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Everything TOTAL Football (From Cruyff's 343 to Guardiola's Overloads) - UPDATED Feb 28, 2023


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@Powello That's awesome to hear! Basically you are playing my dream from earlier in FM20 cycle. My first save and blog story was Young Devils where I was too trying to recreate Man United as a Total Football club. Even brought in a lot of Spaniards like Mikel Oyarzabal. But didn't have the same vision then and kind of gave up after realizing what a monumental task it would be. At the start of game their squad is not very technical and requires a major restructuring. So kudos to you for sticking with it :applause:

Edited by crusadertsar
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2 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

@Powello That's awesome to hear! Basically you are playing my dream from earlier in FM20 cycle. My first save and blog story was Young Devils where I was too trying to recreate Man United as a Total Football club. Even brought in a lot of Spaniards like Mikel Oyarzabal. But didn't have the same vision then and kind of gave up after realizing what a monumental task. At the start of game their squad is not very technical and requires a major restructuring. So kudos to you for sticking with it :applause:

Im waiting for you to bring Total Football to Man Utd as you can see there are quite a few Man Utd fans here. Hahahah

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2 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

@Powello That's awesome to hear! Basically you are playing my dream from earlier in FM20 cycle. My first save and blog story was Young Devils where I was too trying to recreate Man United as a Total Football club. Even brought in a lot of Spaniards like Mikel Oyarzabal. But didn't have the same vision then and kind of gave up after realizing what a monumental task. At the start of game their squad is not very technical and requires a major restructuring. So kudos to you for sticking with it :applause:

Thanks man.

I got rid of about 12-15 players I think lol 

I almost bought that guy but let Chelsea have him as I couldn't find a place for him consistently. I'll show you my squad as it is now at some point but I'm on my phone right now.

I'll also post my tactic for you to try if you want. Be interesting to see how it works with a different side. But now my squad us very technical it's working great

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4 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

Maybe I just will :brock: It's a Total Football JOURNEYMAN afterall

I will try your version later as Im drinking right now. Hahaha. 

 

Hopefully, we all make it work!

 

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It's a little ironic that this formation was created to counter the 442 yet that's the one formation I get destroyed by lol.

Bournemouth always beat me. Just got battered by them 5-2 on the opening day of the new season 😂

Got Chelsea next, guarantee we will destroy them lol

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17 minutes ago, Vico Vito Pep said:

How does Dzeko play in the Shadow Striker role when you don’t start Zaniolo or just opt to start him as the IF on the RW? 

I actually haven't had much time to test it with Roma. only set up the save but no games played. Tested for half a season with Benfica. But can't wait to try it with Roma later this week as I think their team is even better for this style. Will report as soon as I can!

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2 hours ago, crusadertsar said:

I actually haven't had much time to test it with Roma. only set up the save but no games played. Tested for half a season with Benfica. But can't wait to try it with Roma later this week as I think their team is even better for this style. Will report as soon as I can!

Do you consistently seeing yourself getting 30+% possession?

I know the way FM calculate possession is......

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4 hours ago, skyline72 said:

Do you consistently seeing yourself getting 30+% possession?

I know the way FM calculate possession is......

Not really. There are a few low possession games (usually Away against top teams like Sporting) where we might get 40%, but most have been in high 50s to low 60s.

C180419DE97BBD7D0773A1FE3308E686366F798C

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14 hours ago, crusadertsar said:

Not really. There are a few low possession games (usually Away against top teams like Sporting) where we might get 40%, but most have been in high 50s to low 60s.

C180419DE97BBD7D0773A1FE3308E686366F798C

Hmm,

I am regularly getting 30+% possession...

Not sure what went wrong.

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22 minutes ago, skyline72 said:

Hmm,

I am regularly getting 30+% possession...

Not sure what went wrong.

Do you have hold position in transitions? That can really increase possession numbers.

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1 hour ago, skyline72 said:

Do you see that with hold shape, it will lose the fluidity?

No, I don't think it should do that. It's only an incremental decrease. Like telling players to be more disciplined. I use it to keep the diamond in the middle.

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38 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

No, I don't think it should do that. It's only an incremental decrease. Like telling players to be more disciplined. I use it to keep the diamond in the middle.

I tried hold shape.

My possession is still in the 30s.....

Thats very weird considering every highlight is showing me attacking.

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1 hour ago, skyline72 said:

I tried hold shape.

My possession is still in the 30s.....

Thats very weird considering every highlight is showing me attacking.

That's is pretty weird. Maybe it's bug. Check how many passes you are making. That's  better sign of possession for me.

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3 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

That's is pretty weird. Maybe it's bug. Check how many passes you are making. That's  better sign of possession for me.

Its consistently like this.

I realised my passes completed is in the range of 350-400.

 

Untitled.jpg

Untitled.jpg

Edited by skyline72
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On 12/05/2020 at 01:58, crusadertsar said:

Thats almost exactly what I went with, except for only having one BPD in the centre. All the duties were also the same except I had Pressing forward on Attack in middle (again for the elusive Kluivert role that was supposed to pin the opposition defenders back). It looks great on paper until you test in the game. With  the original 3-4-3 Diamond you have to realize that most teams that Cruyff and van Gaal were facing were 4-4-2 and 3-5-2 maybe. Those are easy to boss around once you control the midfield. On the other hand in the game, you will face a lot of parked buses. Because realistically if you are playing Total Football style, you are not an underdog. You probably have very technical world-class players. So you won't be able to create enough movement against side with multiple DMs and packed midfields. They will basically drop everyone back and play with one striker, like with 4-5-1 or 4-1-4-1

So you have to think more along the lines of how do you break the game down. And its still with total attacking overload. The same as it in FM19. With the traditional 3-4-3 you will maybe have 3-4 players pushing into their opposition area all at once. But with the 3-4-3 Wingback version, I have at least 5, and sometimes all 7 with only my libero and centrebacks staying back. That kind of overload is key. It is what most top sides in Premiership like Liverpool and Man City do these days to break down all the parked buses they face there. Not a lot of teams can withstand 5-7 world class players penetrating their defence all at once. How do you mark everyone? You basically create overload on both sides and have players moving into all channels and stretching the wings. Wingbacks on the very outside and then the inside forwards and at least one of the midfielders occupying the channels. The shadow striker too, if he is a hard working one will put pressure on the defenders. It sounds "exploity" but I really don't think so. Its really how Total Football always operated. 

 

Completely agree. I'm playing with Arsenal and after winning most everything ( 8/8 league titles, 4/7 CL etc) I face extremely defensive sides that play with a lot of DMs and defensive minded midfielders and wingbacks to further protect their backline. Then on top they're like prime Barca just keeping the ball in their backline and playing around my press. So you can struggle for both posession and creating any good chances.

My base is a 433, but how in the end I started countering it is by borrowing a page out of Pep's playbook from when he was at Bayern and that one ill-fated night against basically his prime-barca side. He went with a very agressive formation positioning-wise, and matched Barca man-to-man to try to wrestle control and stop barca from playing. Of course for him it didn't work because that Barca team > his Bayern team, but the logic behind it was completely sound.

So in FM20 I do the exact same thing, matching the AI man-to-man mostly, with extreme press and man marking instructions on their entire backline minus the weakest-passing CB, and their entire midfield. 9/10 my players wrestle back the posession completely and dominate nearly completely, and I find enough openings to get the goals. This is my formation when facing 2DM tactics.

 

Screen Shot 2020-05-14 at 22.16.58.png

Edited by OJ
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4 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

It could be a result of attacking mentality or roles. Or also if the other team is parking the bus and holding the ball back, the game will actually calculate that they get more possession. The game is weird that way.

It's not just that, even if it partly could explain a few % here or there. Verified it by just watching large periods in full match, from the heatmaps, and from passing statistics (let's say 700-500 to them, and with their CBs recording both up to 150 passes).

EDIT: Should also say that I never start matches with these extreme variation formations, only if after 20-30 mins I'm not controlling the match and I just see them play a lot at their back, and bypassing my press (i.e. I'm not controlling the match, nor creating, and when they do come forward and pass my press, I'm in trouble).

Edited by OJ
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11 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

It could be a result of attacking mentality or roles. Or also if the other team is parking the bus and holding the ball back, the game will actually calculate that they get more possession. The game is weird that way.

Im using the same tactic as you.....

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1 hour ago, skyline72 said:

 Brighton doesn't have any shots at all but they manage to have 800+ passes and 63% possession at Old Trafford.

 

Untitled.jpg

This is basically example of extreme park the bus. The defensive teams that just sit back and pass the ball around and the game calculates as them having more possession. It's one of the most frustrating things about the game right now.

Edited by crusadertsar
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6 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

This is basically example of extreme park the bus. The defensive teams that just sit back and pass the ball around and the team calculates as them having more possession. It's one of the most frustrating things about the game right now.

How many passes do you average?

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Edit - The below is with my 343 diamond I discussed the other day.

NvovyXN.png

Positive so far. Averaging 68% possession. Possession has been 65%+ in every game apart from AZ.

Average of 24.9 shots per game and 11.3 on target. Too many blocked shots from the edge of the box for my liking at the moment. Averaging 1.8 CCC and 1.7 HCs per game. 

Facing 5.8 shots per game and 2.8 per game on target.

Van de Beek, playing as SS is on 6 goals in 7 games. Tadic (Complete Forward) is on 8 in 8. A couple of his have been pens though.

Stats slightly skewed by the 7-0 in which Young Boys had a man sent off on 40 mins and then another on 50. But the sole defeat and the 1-0 at Young Boys away were heavily rotated sides so that sort of balances it out.

On the whole I'm happy so far. I'd like less pot shots from the edge of the box. Many shots are being blocked. We've scored a few from set pieces, I don't feel overly reliant on them but it's worth mentioning that some opposition seem to be fouling us a lot. Fortuna Sittard took the biscuit with that one with 33 fouls, which disrupted our rhythm quite a bit.

Bigger tests to come against Leverkusen and Juventus in the Champions League. Plan is to do as little as possible with the tactic and let it play out so I can learn as much as possible about it. Always tempting to make slight changes for certain opponents but I want to make sure I keep the long term vision in mind, even if it does cost us a few results along the way. 

Edit 2 - Oh and 0 league goals conceded so far is nice!

 

Edited by ElJefe4
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1 hour ago, skyline72 said:

How many passes do you average?

I think in that screenshot I posted you can see i got 9700 something completed passes in 20 games, so about 450-500 completed passes per game. But not sure where i can see total pass count. I'm guessing with my completion rate being in 70-80s % I'm probably averaging about 700 passes per game.

Edited by crusadertsar
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9 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

I think in that screenshot I posted you can see i got 9700 something completed passes in 20 games, so about 450-500 completed passes per game. But not sure where i can see total pass count. I'm guessing with my completion rate being in 70-80s % I'm probably averaging about 700 passes per game.

Means you are about double of mine.

Im really wondering whats wrong with my team.

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11 minutes ago, skyline72 said:

Means you are about double of mine.

Im really wondering whats wrong with my team.

Benfica is very technical team though. Not sure what your Man United looks like. But my main "striker" for example is Pizzi. He has 15+ in his first touch, technique, passing, decisions and vision. He is my top scorer with 21 goals but he is also leads in assists with 12. The rest of my attackers look very similar. Rafa especially. To play this style you really have to think differently as I try to convey in my article. Players like Pizzi basically have to make up your whole team even defenders cannot be your typical defenders but must be excellent passers and very technical. You move the ball as the whole team. Having "Plays one-twos" on all your attackers, midfielders and wingbacks will help too. 

75E66270D7E1B469A0A3B975693A4673EDF9251E (1600×900)

Edited by crusadertsar
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5 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

Benfica is very technical team though. Not sure what your Man United looks like. But my main "striker" for example is Pizzi. He has 15+ in his first touch, technique, passing, decisions and vision. He is my top scorer with 21 goals but he is also leads in assists with 12. The rest of my attackers look very similar. Rafa especially. To play this style you really have to think differently as I try to convey in my article. Players like Pizzi basically have to make up your whole team even defenders cannot be your typical defenders but must be excellent passers and very technical. You move the ball as the whole team. Having "Plays one-twos" on all your attackers, midfielders and wingbacks will help too. 

75E66270D7E1B469A0A3B975693A4673EDF9251E (1600×900)

I understand that to be able to play Total Football, you need to have a team of intelligent and good technical players. 

Im sure that I have them in my team. I do teach Play one-twos to everyone.

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Does anyone find that 'work ball in to box' has any impact on a wingers willingness to cross? I don't currently have it selected as a TI, but my central players seem to be forcing a lot of long shots and I'd like them to be a little bit more intricate. I'm just worried that it might make my wingers hesitate and look for passes too often, which I want to avoid. I want to be able to isolate my wingers against full backs and have them be as aggressive as they like in dribbling and shooting or driving to the byline and crossing.

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4 minutes ago, ElJefe4 said:

Does anyone find that 'work ball in to box' has any impact on a wingers willingness to cross? I don't currently have it selected as a TI, but my central players seem to be forcing a lot of long shots and I'd like them to be a little bit more intricate. I'm just worried that it might make my wingers hesitate and look for passes too often, which I want to avoid. I want to be able to isolate my wingers against full backs and have them be as aggressive as they like in dribbling and shooting or driving to the byline and crossing.

Work into the box does that exactly actually. It supposed to reduce long shots and crossing from wings. So if you want more crossing, then you need to turn it off.

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6 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

Work into the box does that exactly actually. It supposed to reduce long shots and crossing from wings. So if you want more crossing, then you need to turn it off.

Yeah I'm happy for my wingers to cross because if they're at the byline, that generally means we've got between 2 and 5 players in the box. I'll tinker with Shoot Less Often as a PI for the central midfield players.

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So I have been running some tests. For these tests Iwas using a legends database and a team I created on it. I went on holiday for the season just instructing the assistant to use the tactic no set team selection.

The tactics tested were:

My one that I have talked about before on here from the base tactic @crusadertsarposted a few pages ago.
His current tactic he posted yesterday
and a new one that I created last night after some inspirational youtube watching.

My first one came out worst:(damn lol) Finished 4th but was sacked in April as the team is expected to win the league

@crusadertsar one came second, again finishing 4th but wasn't sacked, not sure why lol.

And surprisingly, by far the best one was the one I created last night.

Legends-table.jpg

This was the league table. As you'll see in a minute when you look at the tactic, it's surprising that this did so well. Below are the passing complete %

Legends-passcompleted.jpg

Unfortunatly not as many passes attempted as a few others, think they were only 6th or somehting for that, so that still needs work

This is the tactic

Legends-Tactic.jpg

I was inspired watching a few video on youtube as I said before, I wanted to get as close to cruyffs as possible and was determined to have the shape on the tactic screen be a lot closer than what we were trying before. I wanted to try with the wingers in the AML/R spot but have tried that before and got destroyed down the wings, so I put them deeper but set them up to go high. The RW produced 37 assits and the left just 11. But of course that depends on who the ass man actually played out there , so I am going on by who should have been playing there lol.

Considering I literally just created it in a few minutes and simmed the season, I am quite happy with the base. Obviously if I was actually playing the season I would have been able to tweak it and make it better, but I have a few ides on how to improve it., there is literally only about 5 player instructions between the whole tactic so pretty mich what you see is how it is. SO theres a lot of leeway to improve it.

And yes I have an amazing team but so does everyone else, it is a legends database and every team has legends and who knows who bought more throught the season.

If anyone wants to give it a try let me know and I will post it up, although as I said there's barely any PIs so it's easy to quickly copy.

I'm going to keep working on it and see if I can get the passing up

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2 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

Sounds tempting! I will if I ever find time between the three different saves I'm currently running :lol:

hahaha I feel you there. I have loads on the go :D

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1 hour ago, Powello said:

So I have been running some tests. For these tests Iwas using a legends database and a team I created on it. I went on holiday for the season just instructing the assistant to use the tactic no set team selection.

The tactics tested were:

My one that I have talked about before on here from the base tactic @crusadertsarposted a few pages ago.
His current tactic he posted yesterday
and a new one that I created last night after some inspirational youtube watching.

My first one came out worst:(damn lol) Finished 4th but was sacked in April as the team is expected to win the league

@crusadertsar one came second, again finishing 4th but wasn't sacked, not sure why lol.

And surprisingly, by far the best one was the one I created last night.

Legends-table.jpg

This was the league table. As you'll see in a minute when you look at the tactic, it's surprising that this did so well. Below are the passing complete %

Legends-passcompleted.jpg

Unfortunatly not as many passes attempted as a few others, think they were only 6th or somehting for that, so that still needs work

This is the tactic

Legends-Tactic.jpg

I was inspired watching a few video on youtube as I said before, I wanted to get as close to cruyffs as possible and was determined to have the shape on the tactic screen be a lot closer than what we were trying before. I wanted to try with the wingers in the AML/R spot but have tried that before and got destroyed down the wings, so I put them deeper but set them up to go high. The RW produced 37 assits and the left just 11. But of course that depends on who the ass man actually played out there , so I am going on by who should have been playing there lol.

Considering I literally just created it in a few minutes and simmed the season, I am quite happy with the base. Obviously if I was actually playing the season I would have been able to tweak it and make it better, but I have a few ides on how to improve it., there is literally only about 5 player instructions between the whole tactic so pretty mich what you see is how it is. SO theres a lot of leeway to improve it.

And yes I have an amazing team but so does everyone else, it is a legends database and every team has legends and who knows who bought more throught the season.

If anyone wants to give it a try let me know and I will post it up, although as I said there's barely any PIs so it's easy to quickly copy.

I'm going to keep working on it and see if I can get the passing up

Wouldn't the Libero clash with the DM?

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21 minutes ago, HanziZoloman said:

Nice read here lads! 
Got a question though: why do you pass into space while defending high up? When I do it, there is no space... 

Exactly. Personally I only use that TI contextually. Like when I drop my DL down in trying to make a defensive side come forward and then to hit them on the counter in the back. I never really create tactics with "Pass into Space" as selected by default. Also it is not compatible with high line pressing tactics like 3-4-3 I presented. But then sometimes some things in the game don't work like in reality. It is a game afterall. And if it works in your tactic I will not fault you for it. 

I don't think it makes that much difference. It's supposed to increase the rate of through balls. But with the right players and roles you will get many of them anyway. Like for example in my tactic, I'm not using Pass into Space but still most of my assists come from through balls (23 out 60). 

Edited by crusadertsar
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45 minutes ago, skyline72 said:

Wouldn't the Libero clash with the DM?

I thought that but I've watched a few games and the libero tends to push ahead of the DM or is alongside him like a 2 cm partnership

 

42 minutes ago, HanziZoloman said:

Nice read here lads! 
Got a question though: why do you pass into space while defending high up? When I do it, there is no space... 

Not had a problem with it. Good players will always find space

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3 minutes ago, Powello said:

Never seen any team have that many passes against me on any save

That's why I a bit frustrated.

Im on comprehensive highlight, most of it is showing me attacking the opponent.

But the stats shows otherwise.

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2 minutes ago, skyline72 said:

That's why I a bit frustrated.

Im on comprehensive highlight, most of it is showing me attacking the opponent.

But the stats shows otherwise.

well the only stat that matters is the scoreline.

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