I thought I'd share this formation having just had an incredibly successful season in League 1 where I ended up winning promotion on the final day with a. young side predicted to finish dead last.
It's an attacking 3 at the back which I developed from the starting template of Vujevic's Spielmacher formation and has taken on board quite a bit of advice from others on these forums.
It's by no means a plug and play or 'meta' tactic but I think it's great fun.. and it utilises a position which I think is underrated - the defensive winger.
You'll need to get the right players, set piece set up, and opposition instructions to be successful but it's definitely effective. Not only was my squad hugely understrength but it was also very young and suffered a massive injury crisis mid season... at one point I only had 2 fit CBs but in the end the attack worked wonders and kept winning games for me.
For the defensive wingers, it's ideal to have an inverted foot option on each wing... no need to change instructions... a left footer on the right will make different choices, cutting inside and playing balls over the top for strikers to get them in on goal... whereas a right footer will favour running down the wing and sliding through balls into the channels.
Defensively It would have been even better without the injuries and the fact that I absolutely fell out with my goalie in January and sold him so ended up using a 17 year old with tier 6 current ability for most of the season!
Screenshots from my league one season:
After much trial and error the previous month the final formation was first used at Oxford 28/11/26 (ignore West Ham U21s - that was a team of reserves and they still won on xG)
It's an attacking 3 at the back which I developed from the starting template of Vujevic's Spielmacher formation and has taken on board quite a bit of advice from others on these forums.
It's by no means a plug and play or 'meta' tactic but I think it's great fun.. and it utilises a position which I think is underrated - the defensive winger.
You'll need to get the right players, set piece set up, and opposition instructions to be successful but it's definitely effective. Not only was my squad hugely understrength but it was also very young and suffered a massive injury crisis mid season... at one point I only had 2 fit CBs but in the end the attack worked wonders and kept winning games for me.
For the defensive wingers, it's ideal to have an inverted foot option on each wing... no need to change instructions... a left footer on the right will make different choices, cutting inside and playing balls over the top for strikers to get them in on goal... whereas a right footer will favour running down the wing and sliding through balls into the channels.
Defensively It would have been even better without the injuries and the fact that I absolutely fell out with my goalie in January and sold him so ended up using a 17 year old with tier 6 current ability for most of the season!
Screenshots from my league one season:
After much trial and error the previous month the final formation was first used at Oxford 28/11/26 (ignore West Ham U21s - that was a team of reserves and they still won on xG)