After grimacing over United's Capital One Cup exit against Sunderland, I had to turn to something positive to cheer myself up and eventually decided to switch on my laptop and write something for this forum. As shown in the title, I have attempted to recreate United's 98/99 treble winning 4-4-2 (yes, these memories do cheer me up) on FM14 in my save. If you are a tad curious about my save, you can visit my career thread at http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2014-manager-stories/149820-becks-back-s-back.html for more details. So, here we go...
Background
In the 1998/1999 season, Alex Ferguson achieved the remarkable Treble with United playing the good old 4-4-2. That was the season which drew me to football and I was mesmerized by the free-flowing, attacking and at times gung-ho football on show. The team went with the 'if we score more than you, we win' attitude and had contributed to a number of great football matches. (the 3-3s against Barcelona, the champions league semi-final ties against Juventus etc.) If you want to re-live this remarkable season, you can watch the season review on youtube from here. Manchester United 1998-1999 Season Review part 1 - YouTube
Team Formation
This was arguably Ferguson's strongest 11 in that season and the midfield four was said to be his strongest ever midfield quartet. Beckham (my favourite player of all time
Team Instructions
Fluid Fluidity - The team played flowing soccer with players granted creative freedom.
Attacking Mentality - The team was straight in the opponents' faces and always tried to win possession high up the field. Ferguson also employed a fast tempo and direct style (Beckham often launches accurate balls from deep) and focused heavily on getting players forward and into space.
Pass into Space - With players like Becks and Scholesy, the team had players who often attempted to pick out runs behind the opposition's defense.
Play Wider - The team took advantage of the width of the pitches, with Beckham and Giggs hugging the touchlines and the front two stretching the opposition's defense.
Roam from Positions - Ferguson relied on the players to provide cover for each other when they start to interchange and confuse the opponents with great movements.
Hassle Opponents - The team always looked to win the ball back quickly, even if it meant ditching their starting positions.
Use Tighter Marking - As mentioned, the players were often straight in the opponents' faces and looked to win the ball back as early as possible.
Higher Tempo - United relied on high tempo football to wear their opponents out and capitalize on the holes in their defense.
Work Ball into Box - With the exception of Scholes, the team didn't shoot much from range and often relied on crosses/through passes to find the back of the net.
Weakness
Every tactic has its strengths and weaknesses and it's vital to understand where your tactic is lacking so that you can make necessary tweaks to lessen the impact. I have found out from my save that we concede most of our goals in two ways.
1) Through ball behind our defense
As we play high up the pitch, the team is always prone to that lofted through ball behind our defense and pacey strikers are often able to capitalize on this.
2) Taking advantage of the hole
As we play with a midfield duo with no DMCs, there is often space in front of our center-backs for AMCs to capitalize on.
As shown in the screenshot above, Chelsea won possession in their own half and Strootman played the ball towards Mata. Our central midfielders were both caught relatively high up the pitch and there were huge amounts of space in front of our back four for the Chelsea players to play with.
Mata then played the ball first time to Benzema, who had taken up the empty space intelligently. As shown, my DLP-d realized danger and was seen sprinting back towards the space.
Sensing that my DLP-d would not make it back in time, my center-back (circled) attempted to close Benzema down. He too did not close down in time and that left HUGE gap in defense. The French striker delivered a perfect through ball for the on-rushing Oscar (AMC), who had made a run behind our defense.
Inevitably and quite brilliantly, the Brazilian chipped my keeper to score a great goal on the break.
The above example has illustrated the weaknesses of my tactic well and most of our goals were conceded in those manners. I could have made tweaks to reduce closing down/pull my d-line back a little but that would change my game plan altogether and my attacking threats will be reduced. Having weighed the pros and cons, I decided to live with them.
Strengths
Assist Location
On the plus side, the team has lots of options in attack. As shown in the screenshot above, the assist locations were fairly even. Playing a rather direct game, we were able to score goals from passes within our half. The two strikers up top were able to combine and craft out chances. Most importantly, like how the treble winning side benefited from Beckham's crosses, huge amount of goals were scored from wing play.
As shown in the good old 2D map, when my DLP-d (Fellaini) is on the ball, there are plenty of options in front of him. On this occasion, he chose the hardest option and sent a cross field ball towards the left flank.
My left-back Luke Shaw got to the ball and sent a brilliant cross towards the far post, where my right winger Zaha was waiting. He eventually scored with a brilliantly timed header. Like how the treble winning United side attack, there are always bodies in the box waiting for crosses and on this occasion, there were four (the two strikers, the right-winger and the left winger) looking to get on the end of Shaw's cross. Sometimes, the BWM-s is found in the box as well.
Feedback would be welcome.
Thanks!
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