Struggling with understanding fluidity

[MeMyself2k13]

I've been trying to wrap my head around it for a while now, but I honestly can't seem to understand some things, no matter how many guides I read or watch. I just can't understand what exactly fluidity represents in a real world, how would a manager go explaining this to his players?

I've been playing every FM since 2014, so I'm not exactly new at the game. I understand most of the things very well and have played through a few successful saves, but what bothers me, is that I simply feel like I'm not using fluidity to it's fullest potential. Even if I'm getting the results, I feel like I've no clue about the fluidity part of the tactics at all. I've been trying to read THOG's The Mentality Ladder: A Practical Framework for Understanding Fluidity and Duty, but since I'm not a native English speaker, I just get lost in a wall of text full of complex words.

I understand the part that the in-game description says. The more fluid the system, the more players will be involved in certain tasks. I don't however understand when and why would one change the fluidity, for example.

The way I choose it, is by simply counting how many generalist/specialist roles I have in my formation. But how would for example a Very Structured system work, with mostly generalists on the pitch? Or the opposite, a Very Fluid system, with mostly specialist roles?

For example, I can see why one would want to change the fluidity to Very Structured with an offensive formation (eg. 4231), while chasing the result in the last minutes of the game. You don't want forwards to be tracking back too much in that case, you want them to fully focus on getting the goal. Or again, to Very Structured with a defensive formation (eg 451), while trying to save the result in the last minutes of the game. You don't want the defenders to venture too far forward, since you only care about not conceding anymore.

But why does it matter whether you have mostly generalist or specialist roles in your formation? Fluidity can't be just a "bait" for the game to see whether you will choose the correct one, depending on your player roles.

The way I understand it, maybe you'd prefer more Structured systems in good teams, where you trust individual players to carry their tasks out more and more Fluid systems in worse teams, where more teamwork is required to get the job done. But then again, it's recommended that players in Fluid systems have good mentals, so they can understand what to do when and Structured systems require more specialist roles.

I apologize if any of this sounds stupid, I'm just interested in learning the FM, but no matter how hard I try to understand the fluidity, I end up realizing that I probably don't have a clue about it.

[Bigpapa42]

https://community.sigames.com/topic/396854-fluid-v-structured/

https://community.sigames.com/topic/396604-another-thread-about-team-shape/

You aren't alone. A couple of recent threads on the same topic might help as there are some good explanations contained in both. As mentioned in those threads, you don't have to follow the generalist/specialist guidance. Its an approach but its an absolute. And I definitely would not simplify it to the point of saying structured is better for good teams, fluid for worse.

There are a lot of great folks on here who can provide specific advice and much better than I. One thing I will quote is something Rashidi recently posted in one of the above threads. Its taken out of context but I think its very valuable insight....

Quote

Treating things in isolation like Shape for example is a dangerous exercise, and each time people come to me seeking a formula for successful shape settings, I resist the urge of giving useless information. Is there a specific shape to use for counter systems? Is there aa specific shape for teams with poor technical skills. The answer isn't a simple cut and dried one. 

Mentality affects risk, and this affects choices that players make for 90 minutes, covering everything from the passes they make, the off the ball movement they do and their decisions to close down and move up and down.

Shape affects how a team works together, do they behave in distinct units or do they work cohesively. 

Its from the Another Thread link above and the whole thread is worth reading, especially the comments Rashidi makes.

[noikeee]

Forget about the number of specialists, number of generalists, it was a good theory at the time, but it's kinda misleading these days. You will make far better use of your time wondering if the roles in your tactic connect well together, than wondering whether you have the "right" number of specialists.

Fluid gets your lines closer together. Attackers will defend more and defenders will attack more. They will also not follow your instructions so strictly, so any "specialists" might deviate from their roles slightly.

Structured gets your lines further spread apart. Defenders will stick to defending and attackers won't track back. They will follow your instructions more rigidly.

That's it. That's all you need to know about shape. Now how to use it to your advantage? It depends, wildly. I guess it depends more on how it relates to your formation and what you see happening in the pitch.

 

For example imagine you have a flat 4-4-2. A common weakness in this formation is that, since you don't have any DM and any AM, you might find it hard to defend the space in front of your defense, AND you you might also find it hard to connect your midfielders to your attackers. If you go fluid, they'll all go closer together and you'll mitigate the differences. However, this isn't an absolute rule. If you have your roles and instructions set up right in this formation, you might not have either problem, and be able to get away with less fluidity.

Conversely, imagine you have a 4-1-2-2-1. DM, MC, MC, AML, AMR, ST. This can work on fluid (in fact I use this on fluid), but another potential option here is to go structured to increase the space between your players on purpose. By default this formation already has players scattered all over the pitch. The more stretched your side is, the harder for the opposition to mark everyone! By getting your players further away from each other, if you manage to keep them linked up and avoid a disconnection between them, your team will be very hard to defend against. You can also use structured to counter-attack devilishly by keeping attackers free from defending, if the opposition is throwing everything at you and forgetting to defend. It's risky but can give big rewards.

The tool is there, just use your imagination now... If you're unsure, you can just stick to flexible by default. Don't be afraid of experimenting with it however. If you want to see its effects, just open up a test match, see the match on 2D camera, start on Very Structured and watch it for a while, then switch to Very Fluid and notice how much closer everyone becomes vertically. Just be aware that everyone gains a hell of a lot of creative freedom as well when you do that switch.

 

Personally, I feel Fluid is a little more forgiving and Structured relies on having your roles set up absolutely spot on, otherwise you might struggle connecting defense to midfield and/or midfield to attack. Don't think of one being more attacking than the other... that's not how it works. You can have very attacking Fluid, very attacking Structured, very defensive Fluid, very defensive Structured. Structured and Fluid are just different brands of football. And they can work with different levels of teams too.

[jstu9]

4 hours ago, noikeee said:

That's it. That's all you need to know about shape. Now how to use it to your advantage? It depends, wildly.

That's the key i think.

I suspect most people (well at least me) understand the basics. The definition of shape. So the stuff that is explained above 'That's It'.

The problem arises when you try to APPLY it. Then my knowledge falls apart. Because like the OP you can make a solid argument that structured is the way to go for attacking, or you can make a solid argument that Fluid is the way to go for attacking. And vice versa for defensive. Like is said in the last paragraph.

[bosque]

Once you know the theory you need to start with the practice. Trial and error until you master it. The thing is we are all too lazy to do the trial and error thing 

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, jstu9 said:

That's the key i think.

I suspect most people (well at least me) understand the basics. The definition of shape. So the stuff that is explained above 'That's It'.

The problem arises when you try to APPLY it. Then my knowledge falls apart. Because like the OP you can make a solid argument that structured is the way to go for attacking, or you can make a solid argument that Fluid is the way to go for attacking. And vice versa for defensive. Like is said in the last paragraph.

Because football is infinitely more complex than just giving it 2 dimensions: defensive and attacking. What about passing style? Is short passing attacking or defensive? Man marking or zonal marking? Which one is attacking or defensive? Playing with a back 4 or with a back 3 and wingbacks, which one is attacking or defensive? Playing wingerless or with wingers, is it attacking or defensive? It depends. All of it depends. All of it is interconnected with other stuff and only makes sense when in the context of all the stuff.

I only recently started attempting to use team shape as a tactical weapon, so perhaps can only talk to a point. I haven't figured out "proper" hard rules on how to use it yet, but will try my best to explain my thinking here to try to make it as close to some "rules" as possible. What I do is I have a base that I know tends to work most times, and then I sometimes change shape during the match. Sometimes that goes great for me and exactly as intended, sometimes barely noticeable. Sometimes I do it just for the sake of it to see what happens and how differently we play out.

Forget about what it does to creative freedom (more specialist/more generalist) for a minute, and let's begin by thinking only about mentality.

1. How many lines you have

Let's go back to the 4-4-2 case I was talking about. Or any flat formation. Flat 3-4-3. Flat 3-5-2. Flat 4-5-1. What these formations have in common is they lack DMs and AMs, they only have 3 flat lines, therefore they lack "natural" conections between the lines. Therefore it's very common that, unless your roles and duties are set up to prevent this, you might have problems defending the area in front of defence (because of no DM). And with the ball, because of no AM, you might have problems connecting the midfield to the attack. So, an easy fix for both problems, might be to go more fluid. Since the lines get closer together, your midfielders will be closer to your defence so it'll be harder for the AI to exploit the space where you have no DM. And you will also have your midfielders closer to your attack so it'll be easier for them to link up.

The opposite might be some totally stupid formation like the ones we're attempting in the Community Formation Challenge thread. Some poor chap was given this ridiculous formation to try to make it work:

The guy is actually going Very Fluid, I find this the ideal case to go the other way around and go Structured. His midfielders are in a straight line!! If he goes fluid they'll all just sit on top of each other, cramped together. If he goes structured then passing lines start to open up more easily, and it's far more ground for the AI to cover to mark all those scattered players.

So the first easy rule of thumb might be - the more lines you have in your formation, the less natural need for Fluid. And the opposite is true, the flatter your formation, the more natural need for Fluid. However, of course, it's not that simple.

2. How deep is your formation

The next thing to think about is - if you go structured, how many players do you actually leave behind? Imagine you have an attacking wide 4-2-3-1 with 2 attacking fullbacks, and 2 MCs. So only the 2 CBs stay behind and everyone else goes forward. This is a very bad idea to go structured. Those 2 guys are going to be all alone when your attacks break down. So from a defensive point of view you always need to think about stability first. You'll probably want Fluid to get more people to help out those 2 CBs more.

By contrast if your formation is pretty deep, packed with defensive players, imagine something like a 3-4-2-1 with DMs, then you can more easily free up your attackers of defensive duties and safely go Structured. So this is the 2nd rule of thumb for me - you've got a pretty deep formation? You'll probably rather want Structured. You've got a very adventurous formation? You'll probably rather want Fluid. So this is the closest thing I'd say to Attacking=Fluid, Defensive=Structured, but still, I'm ONLY relating to the formation. You can have a fairly attacking team with a defensive-looking formation, and vice-versa.

3. How direct are you playing?

But wait, there's more. Are you trying to play possession football or direct football? Because if you want possession... with short passes... it's generally easier if the players are closer to each other (and they will more likely prefer the extra creative freedom too). This is the reason I'm right now trying to use Very Fluid in my 3-3-2-2 for Sassuolo in that Community Formation Challenge, despite this being a formation that more naturally could fit Structured according to all I'd said above. I want to pass it short from the back. So that's 3rd rule. Structured goes more easily with direct football, Fluid more easily with possession football.

4. How specialist are your players?

Then there's.... how good your players actually are at doing things that aren't their speciality. Imagine your winger has 19 for crossing, dribbling and pace, great! But he only has 3 for tackling, marking and positioning. Are you sure you want him to help out at defence? Or defenders with a 2 for passing and vision. If you've got guys like this, forget about Fluid. The opposite is true, if you've got very expansive players perfectly capable of doing a good job at things that aren't their speciality, you can absolutely go with Fluid. So this is my 4th rule.

5. How is the match going?

And... there's how each and every match plays out. You see, the AI also uses Fluid and Structured, and the AI lines up differently every match, and switch tactics mid-match too. Minutes ago I've just got battered by a resilient Napoli side who clearly looked Fluid or Very Fluid because there was absolutely no gaps between their lines. I started Very Fluid too but as a much inferior side I was losing every battle in this ridiculously compressed pitch between 2 teams committed to leaving no vertical gaps. So I toned it down to Flexible and hoped for the best, trying to stretch our play, and hopefully catch Napoli out whenever they committed too many defenders further up. Sadly, it wasn't to be as I had 2 men sent off... There are many variations of these tactical battles vs the AI, and unfortunately they are so complex I cannot tell you exactly when to use Fluid or Structured. Just... try it out.

One thing I like to do in my regular career in England is to switch to Structured (my base tactic is on Fluid) when I find the AI fullbacks are very offensive. I do this together with turning my wingers into AMR/AMLs on attack role, and go direct. The idea is to exploit the space behind those fullbacks and relieve my wingers from defensive duties. Risky, but when it comes out well, it's wonderful. This is the kind of thing that goes well with a switch to Structured.

Conclusions

Finally, I will repeat myself: I've got the sneaky suspicion that Fluid is more forgiving than Structured. If you've got your roles a bit wrong on Structured... good luck, nothing will save you. I also have the sneaky suspicion, though this is a dodgy thing to say on this forum, that at the moment Fluid tends to perform marginally better than Structured on this ME. Not always on every match, but on average.

These are all the implications I can think of, and I hope I helped someone understand how to use team shape better. Don't know which shape to choose? Start with flexible. But feel more than free to experiment!

[herne79]

When to apply it?  I pretty much only use it when I want to inject a little extra creative freedom if I feel I'm not creating enough chances - that can affect anything from encouraging my fullbacks to become a little more involved through to my forward players gaining some extra freedom.

Of course if you start a match using Very Fluid you won't be able to inject the extra creative freedom if needed.  But then why start a match using Very Fluid (unless you are going for a very specific style of play)?  At present I start every match on Flexible (with Balanced mentality) and make adjustments from there if needed.  And the result is I'm playing some of the best football I've ever played in FM.  I should probably do one of my write ups about it.

Finally @ the OP - don't worry so much about all of these generalist and specialist roles.  They were guidelines, not rules, when written and the ME has moved on a bit since as well.  A balance of roles and duties is the most important aspect and define what your players get up to.

[Torskus77]

I'd love to read another one of your write ups herne79,  a couple of your posts from previous versions, I still use for inspiration now, and are some of the best threads I have ever read, which is saying something when you think of the threads Cleon has written. I love how simplistic you make it all (which is a compliment) 

 

I was always a Structured/Highly structured type manager in previous versions, but more so lately I have stuck to the rule I have read a few times by respected mods, " if you are unsure, use flexible"  It actually helps you understand the other Team Shapes a little better when you change, if you begin with Flexible. I can see the difference now if I change to either Fluid, or Structured, I do both for different reasons. Rashidi has some great posts/videos floating around the internet which are well worth the time as long as you don't try and over complicate it and give yourself brain ache. 

[jstu9]

First off, excellent post @noikeee.

Quote

• It affects how many phases of play your players contribute to.
• It affects the creative freedom of your team.
• It affects how far individual players will veer away from the team mentality.
• It affects the compactness of your team.

 

This is a list from @ajsr1982.

I realized while thinking about this is I don't know which of these comes first. I think the most common explanation of shape that I've heard is the last one. That it makes you more compact vertically.

Is it compactness that then leads to players being part of more phases? Or is it being part of more phases that lead to compactness?

Then I re-read this very simple explanation to my post from @Sebas

 

Quote

• A more structured mentality will:
  • Make your more attacking and defending duty players deviate from the team mentality you choose, hence reducing compactness.
  • Instruct your players to stick to their instructions by reducing creative freedom.
• A more fluid mentality will:
  • Make your more attacking and defending duty players play along the choosen team mentality, hence increasing compactness.
  • Instruct your players to express themselves more by increasing creative freedom.

Which supports the latter question I have above. Kind of. Because the 3rd thing in ajsr's list is deviation from the mentality. So, is it deviation of mentality leads to being part of more phases which leads to more compactness?

I'm writing this and I know I am severely over complicating this. But I'm just trying to get to that point where I can APPLY the knowledge. The rules of thumb that noikee has above are awesome and I will probably follow those until i get a grasp of this.

Or perhaps just do what herne mentions above.

Sorry that this is just stream of conciousness but I kinda wanted to throw this out here

[jstu9]

Double post somehow...

 

 

 

 

[MeMyself2k13]

Thanks for the explanation guys, fluidity certainly makes more sense now.

One more question though. What about the Roam From Positions and Stick To Positions team instructions? Why would one pick Stick To Positions in a Very Fluid system or Roam From Positions in a Very Structured system? I kinda get the Be More Expressive and Be More Disciplined ones, although creative freedom is also part of the fluidity (I imagine you'd pick Be More Disciplined in a Very Fluid system, if you wanted to keep the movement, but wanted players to stick to the instructions, when it comes to creating chances, for example). I don't however get why would one restrict the movement in a Very Fluid system for example, when the movement is the whole point of it.

[westy8chimp]

13 hours ago, herne79 said:

When to apply it?  I pretty much only use it when I want to inject a little extra creative freedom if I feel I'm not creating enough chances - that can affect anything from encouraging my fullbacks to become a little more involved through to my forward players gaining some extra freedom.

Of course if you start a match using Very Fluid you won't be able to inject the extra creative freedom if needed.  But then why start a match using Very Fluid (unless you are going for a very specific style of play)?  At present I start every match on Flexible (with Balanced mentality) and make adjustments from there if needed.  And the result is I'm playing some of the best football I've ever played in FM.  I should probably do one of my write ups about it.

Finally @ the OP - don't worry so much about all of these generalist and specialist roles.  They were guidelines, not rules, when written and the ME has moved on a bit since as well.  A balance of roles and duties is the most important aspect and define what your players get up to.

I still think the guideline has good basis... what's the point of say a DM D & AM A on very fluid ... it's kind of contradictory ... as you are selecting quite a specific duty and role  but then saying ... but DM D get involved in the attacking unit and AM A get involved in the defensive unit .. and have lots of creative freedom to do what you want.

I understand that the physical effect of all this fluid and roles and mentalities is just a mentality bar .. so each change can slightly reduce or increase risk .. so not to worry too much

But to understand the guide and use it does encourage people to think about which PI/TI/Role/Duty best compliment each other... and that it's all interlinked so should not be contradictory.

i.e. if you chose an anchor man in defence and a trequarista in attack wouldn't you want to emphasise the impact of that by playing structured or at least flexible? If you're preference is a very fluid style where the whole team is involved... isn't that very much support duties and less specific roles? why would you want a trequarista involved in defence... don't reign him in !! let him work his magic and let the Anchor man do the leg work at the back.

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, jstu9 said:

I realized while thinking about this is I don't know which of these comes first. I think the most common explanation of shape that I've heard is the last one. That it makes you more compact vertically.

Is it compactness that then leads to players being part of more phases? Or is it being part of more phases that lead to compactness?

(...)

Which supports the latter question I have above. Kind of. Because the 3rd thing in ajsr's list is deviation from the mentality. So, is it deviation of mentality leads to being part of more phases which leads to more compactness?

Team shape is a mentality (and creative freedom) modifier, which is what's running under the hood in the match engine. We used to be able to change mentality directly for every player in the old sliders that we had until FM12, from 1 (super low mentality) to 20 (super high mentality) ticks. So the changes in mentality are what increases or decreases vertical compactness.

I don't know the exact numbers by head, someone has posted a table recently, but for example imagine that on flexible, a defender has a mentality of 8 and a attacker a mentality of 12. If you go very structured, your defender will go down to maybe 3 and the attacker to maybe 17. This will make them further apart on the pitch. Fluid is the opposite. I think very fluid gets to the point defenders on certain roles have higher mentalities than some attackers. This gets everyone closer together.

The creative freedom changes are a bit different, and simpler. On Very Structured everyone will have much less creative freedom, so everyone does exactly as they're instructed. On Very Fluid everyone will have much more creative freedom, so players will make stuff up and ignore any specific instructions more.

But you don't really need to know about any of this as a manager to know how to use team shape, it's just how the software works in the background. You can completely stop worrying about whether mentality causes compactness or whatever and ignore this post. You don't even need to know "mentality" exists.

[noikeee]

1 hour ago, westy8chimp said:

i.e. if you chose an anchor man in defence and a trequarista in attack wouldn't you want to emphasise the impact of that by playing structured or at least flexible? If you're preference is a very fluid style where the whole team is involved... isn't that very much support duties and less specific roles? why would you want a trequarista involved in defence... don't reign him in !! let him work his magic and let the Anchor man do the leg work at the back.

This is where I flat out disagree with the old guides. I see no problem with choosing a bunch of specialist roles and going Fluid.

Team shape are just modifiers. Imagine Flexible as the default value, and the others as modifiers. Specialist roles will already play a specific game on Flexible compared to more generic ones. If you go Structured, you will further exaggerate your specialist roles. If you go Fluid, you'll tone them down. There's plenty of reasons why you might want either thing.

An example of why you would want to exaggerate a role - you have players fantastic at specific things. You've got a playmaker with 20 passing and 20 vision, a target man with 20 jumping, 20 heading. You'll want them to focus exclusively on what they do best, and you want your team to use them as much as possible. So you go Very Structured. That makes sense. 

But beware - with those stats they'll almost certainly boss a match no matter what, but what happens if they're slightly less talented and the AI manages to mark them out of the game? Your entire plan crumbles because it's funnelled all to these guys. This is why I feel overall Structured is more unforgiving - if the oppositions shuts off these hubs of your side, you're done.

So if you've got a guy that can perform a role well, but you're not sure he's necessarily always amazing at it, and he can do other things... why not go with Fluid to tone down his specialist role a little? This is what I have right now with Sensi in my Sassuolo side (though I need to stop using this as an example because I'm not doing that great...). I've got him as Regista, but whilst he's good he's no Pirlo. I don't want my team to rely on him all the time for every ball; and he can tackle a little or shoot a little, things Registas usually wouldn't do. So it happens that I'm on Very Fluid and this complements his role well to tone it down.

You could argue why have him as Regista then, and not choose a more generic role? Well sure I could... but I like the Regista movement and I've chosen Very Fluid for other reasons too. In my mind it all fits together like this, so why not?

[westy8chimp]

17 minutes ago, noikeee said:

An example of why you would want to exaggerate a role - you have players fantastic at specific things. You've got a playmaker with 20 passing and 20 vision, a target man with 20 jumping, 20 heading. You'll want them to focus exclusively on what they do best, and you want your team to use them as much as possible. So you go Very Structured. That makes sense. 

Exactly agree ...

so if you've got a guy who doesn't possess these attributes I still don't get why you would give them a specialist role like playmaker or TM to attract the ball but then tone it down ?

I know exactly the effect it will have and your reason for using it... but to me it's illogical ... if the guy isn't a great playmaker... rather than set him as a playmaker then tone it down.. why not just give him a CM role.

When you get more used to it and experienced and knowledgeable of how it impacts then you can make better choices... and do what you like.

But advice to novices or new players or people that don't understand it ...  follow some general principles and logic as a guide to help people make better decisions ... if you've got a great playmaker and TM.. give them specialist roles and play high structure, structure or flexible to make the most of them... if you've got your talent more spread out in your 11 and you don't want a few players being the focus then go very fluid, fluid or flexible.

best advice .. go standard and flexible  just use roles, duties, TI & PI to get all the movement you want.

In my sassuolo tactic im top of the league using standard and flex... my DR is attack duty with wing back role and gets as far forward as anyone, without needing to be set to fluid as well...  my lb is IWB support so supplements midfield without being fluid... my cbs are cover and stopper so one stays further back without being structured etc. My left mid is winger attack.. .so gets to byline... my right mid is WM support set to cut inside and hold up the ball so he doesn't get forward too much... I use a couple of specialists in the 2 DM roles Reg/RPM because I want them to attract more of the ball to suit my TI of lower tempo and play out ...

I'm also using sensi/Duncan as regista... I'm not saying if you use a specialist role you must go structured... but the guide is helpful to beginners or strugglers  

[noikeee]

46 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

Exactly agree ...

so if you've got a guy who doesn't possess these attributes I still don't get why you would give them a specialist role like playmaker or TM to attract the ball but then tone it down ?

Well, what if I have a guy with 16 passing 16 vision, but also 11 finishing 11 tackling marking positioning etc? He's good enough at playmaking that I want him to focus at playmaking over other things, but he's not AMAZING at playmaking, and he's good enough to give it an occasional go at shooting or tackling. Settings that make him a playmaker but don't rule out other things make the most sense for me.

Quote

I know exactly the effect it will have and your reason for using it... but to me it's illogical ... if the guy isn't a great playmaker... rather than set him as a playmaker then tone it down.. why not just give him a CM role.

Because the CM role might not have the movement I want from a specific role. To me good movement from roles and duties is far more important than anything I get from shape, or how it relates to shape. If I need a special role for a certain movement it doesn't matter that much if I'm on Very Fluid.

Quote

When you get more used to it and experienced and knowledgeable of how it impacts then you can make better choices... and do what you like.

But advice to novices or new players or people that don't understand it ...  follow some general principles and logic as a guide to help people make better decisions ... if you've got a great playmaker and TM.. give them specialist roles and play high structure, structure or flexible to make the most of them... if you've got your talent more spread out in your 11 and you don't want a few players being the focus then go very fluid, fluid or flexible.

best advice .. go standard and flexible  just use roles, duties, TI & PI to get all the movement you want.

In my sassuolo tactic im top of the league using standard and flex... my DR is attack duty with wing back role and gets as far forward as anyone, without needing to be set to fluid as well...  my lb is IWB support so supplements midfield without being fluid... my cbs are cover and stopper so one stays further back without being structured etc. My left mid is winger attack.. .so gets to byline... my right mid is WM support set to cut inside and hold up the ball so he doesn't get forward too much... I use a couple of specialists in the 2 DM roles Reg/RPM because I want them to attract more of the ball to suit my TI of lower tempo and play out ...

I'm also using sensi/Duncan as regista... I'm not saying if you use a specialist role you must go structured... but the guide is helpful to beginners or strugglers  

I agree with you that if you're starting out, you can just leave it on flexible and focus on the other stuff which makes the most difference, but we're debating team shape here.

What I guess I'm trying to say, is that the old rule that if you play Very Fluid you can only have 1 specialist, if you play Very Structured you must have 4 or 5 specialists, that's nonsense to me. It might be a legitimate starting method for trying to organize the ideas of your side in your head, but the match engine doesn't know about any of that. You won't win more or less if you have the "right" number of specialists or not for your team shape. 

For me by far the most important thing is to get the right movement from my roles. Team shape to me relates more to whether I want to glue the lines together in my formation, or maximize space by keeping them apart. Whether I want to exaggerate or tone down specific roles is like the 6th afterthought. But it's there, it's possible, and it can be used that way as a bonus.

[westy8chimp]

2 minutes ago, noikeee said:

but the match engine doesn't know about any of that. You won't win more or less if you have the "right" number of specialists or not for your team shape. 

This is very true. I'm solely focussing on using it to train beginners brains to think about the overall picture. In the hope they think more about each element working together.

Many people post tactics here where their mentality, TI, PI all contradict one another ... "work overlap" when they are playing 352 or 532 or 4312 narrow etc... play high tempo but short passing and retain possession... 'work ball into box' when they have wingers ... high d line with cbs set to close down much more and wbs on attack duty ... bwms as the deepest midfield role ... choosing counter mentality but playing 433 ... target man support with no one close..

you then see them justify these decisions with "but im playing very fluid so it should be really compact"

[EuanDewar]

18 hours ago, noikeee said:

Because football is infinitely more complex than just giving it 2 dimensions: defensive and attacking. What about passing style? Is short passing attacking or defensive? Man marking or zonal marking? Which one is attacking or defensive? Playing with a back 4 or with a back 3 and wingbacks, which one is attacking or defensive? Playing wingerless or with wingers, is it attacking or defensive? It depends. All of it depends. All of it is interconnected with other stuff and only makes sense when in the context of all the stuff.

Aye but the disconnect comes with the fact that a) FM is not as complicated as real football is and b) it has to approximate certain aspects of real football in obscure ways. 

[MBarbaric]

i am strugling to understand one thing about very fluid, or fluid in general. It is mentality that one should use when he watns to have a compact team, a team that plays as a unit. from real football perspective, I don't get it how more creative freedom ties with it?

if i want compact team then i surely don't want players can do whatever they want. maybe one or two specific players, but surely not all the team...

also, i might imagine it, but it seems to me when i play against a structured team (my is very fluid), my team is not as compact as i'd like it to be. it seems as the ME spreads my players horizontally to try and match the opposition width, this creates huge gaps in 442 where opposition dominates the middle third which is completely opposite of what i want to see.

another thing with shape that i feel is wrong is that it works equally during on the ball phase as well as off the ball. it would make sense that my team is compact horizontally and vertically when i dont have the ball so i can compress the space. however, when i am with the ball i want the team to expand and spread. a thing that is very common in football but impossible in fm.

[Craigus89]

I agree that tying the two things (creative freedom and compactness) together isn't the best way to control those things. That aside, you can still play compact with a structured team shape. Your mentality plays a big part in how compact you are, as well as your formation - i.e what your defensive shape is - your roles and duties and how much pressing you are doing.

I think when making a decision on team shape you have to weigh up what is more important to you out of the aspects it controls. The creative freedom I feel has a bigger impact on the way a team plays as a whole and is harder to replicate or reduce through PI's etc without changing your entire team philosophy. On the contrary, you can achieve a compact defensive shape in other ways.

I therefore almost discard the compact / depth control team shape has when I am considering it, and tweak that through other settings when I have my tactic set up using 'team shape' as a control for creative freedom and deviation from duties.