This article was put together by me and contains references to several articles on ZonalMarking.Net,FM-Britian and FM-Base.Please do not troll on my thread.
Introduction
Ever since Barcelona won the Champions League in 08/09, their tactics have been much debated about in the Football Community.Many Tactics Creators have since become obsessed with creating the most realistic Barcelona Tactic.
I myself have been so and after playing numerous saves testing out various tactics and reading several articles on Barcelona's style of play, I have discovered several obstacles in my path to creating the most realistic Barcelona Tactic which I aim to detail to all of you in my article.
Movement of the Centre-Backs
In Barcelona's Tactic, we all know the bomabrding runs made by the wing-backs namely Dani Alves and Maxwell/Abidal down their respective flanks to provide width as the attackers on the flanks namely Messi and Pedro are so-called Inside Forwards.
Thus whenever Barcelona are in the attacking phase of their tactic, and the Wing-Backs go forward, space is obviously be left behind and exploited if the opposing team go on the counter-attack.To counter this, Pepe Guardolia has created an interesting system.
Whenever the Barca full-backs bomb forward, the Centre-Backs namely Puyol and Pique move wide to cover the flanks incase of a counter-attack by the opposing team while the DM of the Barcelona Formation naemly Busquets/Keita and more recently Mascherano would drop deeper and cover the middle, in essence playing the role of a lone Centre-Back.
As you can see over here, the Yellow Dot is Busquests while the Red Dots are Puyol and Pique Respectively
Problems implementing this into FM
Whatever you try, it just isn’t possible to get that much flexibility out of your defenders in Football Manager and when you commit players forward from the wings so much, especially on both sides this can leave you open at the back, especially if aren’t dominating the position throughout the game or winning the ball further up the field.
I think that for Football Manger 2010 a better use of the cover defender could be implemented not only for balls that get behind the back line but to keep tabs wide. Or maybe a new role all together maybe called for.
(This part was written by Thomas Levin)
The Fluidity of the Front Three
The Barcelona front three of Villa/Messi and sometimes Pedro or Iniesta is widely regarded as the best in the world.So much fluidity and quality in the attack and defenders didn’t know how to pick up a front 3 that moved around so much, many of them coming in from deep with speed and technical ability it was frightening.
Essentially, they were given so much creative freedom to move around the final third, they could open up defences at will with a moment of genius.
Even with Zlatan Ibrahimovic last season, who obviously cant play on the wings, Messi could be seen often swapping positions with Pedro and confusing the defenders.Although whenever Zlatan Ibrahimovic played, Messi could not play his 'false nine' role which gave him so much sucess but was nevertheless still superb.
Messi will occasionally find himself playing as a striker, especially when Bojan is on the pitch, who will often he will start in the middle.
Problems Implementing this into FM
Swapping positions in FM and your side is all over the place. In my current 433 setup with Barca, having Zlatan up top I wanted to see Messi swapping with him every now and again, to exploit his ability to play up front as well. But also I want Messi to occasionally be swapping with Pedro. But with the settings all over the place. I also had Zlatan and Pedro swapping with each other.
Added to that the fact that you are unable to change the roles of the players when they do swap positions throughout the game, it gives a certain inflexibility to a feature that is design to add flexibility.
It would be great to have the ability for when a player changes positions that their was also an ability once they have swapped to play a slightly different role, so if Messi swapped with Bojan, Messi would effectively lie deeper then Bojan when they swap. ie swapping from a advanced forward to deep-lying forward.
(This part was written by Thomas Levin)
Barcelona's Constant Pressing
Another feature of Barcelona's Tactic is their constant pressing high up the pitch to win the ball in numbers.This is badly needed because if they give too much space to the opposing team right after losing the ball they could find themselves in some hot water indeed.
Every player in the area of the ball would pounce on the opposing team to win back the ball high up the pitch in many numbers.
Problems Implementing this into FM
I have rarely seen Football Manager players hassle the opposition in numbers when needed too.
But playing high pressing, means that you will need to push up your backline, to ensure that you are denying space to the oppsoition attackers in different parts of the pitch. Inestia or Alves might not always get the ball back, playing a higher defensive line will mean reduced room for a player to run into and instead another player for him to face
On the positve side though,
The basics of the Barcelona style can work well in the tactics engine, using the philosophies in all my current tactics. Short passing to feet, Barca don’t tend to play with a frantic tempo, but keep it controlled and quick enough to keep the ball around, breaking quickly when they have the opportunity.
Conclusion
Making an interpretation of Guardiola’s tactic with the core principles is easy to do. But to have your Barcelona team play exactly as they would do in real life will need some serious advances in the match engine to express the tactical flexibility and develop along with these new conventional strategies.
Even still Barcelona have captured the imagination of many FM players who will help in developing their own successful attractive football in FM, not only recreating what Pep has down, but building their own style on top.
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