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For anyone who still plays 2013, I'd love to hear your opinions about ticking the counter attack box in the Team Instructions.

After years of playing this game and finding myself frustrated with numerous tactics that work well for a while only to get nerfed by the match engine, I wanted to watch a full match properly and see what was going wrong. I'm so glad I did! The first thing I noticed was that anytime a player won possession in our own half, he would spring forward on the counter, along with the rest of the midfield and some defenders. In theory, this is great, especially for underdogs, but I found that most of the time, my player would lose the ball halfway through, or misplace a pass further up the pitch, leaving us open to the counter as well. I soon realised that this is how I was conceding stupid goals on the Key Highlights (the classic "ball getting pinged over my high line"). In the attack, I also found that this rush and lack of composure resulted in a lot of wayward shots (explaining why I had 20 shots on goal and yet only drew 1-1 for example).

I tweaked a few settings before realising that I had always ticked Counter Attack by default, and wondered what a game would look like without this setting. The difference was incredible. Instead of hurrying forward, a player who won possession back would make a pass out wide or wait for options for the forward pass. It felt like the Decisions attribute was finally being used properly and the match itself was much more enjoyable to watch. I felt my team suddenly had more control, and rather than scoring less goals, I've actually been averaging 3-4 goals a game due to having decent poachers in a 3-5-2 system. For context, I am newly-promoted Charlton with a team that's expected to be fighting relegation. Since these changes, I've found myself in 6th place, having struggled to get points, especially away from home before this change.

I look forward to hearing from you!
 
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Also, the BEST tactical advice I can give about this game (based on nearly 7 yrs experience) is simple: don't over-complicate things, and let the Strategy setting do the work.

1. Pick a shape that you like (for example, I love 3-4-1-2)
2. Set basic roles and try to find balance with attack/support/defend settings and tweak them as you go depending on results.
3. Most importantly: untick all boxes in the Specific Instructions section in Team tactics. This way the strategy you choose will move these sliders to a position which fits the strategy and Playing Style selections you make (passing style etc.)!

Too many tactics on this site have Overload as the strategy and then the most narrow setting on Width - it's counter-intuitive! Your team will basically be far up the pitch but set up as if they're definding in their own half, leaving opposition wingers plenty of space to counter, and I've lost countless stupid goals in the game using these tactics. Trust the game to make some decisions for you!
 
Here are two really good ones that I use with much success. The only change I made was the Strategy from Attacking to Control, which generally produces the most stable results:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/gezk11i8dkfgvdw/king_jassar_Control.tac/file
http://www.mediafire.com/file/0lpm5gsucue6l5t/Under_Pressure_352_Control.tac/file

Credit to Jassar and Jesaustralia for creating these :)
than you. i had best results with 4-5-1 tripletweak most stable tactic of all , but its boring to watch gives results but poor football , too defensive
 
I trained Real and conceded 6 goals in league whole season with ticked counter attack setting. Its about the tactic u creating if u create Mourinho tactic u need that counter active. But i create only in classic mode so its not usable in online versus
 
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