My Messi doesn't score - Barca 4-1-4-1

[Mitza]

This is my Barcelona tactic. It's my 3rd season, and I won everything in the past two seasons with it (some changes along the way). Of course, I don't mind winning a lot but sometimes I struggle for longer periods and my team keeps winning matches from CMs goals.

What I don't like is that Messi doesn't really score. He got 27 goals in 43 matches last season and 31 goals in 46 matches two seasons ago. I saw people getting more than one goal per match from their players, but I never manage to. I think he scores even less since I changed him on Trequartista from Inside Forward. His Personal Instructions is 'Shoot more often'. Do I have too many instructions, ore are some of them overlapping with what I'm looking for?

[Guest]

Why "Trequartista"?

[Experienced Defender]

47 minutes ago, Cadoni said:

Why "Trequartista"?

The problem is not trequartista. It's the best possible role you can give to Messi. The problem is the rest of his tactic. 

[RocheBag]

11 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

The problem is not trequartista. It's the best possible role you can give to Messi. The problem is the rest of his tactic. 

The fact that it has a full green circle does not mean it's the best role you can give someone. It 100% depends on what you are looking for from the player and how the rest of the tactic is set up.

[crusadertsar]

20 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

The fact that it has a full green circle does not mean it's the best role you can give someone. It 100% depends on what you are looking for from the player and how the rest of the tactic is set up.

No really, trequartista is the best possible role for him because it gives him full freedom to pass or shoot and roam around and find space. It probably is the best possible role in the right system. Unfortunately not his system. Not with a gazillion contrasting team instructions and and the way other roles are set up. Why do you need two Ball-playing defenders? And who do you want to be your primary goalscorer Messi or the striker? Because trust me Complete Forward on Attack won't help Messi much. 

[RocheBag]

7 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

No really, trequartista is the best possible role for him because it gives him full freedom to pass or shoot and roam around and find space. It probably is the best possible role in the right system. Unfortunately not his system. Not with a gazillion contrasting team instructions and and the way other roles are set up. Why do you need two Ball-playing defenders? And who do you want to be your primary goalscorer Messi or the striker? Because trust me Complete Forward on Attack won't help Messi much. 

Sure, but this guy is specifically trying to get Messi scoring as much as possible. Someone asked him with this in mind, why Trequartista, and that is a very valid question which still hasn't been answered.

[crusadertsar]

Well I guess if he just wanted Messi to score he could just make him into a central striker like poacher. I don't think Inside forward or another type of scorer on the wing will do as well because you need good acceleration and pace there. And after 2 seasons, I'm guessing he has slowed down quite a bit. To score from a central position, it's not so much about speed. Messi has great mentals to be a Poacher. The whole team has to be set up to feed a poacher. So the whole tactic has to be reworked

[Overmars]

I agree with the above that generally faster players go out wide and slower ones play better in the middle. It won't make much of a difference anyway. You could roll the ball out without any instructions, and those guys would still win matches for you. In fact, it might be interesting to see if removing all of your team instructions leads to better results. Even a bare minimum approach (shorter passing, more pressing, and higher line of engagement) could do the trick without all of that other stuff.

[Mitza]

Thank you for all the replies. I'm not gonna lie, I set him as Trequartista because that's what I read almost everywhere - that he plays best in that role. I don't want to play him in attack because I still have Suarez and just bought Belotti, and I don't want to ruin my cohesion. 

I've been playing this tactic for Barca since FM16 (with this many instructions) and it always worked well. Again, I won La Liga, Copa, UCL and both supercups both seasons, so the tactic is working. I set the record for most points in La Liga in the first season. I just wanted to ask if there is a way to make Messi score more goals. 

Also, which instructions are contrasting? I didn't know that I shouldn't have two BPDs, it's just how I've always been used to and my CBs always have 7.40+ rating in a season. What I've never been sure of is the tempo - I heard that Barca actually plays in a low tempo, but I tried it for half a season and the team played worse. 

[Deego619]

I don't see the problem here, he's scored 60 odd goals in 90 odd matches and is comfortably your top scorer this season? If you're in the third season then Messi will have began declining physically, and to get these stats is pretty good. It was always difficult on FM to replicate the goal-a-game stats of Messi/Ronaldo this decade.

A physically declining Messi on the wing shouldn't be expected to score at that rate. If he was the focal point of the team in the center of the pitch with freedom to do as he pleased (like the Pep days) then maybe, but even at that, the centralization of goals may hamper your team's overall results.

[Experienced Defender]

4 hours ago, RocheBag said:

The fact that it has a full green circle does not mean it's the best role you can give someone

I didn't even mentioned the "green circle". What I look at is player attributes and traits. Messi is a prime example of TQ, regardless of what the green (or any other) circle suggests.

[Overmars]

44 minutes ago, Mitza said:

Also, which instructions are contrasting? I didn't know that I shouldn't have two BPDs, it's just how I've always been used to and my CBs always have 7.40+ rating in a season. What I've never been sure of is the tempo - I heard that Barca actually plays in a low tempo, but I tried it for half a season and the team played worse. 

The one that sticks out to me most is the "Be more expressive!" instruction. First you tell them to dribble less, pass shorter, play narrower, pass into space, play out of defence, whip crosses, work the ball into the box, play for set pieces, and play at extremely high tempo. Then you tell them, ah just be more expressive and do what you think is best.

[Mitza]

14 minutes ago, Overmars said:

The one that sticks out to me most is the "Be more expressive!" instruction. First you tell them to dribble less, pass shorter, play narrower, pass into space, play out of defence, whip crosses, work the ball into the box, play for set pieces, and play at extremely high tempo. Then you tell them, ah just be more expressive and do what you think is best.

I usually take it off for semi-important matches (UCL group stage, Sevilla, Valencia) and set it to "be more disciplined" in important matches (finals, Real Madrid, strong teams in UCL). I'm not really sure what it does exactly, I always thought it's mostly for creative/high technique players, which Barcelona doesn't lack, and lets them more freedom in the final third.

[crusadertsar]

@Mitza one that sticks out to me is "play for set pieces". I'm just curious where you are going with that one? Unless you want Messi to score his goals from free kicks and corners 

[sporadicsmiles]

You have so many TIs, what are they all supposed to do? Some of them seem very contradictory to me. You want short passes into space? That does not seem tremedously useful. What are delivered at an ultra high tempo. Without less dribbling (one of Messi's best skills). You seem to have some instructions designed to play possession football, and some to discourage it. Why are you playing for set pieces also? If you cannot explain why you have a TI, get rid of it.

Also, ask yourself how do you expect Messi to score? Who is going to create space for him? Who is going to provide the ball for him? If you want to build your team around Messi as an Treq on the right wing, you need to build all your roles around getting the best out of him.

[Experienced Defender]

13 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

one that sticks out to me is "play for set pieces". I'm just curious where you are going with that one? Unless you want Messi to score his goals from free kicks and corners

I often use the PFSP with Brighton. Maybe I should consider buying Messi 

[Mitza]

1 hour ago, crusadertsar said:

@Mitza one that sticks out to me is "play for set pieces". I'm just curious where you are going with that one? Unless you want Messi to score his goals from free kicks and corners 

Well he does score a lot of free-kicks, so I didn't think it would hurt. I will play without it and see what goes. What I agree with is that "pass into space" doesn't go with my other instructions, I genuinely never paid that instruction any attention after turning it on. 

[s0ni42]

Lot going on here. Not sure there’s any thought to creating space. Unneeded 2 bpds. Too many instructions, simplify. Messi and Coutinho in wings don’t offer that much pace Suarez looks to be isolated with no one else forward. Playing with an advanced playmaker not named Messi or Coutinho seems a little awry. Two playmakers in MF likely to make pace a crawl (do they just pass back and forth all day). 

[n1mez]

 

This is how i set up my tactic. Keep in mind i overtook Barcelona after the first season, so my first season in charge he got 30 in 36 games. Trequarista in the middle worked so brlliantly compared to on the wing. Also make him take freekicks and penalties. 

[Gunnersmoke]

So many problems with that tactic and the fact you have won so much makes me sad because it kinda shows all you need is the best players.

 

firstly why have pass into space and work ball into the box? The completely contradict each other those combined with extremely high tempo is why you can’t get the best out of him, how is he meant to be creative when everything is break-neck speed through balls and no time to assert control on the gane

[mrgoal100]

hace 9 minutos, Gunnersmoke dijo:

So many problems with that tactic and the fact you have won so much makes me sad because it kinda shows all you need is the best players.

 

firstly why have pass into space and work ball into the box? The completely contradict each other those combined with extremely high tempo is why you can’t get the best out of him, how is he meant to be creative when everything is break-neck speed through balls and no time to assert control on the gane

Not defending the use any instruction, but where do you see a contradiction?

WBIB reduces crosses and long shots

Pass into space increases risky passes.

Crossing and shoting vs passing.

[Experienced Defender]

8 hours ago, mrgoal100 said:

Pass into space increases risky passes

The "PIS" team instruction increases risky passes for the entire team. But when you are Barca, the opposition will sit back and defend, so they won't leave you any meaningful space to pass into. Rather than using the "PIS" TI, a more sensible approach is to use PIs to allow a couple of your most creative players with great passing ability to take more (passing) risks. 

Now, there are situations when you can use the "PIS" TI effectively even if you dominate the game against very defensive opposition, but that requires a pretty high level of tactical knowledge and understanding of the football game (along with intelligent players with good technical ability and movement). And certainly does not go hand in hand with (extremely) high tempo.

[mrgoal100]

hace 29 minutos, Experienced Defender dijo:

The "PIS" team instruction increases risky passes for the entire team. But when you are Barca, the opposition will sit back and defend, so they won't leave you any meaningful space to pass into. Rather than using the "PIS" TI, a more sensible approach is to use PIs to allow a couple of your most creative players with great passing ability to take more (passing) risks. 

Now, there are situations when you can use the "PIS" TI effectively even if you dominate the game against very defensive opposition, but that requires a pretty high level of tactical knowledge and understanding of the football game (along with intelligent players with good technical ability and movement). And certainly does not go hand in hand with (extremely) high tempo.

Agree, but I specifically asked why WBIB and PIS are contradictory instructions.

If it is a good idea or not to use PIS with or without WBIB is another subject.

[CARRERA]

1 hour ago, mrgoal100 said:

Agree, but I specifically asked why WBIB and PIS are contradictory instructions.

 

Its not (why would it). Its just about passing accuracy as a deeper sitting team may give you less space to find a through ball and less space to run in which can lead to more interceptions. But as long as you dont see your passes are getting intercepted or a significant drop in passing accuracy i dont see a problem.

Tho passes into spance are obviously more effective, if there is more spance  

WBIB is just about crosses and shots

[Experienced Defender]

2 hours ago, mrgoal100 said:

Agree, but I specifically asked why WBIB and PIS are contradictory instructions.

If it is a good idea or not to use PIS with or without WBIB is another subject.

I agree that WBIB and PIS are not a priori contradictory instructions. You can use both at the same time. The context of a tactic as a whole - but also your players' characteristics - is what will determine when such a combo makes sense and when it doesn't.

[Nima2708]

if you use this set up
Play wider (beceause Messi will get more space in center of the field). 
Use striker as pressing forward ore poacher to create space for Messi, behind the striker. 
Use Messi behind the striker as Trequarista ask him to shoot more 
Play more in center - you are opening the space so its more room in center as well as Messi is here  
Ask your right not to take to much risk and drible less and pass short passes. 
CMR should play simple short passes and dont take risk. This way you will have triangle, where RB and CMR passes short passes, Messi drops deep to pick the ball and since you play wide, he have space to run in. At right side, if you have a player make sure he dont run in Messis space, he should run forward wide ore between CD and FB (move in to channel)