Juventus, 3-5-2, and the amazing non-scoring strikers

[MrGol]

I'm currently using a 3-5-2, similar to how Juventus has been playing for the last year and a half. The first reason is that I'm actually playing as Juventus, so the squad is a good fit for the formation. However, it's also nice to try something new tactically, after using several variants of 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 for the last couple of FM versions. There are some elements that I haven't used that much (wing backs, a regista, no wingers, a back three), so I'm still figuring out how to best link everything together. Halfway through the season things are going well: I'm winning games, I'm pleased with how my team is playing, but there is one problem: my strikers never score.

This is what my basic shape looks like:

One thing that is immediately obvious is that linking midfield and attack is critical, to prevent the strikers from getting isolated. I have tried to counter this by using the "push up" team instruction. This instruction fits my intended style anyway, since I want to control games and possession. For the same reason I have given the two central midfielders the "get further forward" instruction. This is somewhat risky since it can leave me vulnerable on the counter if the ball is lost in central midfield, but I'm willing to take the risk (plus Pirlo will stay back to protect the defines).

The only other player-specific instructions I have assigned are to the deep-lying forward. I have added "dribble more" and "move into channels", so that he can get into semi-wide positions and operate from there with slightly more space available. The complete forward should stay up front, to act as kind of a more complete target man.

I score a good number of goals, but almost all of them are scored by midfielders. My strikers have scored 4 and 2 goals in the league respectively, which is not something to write home about. It's ironic that I'm complaining about this, since one of the goals I had was to make the strikers assist in the build-up play and make the midfielders do runs into the box. My strikers do get chances, but not as much as I would want.

One thing I've noticed from looking at the "analysis" tab is that the wing backs have a relatively low pass completion rate. My original theory was that they get too high up the pitch. So, when they get the ball they are already positioned too deep, which limits their passing options. I've changed their duty from attack to support, and while the pass completion is a bit better now it's still the lowest.

I have some other observations, but I'm not sure if they are relevant to this topic (plus the post is already quite long). I hope that anyone can offer a suggestion which will lead to my strikers actually getting the ball into the back of the net

[rvd313]

The first thing I'd say is that having both CM's with 'get further forward' is probably hindering your strikers. They need space to play in. Remember what Cruijff said: you help your team-mates by moving further away from them, not by moving in closer. Also, I'd have the attacking CM on the same side as your attacking CF, for pretty much the same reason. With a DLF (S) in front of him, where is your CM (A) supposed to go?

Interesting that your wing backs have a low pass completion rate. I use two Complete Wing Back's in my 3-4-1-2 and they have a pass completion rate of around 85-92%.

[Flight]

Hi,

I have been implemeting the 3-5-2 for Standard in Belgium, trying to closely align to the Juventus model. A couple of suggestions for you:

- I'd have one wing back on attack.

- At least 1 defender as ball playing, they are supposed to play a fair few through balls to your fwds or cm's bombing forward.

- Set both CM's as Box, as rvd313 mentioned, the one who gets fwd should be inline with your forward on attack duty.

- Im on attack mentality most of the time, whats your tempo set to?

- Take dribble more off your support striker, should be setting up for your fwd and cm's

Push up is good, as you want Pirlo to be your fulcrum, in his DM position, needs to be high up enough to do this.

Cheers,

Matt

[MrGol]

Thanks for the advice, this subforum is great

Good point about the central midfielders getting too far forward, I'll remove the instruction. Think this might also influence the poor passing of my wing backs. If the midfielders are indeed too close to the strikers it severely restricts the wing backs' options, since the striker and midfielder on his side both have almost no space when they receive the pass. I will experiment a bit with setting both midfielders to box-to-box, but if I won't go with this I'll swap the AM(a) to behind the main striker, as suggested.

Another thing I considered is to change from Balanced to Fluid, to reduce the gap in mentalities between midfield and attack. I won't change this yet though, to prevent making too many changes at the same time.

[wpmk]

I would go both box-to-box as well since Marchisio and Vidal play as 'shuttlers' who carry the ball from defence/Pirlo to attack.

[MrGol]

Argh, getting this 3-5-2 to work is hard. I've tried some of the suggestions, and the effects have generally been positive. My strikers now actually score some goals, and my team scores more goals in general. I still find the whole thing a bit shaky though. My possession is usually around 45%, which is lower than I intended considering I'm playing "control" and "push higher up". It's not terrible, and I am winning, but I have a feeling like there's still something fundamentally wrong with my tactic.

In short, this is what I changed compared to the opening post:

- the left wing back is now on attack, I left the right one on support. I removed the "move into channels" from my DLF so that he can play in the left wing back when he overlaps. Setting the right wing back to attack doesn't work, the right striker is too far away, so this limits his passing options too much. (other teams in Serie A usually play with packed defences, both because it's Italy and because my team are the favourites. The wing backs can't really make runs into space since there isn't any.)

- I switched the central midfielders so that the MC (a) is on the right, as suggested by rvd313. I tried using two box-to-box midfielders, but I'm not entirely sure about this, since it would leave only one player in midfield on attack duty.

- not suggested, but I've also experimented with a trequartista instead of a DLF. I find my DLF to be excessively looking to play others in, even while there is an opportunity for himself to make a run or shoot. This might have something to do with philosophy. There is a thread on this forum which shows the mentality for the individual players, for each of the philosophies. When using "balanced" the mentality of a DLF is very low, in fact closer to a defensive midfielder than to the other forward. I tried to solve this by changing him to a trequartista (I don't mind if he doesn't close down, and my attackers are very creative). The effects have been mixed: the trequartista is much more dangerous, both in creating chances for himself as for playing through balls, but I did get the "gap between midfield and attack is too big" message from my assistant. I didn't see that while playing a DLF, possibly because the DLF sits even deeper.

- ball playing defender works nicely. In one of the earlier patches I already tried one, but back then he was hitting crazy long balls. Now he sometimes assists the midfield, although the difference is minor it's nice to see.

[RonnySanchez]

Just ignore the message "gap between midfield and attack is too big" a Treq will link attack and midfield, but you really should have at least one central midfielder on attack duty, its particularly important to have it if you play "balanced" fluidity

i also suggest reading The Mentality Ladder: A Practical Framework for Understanding Fluidity and Duty, the sticky thread on this forum.

If you have managed to spread around the goalscoring well around the team then you have done a good job with creating a tactic, in the long run it is better to have more/several scoring options in the team (=less goals by the strikers) then to be all-dependent on their scoring.