Achieved Promotion - Will my tactic hold?

[spiman]

I'm managing an Albacete side in FMC, and achieved a kind of unexpected promotion to the liga BBVA through the playoffs (finished 5th, won the playoff final home leg with a 5-0 where the opponents just collapsed).

My tactic has been pretty solid, it's based of some 4-4-2s I found around with some tweaks I found clicked as the season went by. Focused on a good target man who can score and create space, and playing with a high defensive line and ultra narrow formation to constrict the available space.

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Now, I know that the best way to test a tactic is by watching the matches, but I'm currently at work, work is slow and I'm thinking about FM and my jump to the primera.

In the liga adelante matches, especially the ones where the team did not perform (FMC has no team talks and I find that sometimes my team jumps into the match and underperforms for no apparent reason -- could be tactics / could be some emulation of the motivation-teamtalk aspect of the full fat FM) I am really exposed on the counter and if the offside trap fails we're going to a one-on-one situation. (At least my GK has 17 One on ones).

I really like the attacking movement of the team, with goals coming from headers from the target man, the target man opening up space for the shadow striker and sometimes the wide midfielder to score tap-ons, the full backs being really attacking with good crossing, posing a big threat to the opponents.

But I am afraid that the tactic will fail miserably when faced with the primera heavy-weights, and I have never been able to create a good solid defensive tactic. I also cannot completely understand the impact of some TIs. So, without further ado here come my questions.

1) Are the center mid roles versatile enough to hold the center when the team is commited to attacking through the wings?

2) Is the offside trap a good idea when playing with barca / real / atletico etcetera?

3) I am playing a high d-line to try to minimize the vertical space between my lines. If i close down less, will this mean the team will fall back to deeper positions before applying pressure and keep the lines close to each other?

4) Will asking the team to be more disciplined provide better defensive structure without sacrificing too much in the attacking phases?

5) I'm using the exploit the middle TI in conjunction with the play out of defense TI so that attacks start through my center mid who sits deeper. Is this correct, or does the DLP role guarantee that and I'm just asking the team to pass the ball to the middle when they're in the final third?

6) Can someone explain like I'm 5 what use tighter marking does?

7) Prevent short GK distribution means prevent the opponent GK distribution, right?

8) Any general thoughts & tips on my approach? (I'm very open to having my tactic destroyed so I can build a better one!)

 

[spiman]

9) Do CB pairs have something like a hidden "chemistry" rating in FMC? (like in real life!). Should I keep on playing my first team CB duo together in friendlies, so they build up chemistry between them?

 

[WJ]

9) Do CB pairs have something like a hidden "chemistry" rating in FMC? (like in real life!). Should I keep on playing my first team CB duo together in friendlies, so they build up chemistry between them?

No there's nothing like that in FM.

 

[WJ]

1) Are the center mid roles versatile enough to hold the center when the team is commited to attacking through the wings?

At first glance, no. Not even close. The problem is that your wings are far too attacking.

2) Is the offside trap a good idea when playing with barca / real / atletico etcetera?

One way to find out.

3) I am playing a high d-line to try to minimize the vertical space between my lines. If i close down less, will this mean the team will fall back to deeper positions before applying pressure and keep the lines close to each other?

In theory, yes. Counter has fairly low closing down already though.

4) Will asking the team to be more disciplined provide better defensive structure without sacrificing too much in the attacking phases?

It just asks them to be more disciplined - stick to instructions. It won't make you defensively worse or better.

5) I'm using the exploit the middle TI in conjunction with the play out of defense TI so that attacks start through my center mid who sits deeper. Is this correct, or does the DLP role guarantee that and I'm just asking the team to pass the ball to the middle when they're in the final third?

The DLP is there already. He's a playmaker, so players will look to pass to him a bit more. All you're doing with Exploit Middle is adding penetration by asking the central players to attempt more forward runs. That's borderline suicidal with the wings already far too attacking.

6) Can someone explain like I'm 5 what use tighter marking does?

It's exactly what you think it is. If an opposition player comes into your player's zone, he'll mark him tight - right on top of him.

7) Prevent short GK distribution means prevent the opponent GK distribution, right?

Yes. Why would you try and prevent your own GK distribution?

 

[spiman]

I'm trying to post a reply and I get a forbidden words/URLs error, can somebody point me to the forbidden words list?
Thanks for the reply.

On your first point, maybe I did not express myself correctly, what I want for the mid is to provide "pivots" when the team is attacking, start the attacks through the DLP, but remain deep enough to provide defensive cover.

The wings are too attacking, but from the last season (albeit at a lower level than liga BBVA), that was my main attacking threat.
Switching the full backs to support duty made my team very predictable and static, and significantly reduced my goal scoring opportunities. Switching them to attack was actually the biggest factor in this tactic achieving promotion, by the classic "outscore your opponents" defensive strategy. I also had a better away than home record!

My biggest fear with the attacking full backs was that it would result to too many far post tap-ins for the opposition, but in practice I did not see a whole lot of them during the liga adelante campaign, most of the goals came from penalty spot mistakes from my CBs.

Switching them to WB-S with the look for overlap TI will result in even more attacking behavior, ain't that right?
My current plan is to create a second tactic with the full backs on support and the team mentality switched to defensive in order to try and get some draws from the division big players. Maybe add the look for overlap TI if it seems like i can push up and get a goal. Any thoughts on that?

Plus, my new DLP has a long shots attribute of 16, and I'm thinking of teaching him the shoots from distance PPM. Will this be completely negated by the DLP-D shoots less often PI?

Tight marking quality opponents is out of the question, since they'll just beat their man, is that correct?