BJT

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gm.4231-classic.19.3.4 / Made in Madrid

Tactic Download-
View attachment 7737
(tested 19.3.5)

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Inspiration

This particular 4231 reflects my style which consists of high and patient controlled possession football, the roles chosen, whilst combined with my fav manager Mourinho’s counter-attacking philosophy with his Real Madrid side achieving 100 points and the most goals ever scored in a season in La Liga.

My design has to include two of my oldskool roles that I really do love, the Trequartista and the Poacher. Yes, Zizou and the Real Ronaldo are brought back into life in this tactic. What can I say, I like my star lazy players…and not forgetting Figo and Roberto Carlos of course…

The System

The system falls under a “highly structured” fluidity and uses the positive mentality. With the 4231 a top-heavy formation, our side will naturally be very vulnerable to the counter-attack and so the positive mentality is a logical choice given it’s designed to be wary of that threat.

Keeping the ball is therefore a high priority as this will be our most effective form of defence in such a risky system.

So a highly skilled side that has the attributes of keeping the ball is critical, along with a quality trequartista to boss the game and feeding our inside forwards and poacher to bang in the goals.

Defensive Line and Pressing

Where as Mourinho would vary this based on situations, my style is of positional counter-pressing and an extremely high line. I want our team to have bags of possession for our trequartista and poacher to shine, and this tactic will have exactly that.

Counter-pressing can work well despite having the poacher and trequartista roles due to the shape of this system and by counter-pressing from the DM zone.

With the trequartista occupying the central DM zone, our Inside forwards will start their intense pressing at the Wing Back zones. Our poacher if not pressing well will just entice the opposition to try and play the ball out from the back.

By having an extremely high line and our midfielders in the CM zones, our area of winning the ball will fall between the CM and AM zones and leaving room to counter-attack with space to run into with our dangerous poacher lurking....

Masking Defensive Vulnerability

With both of our central midfielders pressing high up, this will leave our two centre-backs very vulnerable, especially where both full-backs are both attacking high up the pitch.

The 4231 style I’m creating is very high risk, and so our choice of defensive strategy follow suit.

With an extremely high line and line of engagement, the play will be compressed high up in the opponent’s half. With no player in the DM position and the BBM at times advanced high up the pitch with little time to get back, it leaves any player left free in this zone to cause havoc.

Stopper / Cover Combo

I never use this combination, however given the way this formation is so top-heavy this would be the way forward.

Mourinho used the Ramos and Pepe stopper/cover combination in his Real Madrid record breaking year. Real’s defence wasn’t that tight as a whole, but with such a powerful offense it masked the vulnerabilities of the 4231.

They also at times used an offside trap. This is an extremely risky tactic, and it will require the best defenders about to pull it off. They’ll need to have great mental and decision making attributes to work it.

The Cover player will also need pace. By playing an extremely high line, at least there is time to try to recover if the line is breached.

An additional benefit is with having a Stopper as our BPD, the idea here is to have yet another option for counter-attacking play, the Ramos.

But I am hoping that with our greater emphasis on ball retention, this will promote a little more solidity as a whole.

Counter-Attacking Intelligently

Three roles needed careful consideration here. There is no need to tick counter-attack as the option in the Team Instructions, and I want to control the game as my first priority.

These roles are the DLP-D, Trequartista and Box to Box Midfield Support.

When defending in our half, the Trequartista simply picks up intelligent positions to be an immediate outlet when launching a counter-attack from deep, or if more prudent he will happily hold the ball up to bring our whole team into play. Intelligence is key here in making the right choice when to counter. By default, his instruction is set to hold.

Further more, a BBM will look to get forward whenever there is an opportunity. So when we counter-press and win it either deeper or high up, he’ll sniff a chance to join in the attack.

The DLP-D role has more risky passes. He’ll play like Xabi Alonso did for Mourinho, launching balls from deep to promote a swift counter-attack or find the Trequartista Ozil in space to do damage.

The BBM role was filled by Sami Kheidara helping immensely in both offensive and defensive phases. These three midfield players were the key engine to Mourinho’s record breaking success.

So these roles allow us to enjoy maximum possession with naturally an excellent counter-attacking effect.

What You Need

-Quick and Intelligent Back Line
-Highly Technical Players
-An Excellent Treq

Training / OIs/ Set Pieces

Set Pieces – Throw-ins by fullbacks, AMC set for Free Kicks and Corners. All are set to short to promote possession game.

Training – “Possession” on FM Touch

Opposition Instructions –

WBR/RB – Show onto Left Foot
WBL/LB – Show onto Right Foot

MR/AMR – Show onto Right Foot
ML/AML – Show onto Left Foot


Results

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It’s been three seasons where I have progressively tweaked the system to get it how I’d like it to play. Bear in mind our squad depth has also improved. Dybala has been our Treq in all.

Winning trophies hasn’t been a problem winning 3 league titles on the bounce and having both domestic cup and European success.

League wise we’ve won with 90 ,93 and 94 points respectively. Although not the most commanding totals and we have lost games, we’ve had enough in the tank to get the job done each year. It’s been the away form that is where our defeats tend to lay. At home we haven’t lost in 3 years.

What has been my indicator prior to sharing this one has been the goal difference. Always making a reference to Mourinho’s Madrid, his team had an overall Goal Difference of +89. Our third season had us one goal shy at +88 and that’s without Ronaldo…so that indicates to me that with the talent, this system can play very well. Previous years were 58 and 61.

With a fit team we played some excellent football. Some of the build up play from the back and recycling of possession is very nice to watch including a 25 pass move in one game.

We had some good results whilst being able to having a lot of possession in the majority of games which is how I like it.

There are screenshots of good results having large possession, but also when a team tries to balance the possession statistics, we just killed them on the break.

I wish our away form would be slightly better, but I think with a pure possession based game with no emphasis on purely the counter-attack, there will be that greater inconsistency away – as you can’t play well away from home every game.

We still scored the most goals with 111 and conceded the least with 23 and it will win trophies with the right personnel.

This is compared to Real Madrid 2011/12 of 121 Goals and 32 Conceded.

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So if you want your side to play like the Galacticos where you possess excellent quality players capable of playing high possession football then do give this one a try. You’ll definitely get to see some nice passing team moves.

The system will never be the best defensively against teams that can hurt you, but by controlling the ball and having enough quality in attack to make the possession count, this is a system that can work well whilst playing football the way it should be played, allowing you to sit-down and enjoy the show =)
 
Last edited:
Tactic Update – Tested 19.3.5 - 100 points w/Quadruple

Two updates, which may seem minor but seems to have made a significant improvement.

1- BPD Stopper / Rather than promote a patient game to bring the Trequarista in after winning possession, he will now be more inclined to dribble into any space where there is an opportunity to launch a counter / swift transition into attack after winning possession.

2- Additional Opposition Instructions

MR/AMR – Show onto Right Foot
ML/AML – Show onto Left Foot

I defend wide as I wanted to counter-press very high with a high def line and loe. Given the system doesn’t employ anyone full-time in the DM position it would leave our back-line very vulnerable. I also didn’t want to sacrifice this part of the game plan.

In an attempt to reduce this, showing both wingers / wide midfielders to the touchline was in the hope of firstly reducing the inclination of diving in, secondly to promote a greater compactness / narrowness, and thirdly promoting inside forwards to their weaker foot whilst a greater predictability in the opponents offence where more crosses will come into the box thus protecting our weak middle.

Results

The above has improved our offence albeit only very slightly, but our defence is significantly stronger which can be seen in our results.

Harder to beat, a better GD that now has reached 93 which I don't think is too bad without exploits. We also won all trophies which I hadn’t achieved in the save beforehand, and we hit the 100 points mark for the year on par with Jose showing better consistency.

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I have updated the OP to include the additional opposition instructions and tactic for download.
 
Tactic Update – Tested 19.3.5 - 100 points w/Quadruple

Two updates, which may seem minor but seems to have made a significant improvement.

1- BPD Stopper / Rather than promote a patient game to bring the Trequarista in after winning possession, he will now be more inclined to dribble into any space where there is an opportunity to launch a counter / swift transition into attack after winning possession.

2- Additional Opposition Instructions

MR/AMR – Show onto Right Foot
ML/AML – Show onto Left Foot

I defend wide as I wanted to counter-press very high with a high def line and loe. Given the system doesn’t employ anyone full-time in the DM position it would leave our back-line very vulnerable. I also didn’t want to sacrifice this part of the game plan.

In an attempt to reduce this, showing both wingers / wide midfielders to the touchline was in the hope of firstly reducing the inclination of diving in, secondly to promote a greater compactness / narrowness, and thirdly promoting inside forwards to their weaker foot whilst a greater predictability in the opponents offence where more crosses will come into the box thus protecting our weak middle.

Results

The above has improved our offence albeit only very slightly, but our defence is significantly stronger which can be seen in our results.

Harder to beat, a better GD that now has reached 93 which I don't think is too bad without exploits. We also won all trophies which I hadn’t achieved in the save beforehand, and we hit the 100 points mark for the year on par with Jose showing better consistency.

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I have updated the OP to include the additional opposition instructions and tactic for download.

helo where is tactic for 19.3.5 ? thx
 
Sorry - I should have renamed the tactic to v5 / 19.3.4v2 is 19.3.5.
 
Nice job man!I am testing it with Real Madrid,ten games played ten wins,many goals and nice football!
 
What training would you recommend on normal FM?

I don't have the full-game I'm afraid, so don't know all the options available. However given the tactic requires highly technical players where the team will have high possession, training with a greater emphasis on this will be more benefitial in getting most out of the system.
 
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