FMCatenaccio
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Preparing for battle
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When we think about the upcoming game, we often look at our squad to see what state our own players are in, whether they’re fit enough to play the next game or not, then we might look at their recent form to see if they deserve to be in the matchday squad, After a few tweaking of player selections we often take a last-minute glance at our tactics making sure everything looks correct before pressing the “Continue to match” button. We enter the dressing room where we are expected to hold our pre-match team talk, sometimes the players are met with either a passionate speech or an angry rant, this will mainly come down to your recent performances, after your team talk you’ll be hoping the morale is on fire and that the team will head out and grab those three points your expected to get… 15 minutes in and you notice that the opposition are all over you, their midfielders are having a field day, passing it around like you’re not even on the field. You start to get nervous, wondering how can this be? You were clear favourites but your acting like a manager of a team struggling for form.They score its 1-0.Bollocks.You clearly haven’t done your homework, you might think you deserve to win because the bookies put you down as favourites, but we all know the bookies aren’t always right.Can you stop this from happening ever again? Absolutely not, its football, it happens. However, I like to think of it slightly differently, yes this will happen again but you can minimise it from happening and really take advantage of these situations if you play your cards right.Now you’re probably thinking you already do everything you need to maximise the opportunity of winning games, and when you lose you probably just blame it on the computer having its turn of luck, and then carry on like nothing’s happened. That’s fair enough, you may enjoy playing the game like that, but I assume as your currently on my blog you take the game serious like myself, and losing games isn’t acceptable and you would rather dedicate some time preparing for every game like it’s your last.So bare with me, and hopefully, after this article, you may get some ideas you will want to try out yourself.
That Extra 1%Forget about your formations and tactics for a moment and put your focus on the opposition. Real life managers will dedicate a lot of time preparing for the upcoming fixtures, so how come we think its ok neglect it? Yes, you may think you’re doing the right thing when briefly glancing over the opposition match report, but are you really using it to its full potential? Are you maximising your chances of a win before the battles begun or have you lost the game before the whistles blown?In this article we will be talking about the following;
- Identifying the opponent’s weakness
- Opponents morale and personality
- Identifying the opponent’s strengths
- Identifying the opponents playing style
Hopefully, once you have read these key points you will go away with a slightly better understanding of the match report, analysis and being able to go that extra 1% to outsmart your opponent.Let’s get underway!
Identifying the opponent’s weakness
The weak link in the defence & midfield
This should be one of the first things that you do when building your own opposition report, knowing your opponents’ weaknesses will play a huge part in the upcoming fixture. A few examples of what I look for when writing a report would be;
Above you can see how I’ve used the in-game notes to help me keep all the information organised. I haven’t written down a lot, just the main factors that I feel are important for the time being. I will then look at the players individually and identify their main weakness, this may not be possible until the day of the game as you can’t guess who will start or not, but it’s worth checking just before kick-off.
I’ve identified that their defence isn’t the quickest and the player above is their weak link when it comes to pace and agility, I also noticed that he is a towering CB standing at 6’4. This will help me when choosing which type of crosses, I can look to play, in fact, I noticed that the entire defensive line is taller than 6ft, so playing floated crosses into the box wouldn’t be ideal or beneficial to my team.I then move look for the weakness in the midfield. This can be anything from the players passing, concentration or fitness. Anything I feel that can work against them in the game I will use to my advantage;
I’ve managed to identify the player above, the first thing that stood out was the poor concentration and natural fitness. I will keep an eye on him in the second half and wait for him to tire, then make sure my players are on him hard! Tackling and pressing him at every opportunity trying to maximise the chances of him making mistakes. This goes for any players that start to tire throughout the game.
I’ve identified that their defence isn’t the quickest and the player above is their weak link when it comes to pace and agility, I also noticed that he is a towering CB standing at 6’4. This will help me when choosing which type of crosses, I can look to play, in fact, I noticed that the entire defensive line is taller than 6ft, so playing floated crosses into the box wouldn’t be ideal or beneficial to my team.I then move look for the weakness in the midfield. This can be anything from the players passing, concentration or fitness. Anything I feel that can work against them in the game I will use to my advantage;
I’ve managed to identify the player above, the first thing that stood out was the poor concentration and natural fitness. I will keep an eye on him in the second half and wait for him to tire, then make sure my players are on him hard! Tackling and pressing him at every opportunity trying to maximise the chances of him making mistakes. This goes for any players that start to tire throughout the game.
Opponents morale and personality
Identifying these two factors can be crucial. In my opinion these are the two most important set of attributes a player can have. A player with brilliant mental and physical attributes will go a lot further than a player with good technical skills. These will define the players that will make your life a living **** when playing against them as their work rate and determination will always come out on top and its important you are aware of these players before the game starts.Knowing the teams mental & physical weak link will be beneficial, for example, knowing that they are playing a 16-year-old right back due to injuries could be the difference in winning or losing a game. The youngsters mental or physical attributes won’t have fully developed yet, so it’s important you spot this as soon as possible to take advantage of it.All attributes play a huge part in whether a player is good or bad but there are a few attributes I like to keep an eye on when analysing my opponent,
- Composure
- Concentration
- Decisions
- Positioning
These are a few that I find are important for a player to have to be successful. When I find a player who doesn’t have these in the opponent’s team, I will often look to exploit it, An example would be to put more pressure on them when they have the ball, as the chances of them playing a misplaced pass is higher. I briefly touched on this above when I identified this exact thing when reporting on the opposition team. What’s the squad Confidence & Morale? Something that plays a huge part on Football manager is the team’s morale, this can be the difference between a team staying up or getting relegated. Having bad morale within the team will always feel like an impossible task for any manager to be able to turn things around but on the flip side having a team with superb morale can be a challenging task to beat.
As you can see above, the team has poor morale and are low on confidence, this would be the ideal time to play against them. They look like they don’t want to show up and all it would take is one goal and they would all be on abysmal. Personally, when I come up against a team like this, I will want to start the game pretty aggressively, I will ask my players to close down a lot more, press and tackle harder each one of their players, this should make them unwilling to take more chances and with a bit of luck they will have a few mistakes in them.
Identifying the opponent’s strengths
When analysing your opponent its just as important knowing their strengths as well as their weaknesses. You need to know everything from who their top goal scorer is, to who creates the most chances. I would, however, look deeper into this, knowing who creates and who scores is good but they have 11 men on that field who all have job to do. Identifying every player’s strength is a must, now I’m not saying write all this down before every game but its worth having a quick glance at the player’s attributes and stats just to give you an idea of what you’re up against.A few things I look at when analysing my opponents are;
- Passing combinations between players
- Teams Play-makers
- Identify how they score goals.
- Do they have highly rated players?
- Focus of attack
These are a few factors I keep in mind when writing a report on the opponent. Ideally, after this, I will have a good understanding on how they will approach the game.Passing Combinations This is something I look at when trying to identify who their main men are in the team. I believe if you can close down their passing combinations you will stand a better chance of succeeding, an example below
This explains that they have had a total of 364 passing combinations in their last game, and looking at the photo you can see that Nilsson and Sahlih have had the most with a total of 53. I often look at the top 3 to give me a clear view but, in this case, I’ve decided to look at the top 5.Main reason being is because I’ve seen a pattern in Oscar Johansson game, he seems to be involved in a lot of the combinations, and just looking at this screen I can already see that they will look to use him a lot in the next game.
After digging a little deeper I noticed that he plays right midfield but looking at his attributes, he isn’t actually a good player so I’m confident that I can make him quite in the next upcoming game.
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A few things I’ve noted down
This explains that they have had a total of 364 passing combinations in their last game, and looking at the photo you can see that Nilsson and Sahlih have had the most with a total of 53. I often look at the top 3 to give me a clear view but, in this case, I’ve decided to look at the top 5.Main reason being is because I’ve seen a pattern in Oscar Johansson game, he seems to be involved in a lot of the combinations, and just looking at this screen I can already see that they will look to use him a lot in the next game.
After digging a little deeper I noticed that he plays right midfield but looking at his attributes, he isn’t actually a good player so I’m confident that I can make him quite in the next upcoming game.
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A few things I’ve noted down
- Right Foot only.
- Average Mental attributes (Concentration, Composure and Decisions) This will play a huge part when setting up my opposition instructions.
- Player trait (Runs with ball down right)
My opposition instructions will look like this
Of course, if I felt that Johansson would be more of a threat, I would maybe look at playing a more defensive minded LWB but I really don’t think he will actually cause us any harm so ill keep it simple.Going back to Nilsson and Sahlih who hit 53 combinations between them, I have looked through their profiles and noticed that they aren’t world beaters and the only action I will be taking is to keep an eye on Sahlih and man-mark Nilsson. This situation all depends on the game, the players and your own squad, once you have monitored all these factors you can then make a decision on how detailed your opposition instructions should be.The 20-minute methodThis method can help you with in-game management, it’s a very simple and straightforward way of analysing your opponent but it can be a game changer and also help you identify the potential risk you may face.So, what is the 20-minute method?So basically, the idea is that you pause the game after 20 minutes to identify the oppositions;
Of course, if I felt that Johansson would be more of a threat, I would maybe look at playing a more defensive minded LWB but I really don’t think he will actually cause us any harm so ill keep it simple.Going back to Nilsson and Sahlih who hit 53 combinations between them, I have looked through their profiles and noticed that they aren’t world beaters and the only action I will be taking is to keep an eye on Sahlih and man-mark Nilsson. This situation all depends on the game, the players and your own squad, once you have monitored all these factors you can then make a decision on how detailed your opposition instructions should be.The 20-minute methodThis method can help you with in-game management, it’s a very simple and straightforward way of analysing your opponent but it can be a game changer and also help you identify the potential risk you may face.So, what is the 20-minute method?So basically, the idea is that you pause the game after 20 minutes to identify the oppositions;
- Passing completion
- Player rating
- Players body language
- Passes received
I highly recommend doing this every 20-minutes in game, it will help you see if any of their players are starting to grow into the game and allows for you to shut them out straight away before it’s too late.
As you can see above none of their players are doing anything special, this is mainly down to the fact that I’m playing against a poor side in the Europa League, however, it will look different once you play a good team. An example if you were playing against a good team and after 20 minutes you check the analysis and you notice that 1 of their players has touched the ball say 50 times and has a decent rating you may want to consider putting a man on him, close him down and tackle him harder, otherwise you may regret it, The whole point of doing this is so that you keep on top of their player’s performances. It will allow for you to be more proactive rather than reactive, you want to deal with the potential threat before its caused harm.
As you can see above none of their players are doing anything special, this is mainly down to the fact that I’m playing against a poor side in the Europa League, however, it will look different once you play a good team. An example if you were playing against a good team and after 20 minutes you check the analysis and you notice that 1 of their players has touched the ball say 50 times and has a decent rating you may want to consider putting a man on him, close him down and tackle him harder, otherwise you may regret it, The whole point of doing this is so that you keep on top of their player’s performances. It will allow for you to be more proactive rather than reactive, you want to deal with the potential threat before its caused harm.
I also like to monitor the oppositions team body language, I recommend keeping an eye on this throughout the entire game. Making sure you take advantage of the players who are nervous and are having a bad day at the office. These small details can play a huge part in winning matches, make sure you take them seriously as it really does matter.
Identifying the oppositions playing style & roles
By now I can only assume that you’re starting to tire and wanting to get back to playing Football Manager so I will keep the next part brief!Just like identifying your opponents’ weaknesses and strengths, it’s equally as important knowing they’re style and the player roles that will most likely be playing within the upcoming fixture. Knowing these factors can give you a great advantage on match day.
A few questions I like to ask when focusing on this subject;
[*=center]How are they going to set up?
[*=center]How does their manager prefer to play?
[*=center]What type of players do they have?
[*=center]What are their player roles?
After identifying these I will look at how I can counter these factors, whether that is man-marking their main playmaker or tackling their weaker winger and showing him onto his wrong foot. It may also mean changing my personnel slightly to adapt to the situation better. For example, if they have a route one style of play and usually play with an Andy Carroll type player, I would consider bringing in a taller Centre back or maybe adding some height to the midfield to help with set-pieces. This is just an example of how you can deal with these scenarios but they can be highly effective.Ideally, before each game, you should be able to answer those 4 questions with confidence, if not you haven’t done enough homework on the opposition.
I want to dig slightly deeper into the oppositions player roles and how you can manage these before the games started.As you are aware each player is given a tactical role within the formation and each role plays a different part within the tactics. Some roles are focused on play-making while others are more focused on winning the ball back etc. I want to look at how you can identify the natural partnerships within the opposition’s tactics and how it can help you mastermind your way around these tactics.A natural partnership can be 2-3 positions that help and affect each other in the game, an example would be a left
back and a Left sided defensive midfielder, although they don’t have the green lines linking them both together, they are still important to get right
.
Above you can see that I have chosen to play with a left-sided CWB on attack, while next to him I’ve gone for a CM D, the thought process behind this is that when the CWB is attacking I will still have added protected from the CM-D, this is what I call the natural partnership that you will see in game.So why do I identify the oppositions natural partnerships and why does it matter?Firstly, being able to identify these partnerships can give you a huge advantage on match day, it will give you a better understanding of the opponent’s tactics and will also give you some tips to where they aim to attack and also where you may be able to exploit.
The above photo is from my opponent’s last match report, it tells you all the roles that the players were ensigned to. From this photo alone, I will roughly know how they plan to set up. A couple of things that stand out for me are the natural partnerships between the fullbacks, wide midfielders and central midfielders.A quick example from this report would be that the left back and the left midfielder are both on inverted roles, this indicates that my right flank will have plenty of space for me to work in. also, they are playing with a BWM on their right side of the two CMs. This would be good to know if you are playing a playmaker in the midfield, maybe consider moving him to play on the opposite side to their BWM.
A few minutes into the game and I could already see that the IWB was leaving loads of space down my right wing. This was predicted, so I changed my CM to a MEZ as I wanted him to drift slightly to the right into the half-spaces. I started to see an overload on this flank due to me playing both a MEZ and a WB (A).
Remember guys this is purely how I go about analysing, there are certainly different ways to approach this which may work better for yourself.
I hope you enjoyed the read and if you want to see more of my work then give me a follow on twitter, @FMCatenaccio
I want to dig slightly deeper into the oppositions player roles and how you can manage these before the games started.As you are aware each player is given a tactical role within the formation and each role plays a different part within the tactics. Some roles are focused on play-making while others are more focused on winning the ball back etc. I want to look at how you can identify the natural partnerships within the opposition’s tactics and how it can help you mastermind your way around these tactics.A natural partnership can be 2-3 positions that help and affect each other in the game, an example would be a left
back and a Left sided defensive midfielder, although they don’t have the green lines linking them both together, they are still important to get right
.
Above you can see that I have chosen to play with a left-sided CWB on attack, while next to him I’ve gone for a CM D, the thought process behind this is that when the CWB is attacking I will still have added protected from the CM-D, this is what I call the natural partnership that you will see in game.So why do I identify the oppositions natural partnerships and why does it matter?Firstly, being able to identify these partnerships can give you a huge advantage on match day, it will give you a better understanding of the opponent’s tactics and will also give you some tips to where they aim to attack and also where you may be able to exploit.
The above photo is from my opponent’s last match report, it tells you all the roles that the players were ensigned to. From this photo alone, I will roughly know how they plan to set up. A couple of things that stand out for me are the natural partnerships between the fullbacks, wide midfielders and central midfielders.A quick example from this report would be that the left back and the left midfielder are both on inverted roles, this indicates that my right flank will have plenty of space for me to work in. also, they are playing with a BWM on their right side of the two CMs. This would be good to know if you are playing a playmaker in the midfield, maybe consider moving him to play on the opposite side to their BWM.
Remember guys this is purely how I go about analysing, there are certainly different ways to approach this which may work better for yourself.
I hope you enjoyed the read and if you want to see more of my work then give me a follow on twitter, @FMCatenaccio
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