How to approach tactics creation (an unofficial "guide" for beginners)

[Experienced Defender]

The reason I decided to start this thread is I've seen a lot of people having similar tactical issues due to making similar tactical „mistakes“. So I assumed it could be useful to put together some basic principles pertinent to tactics creation.

There are basically two types of tacticians, both in FM and real-life football:

- those who look to impose their preferred tactic (essentially formation and playing style) on any team they manage, even if the team may not be structurally quite suitable for that particular style;

- those who (like myself) look to adapt tactics to their squad's strengths and weaknesses

This thread is primarily meant for the latter, which of course does not mean that the former are „forbidden“ to read and follow

So let's get started!

FIRST STEP – ANALYZE YOUR SQUAD

You can do this via the Team report option. Use the Team comparison section to learn where your team – and its various parts – stand compared to the rest of the league on average when it comes to different aspects of play. While this will give you a general impression of how good or bad your players are, you should also analyze each of your senior (and promising youth) players in more detail by browsing through their respective player profiles in order to learn more about their attributes, traits, personalities and other important information that will help you better understand your team's strengths and weaknesses before you get an idea of what tactical style would suit your side the best. Because the Team comparison may tell you that your midfielders (for example) are among the worst in terms of technical abilities, yet there might well be a couple of individuals in your midfield who are actually among the best in the league when considered separately.

Also take a look at the Team Depth Chart, to see whether and in which positions you may be lacking personnel, or simply not having enough decent players there. That will help you with making critical decisions on spending (or saving) your transfer money (budget). Even if the board have given you an „unlimited“ amount of transfer funds, don't buy a world-class player if you realistically do not need such type of player just because you can afford to buy him. Instead, buy (or loan) players whose presence in your squad would really make sense.

SECOND STEP – PICK YOUR FORMATION (or a couple of them)

Once you've thoroughly analyzed the squad, you should have enough information to decide what formation would be most suitable for the style of play you believe would benefit your players optimally. It's advisable – though not necessary – to pick one or two „reserve“ formations that are structurally similar to the main one. I recommend this structural similarity simply in order for the players to more easily achieve tactical familiarity.

THIRD STEP – SETUP OF ROLES AND DUTIES

Now that you've gained full knowledge of your players' qualities and picked an „optimal“ formation, you should know which roles and duties within the system would be best performed by your starting eleven. Good news is that most players are capable of playing at least two different roles more or less equally well, and some can even play a few of them effectively. Which will naturally facilitate making your tactical decisions.

THE VERY IMPORTANT THING you need to keep in mind when setting the roles and duties up – always make sure your system is well-balanced and you have sufficient defensive cover for the players bombing forward. I guess the part about defensive cover does not require further explanation, since it should be self-evident. However, when it comes to the „well-balanced system“, you should not confuse (tactical) balance with a symmetry of your roles and duties. While tactical balance is good because it brings stability to your tactic, the symmetry in your setup of roles and duties generally makes your playing style more predictable and hence easier to defend against. It's not to say that a symmetrical setup  can never work – as there is clear evidence of people having a lot of success with this kind of symmetry – but more often than not it leads to people complaining about tactical issues and underperformance of their team.

By the way, for those who perhaps are not sure what the term „tactical balance“ means – it is any kind of setup that prevents your team from being too strong in a certain area (or areas) of the pitch at the cost of being (too) weak in some other area(s).

FINAL STEP – MENTALITY AND TEAM INSTRUCTIONS

I believe that, even for tactical novices, the term „Mentality“ does not need to be specifically explained in the sense of Football Manager game. What you need to keep in mind though is that mentality – and thus any change of it – affects all other elements of a tactic. Therefore, when you change your team mentality – you actually do not change just the mentality but (almost) everything else as well.

Team instructions  help you more closely define your playing style. I like to divide TIs into two categories: primary and secondary.

Primary team instructions only set the basics of how you want to play (though sometimes they can be quite enough). These include:

In possession

- (general) passing style

- tempo

- (do you want to) play out of defense (or not)

- (do you want your players to) work ball into box (or not)

- (what type of) crosses (you want your players to deliver into the box)

- (would you like your players to) hit early crosses (as often as possible)

- (what) attacking width (do you want your team to play with)

- (do you want to) play for set pieces (or not)

- (do you want your players to) waste time (never, sometimes or frequently)

In transition

- (do you wan to play on the) counter (or to) hold shape

- (do you want your players to apply) counter-press (as soon as they've lost the ball or to) regroup (back into defensive shape)

- (how quickly or slowly, in which way and where/to whom do you want the keeper to) distribute (the ball)

Out of possession – BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THESE!

- (where would you like your) respective lines of defense and engagement (to be situated)

- (how urgent and intensive) pressing (would you like your players to apply on the opposition)

- (what) defensive width (do you think would make your defense least vulnerable to the opposition's attacking style or be most suitable to your general defensive strengths and weaknesses)

- (do you want your back-line to) use offside trap (or not)

NOTE: You can of course opt to leave some (or even all) of these instructions on default.

Secondary team instructions are those you can use to more specifically „fine-tune“ your basic style of playing. Unless you are already a well-experienced tactician, I would recommend that you don't use them as part of your starting (primary) tactic, but only at certain points of a match based on what you've observed watching it. These include:

In possession

- pass into space

- overlaps and underlaps

- focus play down the middle/right/left

- be more expressive or disciplined

- attacking width

- shoot on sight

- run at defense or dribble less

- play for set pieces

- hit early crosses

- waste time

NOTE: Keep in mind that instructions such as overlap and underlap will (slightly) increase the mentalities of your fullback(s) or wing-back(s) playing on that side of the pitch, as will the „Focus play down the right or left“; whereas the „Focus play down the middle“ will likewise increase the mentalities of your central defenders, defensive midfielders and a central defender on defend duty.

In transition

- counter or hold shape

- counter-press or regroup

Out of possession

- (do you want all your players to look to) mark tighter (opposition players closest to them at any given time)

- (do you want your players to) get stuck in (or) stay on feet (when tackling)

- (do you want to) defend wider (to try to prevent crosses) or narrower (to tighten up defense in central areas)

- (do you want your forwards to mark opposition defenders more closely and thus try to) prevent short GK distribution (making it difficult for the opposition to build their attacks from the back)

- (do you want your back-line to) use offside trap (or not)

You have probably noticed that I've put a number of team instructions into both the primary and secondary categories. It means that you can use these particular instructions in both ways. So let's just remind ourselves once again which TIs these – let's call them „universal“ – instructions include:

- play for set-pieces

- hit early crosses

- waste time (sometimes)

- attacking width (other than default)

- counter

- hold shape

- counter-press

- regroup

- defensive width

- use offside trap

Now that we've sorted out how potentitally you can approach the task of tactics creation in terms of squad analysis, formation-picking, setup of roles and duties and defining your basic style of football (mentality and team instructions), the following post will deal with player instructions and how you can use them in an appropriate way. 

 

[Experienced Defender]

Before I get to the player instructions issue, I just want to stress that I inadvertently omitted two team instructions in the opening post – Attacking width (in possession) and „Use offside trap“ (out of possession) – both of which can be considered „universal“ TIs, meaning they fall into both the „Primary“ and „Secondary“ categories. So I've now edited the previous post to include these two. For more info, view the „Team instructions“ section of the opening post.

PLAYER INSTRUCTIONS

Generally speaking, a player instruction will have more influence on your players' behavior than the corresponding team instruction when the two collide. A player instruction does not literally override the related TI, but rather adjusts it to some extent.

For example, imagine that your team pressing intensity is set to „More urgent“, but then you manually change it to „Less urgent“ for certain players via their PIs. These players will now certainly press less than they would have if their PI had been left on default, but still more than if the Team Pressing Intensity had been set to, say, „Less urgent“. The same goes for passing, as well as other relevant instructions.

However, there is an exception to the "rule". TIs such as "Work ball into box" and "Hit early crosses" - which are by the way mutually exclusive - will affect your players' moves more than their relevant PIs (i.e. frequency of crossing).

In short - the more felicitously you use player instructions (as a complement to team instructions), the more likely you'll be to achieve your desired style of play. Simple as that!

As with team instructions – do not use any PI just for the sake of using it, but only if that clearly makes sense. And be careful not to ask a player to do what he isn't capable of – always take his attributes and traits into account.

OPPOSITION INSTRUCTIONS

A lot of people tend to avoid dealing with OIs, either out of „laziness“ or due to an insufficient understanding of how they actually work. While OIs (arguably) aren't a necessary part of tactics creation, they can be a pretty useful defensive tool when used properly.

OIs can be applied in order to both specifically target particular opposition players (Player OIs) and to affect the way the opposition play in certain areas of the pitch (positional OI) – not exclusively for defensive, but also for attacking purposes.

Admittedly, OIs are not easy to deal with even for more experienced tacticians. You need to consider a number of elements:

- your formation and the opposition formation;

- your style of play and the opposition's style of play;

- weak (and strong) links in your team vs. weak (and strong) links in the opposition team.

Anyway, if you do not feel confident enough on how to use OIs, better leave them out.

In the next (final) post, I will (try to) summarize the principles from both previous posts into more general tactical advice.

[Experienced Defender]

So we've finally got to the summary. Here I am going to just outline the most important principles I believe tactical beginners should stick to until they gain some more knowledge and experience.

TACTICAL BALANCE

In the opening post, I mentioned „tactical balance“ and explained what I mean by the term. Let's remind ourselves for a moment: „Tactical balance is (achieved by) any kind of setup that prevents your team from being too strong in a certain area (or areas) of the pitch at the cost of being (too) weak in some other area(s)“.  

Some of you might now think that tactical balance depends solely on your distribution of duties (across the formation), but that would be only partially true. Distribution of roles is as important as that of duties.

For example, a mezzala on support duty will be more attack-minded than a box-to-box midfielder or carrilero, even though the latter two are also on support duty. Likewise, a complete wing-back on either duty will be more attack-minded and forward-bombing than a standard wing-back on the same duty, let alone an „ordinary“ fullback. I hope it's now clear why I emphasized the importance of roles – and not just duties - for tactical balance.

When it comes not only to roles and duties but any other tactical instruction – team or player – you should take care not to ask any player to do what he is not capable of. Here you need to consider player attributes in the first place, then traits and sometimes even his stronger/weaker  foot.

HANDLING OF TEAM INSTRUCTIONS

The first thing I would like to stress here is – refrain from using too many team instructions, especially in your starting tactic (i.e. the one you start a match with), until you've really mastered the art of tactics creation (like our mods Rashidi, Cleon and Herne). Instead, look to use just primary instructions (view the relevant section of the opening post) and only occasionally add some of the secondary TIs (when it would clearly make sense).

If you are not sure what an instruction (or any tactical setting) does, read the in-game description. While these descriptions may sometimes be insufficiently detailed, they basically do provide accurate information.

I've also noticed that too many people are paying attention only to how they're gonna attack the opposition, while pretty much ignoring the defensive side of the game; or simply believing that it would be enough to have good defenders, and they will (hopefully) do the (defensive) job on their own. I'll just say that – nothing could be further from the truth. Because defending is a responsibility of the entire team, only the levels of that responsibility will vary from player to player (role to role).

An assumption that defending needs to be aggressive in order to be successful is no less problematic. While high levels of pressing intensity and pushing the lines of defense and engagement higher up can work nicely for certain sides and/or against certain types of opposition, it is at the same time a double-edged sword. Because in addition to applying a lot of pressure on opposition, aggressive defending based on too intensive pressing makes your players (including defenders) get out of position more than they would have with normal or lower pressing intensity and thus compromising your defensive shape, which in turn can (easily) be exploited by more skillful opposition.

Defending-wise, you also need to know that certain in-possession team instructions can make your team defensively vulnerable if you aren't aware of what they actually do. TIs such as overlaps, underlaps and focus play down the right/left  - among other things - increase the mentality of your wide defenders (fullbacks or wing-backs) somewhat, whereas focus down the middle does the same to CBs, DMs and defend-duty CMs.

TACTICAL (IN)CONSISTENCY

Imagine that you've finally managed  to create a decent tactic you are pleased with. You play a match and get a fantastic result. Then you play another match and win again (or get whatever is considered a good result in the given case). You naturally start to think – „this tactic is great, I'm not going to make any more changes“. But guess what – you play the next match with the same tactic and get smashed. What happened, for God's sake ?!?

There are a couple of potential reasons:

- this last opposition played a different style of football than the previous opponents you had defeated, so your once decent tactic was simply nullified by their tactical style;

- a few of your players aren't quite consistent performers, so they failed to play as well as they did in a previous match;

- you rotated some players, but failed to recognize that these new ones aren't suitable enough for the roles played by their predecessors

This is why you always need to take some time to analyze the next opposition, but also your own team, and see if certain adjustments should be made to your primary tactic from time to time (including adjusments during matches as well). Of course, the better the team you are managing is, the less often you will need to tactically adapt to (most of the) other teams. However, even then you should do at least some basic analysis, because even the weakest sides can have some „lethal“ tactical weapon in their meager arsenal that you failed to discover out of laziness.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORMATION AND PLAYING STYLE

There is no set-in-stone „rule“  suggesting that you can play certain styles of football only if you use certain types of formations. In fact, you can combine  any style with any formation. However, the truth is that certain formartions are more suitable for certain styles than others. For example, top-heavy systems - such as a standard 4231 (with CMs) or 424 – work better  with possession or attacking-based football; likewise, bottom-heavy formations – e.g. 4141 (with flat midfield four) or 4213dm wide – are the more logical choice when you want to play a more cautious game.

Therefore, you can play some sort of defensive football using a 4231 (or even 424), but it can prove very tricky to find the right balance of different tactical settings for this to work. So my advice would be to avoid this kind of combinations until your tactical knowledge and experience has reached a sufficient level. On the other hand, playing more attacking football with a bottom-heavy formation is a less risky option, simply because you have more bodies protecting the defense should the things go wrong. So if you want to experiment, then better try the latter.

FINAL ADVICE

Speaking of „experiments“, I would advise tactical novices to create a so-called „experimental save“ , where you would pick a decent mid-table team and learn the art – or rather science - of tactics creation through trial and error. Why a mid-table team? Well, if you manage a top side, the quality of players might make up for potential flaws in your tactic(s), so you will likely not get the right picture of how good you are as a tactician. On the other hand, managing a poor side will require a considerable level of tactical proficiency that you – as a beginner – are certainly lacking at the moment.

So if you do give an experimental save a try, don't be too obsessed with results, but rather look to learn from mistakes as much as you can. And even if you get sacked, do not panic. Just start another experimental save and enjoy the game again!

[phnompenhandy]

Excellent. Should sticky this - loads of newbies should be referred to it.

[ianscousemac]

Very enjoyable read, good stuff.

[Experienced Defender]

On 13/02/2019 at 02:22, phnompenhandy said:

Excellent. Should sticky this - loads of newbies should be referred to it.

 

6 minutes ago, ianscousemac said:

Very enjoyable read, good stuff.

Thanx mates 

[Faramir]

Very good summation of the many considerations that go into the process of tactics- Nice work!

[Wezino]

God of all topics this one will be using this along the side of my game 

[djsmiley]

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