When creating a tactic, do you.....

[EnigMattic1]

Start with the individual roles or the general style of play and team instructions? 

I am under the impression that it would make more sense to start with the style as, should you select, for example, a full back on an attack duty, if you then chose a positive mentality, he would become very attacking. 

Also, after tinkering with a tactic last night, I noticed that, on a standard role like CMs, some instructions were not available because of team instructions. 

[04texag]

Unless planning a tactic around someone like Messi, I start with team and general style and shape first, then down to units and groups of players, then roles and duties. 

[Experienced Defender]

I personally go the following route:

1. Decide on the style of play (based on thorough analysis of my players)

2. Pick the main formation that suits both the style I opted for and my players

3. Select roles and duties that support such a style (based on my players' strengths and weaknesses and in accordance with my own tactical principles)

4. Add a couple of basic instructions to more closely define the style I have chosen (sometimes though I may even start with no instructions at all)

[Rashidi]

I find this to be the best way for me at least, and it seems to work for a lot of other people I have helped.

1. Have an idea of an overall style of play first, ie what formation in general do I want to play.
2. Decide on a starting style first from the presets: Choosing one that comes closest to the style of play I want. 
3. Having picked one I will adapt it to my team.  Adapting it always has a process.

 

Will you be attacking down the flanks? Patient, counterattacking, camping? Where are your strengths what do you want to leverage?

4.  Design the style further by deciding out of possession team instructions (LOE, DL, Defensive Width) as these by far influence your styles the most, since they directly affect how deep or high you plan to play.

5. Look at the role and duties and see whether these are suitable for  my players and make changes to them if I want to tweak it to suit my team.

Things like counterpressing, counter, regroup, hold, play out of defence, overlaps.... now these depend largely on the players I have.  At this point I will start playing friendlies to see if i need to make further changes to roles and duties, and when I have settled on my first team, I end it with a specific set piece routine for the players that I have.

 

 

[Rashidi]

Lately I have been doing challenge series on twitch, where i have to take teams in relegation trouble and get them out without any player/loan signings and for each team, its always the same process. I may edit these and make them available for youtube. Oddly enough the process is always the same.

[MrChampionsLeague]

Just now, Rashidi said:

Lately I have been doing challenge series on twitch, where i have to take teams in relegation trouble and get them out without any player/loan signings and for each team, its always the same process. I may edit these and make them available for youtube. Oddly enough the process is always the same.

I've only seen West Ham and that was ended on Twitch before it got really interesting, what other teams did you do?

[Rashidi]

Just started with Udinese. 

[mikcheck]

Em 18/07/2020 em 13:39, Experienced Defender disse:

I personally go the following route:

1. Decide on the style of play (based on thorough analysis of my players)

2. Pick the main formation that suits both the style I opted for and my players

3. Select roles and duties that support such a style (based on my players' strengths and weaknesses and in accordance with my own tactical principles)

4. Add a couple of basic instructions to more closely define the style I have chosen (sometimes though I may even start with no instructions at all)

But let's say for example that you have a technical gifted team with good off the ball and you decide to add work ball into box to define you playing style. Do you change it for example to hit early crosses if you play against a team of equal or superior value?

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, mikcheck said:

But let's say for example that you have a technical gifted team with good off the ball and you decide to add work ball into box to define you playing style. Do you change it for example to hit early crosses if you play against a team of equal or superior value?

I usually tend to avoid making so big changes. If I regularly use WBiB as part of my tactic, then I may occasionally just remove it (if I notice my attacking play is overcomplicated), but I will probably not switch to the early crosses, which is the exact opposite of the WBiB. 

And when it comes specifically to WBiB, I tend to pair that instruction with the Be more expressive, so that the two would offset each other. 

[mikcheck]

11 minutos atrás, Experienced Defender disse:

And when it comes specifically to WBiB, I tend to pair that instruction with the Be more expressive, so that the two would offset each other. 

Care to elaborate this pls

[Experienced Defender]

6 minutes ago, mikcheck said:

Care to elaborate this pls

Given that WBiB can overcomplicate attacks in the final third, by giving my players more freedom via BME, I look to mitigate that overcomplication. 

[Miek]

3 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Given that WBiB can overcomplicate attacks in the final third, by giving my players more freedom via BME, I look to mitigate that overcomplication. 

BME?

[bibird.]

35 minutes ago, Miek said:

BME?

“Be More Expressive” TI

[Miek]

5 minutes ago, bibird. said:

“Be More Expressive” TI

Yikes, should've known that. Thanks!

 

3 hours ago, Experienced Defender said:

Given that WBiB can overcomplicate attacks in the final third, by giving my players more freedom via BME, I look to mitigate that overcomplication. 

Didn't know that WBiB gave more creative freedom to my players. Intresting. Only the ones on attack or the full team?

 

Edited July 19, 2020 by Miek

[Experienced Defender]

8 minutes ago, Miek said:

Didn't know that WBiB gave more creative freedom to my players. Intresting. 

WBiB does not give more creative freedom. The Be more expressive gives them more freedom (both of creativity and movement). 

Quote

Only the ones on attack or the full team?

Well, given that it's a team instruction, it affects the whole team, but this particular one primarily affects the more attacking players (not just on attack duty, but players who are generally more involved in attacks, especially in the final third).

[Miek]

1 minute ago, Experienced Defender said:

WBiB does not give more creative freedom. The Be more expressive gives them more freedom (both of creativity and movement). 

Well, given that it's a team instruction, it affects the whole team, but this particular one primarily affects the more attacking players (not just on attack duty, but players who are generally more involved in attacks, especially in the final third).

Misread your initial post... My bad.

So because WBiB overcomplicates things you click the be more expressive TI. Very interesting and I'll give this a shot in my save.

 

[Experienced Defender]

4 minutes ago, Miek said:

So because WBiB overcomplicates things you click the be more expressive TI. Very interesting and I'll give this a shot in my save

Okay, but keep in mind that WBiB requires really good players, both technically and mentally, because they will need to be able to keep the ball under pressure in congested areas. I use WBiB only when I manage good teams. 

[XuluBak]

I'd say it starts with the save itself. Who am I managing and why? What are my expectations? How do I want to go about it? Am I trying to take a team and put my touch on what they already do? Am I trying to build around one or two players? Sometimes I have a preconceived idea of what I want to do and pick a team based on personnel to implement that. Sometimes you just have to let the players in place, resources, and players that become available to you set the direction...

In my current save, I took over promotion-bound Frosinone. I have a long-term vision for how my team will play, but in that first season, my primary objective was to survive with the players and limited resources I had available, with a side objective of adding value (i.e,, players I could flip). That resulted in primarily going with a relatively defensive 343. Now, in my second season, I've started to add players I think could be foundational pieces, but in the interest of pragmatism, fielding my best XI and winning matches, I'm primarily using a 3412 with matchup dictating our level of assertiveness. My long-term vision primarily employs a 3313. It's entirely possible the path will change my destination. It often does. 

 

[HUNT3R]

I don't think I ever start with a 'style'. I'm not sure I even have one.

When I start at a new club, I firstly look at how strong they're supposed to be. Where the media predicts them and where the board wants me to finish. That gives me an idea of how defensive or how attacking I can/should be. In the back of my mind, it also starts giving me ideas of the different tactics I'll "need". If I'm a top team, probably just the one tactic, with maybe a tactic to swap to at the end of tight matches to see out a lead. If I am a team expected to be in the lower half of the table, I might need 2 versions... one for when I'm up against better teams and another for when I'm up against teams I can beat. That sort of thing.

Then, I look at the overall squad and the positions they can play. For example, I'll see plenty of DCs and I'd consider a 3/5 man defence and then I look at other possible positions in a formation like that. That gives me a rough idea for 1 or 2 formations. These days, I find it fairly easy to set a formation and then go to Team Report -> Squad Depth to see (roughly, as it's only stars) what the quality of players are in the positions and also how much depth I have. If I set a 4231, for instance, but I see I have 2 very good strikers, I don't want to leave the 2nd one on the bench. So I either check if either can work as an IF or I reconsider the formation.

Once I have a formation, it's time to decide who plays where (which my squad depth should mostly have sorted for me already) and more importantly, what role and duty. That I'd obviously base on their attributes and also what players around them have set as their role and duty. I try to get my top 3 or 4 players in what I deem to be their 'best' roles (I don't go by suitability) so I can base everything around them. Then it is a matter of fitting everyone else in, but still into roles and duties that they can perform in. I'm not going to stick square pegs into round holes just to satisfy the 3 or so best players. This can take some shuffling and it might even mean that I change a role or duty of even my best players, if I have to.

I start playing little clips in my head. For example, I see my best player is a AML with great dribbling and passing/vision. I envision him sitting deeper and receiving the ball. Then, cutting inside, beating a man - who is available to pass to? Ok, I need an Attack duty striker. Who else? Maybe a CM/A? or an IF/A on the opposite flank? you get the idea.

When the roles and duties are all set, I then move onto Mentality and TIs. I don't start with anything crazy, Mentality-wise. Usually Cautious, Balanced or Positive, based on the 2nd paragraph - how strong we are supposed to be. For TIs, I usually start with 1 or 2 max. I have a fully developed tactic now that only uses 5 TIs. I might have another that has 11. I don't have a limit, but I only add if I see I need it.

If I have all of that set, it's time to see it in action. I'll tweak for about 2 or 3 friendlies and in those I usually watch about 10 mins of each in full. This is where I add TIs, if needed, and I watch passing options and movement and I also keep an eye on the D-line and LoE. I'll still make a few tweaks during the season as I get more familiar with the tactic and the movement and passing patterns, but they're usually much smaller tweaks. Over the course of the season, it probably develops into a style? I don't know.

I've had teams this year who were relegation favourites and so there I had to go with a counter attack style of play. In general, I like tough tackling, but patient offence. That usually makes it into my tactics, but I feel like I adapt based on what's given to me. So long term, that may be what I aim for. Short term, it's whatever would work (in my mind) now.

[Urotsukidoji]

1. Pick formation.

2.Pick Player roles.

3. Pick team instructions

4.Pick individual instructions

[Hilly1979]

100% this, a sensible way of going about it for players of all levels whether new or experienced.

As I mentioned in another post most of the advice to people here is to think of a style and then go about making it work in FM terms, to me this makes the game complicated.

You don't need to have a particular style in mind just a well balanced tactic that suits your players.