How team options fit in with each other and common errors in design

[Igneos79]

Obsolete post

 

[lothrail]

Barcelona with stand off and drop deeper ... Ever heard of 6 seconds rule ?

 

[tejas]

Decided to jot this down, if not for your sake, but for my own mental health and as a guideline for my future tactical efforts.

So, I'll write this down, and probably receive a lot of hate, but if you listen to my advice, you will prolly notice you have an easier time playing this tough game.

So I'm going to brake this down to Barcelona way, Bayern way, and Dortmund way.


Barcelona style:

Barcelona always played tiki taka, a possession game. But, most people tried to recreate their tactics judging upon what they've heard, what they saw, and how some popular RL managers made them play. So the first thing you should do, is forget all of that. You should think how options work together. I made an effort of researching what each thing does, and finally came to a conclusion which I am willing to share.
So, Barcelona plays tiki taka. This is a possession game. Obviously, you want to retain possession and play shorter. Now, those two options actually narrow down the width, and decrease tempo. This is important, because you don't want to use options that increase tempo or width, as you don't want conflicting orders. So no hassling for you, as hassling increases tempo. Instead you should stand off. Spare me the lecture, this is the proper way to do things. Like I wrote, you don't want conflicting orders. Some managers played bayern way with barca, which I will get to later.
So, if you are standing off, you should probably drop deeper, as standing off also slighty decreases your defensive line. It makes your players stick to their position, so you should tick that on aswell. If you are playing things deep, you should probably play out of defence, as defenders will be closer to GK. Work ball into box also makes your players retain possession, so you should tick that on too. Regarding penetration options, exploting flank(s) will make your winger cross the ball from byline, and position them wider and further up the pitch. If you have a striker that is good in the air this is a good option, but if you want to use tiki taka, you should really have a creative player as your forward, so I don't recommend using this. Look for overlap, however, will make your sidebacks more agressive, your wingers will hold up the ball for them, and all of that will lower tempo slightly, which is good, and make your wide players help each other and perhaps win in 2-1 or 3-2 situations by overlapping one other, so I recommend it.
As you don't have a tall striker, crosses should be set to drill.

View attachment 660809




Bayern style:

This is Bayern under Osram ruling. It is basically counter attacking. It is a high pressing game that uses hassling. Hassling increases tempo, so you should pick high tempo. It also increases the defensive line, so you should pick a high defensive line. You aren't looking to keep possession with this kind of high tempo, as that would lead to inacurate passess, you are looking to attack quickly, without looking for ccc's. That is why you should pick direct passing and shooting on sight. Direct passing will also increase your width, so you should play wider. If you want to counter, you should probably instruct your defenders to clear ball to flanks, so they can take the ball forward. That will make you less prone to get into offside trap too. You should probably exploit the flank(s) where your wingers are, so they run and cross from wide, and you should of course have a striker that is good in the air. There is enough space for through ball's, so you can probably tick that on too. To take full advantage, you should instruct your players to roam more. Look for overlap would lower your tempo, so do not use it. Crosses should be set to float, as you have a striker good in the air, and perhaps even early crosses, to catch them by suprise with your high tempo.

View attachment 660811



Dortmund style:

Now this is similar to Bayern style, but taken to an extreme. You should push much higher up, with much higher tempo, and instead of clearing the ball to flanks, pump ball into box. You should also go route one. The ball will skip your centre midfield, so you can use a formation that has no players there, like 4231 deep. Space will be congested, so passing into space and running at defence and roaming will not work well. The other options are basically the same as with Bayern style.

View attachment 660822


Classic counter style:

This is a style similar to Bayern, counter attacking, but instead of wining the ball high up the pitch, you let your defence win the ball:

View attachment 660871

Igneos79, you are an idiot. You have no idea about FM. Stop posting these pointless guides. Its pathetic.

 

[epic terrorist]

Yeah I don't agree with this at all, especially the so called tiki taka instructions

 

[germainelol]

Barca's entire game is based around pressing to get the ball, and retaining it when in possession, I don't quite know how you expect that Barca setup to press like **** to win the ball back

 

[Wallyson]

I only take advice from Jose.

 

[Igneos79]

Igneos79, you are an idiot. You have no idea about FM. Stop posting these pointless guides. Its pathetic.

Go **** your grandma or something.

 

[Igneos79]

Yeah I don't agree with this at all, especially the so called tiki taka instructions

Barca's entire game is based around pressing to get the ball, and retaining it when in possession, I don't quite know how you expect that Barca setup to press like **** to win the ball back

I know how Barca plays, and what I'm saying is, the more agressive the strategy the more you press. If you want to play like they do, drop defence and play out of defence, they should stand off. They only hassle for 6 seconds, then they stand off

 

[epic terrorist]

I know how Barca plays, and what I'm saying is, their instructions don't go hand in hand with each other. The more agressive the strategy the more you press. If you want to counter like they do, drop defence and play out of defence, they should stand off.

But then that's not the Barcelona style though is it, if you was talking explicitly about a low tempo passing game and not wanting to get instructions that can conflict I could maybe understand what you're trying to say but you're not, you're telling people this is how to get a tiki taka style and quite frankly you're wrong

 

[Igneos79]

But then that's not the Barcelona style though is it, if you was talking explicitly about a low tempo passing game and not wanting to get instructions that can conflict I could maybe understand what you're trying to say but you're not, you're telling people this is how to get a tiki taka style and quite frankly you're wrong

Nope

 

[germainelol]

If you post a tactic with these shouts implemented that you think is tika-taka I am more than happy to take a look and test it out, but from my experience I don't think this is how they play.

 

[germainelol]

And from my testing at least, there is absolutely no closing down when you stand off opponents so I don't understand how you expect to dominate possession using this? :/ Both games I played I had less possession

 

[epic terrorist]

Nope

Such a thought provoking post

 

[lothrail]

Have you watched Barcelona games under Guardiola ? Probably not but I've seen them all.
Maybe if ya did, you wouldn't be saying rubbish like "they only hassle for 6sec then stand off" because they quite obviously don't. The 6 seconds rule is just a guideline that the IDEAL pressing results in winning the ball back in 6 seconds but if they don't win it back they'll keep on pressing NOT stand off. Just watch the games, man

****, even what you said was true and it's not then how would they hassle for 6seconds with this kind of instructions ? And why are there constant one on one chances after through balls for the opponents if Barca drop deeper ?

The answer is simple, they dont. They push very high up, keeping almost suicidally high defensive line(especially with the "pace" of Pique ) trying to squeeze play and force the opponents into errors. As Guardiola said " When you win back the ball high up, there are 30 metres to goal rather than 80".
They "stay on feet" but never "stand off" at least under Pep the great

 

[germainelol]

Have you watched Barcelona games under Guardiola ? Probably not but I've seen them all.
Maybe if ya did, you wouldn't be saying rubbish like "they only hassle for 6sec then stand off" because they quite obviously don't. The 6 seconds rule is just a guideline that the IDEAL pressing results in winning the ball back in 6 seconds but if they don't win it back they'll keep on pressing NOT stand off. Just watch the games, man

****, even what you said was true and it's not then how would they hassle for 6seconds with this kind of instructions ? And why are there constant one on one chances after through balls for the opponents if Barca drop deeper ?

The answer is simple, they dont. They push very high up, keeping almost suicidally high defensive line(especially with the "pace" of Pique ) trying to squeeze play and force the opponents into errors. As Guardiola said "When you win back the ball high up, there are 30 metres to goal rather than 80".
They "stay on feet" but never "stand off" at least under Pep the great

Completely agree. The 6 second rule means you give them 6 seconds where they can ALL hunt after the ball and get out of shape, 6 seconds where you don't care about formation or anything like that and just ALL hunt for the ball. After 6 seconds you retreat back to your position and the team as a whole retreats back to their 4-3-3 formation. This doesn't mean you stop pressing, it just means after 6 seconds you press in a 4-3-3 formation rather than hunting like animals in the first 6 seconds.

Putting this into FM however is difficult. The closest I have come is setting everything to be very disciplined with "very rigid", "be more disciplined" and "stick to positions" while also ticking "hassle opponents". This way they hunt for the ball but they don't let themselves be drawn out of position leaving space for the opponents to pass endless through balls through my high defensive line.

The problem with this is that you have very little fluidity and creativity going forward, where on FM13 you could set the level of creative freedom and the amount of through balls played by each player, on FM14 it sucks for this kind of thing.

 

[Igneos79]

Have you watched Barcelona games under Guardiola ? Probably not but I've seen them all.
Maybe if ya did, you wouldn't be saying rubbish like "they only hassle for 6sec then stand off" because they quite obviously don't. The 6 seconds rule is just a guideline that the IDEAL pressing results in winning the ball back in 6 seconds but if they don't win it back they'll keep on pressing NOT stand off. Just watch the games, man

****, even what you said was true and it's not then how would they hassle for 6seconds with this kind of instructions ? And why are there constant one on one chances after through balls for the opponents if Barca drop deeper ?

The answer is simple, they dont. They push very high up, keeping almost suicidally high defensive line(especially with the "pace" of Pique ) trying to squeeze play and force the opponents into errors. As Guardiola said " When you win back the ball high up, there are 30 metres to goal rather than 80".
They "stay on feet" but never "stand off" at least under Pep the great

Like I said, the more agressive the strategy, the more you press. Barca's board demanded attacking play back then, and that's what guardiola did. It wasn't tiki taka, it was attacking football.

 

[Igneos79]

And from my testing at least, there is absolutely no closing down when you stand off opponents so I don't understand how you expect to dominate possession using this? :/ Both games I played I had less possession

Have you even tried watching the game with stand off? Of course there is pressing, just not in the same amount as hassling. You do know what hassling means, right? There is always some pressing, with hassling you just go out of your way to close down, and you tight mark the closed down player's passing options.

 

[germainelol]

Have you even tried watching the game with stand off? Of course there is pressing, just not in the same amount as hassling. You do know what hassling means, right? There is always some pressing, with hassling you just go out of your way to close down, and you tight mark the closed down player's passing options.

I watched the entire game with stand off ticked, the result was less possession for all 3 games because as soon as one of their players gets the ball, your players don't even bother to close them down. Funnily enough they stand off from their players because that's just what you're asking them to do, NOT close them down. The definition of stand off is to close down LESS in order to hold your shape and stop conceding shots.

 

[germainelol]

Like I said, the more agressive the strategy, the more you press. Barca's board demanded attacking play back then, and that's what guardiola did. It wasn't tiki taka, it was attacking football.

His ENTIRE philosophy at Barcelona was based on the principle of "if they don't have the ball, they can't attack" as a form of defence.

 

[lothrail]

Tiqui-taca IS an attacking game, they keep the ball looking for an opening not for the sake of it. But now I understand your issue, you are just confusing tiki-taka (the Barcelona system) with time wasting tactics. This is ignorance.
Though, I think if you took a look at Serie A, you'd find a team matching your description as they love playing at a low tempo(Barca plays high tempo passing) and defending deep. I believe the Italian national team in Brazil played like this as well. Lots of passes, low tempo, keeping possesion, rarely attacking, deep defense etc. And I think everyone could see that it wasn't Barcelona way

Completely agree. The 6 second rule means you give them 6 seconds where they can ALL hunt after the ball and get out of shape, 6 seconds where you don't care about formation or anything like that and just ALL hunt for the ball. After 6 seconds you retreat back to your position and the team as a whole retreats back to their 4-3-3 formation. This doesn't mean you stop pressing, it just means after 6 seconds you press in a 4-3-3 formation rather than hunting like animals in the first 6 seconds.

Putting this into FM however is difficult. The closest I have come is setting everything to be very disciplined with "very rigid", "be more disciplined" and "stick to positions" while also ticking "hassle opponents". This way they hunt for the ball but they don't let themselves be drawn out of position leaving space for the opponents to pass endless through balls through my high defensive line.

The problem with this is that you have very little fluidity and creativity going forward, where on FM13 you could set the level of creative freedom and the amount of through balls played by each player, on FM14 it sucks for this kind of thing.

It's impossible in FM for as long as we can't have separate tactics for the attacking and defensive phase to be honest.
In theory it should be very fluid as they expect every player to contribute to every phase, the entire team attacks and the entire team defends, combine this with pressing in FM though and you have a mess in your hands, not a formation... We need to be able to give them high amount of creative freedom in the attack, but make them very disciplined in defense, that's basically the idea in the system. They are Messis and Iniestas in the attack but Kuyts and Milners in defence