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Robert Lewandowski


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What is the best role and formation to use him?

I play with Schalke04 on the 2nd season, and I managed to free-transfer him from Dortmund in the last summer.

He's definitely a world-class, but from some reason I just can't make him deliver his positives for the team!

I tried everything. Trequertista, Poacher, Complete-Forward. Nothing works for him.

Last season he smashed 29 goals for Dortmund. But for me he has a poor record of 6 goals in 17 matches.

This is my squad and formation:

530b11410a0ba5d2.jpg

What can you suggest?

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I use him for Bayern as a false nine, he can play it well as he's pretty much the complete forward and can play all roles. I've found the false nine is probably the best role for strikers on this game as all others seem to fail hopefully the patch will address this but most tactics on the forum use this role as well.

I've found using a strike partner with him works well I have lukaku and they're deadly and just added Mitrovic to the forward line for next season so should be interesting

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This is the formation Dormund used last season, when he scored 29 goals for them.

Actually, I do think the problem is the congestion up front, but I don't know how to solve it. Last season I played exactly the same, only with Huntelaar as a TM, and he scored 30 goals.

Draxler scored 4 goals and Boateng got 3. Lewan has 6. I just cant make them work together.

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You have major formation problems as a whole - i would start by suggesting the following:

Read this first: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/366111-How-to-Play-FM14-A-Twelve-Step-Guide

then the Pairs & Combinations link posted above ^^^

finally the GPTG thread for Dortmund: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/373623-FM14-Borussia-Dortmund-Echte-Liebe?p=9201995#post9201995

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Well, I read some of the guides and decided to change my formation to that one:

530d8c2259eee45c.jpg

At first, it seemed Lewan enjoys the new formation and becomes more active in the game.

But after 2-3 matches he went back to poor form, almost not involved at all in the game. I'm just frustrated I can't get a good form from him.

He also misses all the chances he gets. I just don't know what to do with him anymore.

530d8cbe5e0be3d1.jpg

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I'm not convinced tactics should factor as a major reason he can't score goals.

If a super striker gets a chance to score one on one with the GK, then that precise situation is not about tactics at all.

Since the problem isn't the number of chances he gets, but how well below his stats he execute them. I find it somewhat strange people starts hammering the tactics button, like it's some magic cure all, I just experienced the tactics horde myself due to having Messi going from 50+ goals in one season to 20 in 3rd. It's not about him not getting chances, it's about him not being able to execute said chances.

The tactics improvement will of course help if you get another striker, but it won't fix your broken striker and I've yet to see anyone have a clue as to why some players break.

Q: Does he get Chances?

A1: Yes -> NOT A TACTICS PROBLEM

A2: No -> A Tactics problem!

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I'm a huge advocate of the Trequartista and I believe it is the most versatile and complete role up front. It does more than any other role imo.

However, it is a playmaker. If you want a playmaker up front then that's fine. But you dont want a playmaker, so you have to make tweaks. What PIs are you giving Lewa? Try adding Dribble More. He's barely running with the ball - average of 1.05 per game is absolutely terrible - so if encourage him to run at defences via the PI I mentioned then he will get more involved. He will become a playmaker in the true sense - making plays. People think a playmaker is someone who passes. It is not. A playmaker is someone who makes something happen through creativity and intuition. Allowing Lewa to pass or run as he sees fit is going to get him playing better.

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Miravlix, the problem is not that he misses opportunities. It's that he never gets involved in the game, never threats the goal, never even touches the ball. He is just nothing in offense.

JDownie, I just tried your tip and set him as Trequartista with Dribble More. He was awful.

I'm playing FM since 2003 or something, and never failed that much with a striker. :(

I'm trying the last resort now before I'm selling him: I'm gonna teach him to stop "Comes Deep To Get Ball" and to start "Likes To Beat Offside Trap", then I'll use him as a Pocher due to his high phisical aspects.

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Lewandowksi as a Trequartista is a complete waste of a Work Rate 18 attribute!!! Don't do it, it makes me very angry, grrrh

In a 433 formation use him with a role a support duty, something like a False 9(s) or Defensive Forward(s).

In a 4231 formation use him with a role with attack duty, something like Advance Forward(a) or Poacher(a). However, as disucussed already, some of your other player roles need adjusting.

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Lewandowksi as a Trequartista is a complete waste of a Work Rate 18 attribute!!! Don't do it, it makes me very angry, grrrh

In a 433 formation use him with a role a support duty, something like a False 9(s) or Defensive Forward(s).

In a 4231 formation use him with a role with attack duty, something like Advance Forward(a) or Poacher(a). However, as disucussed already, some of your other player roles need adjusting.

Au contraire, it makes him even better as a Trequartista. Just because the nature of the role is to not close down, it doesn't mean he won't work that way. I play Jordan Rhodes as my Treq. and he's a workhorse.

Razaviv - I'd give him more than one game as a Trequartista. Tip though - if he's being marked out of the game as a Treq, make him a DLF/S. He'll get more involved that way.

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Au contraire, it makes him even better as a Trequartista. Just because the nature of the role is to not close down, it doesn't mean he won't work that way. I play Jordan Rhodes as my Treq. and he's a workhorse.

Really? The most work my Trequartista ever does is point to the way to my goal before he breaks into a sweat, pulls up a deck chair and relaxes with a nice chilled white wine!

Of course, I've never used a high work rate player as a Trequartista but if they followed their instructions they should not close down

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Begin from his form stats. What do you see there?

I see the following:

1. He loses more than 50 % of the headers. The question is, do you know why this is so? Do you want to play like this?

2. In half the games he has 4 or more shots - that would be enough to score if those were good shots - i assume he takes stupid long shots or some forced shots from difficult positions

I think that the lost headers and the off target shots for Lewandowski are down to your playing with attacking mentality.

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I'm not convinced tactics should factor as a major reason he can't score goals.

If a super striker gets a chance to score one on one with the GK, then that precise situation is not about tactics at all.

Since the problem isn't the number of chances he gets, but how well below his stats he execute them. I find it somewhat strange people starts hammering the tactics button, like it's some magic cure all, I just experienced the tactics horde myself due to having Messi going from 50+ goals in one season to 20 in 3rd. It's not about him not getting chances, it's about him not being able to execute said chances.

The tactics improvement will of course help if you get another striker, but it won't fix your broken striker and I've yet to see anyone have a clue as to why some players break.

Q: Does he get Chances?

A1: Yes -> NOT A TACTICS PROBLEM

A2: No -> A Tactics problem!

Miravlix stop talking rubbish - players do not simply break. It is a tactics issue.

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The problem is definitely the tactic - attacking/rigid, the roles and the shouts. Ask yourself how do you want your team to play? What do you want out of Lewandowski and how do you envision him playing/interacting with the players around him?

Complete Forward suits him best IMO, but he could be effective in other roles too. Often the problem is not just a single player role, but a combination of roles for the players around him. Try this and see if it works:

_____________CF-S_____________

IF-A_______________________W-S

_________AP-S____CM-A_________

_____________A-D______________

WB-A____CD-D____CD-D_____WB-S

Use Control mentality, it's attacking enough. Remove Look for Overlap, it makes your wide attackers more conservative in offense. Use Lower Tempo only at home game when the opposition is playing defensive against you, other than that use default tempo.

Another option would be to use a deep 4231 formation - Lewa as CF-A, AP-S behind him, DM-S next to an Anchor, the rest the same.

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Yonko, thanks for the reply. I want Lewa to be involved in every offensive move in the game. I want him to cooperate with Draxler and Farfan. I don't want him to be a playmaker, but to be the one who finishes in front of goal and also provides dangerous balls to his teammates.

No matter what role I play him with, he never gets involved in the game. It must be something with the tactic/shouts as you said.

I'm now on the verge of the 3rd season and I need to decide my tactics for the new season.

RonnySanchez, yea I'll try the control tactic for the next season. Do you think it will have an effect on Lewa's performances?

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Although Miravlix's point was not a well made one, it is true there is far more to a player's ability to score a goal than the tactics in which he is employed. This is definitely speaking in terms of real life though - I am not sure how bigger part psychology plays in FM to be honest. Just look at Torres - the poor chap - and how confidence has affected him. He was a joy to watch at Liverpool. I remember in 2009 he played a major part in beating Real Madrid in the Champions League, a shadow of his former self now unfortunately. Anyway, a digression.

Lewandowski is an absolute beast. No doubt about it. I'd simply opt for Complete Forward. To succeed here though he does actually need support. Yonko's points are good ones. No need to ask for the team to look for an overlap as attacking full backs and wide players cutting inside will provide that naturally. Get Holtby really driving forward and arriving late in the box. Lewandowski's movement will be enough to find space, you just need to ensure players are instructed to exploit any that is created.

By the by, how good is Goretzka? I signed him on FM13 and he is an absolute beast. I took the Bayern job after Guardiola went to manage the Spanish national team and Gortezka was my first recruit.

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JOSEPH!, I'm going forward now trying to make him a CF/S in a 4-1-2-2-1 Control/Fluid team as adviced to me here. Not sure about the fluid tho, past experience thought me to be careful about it. What do you think?

530f634945db07c5.jpg

Goretzka is a superb youngster, I use him as a first choice in the MC position. I'm sure he will develop to a magnificant Midfielder.

I'm about to purchase Lars Bender now and maybe Alessandro Florenzi and put them all together at the midfield.

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Agree with RT. Seems a sensible formation in any case.

When you make a choice about, say, fluidity always ask yourself: Why? If you can't justify it, don't do it.

Are you choosing fluid as you want your team to be universal in their approach? Do you want everyone to hassle, everyone to push higher up etc etc?

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RT beat me to the advice, I was just about to recommend the same thing. Also, I would think Balanced might work better than fluid.

Joseph, Fluid is not what you're describing. That's Very Fluid - everyone on the same mentality.

Yes I understand that but for description's sake fluidity vs rigidity is a universal vs individual approach. The answer, regardless of how we define universal, would still ascertain whether the decision to use fluid is justified.

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Yes I understand that but for description's sake fluidity vs rigidity is a universal vs individual approach. The answer, regardless of how we define universal, would still ascertain whether the decision to use fluid is justified.

It doesn't look like you understand....

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Ok, after the first match in the new season I can say there's a big difference in his involvement in the game.

These are his stats -

53103b8233188fe2.jpg

Yea, Nurnberg at home is not such a tough game, but I was pleased to see him getting involved in the game like that.

This is the formation:

53103c2c3691cb79.jpg

I also bought Deulofeu but he's injured.

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No, you should not change the CM(a) to AP(a), you need someone making forward runs from central midfield, APs dont make forward runs in the same way a regular CM(a) does, anyway a CM(a) is very creative role,

give Lewa the instruction to "shoot less often", he does not have the stats for long shots so try to restrict his attempts.

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Swap Kovacic and Goretzka. Goretzka (in my game) is better suited for a CM(a) and Kovacic is a advance playmaker. RonnySanchez is right, you will muck up the balance of runners and dribblers but not sure that I would class a CM(a) as a "very" creative role.

Your next question should be "do I change AP(s) to AP(a)?"

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It doesn't look like you understand....

If the answer was: "Yes, I want a universal approach" then a fluid approach (by that I mean not balanced or rigid - one of the two fluid options) would be justified and then we could look into it further to find out whether fluid or very fluid is suitable.

If the answer was: "No, I want to focus on specialist roles" then a fluid approach (again, that is an umbrella term for the two fluid options - fluid and very fluid) is not an option and both can be disregarded.

I wasn't strictly defining fluid (the individual mentality) as completely universal; I was simplifying the description in order to ascertain what they want from their team and tactics in order to further refine the advice.

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If the answer was: "Yes, I want a universal approach" then a fluid approach (by that I mean not balanced or rigid - one of the two fluid options) would be justified and then we could look into it further to find out whether fluid or very fluid is suitable.

If the answer was: "No, I want to focus on specialist roles" then a fluid approach (again, that is an umbrella term for the two fluid options - fluid and very fluid) is not an option and both can be disregarded.

I wasn't strictly defining fluid (the individual mentality) as completely universal; I was simplifying the description in order to ascertain what they want from their team and tactics in order to further refine the advice.

But out of the "two fluid options", as you say, only one is universal approach. The other one isn't.

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But out of the "two fluid options", as you say, only one is universal approach. The other one isn't.

I know that. There are two fluid options: Fluid and Very Fluid - both give more 'universalism' than Very Rigid/Rigid/Balanced. To what degree of 'universalism' Raza wanted would be determined by his answer to the question. People can't offer advice if they don't know exactly what the person wants. One might say: "I want a universal approach" but if you really dig into what they actually want it turns out that Fluid would be the better option rather than Very Fluid which would be assumed from the first statement of: "I want a universal approach". It could even be they have misunderstood the concept of Fluidity in FM which isn't uncommon. My asking was merely trying to get to the root of what they want.

I've gone back to my original post and I never said that universal = fluid. If what I asked lead to the assumption that was the case then I apologise but I never said Fluid is universal. As I have described above, I was trying to ascertain what exactly Raza wants from his team.

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Ok, few conclusions until now:

1. Changing the mentality to Control from Attacking was absolutely brilliant for me. My team looks much better overall, scores more and concedes less.

2. CF/S is not a good duty for Lewan, because he takes too much poor long shots with the Support duty. So I tried him as CF/A and now he is much more effective. In the first few matches he missed alot of 100% chances, but I knew he will sooner or later start scoring because he's getting the right shots. This is his form now -

531471260d6fc631.jpg

3. Mateo Kovacic is a great Midfielder. I play him as AP/A and he's brilliant.

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Ok, few conclusions until now:

1. Changing the mentality to Control from Attacking was absolutely brilliant for me. My team looks much better overall, scores more and concedes less.

2. CF/S is not a good duty for Lewan, because he takes too much poor long shots with the Support duty. So I tried him as CF/A and now he is much more effective. In the first few matches he missed alot of 100% chances, but I knew he will sooner or later start scoring because he's getting the right shots. This is his form now -

531471260d6fc631.jpg

3. Mateo Kovacic is a great Midfielder. I play him as AP/A and he's brilliant.

What looks really odd to me in this screen is:

In almost every game where he was awful, you didn't sub him. That was the case in the games vs. Stuttgart (6.0), HSV (5.9), Bremen (5.2), Mainz (5.8). The only game in which you subbed him was against Karlsruhe (6.2).

So, if he's bad after 60 Minutes, what do you do then?

It looks to me, that you just leave him on the pitch and hope that he'll get better. Bad approach.

You should try to identify the reason why he's bad. If you identified the reason, react to it accordingly, for example by changing his role or PI. If you can't identify the reason, he probably just has a bad day at the office. In this case: sub him.

Another point: you are realising that he was on a really REALLY bad run in the league? He was on a bad run of 5(!) games in a row in the league with an average of 5.8 per game. Dude! Why on earth did you still put him in your XI after the 3rd bad game?? :eek:

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Using anyone as a lone Poacher is a bad idea. I would not suggest trying that at all.

My lone poacher is doing pretty well LOL

5 goals and 5 assists in 12 matches when he is only 21 yo with 2.5 star rating. I got 2 IF and an AMC (advanced playmaker) to support him tho.

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