defense tactic help

[dngrs]

I need help building a tactic to play against very big teams (madrid rapes me)

these are my players http://shareimage.org/images/qrae4bchnol6a24ybh9s.png

Im thinking about this one here but im ok with other formations (mind you I have only 1 natural DM but benat can work there too but as a dlp)

........gkd

fbs cdd cdd fbs

.......dmd......

.....dlps b2bs... (benat and herrera) or 2 cms.. ??

...wa.......ifa... muniain as if

.......cfa or ta.. llorente (i just cant have muniain as lone striker as that means i have no spot for llorente and this big guy is important in set pieces)

with direct passing, counter on, deep dline and normal wideness.. quick tempo no wasting? im not sure about strategy counter or control? or maybe even attacking.. philosophy balanced?

and a side question

most of my players barely have any ppms (the 22 year olds) so now I know why some of my cms are ineffective as playmakers

what ppms suit a direct style? should they still dictate tempo or do 1-2s? im guessing killer balls are essential and come deep?

Im not really into the short passing thing but Im up for it if it helps defensive tactics

as additional info my usual tactic is a quick, direct, wide, balanced and attacking 4222 with 2 cms, 2wingers on attack, targetman attack + poacher (another question here: if playing quick and with no IFs or AMC in holding the ball for the targetman // and should his running be set to rarely so he sends the ball to the poacher or the wingers? )

[Marsupian]

I need help building a tactic to play against very big teams (madrid rapes me)

these are my players http://shareimage.org/images/qrae4bchnol6a24ybh9s.png

Im thinking about this one here but im ok with other formations (mind you I have only 1 natural DM but benat can work there too but as a dlp)

........gkd

fbs cdd cdd fbs

.......dmd......

.....dlps b2bs... (benat and herrera) or 2 cms.. ??

...wa.......ifa... muniain as if

.......cfa or ta.. llorente (i just cant have muniain as lone striker as that means i have no spot for llorente and this big guy is important in set pieces)

with direct passing, counter on, deep dline and normal wideness.. quick tempo no wasting? im not sure about strategy counter or control? or maybe even attacking.. philosophy balanced?

and a side question

most of my players barely have any ppms (the 22 year olds) so now I know why some of my cms are ineffective as playmakers

what ppms suit a direct style? should they still dictate tempo or do 1-2s? im guessing killer balls are essential and come deep?

Im not really into the short passing thing but Im up for it if it helps defensive tactics

as additional info my usual tactic is a quick, direct, wide, balanced and attacking 4222 with 2 cms, 2wingers on attack, targetman attack + poacher (another question here: if playing quick and with no IFs or AMC in holding the ball for the targetman // and should his running be set to rarely so he sends the ball to the poacher or the wingers? )

First of all PPM's are NOT needed AT ALL. Just because a player doesn't have the "tries killer balls often" PPM doesn't mean he won't try killer balls often if you give him the instruction to by setting his "through balls" instruction to "often". Herrera will be an excellent playmaker no matter what PPM's he has (as long as he doesn't have the ppm "doesn't play through balls" or maybe a ppm that will make him run forward all the time like "goes forward often"). I almost never teach any of my players a PPM. I have 4 saves at the moment of which 2 are in the second season and I have yet to teach a player a PPM. The only thing I have done PPM related in my save is change the "run from deep" instruction to "rarely" for my fullbacks on my Arsenal save as they all had "get forward whenever possible". I don't want their forward runs to be on "often" so to counter the PPM I changed the instruction to "rarely" this effectively put there forward runs on "sometimes" which is what I wanted.

The tactic looks pretty good. I would personally leave passing, d-line, wideness, tempo and time wasting all on default and go with a counter attacking tactic. This will already give you good settings for a counter attacking defensive style. You can maybe put passing on direct especially if you have a fast forward players. If you see during the match you are struggling to find space for your forward players you can use a shout to play wider. Another change you could make is put the winger on support. This will make him more involved in play by making him drop a little deeper away from the fullback. On attack he will sit on the full back most of the time in an attempt to run onto through balls past or over the fullback and will play much more like a second striker (or in this case third as you also have an inside forward on attack duty). Alternatively you could play the inside forward in a support role instead (or advanced playmaker on attack) which will make him drop a little deeper instead.

You could also keep all three on attack duty in which case it's probably a good idea to put passing on direct and just rely on long balls and through balls from your midfielders which probably isn't a bad choice at all.

For your main tactic I would really advice you to get one of the front 4 players to drop a little deeper and make himself available. You can put one of the strikers on a support role or a trequartista or DLF role or you could make one of the wingers into a Winger (support) or Advanced playmaker (attack or support).

[dngrs]

my CMSs already have it on often indeed

Ill probably just set llorente's mentality to normal.. or even set him on support

those attacking wingers score quite often and get assists in situations like this: fb crosses from deep to far post (from right side / my TM is left side) and there my left winger gets a header in (I just cant get my crossers to find Llorente .. I had crossing on him half a season and llorente offensive-minded and still almost always the crosses found the opposing winger and not llorente)

and regarding this defense tactic how should the crossing be set up?

[Marsupian]

my CMSs already have it on often indeed

Ill probably just set llorente's mentality to normal.. or even set him on support

those attacking wingers score quite often and get assists in situations like this: fb crosses from deep to far post (from right side / my TM is left side) and there my left winger gets a header in (I just cant get my crossers to find Llorente .. I had crossing on him half a season and llorente offensive-minded and still almost always the crosses found the opposing winger and not llorente)

and regarding this defense tactic how should the crossing be set up?

The reason they don't cross to Llorente is because he probably has 2 DC's marking him. The winger on the other hand is often led alone by a fullback who loses his man or they simply out jump the fullback. For a defensive tactic I would set all crossing to "from deep" and "mixed" It's what works best from my personal experience.

[dngrs]

nah usually only 1 guy is marking him and it's pretty lose

if I cross frop deep how should the tempo be then? my striker will need time to get up (im guessing your refering to the winger's setting)

You can put one of the strikers on a support role or a trequartista.

muniain as treq? for now I keep him poaching but if in my next season he performas not so good Ill set him as treq either as striker or AMC

and I still dont know if its a good idea to have the target man hold up the ball and if he should rarely run in a direct, quick, attacking tactic (Im thinking no..)

[Falahk]

Real Madrid are reasonably easy to deal with, much since its possible to work around there formation, and set an AMC free in lots of space:

so yes, I play a reasonably attacking 4-3-1-2 against good teams that have a tendancy to play 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1, the reason for this is that they will be comming at me, and hence leave me more space so I can do this, and secoundly to outnumber and control the creative hub of the oposing team in the center of the pitch, so as a basic game plan I will go out hard, try to hit a couple of early goals, and if things look shaky and im ahead, turtle up with the defensive 4-5-1/4-3-3 I normaly play, sometime in the secound half

sure its a bit risky and you will not win every time, but considering how much better players Real Madrid have, id take a 50% trackrecord anytime:

[dngrs]

would you please upload that tactic?

do you play the same vs all big teams?

[Falahk]

you can find the tactic here, it's pretty much a tweaked version of an fm11 tactic made by randominator

like I mentioned, I only start it vs big teams playing ether 4-4-1-1 or 4-2-3-1, and sometimes if my normal starting tactic have problems dealing with smaller teams playing the mentioned formations I may use it to, but other then that its often better to play a more defensive and solid tactic, to grind out results vs smaller teams

if I face big teams playing different formations then the mentioned two I will use different tactics depending on what I think will give me the largest chanse of winning, but so far im still clueless on how im suposed to level the playing field vs barcelona

[dngrs]

do you try it vs barcelona too?

[Falahk]

do you try it vs barcelona too?

no, they play with a dm that will cover the space I would normaly look to exploit vs Real Madrid, so it dont really work doing the same thing against them

[dngrs]

who are your midfielders in those roles?

[Falahk]

normaly it could look something like in my most recent game against Real, but the cm set up and rb position would depend a lot on fitness, since i rotate my squad a fair bit:

normaly Gurpegi or Iturraspe goes in the center and any combination of Herrera, Benat, Javi Martinez on the wide cm possitions, while I like to use a fast and creative player at AMC, so Muniain would start in that role if he is fit enough, otherwise Susaeta or Igor Martinez will provide the cover

[jimbobBRFC]

normaly it could look something like in my most recent game against Real, but the cm set up and rb position would depend a lot on fitness, since i rotate my squad a fair bit:

normaly Gurpegi or Iturraspe goes in the center and any combination of Herrera, Benat, Javi Martinez on the wide cm possitions, while I like to use a fast and creative player at AMC, so Muniain would start in that role if he is fit enough, otherwise Susaeta or Igor Martinez will provide the cover

Would your lack of a DM not allow Ozil/Hamsik/Ronaldo too much time and space? I know you won just owndering how you managed to counter that, I love the 4-3-1-2 formation but can never get it to work.

[dngrs]

you play llorente as poacher? :|

[Falahk]

Would your lack of a DM not allow Ozil/Hamsik/Ronaldo too much time and space? I know you won just owndering how you managed to counter that, I love the 4-3-1-2 formation but can never get it to work.

the central cm drops back to some extent, and cover the AMC most of the time, its not really optimal but it does the job, droping the central MC down to DMC is something I have considred thought, but lack of time to test it out properly, and a slight fear that it may disrupt the attacking ballance of the tactic have ment that I have not looked into it yet

you play llorente as poacher? :|

technicaly I supose its more like an advanced forward, since the role is slightly tweaked, its much more important to get a role that works with your system, then picking whatever role your assistant manager say is the most suitable one for the player in question, hell in my normal system im telling Llorente to play like Totti becouse it suits that particular tactic better

[jimbobBRFC]

the central cm drops back to some extent, and cover the AMC most of the time, its not really optimal but it does the job, droping the central MC down to DMC is something I have considred thought, but lack of time to test it out properly, and a slight fear that it may disrupt the attacking ballance of the tactic have ment that I have not looked into it yet

I used a 4-1-2-1-2 which what it would be if you dropped him back to great effect with a very defensive DLP just sits in that hole and pings passes around. You get the man protecting the defence without losing too much attacking wise because you have a good passer starting attacks from the back.

[randominator]

you can find the tactic here, it's pretty much a tweaked version of an fm11 tactic made by randominator

I'll give this a go =p

[Falahk]

I used a 4-1-2-1-2 which what it would be if you dropped him back to great effect with a very defensive DLP just sits in that hole and pings passes around. You get the man protecting the defence without losing too much attacking wise because you have a good passer starting attacks from the back.

but it would also move the wider central midfielders a bit more towards the center, which could have some sort of impact on attack aswell, all im saying is that it might be a good idea, but its difficult to tell how it would affect my current set up before I have tested it extenssivly

I'll give this a go =p

unless my memory is playing me tricks, I have not made massive changes to it, I tweaked closing down for the defensive 7, changed the gk distribution to quick throw and added my own corner defense

it did get a bit better at defending, but overall its still pretty much a train wreack at it

[randominator]

unless my memory is playing me tricks, I have not made massive changes to it, I tweaked closing down for the defensive 7, changed the gk distribution to quick throw and added my own corner defense

it did get a bit better at defending, but overall its still pretty much a train wreack at it

It was WIP when I uploaded it and I never got around to releasing the superior 4-1-2-1-2 version. It had a tighter defence because of some tweaks and the DM, without compromising the attack (STCR would still score 90+ goals a season) I might make a version of it for FM12 at some point...

[jimbobBRFC]

Keep at it, eventually it will all just click and come together :-) have faith in your tactic