Adapting Bielsa's tactic - need some help

[Frank from Poland]

Hello everyone, I'm trying to adapt Marcelo Bielsa's 3-3-1-3 (against the teams which are using 2 strikers) and 2-4-1-3 (against the teams with one striker) tactics. Front three is quite simple, STL, STC and STR. Behind them there is operating central AM. Defence is also quite simple to form - 3 or 2 CD's. In front of them there is holding DM. But I've got problem with placing the rest of players.

In 3-3-1-3 there are 3 CD's, holding DM and two players who are not exactly box to box midfielders and not exactly wing backs. How to set the instructions and where to place them (in the CM position or rather WB)?

In 2-4-1-3 there are 2 CD's, holding DM and three spare players. Bielsa uses one of them as box to box midfielder (Iturraspe). And again same question - what to do with that two players?

Another question is about marking - zonal or man? I was thinking about setting CD's and DM zonal marking and the rest of players man marking. If I would set to my 2 CM's (box to box ones) to man mark the oposition's wingers, maybe they will act in defence as wing backs and while in possesion as supporting, energetic central midfielders? Next thing - how to adapt the aproach during defending of offensive trio / quartet of players? In real life, they come deep to get the ball, but when the ball is win, they quickly move to offensive positions.

Does anyone has an idea to solve that matters?

 

[Frank from Poland]

No one?

 

[baltar]

Have you looked at Zonal Marking's tactical writeups? Athletic v Barca and Chile World Cup 2010 are two that may help. Looking at those writeups, I'd guess playing aggressive wingbacks with Wide Play: Cut Inside would be one way of instructing them. I used wingers who cut inside when I was creating a 4-4-2 based on Villarreal's play last year, where their wingers did something similar. This would definitely have been easier in FM2009, when you could just have an arrow from WB -> CM, since that's basically what his WBs do.

I'm really interested to see how yours turns out. I'm really interested in the 3-3-1-3 and Napoli's 3-4-3 and trying to get them to work in FM. Using a 4-1-2-3 gets so boring sometimes.

 

[Draigh]

Indeed, when recreating Bielsa's Chile I'd use wing backs cutting inside, while keeping the left and right forward as wide as possible to stretch the defence.

 

[Zebedee]

Been playing about with this myself (only on the drawing board stages so far). Interesting challenge, especially with a lower league Brazillian team.