Handling Super-Dribblers

[wwfan]

Have been asked by SI to post a quick note on how you might defend against FB/winger super-dribblers in the 13.2.1 ME.

Thus far, the best method seems to be specific marking them with either a winger, an AM or an FC, depending on which is the most logical for your formation. This encourages your player to get behind the dribbler before he gets up to speed, which generally stops the dribble before he sets off. Although it does knock on to some unusual deep marking patterns, which might slightly handicap your ability to counter attack, it does significantly reduce the number of dribbles and provides defensive stability.

I've not tried specific-marking an FC super-dribbler, but doing that with an MC or DMC should produce similar results. Merry Christmas and enjoy playing.

[RTHerringbone]

Is that an acknowledgement that the issue persists with the latest patch?

I haven't seen such a prevalence of "super-dribblers"; there are still mazy runs, but fewer and generally with less end result in the games I've watched so far.

What I am seeing is more erratic shots in general, and diluted effectiveness of crosses (which is a pain, as my Winger was hugely effective up until this patch!)

[wwfan]

Only for genuinely world class dribblers (great acceleration, pace, dribbling, balance & agility). I genuinely love the ME once you've combatted this threat. Bit of a workaround at the moment, but not a completely unrealistic solution to a key threat.

[lam]

Have been asked by SI to post a quick note on how you might defend against FB/winger super-dribblers in the 13.2.1 ME.

Thus far, the best method seems to be specific marking them with either a winger, an AM or an FC, depending on which is the most logical for your formation. This encourages your player to get behind the dribbler before he gets up to speed, which generally stops the dribble before he sets off. Although it does knock on to some unusual deep marking patterns, which might slightly handicap your ability to counter attack, it does significantly reduce the number of dribbles and provides defensive stability.

I've not tried specific-marking an FC super-dribbler, but doing that with an MC or DMC should produce similar results. Merry Christmas and enjoy playing.

This is exactly what I do and have been doing for some time.

Everything you have said above is correct, including playing out of position. You WILL get comments that your players are being pulled out of position.

Also, making the dribblers do what they dont want to do is a good thing. Obviously this applies to wingers mainly but if they like cutting in, send them outside, if they like crossing, send them inside.

I'm a fan of TIGHT MARKING, but the only players I use it on at the start of a game is the MC's and AMC's. After that I look to the stats to see who is doing what. If there is a winger that is hurting me then he gets attention.

LAM

[MAGiCK_FOOTBALL]

@wwfan: somebody mentioned on another post that the ME is fundamentally new and has been the product of two years work - is this right, or are they talking rubbish?

I'm with you in the sense that the attacking play looks beautiful with the movement and passing. It's just the defensive lapses which come about when faced with high speed dribblers.

[wwfan]

There was a two-year process to add collision detection, proper player and ball physics, plus a few other things, to the FM11/12 ME. Balancing all of that extra information is incredibly difficult.

The high speed dribbler issue is a knock on to generally improved defending against wide play. For all but the high speed, agile players, the FBs are able to push them onto their weaker foot, knock them off their stride, crowd them out and stop the dribble. However, world class dribblers are able to change their direction so quickly that they can completely negate all of this FB work. In reality, this wouldn't matter so much, because the winger would be tracking back to help. However, in FM, the winger too often ignores the defensive aspect of play and leaves the FB to deal with the threat single handedly. The specific marking fix forces the winger to track back and help the FB out, which stops the world class dribbler from simply running round the FB.

[SJ234]

So the actual issue is tracking back. In terms of tracking back in future games would it not be possible to provide an option to tick whether you want that player to track back or not. How well they do it and how often they stick to this varies depending on the player.

or something like that...

[Lambie\'s Lovechild]

What puzzles me is that if you had a high speed super dribbler in real life, and he went on a mazy dribble, as long as a player could get near him, you would see him fouled at a safe distance from goal. These guys run past 4 or 5 players in midfield who, even on hard tackling and closing down, do not attempt to foul the player. Ive found two players in particular (Gaston Ramirez and Nani) who are completely untouchable in most games.

[axehan1]

What puzzles me is that if you had a high speed super dribbler in real life' date=' and he went on a mazy dribble, as long as a player could get near him, you would see him fouled at a safe distance from goal. These guys run past 4 or 5 players in midfield who, even on hard tackling and closing down, do not attempt to foul the player. Ive found two players in particular (Gaston Ramirez and Nani) who are completely untouchable in most games.[/quote']

thank god i've got Nani then.....

[Karnage94]

Ah Nani. The thing with him is that He will jink past anyone until he gets within 40 yards, then shoots. I dropped him 2 games in because he ruined chances and never tried him again. Maybe if I curb his creative freedom he'll become untouchable

[Outliar]

What about long shots? Every match I play I seem to have players thinking they're Ronaldo shooting from all over the park, and yes I have them on long shots rarely

[axehan1]

Ah Nani. The thing with him is that He will jink past anyone until he gets within 40 yards, then shoots. I dropped him 2 games in because he ruined chances and never tried him again. Maybe if I curb his creative freedom he'll become untouchable

That works for me, CF first notch of normal,winger attack but his ppm's negate most of the winger instructions anyways(games not open at the moment but i'm sure he has cuts inside and shoots from distance?).He isnt entirely stupid with his distance shooting though,in my Man utd save RvP as DLF drags defenders with him allowing him to slot Rooney in or if he does do as he's told and hit the byline invariably it leads to a cross with a goal/chance.

All about the CF though.

[James9]

There was a two-year process to add collision detection, proper player and ball physics, plus a few other things, to the FM11/12 ME. Balancing all of that extra information is incredibly difficult.

The high speed dribbler issue is a knock on to generally improved defending against wide play. For all but the high speed, agile players, the FBs are able to push them onto their weaker foot, knock them off their stride, crowd them out and stop the dribble. However, world class dribblers are able to change their direction so quickly that they can completely negate all of this FB work. In reality, this wouldn't matter so much, because the winger would be tracking back to help. However, in FM, the winger too often ignores the defensive aspect of play and leaves the FB to deal with the threat single handedly. The specific marking fix forces the winger to track back and help the FB out, which stops the world class dribbler from simply running round the FB.

So you would put the winger to specific mark the winger on his side. In FM 12 I use to put the winger to specific mark the full back so that he would track back. My wingers usually played in the AML/R positions. I have not really played FM13 too much because I am waiting for the final patch and transfer update to be released.

[chronic haze1]

the game is getting beyond a joke at the moment against man city they had 45 shots against me , i am having an average of 25, 30 shots against me every game this is no real i am experienced with this game and never seen any thing like this before si really needs to sought this game out by looking on the forums no- one can crack what to do with it

[jujigatame]

So am I to understand from this thread that simply setting "tight marking" isn't enough to curb wingers, that I need to assign a specific marker? Because even with "tight marking" set on all wide players I still see them getting loads of space and scoring at the back post with regularity.

[Cleon]

So am I to understand from this thread that simply setting "tight marking" isn't enough to curb wingers, that I need to assign a specific marker? Because even with "tight marking" set on all wide players I still see them getting loads of space and scoring at the back post with regularity.

Tight marking could make it worse because if your player isn't good enough or fast enough he'll just get skinned all day long.

But yes you specific mark them

[^Goose^]

I've just tried this with my Schalke team and i've set my AML and AMR to specific man mark the opponents AML and AMR but neither of my boys are doing anything of the sort. I still see them miles away from their man making no effort to get near him.

[Edit] Ignore the above. I definitely selected specific man marking prior to the game but after checking during the game my AML and AMR were set to just 'man' rather than 'specific'. A bug perhaps?

[jujigatame]

This appears to be working nicely. In the 10 games before I implemented this change, I allowed 15 goals. In the 12 games since, I've allowed 10 goals. My only remaining issue is when my opponent plays advanced wingers, it doesn't really seem appropriate to mark them with my advanced wingers. On quick-developing moves my wingers can't really catch up to them in time so they're fairly useless. It seems like using CMs may be the better choice even though it seems unnatural to have CMs marking wingers. I'm playing a 3-CB setup so fullbacks aren't an option sadly.

I wonder, is this unmarked back post issue something that SI is planning on fixing in the next update, or will I have to continue using this sort of specific marking even after the next patch?

[hejh0pp]

This appears to be working nicely. In the 10 games before I implemented this change, I allowed 15 goals. In the 12 games since, I've allowed 10 goals. My only remaining issue is when my opponent plays advanced wingers, it doesn't really seem appropriate to mark them with my advanced wingers. On quick-developing moves my wingers can't really catch up to them in time so they're fairly useless. It seems like using CMs may be the better choice even though it seems unnatural to have CMs marking wingers. I'm playing a 3-CB setup so fullbacks aren't an option sadly.

I wonder, is this unmarked back post issue something that SI is planning on fixing in the next update, or will I have to continue using this sort of specific marking even after the next patch?

If I recall correctly they're currently working on a tons of "weaknesses" in the match engine at the moment. The unmarked back post problem is probably one of them.

[jujigatame]

Now that I've fixed the back post thing for the post part, the vast majority of goals against me seem to come from:

1) Scrambles in the box where my defenders fail to clear

2) Corners, mostly to the near post

[hejh0pp]

Now that I've fixed the back post thing for the post part, the vast majority of goals against me seem to come from:

1) Scrambles in the box where my defenders fail to clear

2) Corners, mostly to the near post

They're currently trying to fix defenders not reaching and clearing loose balls.