i need them as a passing outlet when playing out from the back as well Managed to beat a decent newcastle side 6-0 in my first game with it. Inside forwards didn't contribute a great deal to the game however it's very early days of course, and i guess that reducing their mentalities will obviously have a knock on effect on how they perform from an attacking point of view.

The Overall idea behind this was as Sfraser likes to do have the creative aspect coming from off the CB's and dropping into the space in front of the defense, and have my attacking goalscoring threat coming from deep looking for the through balls from the TQ. With them bursting forward from deeper area's it should make them harder to mark in theory. Well that's the theory behind the current set up anyways.

[SFraser]

I think all your newgens look pretty damn good Roca (Sfraser we all know yours are brilliant, no need for me to repeat myself).

Yeah sorry about that. It was my competitive nature popping out at a random time.

I fully understand what your saying about sticking someone in midfield to ruffle people up. but once again I'm not sure how u guys are doing on this front but I'm having issues finding people with stats so high in them area's who'd warrant a place in my team. As I'm playing as Man City Most teams are negative against me so i don't require someone with them traits as much as a lesser team may.

I find that physically imposing DLP's, or rather DLP's that can win a fair few headers and are reasonably strong, can simply camp inside the opponents half and win near every clearance. Anticipation, Composure, Position plus good levels for Jumping and Strength are wonderful attributes to have in your midfield particularly against weaker opponents that you have pinned on their own 18 yard line.

That guy Francisco from your OP would make a good CM. Okay he lacks jumping but he is sharp and strong and fast and has immense workrate. Anticipation, Speed and Strength can make up for deficiencies in Positioning and Tackling, you know he wont shy away from doing his job properly and grafting hard, and when caught up in a midfield footballing brawl you can be confident he will ping the ball straight into the toe of a winger or fullback. Not to mention you could ask him to get forward either dribbling or making runs and he would be very dangerous coming from deep.

At the end of the day though I am a big fan of Workrate. I would rather play a player with 14 Anticipation than 14 Workrate because there is no point having great abilities if you are not prepared to use them and get involved. Workrate is a big attribute for CM's, Fullbacks and pretty important for AMC's and FC's too.

[R0ca]

Rodrigo is a monster playing as TQ So far so i wont be looking to move him from that role, i do totally agree with you though SFraser, i reckon he could pretty much do a job anywhere on the pitch.

for example Rodrigo's stats for this season are as follow's (League stats only)

Games 13

Goals 8

Pens 0

Assists 17

Average rating 8.01

Speaking of midfielders ya'll how would you play the guy Ender Can (see my post with all my midfielders on) I'm currently playing him as part of my Dual DLP set up however he doesn't excel there i'm toying with pushing him further forward but any idea's would be appreciated!

[Tidd19]

He's a bit of a conundrum isn't he? Good DM defensively and excellent playmaker he's also a brilliant dribbler with good pace and acceleration. I'd be tempted to give him Box to Box with alterations to reduce his long shots, increase his dribbling & increase his through balls. The idea being to get him involved in everything defensive and attacking.

[R0ca]

A dynamo of sorts interesting indeed maybe the mistake I'm making is trying to shoe horn him into my current system. I think I could accommodate him in a different role with modifications to my other CM ill have a fiddle when I reach back home later his creativity is 19 now too.

The danger of making him box to box is he ends up camped on the oppositions 18 yard line like my attackers tend to do on more drawn out attacks

[retrodude09]

how do you guys find & develop regens to get them this good?

[R0ca]

Either Manually by searching through a whole lot of teams and looking for the good one's amongst them. This works well in countries which produce alot of good regens EG France, Germany, Brazil etc

Or assigning your scouts intelligently Sfraser has written a fantastic thread on this in his how to develop youth players thread which i would recommend reading (heck i'd recommend reading all his threads).

In Terms of development they need playing time and a good attitude so good tutors is essential to the process as well. I'm fortunate whereby i can take "gambles" i can buy youth's who may or may not make it and discard them if they don't make the grade at a smaller club that wont be so easy.

[lucatonix]

how do you guys find & develop regens to get them this good?

I think the trick is to have a system in place. Whether this is a system of rotation of tutoring and loaning annually/6 monthly or as much tutoring and u18/reserve matches as possible until ready to be loaned out. Or whether it is just select a few youngsters and pay them lots of attention by putting them into the first team/rotation place to maximise development. All these systems and others have pro's and con's but you need to pick one to stick to.

Once you have a system you should be able to develop youngsters like on a conveyor belt. Any who aren't of a good enough standard should be sold or discarded along the way.

Once the system is in place then you only need to worry about the scouting. Search expansively in detail across Europe, Brazil and Argentina (ie by nation and leagues including youth) and in less detail other continents. Make sure you pay attention to international u19 and u21 competitions and they should find good enough regens for you to develop.

[Kawee]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm a big fan of two-footed players. I feel like your Rodrigo is criminally under-powered in that department. He seems to be doing well enough though.

In my experience (especially with my house rule of only signing players 17 years old or younger) You can easily build the best squad in the world with just European players (assuming you're playing in Europe.) Central Europe and British Isles are where it's at. Get the best youths from those area and you're set, in my experience.

[R0ca]

I don't know about you guys, but I'm a big fan of two-footed players. I feel like your Rodrigo is criminally under-powered in that department. He seems to be doing well enough though.

In my experience (especially with my house rule of only signing players 17 years old or younger) You can easily build the best squad in the world with just European players (assuming you're playing in Europe.) Central Europe and British Isles are where it's at. Get the best youths from those area and you're set, in my experience.

You should create a thread describing your ways of developing players from 17 +. I must admit this is a area i could improve on!

[R0ca]

For my buddy SFraser

Damn i miss FM2010 and this guy. i can fully understand why your still playing it. You posted your boy ramirez up so i just wanted to balance it out abit

This lad actually came through real's academy too!

[jorisjoris]

I actually never used a trequartista, because I play a very high closing down tactic. This thread got me interested in trying it out, I will be playing this player as trequartista, I think he should be very well suited for it:

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

He's not a natural striker, he's natural in AMC and 'only' accomplished as striker, but I'm going to play him in a 4-4-2 systems with wingers (AML + AMR). I'm gonna play him up front with a poacher, I'm quite excited about it now I'll report back in a few hours!

[R0ca]

With him as your focal point i get the feeling you'll be enjoying some awesome football!

[jorisjoris]

I hope so.. I'm waiting for him to recover from his injury though.. He actually suffered that injury at the exact moment I made the screenshot, so I didn't even notice the injury until I uploaded the picture. Two star players with a broken foot at the moment, just a run of bad luck I guess!

[Kawee]

You should create a thread describing your ways of developing players from 17 +. I must admit this is a area i could improve on!

I haven't given it a read yet, but I heard SFraser's thread on developing young players is very good. You should give it a read.

What I do is nothing special. I just abuse the loaning out youngster option, and have clubs from all around Europe develop my players for me.

[R0ca]

I haven't given it a read yet, but I heard SFraser's thread on developing young players is very good. You should give it a read.

What I do is nothing special. I just abuse the loaning out youngster option, and have clubs from all around Europe develop my players for me.

I have read it many times. I think ill try to be more patient and give them more playing time. Due to the stupid home grown rule I've got to plan my loans pretty well or my players will lose trained at the club status

[Kawee]

Hmm...I don't think they do, if you buy them at 17 or younger. I've got my youngsters sent out all over Europe and they still come back to me as HG.

[R0ca]

Hmm...I don't think they do, if you buy them at 17 or younger. I've got my youngsters sent out all over Europe and they still come back to me as HG.

If I buy them at 17 and loan them out for a couple of seasons which is what most need in my experience then they have lost raised at club status. What I have done for this season is slimmed down my squad further to give more chances to them.

[Zimmah]

Nice thread R0ca! Regarding the lacking of flair in your players, can you not help them be a bit more unexpected when learning them moves such as 'Uses outside of foot', 'Tries killer balls often', 'Attempts overhead kicks', 'Tries first time shots', 'Tries tricks', 'Curls ball', 'Attempts to lob keeper', etc. I would like to know if such PPM's are helpful if CM/AM/ST are low on flair. Low flair means less risky/tricky/difficult/ambitious actions right, so if they have some of these PPM's would they actually execute them often (with high CF offcourse)?

[R0ca]

Nice thread R0ca! Regarding the lacking of flair in your players, can you not help them be a bit more unexpected when learning them moves such as 'Uses outside of foot', 'Tries killer balls often', 'Attempts overhead kicks', 'Tries first time shots', 'Tries tricks', 'Curls ball', 'Attempts to lob keeper', etc. I would like to know if such PPM's are helpful if CM/AM/ST are low on flair. Low flair means less risky/tricky/difficult/ambitious actions right, so if they have some of these PPM's would they actually execute them often (with high CF offcourse)?

Already done / doing. My lower flair players tend to be my central midfielders. What I do is teach the ppms and try to increase the ttb to often but I believe it can't be made up for its just one of them things

[R0ca]

The End Of Season

The Season has now come to an end with my love affair of the Trequartista role still as strong as when i started this thread. With many tactical variations and experimentations i ended the season reverting back to my tried and trusted 4-2-3-1 system which is very much inspired from the sheer flexibility this tactic offers.

My ending concept was pretty simple, have my TC playing as a loan striker with my goalscoring threads coming from AMR, AML & AMC positions, the job of my central midfielders is to win the midfield battle and recycle possession intelligently. Getting the settings right from the AMR AML & AMC positions was challenging because the role is 2 fold and in my experience it's hard to get the correct balance. the quandry was to work the ball out from the back in order to this i needed my AMR AND AML to come short and give a passing option, but in turn they also have to be able to run drop deep exploiting the space in between the oppositions fullbacks and centre backs.

Ok enough of the blabberring on, just how did Rodrigo perform throughout the season?

Judge for yourself. I'm more than happy with his contribution he did exactly what i wanted him to do. He brought my team mates into play and gave my team a more well rounded threat. Yes he could have scored more goals but for the style of play i'm aiming for it wasn't his primary role.

Whats more i believe he can get better, i want to teach him a couple more PPM's to compliment his game. He's already got tries killer ball often if i can add "comes deep to collect ball" and places shots I'll have reached my goal for him...

Until he does something which annoys me that is!

[Jambo98]

Im currently trying out a tactic with 2 TQ in it, and to make it more difficult i am not playing as a world class team (Hearts in the SPL, but season 3 so massively improved squad, around top 8 EPL side id say). I have a couple of players well suite to it, comparitive to the league level. Both high Creativity, flair and teamwork.

My tactic is a 4231 but it is narrow with 3 AMC (and 2 DMC). My idea is to have the 2 outer AMC as TQ, on the basis that being offset from centre they should get more space. Now clearly having potentially 3 players in the same area is going to cause me a problem when it comes to finding space, so i have the central AMC set as "support" and "attacking midfielder", to encourage him to come deeper, leaving the space for my 2 TQ.

I have my striker set to "poacher" to try and keep him further up the park and allow more space for the TQ, although i am considering changing to advanced forward.

If this still doesnt give the space, i think i will get my Striker to try and learn PPM "trys to beat the offside trap" (so he plays on the shoulder) and my AMC to learn "comes deep to collect the ball). I may even have to move the AMC back to MC.

I also have the 2 TQ swapping positions, again to help drag players out of position. Will be interesting to see if this works overall

[Kawee]

I advise against the swapping of players. The ME do some crazy stuff when swapping positions. Sometimes they swap positions while the other team's backline has the ball. This means you lose 2 players who could be pressuring the defense.

The TQ has "roaming" on so they should be able to find quite a bit of space down the flanks.

[aderow]

I bet this guy would make a great trequartista.....