Wide 6-2-2, exploit?

[Quacky]

I made a pretty silly tactic because I was pondering whether it would work or not. I haven't tested it long enough to be sure but I've been scoring an insane amount of goals with it. It feels like its weird enough that it might just be exploiting the match engine.

 

Defensively its solid, 2 banks of 4 playing pretty deep with a couple of spare people closing down ahead. Only really fails if I get countered or from set pieces as I only really have 2 players good in the air.

Offensively I have a 2 on 1, both flanks, all the time. The IWBs pretty much add to the centre midfield and on attack with the BBM its a bit like having 3 late central runners into the box. I cross it early where there is always going to be at least 2 runners at the far post. Their centre backs have no one to mark until all of a sudden theres late runners from deep all over the place so I score a lot from crosses.

[Experienced Defender]

Might be an "exploit", but who cares  If you are getting results, just go ahead 

[Keyzer Soze]

It's a bit out of the box tactic, in particularly the 3 players playing wide. 

Perhaps the ME can't deal with that sort of setup. 

But, like any tactic, it has strong and weak points, so the opponent will also try to take advantage of those. 

The main point is, if you are having fun with it, then just go ahead and play. 

What team are you playing? A league winning team? Avoid relagation team? 

 

[Quacky]

I'm top of the league with Ajaccio, supposed to be a boring mid table team which requires a massive overhaul because the decent players and most the team in general is over 30.

[djpdavey]

I think its because it uses space so effectively. Crowding the defensive areas but for attack phrases there is no one occupying the box only arriving late which is very hard to track. Also always having 2v1 on the wing is overloading the wings. Very good. I'd like to try it out.

[djpdavey]

Can you show some screenshots of the defensive, transitioning and attacking phases?

[scwiffy]

Wow this looks great. I'd say its less an exploit and more just a good tactic. Maybe this formation is the future of real football?

I'd have thought you could give your central pair much more attacking roles given the IWBs behind them

[djpdavey]

34 minutes ago, scwiffy said:

Wow this looks great. I'd say its less an exploit and more just a good tactic. Maybe this formation is the future of real football?

I'd have thought you could give your central pair much more attacking roles given the IWBs behind them

I'd second that. Are the flanks left wide open for a counter with the WB's attacking and overlapping the IF's and the IWB's occupying the central area?

[phnompenhandy]

47 minutes ago, scwiffy said:

Wow this looks great. I'd say its less an exploit and more just a good tactic. Maybe this formation is the future of real football?

Well that's why I  would call it an exploit. I very much doubt it could be successfully employed in real life.

Still, if you're having fun, enjoy!

[crusadertsar]

@phnompenhandy I don't think it's an exploit. Many clubs use inverted wingbacks in real life. Many real managers love to create overloads on the wing and this essentially what this tactic does. Just think of the attacking wingback as a winger and inside forward as a forward that has been shifted to the side. How is this different from what Pep was trying with Bayern or even his inverted wingback and winger experiment at Man City? I think with some balancing this could be veritable beast of a legitimate tactic. It has the exact surprise factor that I look for in my tactics. Especially with the ME parked bus engine being how it is, us managers need to really start thinking outside the box. So thanks @Quacky for inspiring me to start working on my own tactic with some ideas I got from here!

[enigmatic]

Tbh I think the fact you're choosing to hit early crosses  to a side with no forwards is weirder than the doubled fullbacks...

[crusadertsar]

4 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Tbh I think the fact you're choosing to hit early crosses  to a side with no forwards is weirder than the doubled fullbacks...

It could actually work very well if he is hitting early crosses aimed at far post for the inside forward arriving there. Just think about it

[SD]

If you're having fun with it, then who are we to say otherwise.

But let's not kid ourselves - if it's as effective as OP tells us then the tactic is a clear exploit.

I can't think of any real life counterpart for it and whenever the game and real life football deviate from each other, I find it far more plausible it's a shortcoming of the match engine rather than a tactical breakthrough.

[permanentquandary]

I recall Solskjaer splitting his forwards against Arsenal to exploit the fact they sent both full backs forward. Looks like this does the same.

By the way, if you want your AML and AMR to avoid coming back to defend, set them both to Trequartista. IF(A) defends more than Trequartista.

[Jyuan83]

Actually a lot of sides play like that with inside forwards as their main strikers and inverted wingbacks. Ronaldo is basically playing as a free roaming inside forward that never tracks back to defend. Same thing for mbappe on the right flank for psg. Out and out strikers in the modern game are getting very rare. 

[Quacky]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I've made some changes to the midfield.

 

The central pair work better like this, the playmaker has a bit more freedom and the ball winning midfielder helps a lot against counter attacks. IWB's on attack see you have the ball and fly forward without a care in the world, they're often my further forward players and make a lot of chances and overloads. On support they only help with the midfield rather than helping midfield and then running beyond.

I'm thinking its not so much an exploit but that could just be the level of opposition since I'm not running this as an extreme budget team in ligue 1.

Other things people mentioned, I think early crosses are quite important here, the wing back is the pure wide man here. On a counter he is starting from quite deep and will have 5 runners sprinting into the box, the time for maximum chaos is to the hit the ball in early. On a slower build up, I need the wing back to just fire it in the box on sight, again to prevent them organising because everyone in the team is basically a quick wide player not strong aerial players, I need Jostein Flo in the team really

[Quacky]

I made some pictures of how it tends to work;

Defensive shape

Loads of players are back if they don't commit many people to the attack the BWM will get them in the end, the IF's with no one to mark really end up with endless space.

Transition

After the tackle it fell to the right IF, the IWB's instantly charge forward adding to to midfield at first drawing players away from the DLP who wasn't needed this time as the crossfield ball is always on and was used.

Attack

The wingbacks are always the pure widemen, Kawaya puts in an early deep cross towards the 3 on 1 at the back back and the IF hits it home. The existance of the left sided IWB and IF seem to draw the attention of any midfielder that should be helping out their left back. If anything goes wrong my DLP is always open outside the box to recycle play and its pretty important to keep the BWM back to try and destroy any counter when I have so many people forward, especially with how the IWBs think they are strikers.

[wearesporting]

Your two center mids would want to be quick defensive absolute workhorses otherwise I'd be killing you down the wing. 

[crusadertsar]

5 hours ago, Quacky said:

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I've made some changes to the midfield.

 

The central pair work better like this, the playmaker has a bit more freedom and the ball winning midfielder helps a lot against counter attacks. IWB's on attack see you have the ball and fly forward without a care in the world, they're often my further forward players and make a lot of chances and overloads. On support they only help with the midfield rather than helping midfield and then running beyond.

I'm thinking its not so much an exploit but that could just be the level of opposition since I'm not running this as an extreme budget team in ligue 1.

Other things people mentioned, I think early crosses are quite important here, the wing back is the pure wide man here. On a counter he is starting from quite deep and will have 5 runners sprinting into the box, the time for maximum chaos is to the hit the ball in early. On a slower build up, I need the wing back to just fire it in the box on sight, again to prevent them organising because everyone in the team is basically a quick wide player not strong aerial players, I need Jostein Flo in the team really

Did you think about using Wide Targetman that cuts inside? 

And speaking of Jostein :  https://dictatethegame.com/2018/12/31/highlighting-the-wide-target-man-and-the-evolution-of-the-flo-pass-in-fm19/

I created Jostein style tactic and had a lot of success with it. Its with Manchester United but still beating some very strong teams like Inter easily in first season

[Quacky]

I've never tried the wide targetman, it could work but I'm a little worried that everyone will just ping the ball to him rather which would would be a contested header rather than to the space on the flanks. I was talking more about trying to get a big guy who was still able to play well out wide so that I have him and the 2 CB's to help at corners both attacking and defending.

Of course @wearesporting, if you do a quick counter attack down the flanks I'm in trouble, I can just hope the BWM is quick enough to break some legs.

[Louisking1992]

Whats your results been ? 

[sufcblades74]

any chance of sharing it i wouldnt mind having a crack with it 

[harrycarrie]

I just quickly remade this and tried it for a couple matches, and the attack is insane when it counters, just a line of 8 players swarming the opposition. Defensively very sound too.

 

Fair play on an interesting, different formation. I used attacking wingers rather than WBs however.

 

 

 

 

Spurs had 13 shots, but only one highlight (double woodwork from a corner).

 

I'm using a side overload variant already, this:

 

 

The AI really struggles with 3 on a flank, as shown here:

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, harrycarrie said:

I just quickly remade this and tried it for a couple matches, and the attack is insane when it counters, just a line of 8 players swarming the opposition. Defensively very sound too.

 

Fair play on an interesting, different formation. I used attacking wingers rather than WBs however.

 

 

 

 

Spurs had 13 shots, but only one highlight (double woodwork from a corner).

 

I'm using a side overload variant already, this:

 

 

The AI really struggles with 3 on a flank, as shown here:

 

Can you share player instructions?
Looks very interesting

[Wakers]

OP, can you upload your tactic please? I'd love to try it out.

[LukasZ_VCF]

On 15/02/2019 at 18:25, Quacky said:

I made a pretty silly tactic because I was pondering whether it would work or not. I haven't tested it long enough to be sure but I've been scoring an insane amount of goals with it. It feels like its weird enough that it might just be exploiting the match engine.

 

Defensively its solid, 2 banks of 4 playing pretty deep with a couple of spare people closing down ahead. Only really fails if I get countered or from set pieces as I only really have 2 players good in the air.

Offensively I have a 2 on 1, both flanks, all the time. The IWBs pretty much add to the centre midfield and on attack with the BBM its a bit like having 3 late central runners into the box. I cross it early where there is always going to be at least 2 runners at the far post. Their centre backs have no one to mark until all of a sudden theres late runners from deep all over the place so I score a lot from crosses.

When I was simulating the game with this tactic to check it I got very bad results, is there a difference with simulating vs playing 3d game?

[Quacky]

On 06/03/2019 at 07:51, LukasZ_VCF said:

When I was simulating the game with this tactic to check it I got very bad results, is there a difference with simulating vs playing 3d game?

Most teams in the game won't really have the players to do this from the start of the game and its likely the AI wouldn't pick the right sort of players. My squads for this tactic typically have 7 or 8 full backs in them, far more than a normal team would have in the first team. Also the WB's I pick based on your classic attacking winger stats, their defensive ability isn't so important, the full backs also need to be very good going forward but in a more rounded way and the inside fowards should really be good in the air not just short fast guys.

[gavinski33]

I don't care how much personality this tactic has, she's ugly. End of

[killerkoala]

I'm a fan of asymmetrical formations, and I've actually been using a tactic similar to yours:

 

As you can see, the left side is the same as yours, while the right side is more "normal". The inverted wingback is slightly less attacking, and the right back is told to stay narrow, making him a mix between full back and inverted wingback. The goal threats are the DLF, the left IF and the BBM, with crosses provided from the left WB and the right winger. Also some good long shot opportunities for the DLP when playing against a more defensive opponent.

[ExeChris]

Just to say I've had some success with a variant of this formation in the Vanorama South and National.  I found that having no striker meant I was giving the ball away too easily by just punting it forward, so I kept one central midfielder as CMsup and moved the other to aPFsup.  I use Very Attacking and get the odd heavy defeat but I do love to see my team sweep forward and get goals from all sources.

It is surprisingly solid as the IWB both get forward and back through the centre of midfield so lend extra bodies there.

[Overmars]

The idea of defending in two banks of four is logical. The idea of using a total of four fullbacks and wingbacks is the nonsensical part. That just feels very game-y to me. Using six wide players in general would break game immersion for me. We all know where a real-life opponent would attack you, and you would be collapsing at least two of those six wide players back into the middle.

[Dr.Y]

It is very interesting and I think it will work well. Only concern is that without players in AF positions, can the wingers or CMs restrict opposite to build up play from CDs effectively, how about the possession ratio?

[Warrenwwr]

I made a few tactics like this in previous versions with a lot of success.

So it's not just this version. I did one with a Lampard like MC bombing forward and top scoring. 2 raumdeuters on either side of him instead of the IFs.

In fact I don't even think it is a fault of the match engine. With the right setup in real life it should logically work as well.

But we may never see it in real life much as it is essentially a striker less formation very innovative but risky media wise. The first bad result you get :

Reporter: so did your decision to not play/buy a full striker adversely affect your team's performance today?

Manager : <$h!t's himself > *cough*cough..no? We didn't score Bc they defended great against our 6 midfielder attack.