Arrigo Sacchi's 4-4-2: High Pressure, Attacking Tactic for Top Teams and Underdogs

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Interestingly, with my Hull City team that has a goal of avoiding relegation in the Premier League, we are doing better with big teams than lesser teams with this tactic so far. We beat Chelsea and Arsenal - both of whom were huge favorites - yet we struggle with teams that are of lesser ability. No idea why.
 
Sean, I noticed earlier that you posted some screenshots of players from your San Marino national team. How are they so good? They're one of the worst national teams going; is it a just luck that they managed to produce some decent players or is that down to something you're doing?

EDIT: I assume it's because you've upgraded your youth academy over the years and the players coming through it are of San Marinese nationality even though you play in the Italian league (the same goes for Swansea producing Welsh players though they play in the English league).
 
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How on earth are people winning with this in their first season? I cannot buy a win and any time I'm ahead they immediately score. I've tried with both Newcastle and a couple of Lower League teams, and both times I'm mid table after a few games with like 4 wins out of 10.

If you immediately start with zero fluidity in the tactic how are you fluid by the end of preseason? I just don't understand it, is this a second season tactic which you just have to get through the first season or is there something I'm missing?
 
Where i can find tweaked tactic? Here is 121 page of replys,i dont want search page by page :P
 
Revolve said:
How on earth are people winning with this in their first season? I cannot buy a win and any time I'm ahead they immediately score. I've tried with both Newcastle and a couple of Lower League teams, and both times I'm mid table after a few games with like 4 wins out of 10.

If you immediately start with zero fluidity in the tactic how are you fluid by the end of preseason? I just don't understand it, is this a second season tactic which you just have to get through the first season or is there something I'm missing?
Click to expand...

If you are having trouble with getting any tactic fluid during the pre-season, read this:

Pre-Season - Football Manager Guide to Team Management | Passion for Football Manager 2013
 
I had a few minor problems with this tactic when I started using it, like others have described; I'd put a couple of decent results together (considering the squad I had) and then inexplicably lose 0-1 to Villa or something. Considering my team however, (I'm playing with Swansea), I was doing better than I had any right to.

First season: 10th place finish.
Second season: 7th place finish (got me in to Europe)
Third season: 3rd place finish (won the Capital One Cup and the F.A. Cup which got me in the Champions League).
Current season: It's February and I'm sitting in first place undefeated. I haven't lost since the pre-season which means I am still in every competition (including the Champions League).

Fixtures

View attachment 345597

Table

View attachment 345598

I think the reason for the increases in performance is the emergence of my youth prospects. I've bought a few first-teamers over the years but never any big names; mostly people of reasonable ability for little money. This season though a few of last season's loaned players have broken in to the first team and I think that's the reason last year's stale games are being won this time around.

I also treated pre-season differently this time. I read an article saying that your General Training actually has no bearing on match performance or anything like this. All it does (unless you set it to Team Cohesion) is give a priority to a certain set of stats in training. So setting it to Tactics for instance will cause the Anticipation, Composure, Concentration, Decisions and Teamwork stats of your players to increase more than they otherwise would. Therefore it has nothing at all to do with learning formations or playing well. Thus in pre-season I stick it on Team Cohesion and set it to very high intensity until my team-talk feedback reports say "the players would die for each other.

Match Training on the other hand goes on Tactics Only (obviously) until the tactic is 100% fluid. To expedite this I change the scheduling so that Match Training takes up 50% of the training (i.e. the slider is all the way to the left). This gets the tactic learned as fast as possible. Once this has been achieved I stick it on Attacking Movement and take the slider down to three notches (20%).

I suspect that it's a combination of this pre-season routine plus my new youth options which has seen the remarkable jump in quality. It certainly isn't big name signings (I don't have any).
 
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For some reason this tactic seems to work miracles for my low to mid-table team (Hull, just promoted to Premier League) when playing top teams - e.g. I just beat Man U 2-1 and we outplayed them most of the match. But then I go into matches with teams we should beat and results tend to be average at best.

I think I need a couple of backup tactics to swap between.
 
This tactic is working wonderfully for me. I started with Ñuñorco, a very little team of the argentinian fifth division. We promoted two times in a row, and currently we are fighting for a play-off spot that can eventually give us the opportunity to reach second division. However, I think that if I had signed better players we would be far more confortable.
What I like most of this tactic is that is not focused only in one player. The quantity of goals is spread among all the squad, with a great participation of the midfielders.
 
what patch is this for? thx hope someone can help as its not working for me :/
 
Phil2 said:
I had a few minor problems with this tactic when I started using it, like others have described; I'd put a couple of decent results together (considering the squad I had) and then inexplicably lose 0-1 to Villa or something. Considering my team however, (I'm playing with Swansea), I was doing better than I had any right to.

First season: 10th place finish.
Second season: 7th place finish (got me in to Europe)
Third season: 3rd place finish (won the Capital One Cup and the F.A. Cup which got me in the Champions League).
Current season: It's February and I'm sitting in first place undefeated. I haven't lost since the pre-season which means I am still in every competition (including the Champions League).

Fixtures

View attachment 345597

Table

View attachment 345598

I think the reason for the increases in performance is the emergence of my youth prospects. I've bought a few first-teamers over the years but never any big names; mostly people of reasonable ability for little money. This season though a few of last season's loaned players have broken in to the first team and I think that's the reason last year's stale games are being won this time around.

I also treated pre-season differently this time. I read an article saying that your General Training actually has no bearing on match performance or anything like this. All it does (unless you set it to Team Cohesion) is give a priority to a certain set of stats in training. So setting it to Tactics for instance will cause the Anticipation, Composure, Concentration, Decisions and Teamwork stats of your players to increase more than they otherwise would. Therefore it has nothing at all to do with learning formations or playing well. Thus in pre-season I stick it on Team Cohesion and set it to very high intensity until my team-talk feedback reports say "the players would die for each other.

Match Training on the other hand goes on Tactics Only (obviously) until the tactic is 100% fluid. To expedite this I change the scheduling so that Match Training takes up 50% of the training (i.e. the slider is all the way to the left). This gets the tactic learned as fast as possible. Once this has been achieved I stick it on Attacking Movement and take the slider down to three notches (20%).

I suspect that it's a combination of this pre-season routine plus my new youth options which has seen the remarkable jump in quality. It certainly isn't big name signings (I don't have any).
Click to expand...


How you detail your training is exactly how i set mine up pre season and i find that any tactics are learnt very quickly and team morale is very high very quickly.

During the season the 'tactics' option in general training is actually rather useful with this tactic as it covers a lot of very important attributes. Another good one is 'fitness' which again covers some important attributes needed.
 
What are the best players to use with this tactic? What's everyone's best lineup?

Shaun
 
@Shaun, what's your team mate?

This is the best tactic in this year's game, imo. The more all-round and team players, the better tactic will work. I've only tested it with Liverpool and Spurs in full seasons with huge success (EPL & Europe League with Liverpool and quadruple winners with Spurs). Think in theirs squads and use the players in the best scenarios. I can't speak for underdog teams though but Seanhrfc has made both San Marino's squad the best in the world.

For example, tough away matches use the more defensive and disciplined players. Examples: I use Sterling in the MR role in home games and for tough games I put there Henderson who has better defensive attributes; in Spurs I use Sandro and Holtby in DM role for "easy matches". In those tough matches I always use Sandro and Parker.

But it was better if you could provide your squad :)
 
I'm using spurs also. Just wondered what players to buy with a £50mil budget
 
Which season and positions? From my experience, the more they play for the team the better. I've brought Simone Pepe from Juventus. He played in many positions and has high work rate and teamwork, leaving Bale on the bench for example. Milner is another great example.

Spurs has already a great squad to play with this approach, unless you wanna replace someone or due to age.
 
I've changed the complete forward in Pivot and Target it, In variated !

7-0 against Arsenal with Tottenham with classic team ... :wub:

View attachment 349163
 
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hello, which PPMs would be important for this great tactic?
 
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