In search of tips against frustration bits

[Death Ball]

(apart from things like my players seem to understand fair play as not dribbling without first sending the ball to the rival's feet and hope he won't react in time or give the rivals one head start to react and giving ball to rivals in throw-ins, obviously)

Case 1)

Marking. Lots of times, I see how my players are all bunched to a side of the field, leaving the players at the other (as close to the center as being within first side third fraction of the area) side completely alone. In the best case because the marker of the striker went to make a 2 on 1 on a midfielder. Many times they're just bunched in the half of the field, looking like idiots the player with the ball, from afar, of course.

May be I should play wider? However I play with the slider in the end of medium/start of wide, shouldn't happen, at least with players that are in the vertical of the area borders.



Case 2)

When my team is under pressure and defense intercepts the ball, it's kicked long forward where there's only enemy players and none of my players anywhere near, meaning they gift the ball always. Note I'm not considering "nonsense" plays where the ball is sent for a throw in. In the other hand, when it's the AI team the one being pressed, they some times kick the ball to the midfield and to a teammate or long toward some of my defense, but even there near some teammate so even then they got a chance to get the ball, it may be slim, but present, unlike when it was my team doing it.

I have no idea what to do here.




Case 3)


For this I have to give a new look at the off the ball stat of my strikers, as gut feeling says it'd not be too odd if it's lower than I think. They may not be in the 16-20 range, but definitely are in the 13-16 range. However, while enemy gets the ball to a lone striker behind my defence, I think I've only seen that twice in two seasons and a half with my strikers.

Would help playing faster? Longer passes? Less time waste?. I tend to play in the frontier of short passes (within), medium tempo and sometimes one or two ticks to the rigth and rare time waste.

If I play faster, I would get my players increasing long shots, right? Would that be properly compensated by changing mixed to rare to long shots in the player instructions?


Question 1)

Since this is not really a tip against a grip, tag it as question: Does it have a good effect to set a striker to tight mark (should read close down) the rival goalkeeper? I say because it's not that rare to see my striker rob the time wasting goalkeeper and it's a bit less rare situations where I feel the striker could have done it but didn't run to try the tackle until it was too late.



Question 2)

Considering some of them are in the team and player instructions, what does the opposition instruction exactly do?. Would specifying always/never override the player and team isntructions?. What is the result of leaving no instructions?. Can "show X foot" be a reason to have defenders avoit o get between rival with ball and goal?

Thanks in advance

 

[Smiffy]

To question 1, what i do is on the opposition instructions is change the goal keeper too:
Tight Marking : No Specific Instructions
Closing Down: Always
Tackling: No Specific Instructions
Show Onto: Weaker Foot. (With my skin it says their strong foot, so i just choose the opposite, but i'm sure weaker foot would do exactly the same.)

 

[Death Ball]

Checked off the ball scores: except one who rarely plays with a score of 13, the smallest off the ball guy has 15, another is 16 and the other two strikers got it at 17.

 

[Zebedee]

Case 1)

Marking. Lots of times, I see how my players are all bunched to a side of the field, leaving the players at the other (as close to the center as being within first side third fraction of the area) side completely alone. In the best case because the marker of the striker went to make a 2 on 1 on a midfielder. Many times they're just bunched in the half of the field, looking like idiots the player with the ball, from afar, of course.

May be I should play wider? However I play with the slider in the end of medium/start of wide, shouldn't happen, at least with players that are in the vertical of the area borders.

Alter either the pressing of your players, or give out OI closing down to the players on the wings. If your defender is pushing up out of defence to close down a midfielder and leaving a striker behind him, then either lower his pressing, get a midfielder who will track back so your defender won't rush out, cancel OI closing down on the midfielder in question or a combination of those options will reduce what you are seeing happening. I think ensuring your midfielder is tracking back to cover his man is the most useful thing to do.

Case 2)

When my team is under pressure and defense intercepts the ball, it's kicked long forward where there's only enemy players and none of my players anywhere near, meaning they gift the ball always. Note I'm not considering "nonsense" plays where the ball is sent for a throw in. In the other hand, when it's the AI team the one being pressed, they some times kick the ball to the midfield and to a teammate or long toward some of my defense, but even there near some teammate so even then they got a chance to get the ball, it may be slim, but present, unlike when it was my team doing it.

I have no idea what to do here.

Your defence has no passing options and so are punting it forward as the safety option. You could increase their mentality so they'll play riskier balls rather than looking for the safety first option. Or you could try lengthening (or shortening!) their passing settings so that they'll look for a player upfield with a played ball (unlikely) or they'll pass into midfield. If they are doing it whilst not being under pressure, consider mentality changes and slowing tempo down a bit. The other option involves you creating more options for your defenders to pass to - ideally this would be a deep lying midfielder or winger tracking back or a striker capable of finding space deep for a long, deliberately passed ball to find (possibly a target man?).

Case 3)


For this I have to give a new look at the off the ball stat of my strikers, as gut feeling says it'd not be too odd if it's lower than I think. They may not be in the 16-20 range, but definitely are in the 13-16 range. However, while enemy gets the ball to a lone striker behind my defence, I think I've only seen that twice in two seasons and a half with my strikers.

Would help playing faster? Longer passes? Less time waste?. I tend to play in the frontier of short passes (within), medium tempo and sometimes one or two ticks to the rigth and rare time waste.

If I play faster, I would get my players increasing long shots, right? Would that be properly compensated by changing mixed to rare to long shots in the player instructions?

Forward runs often will get the striker with an 'attacking' mentality behind the defence - the downside is that it will often get a player get caught offside against defences which push up, although this can be mitigated by playing that speedy striker as your target man and setting balls to him as "run onto ball". Through balls are what are feeding those strikers so that's the slider you should be looking for - through balls require space for the striker to run onto though, so against deep lying defences, you'll not have much joy unless you draw them out by slow tempo play in the centre of the pitch. Tempo has an indirect effect on shooting - essentially it's telling your players to play faster, so they'll have less time to judge options and so will try the first thing which comes into their head. Turning long shots to rarely is rarely a good thing for a team (as in every player on the team!) because it severely limits them when play opens up sufficiently for a shot but there isn't a reasonable pass on.

Question 1)

Since this is not really a tip against a grip, tag it as question: Does it have a good effect to set a striker to tight mark the rival goalkeeper? I say because it's not that rare to see my striker rob the time wasting goalkeeper and it's a bit less rare situations where I feel the striker could have done it but didn't run to try the tackle until it was too late.

If it works for you, it's all good Interesting idea - how does it effect the striker otherwise? Does he consistently get caught offside?

Question 2)

Considering some of them are in the team and player instructions, what does the opposition instruction exactly do?. Would specifying always/never override the player and team isntructions?. What is the result of leaving no instructions?. Can "show X foot" be a reason to have defenders avoit o get between rival with ball and goal?

Thanks in advance

Opposition instructions over-ride all other instructions and reinforce them for the specific opposition player. Having no instructions in OI means your team plays exactly as you set them too in the individual and team instructions. Show foot can be used to force a player wide of goal or inside at goal or control his passing options (weaker foot).

 

[focus_mad]

(apart from things like my players seem to understand fair play as not dribbling without first sending the ball to the rival's feet and hope he won't react in time or give the rivals one head start to react and giving ball to rivals in throw-ins, obviously)

Case 1)

Marking. Lots of times, I see how my players are all bunched to a side of the field, leaving the players at the other (as close to the center as being within first side third fraction of the area) side completely alone. In the best case because the marker of the striker went to make a 2 on 1 on a midfielder. Many times they're just bunched in the half of the field, looking like idiots the player with the ball, from afar, of course.

May be I should play wider? However I play with the slider in the end of medium/start of wide, shouldn't happen, at least with players that are in the vertical of the area borders.

while playing a wider game may help, have the closing down options as alover the pitch could also help?

Case 2)

When my team is under pressure and defense intercepts the ball, it's kicked long forward where there's only enemy players and none of my players anywhere near, meaning they gift the ball always. Note I'm not considering "nonsense" plays where the ball is sent for a throw in. In the other hand, when it's the AI team the one being pressed, they some times kick the ball to the midfield and to a teammate or long toward some of my defense, but even there near some teammate so even then they got a chance to get the ball, it may be slim, but present, unlike when it was my team doing it.

I have no idea what to do here.

This is a case of your defenders not being set to perhaps hold the ball up or play it short? set their passing to short or mixed and it may help?


Case 3)


For this I have to give a new look at the off the ball stat of my strikers, as gut feeling says it'd not be too odd if it's lower than I think. They may not be in the 16-20 range, but definitely are in the 13-16 range. However, while enemy gets the ball to a lone striker behind my defence, I think I've only seen that twice in two seasons and a half with my strikers.

Would help playing faster? Longer passes? Less time waste?. I tend to play in the frontier of short passes (within), medium tempo and sometimes one or two ticks to the rigth and rare time waste.

If I play faster, I would get my players increasing long shots, right? Would that be properly compensated by changing mixed to rare to long shots in the player instructions?


Question 1)

Since this is not really a tip against a grip, tag it as question: Does it have a good effect to set a striker to tight mark the rival goalkeeper? I say because it's not that rare to see my striker rob the time wasting goalkeeper and it's a bit less rare situations where I feel the striker could have done it but didn't run to try the tackle until it was too late.

Have it on the opposition instructions to close down always and for the goalie to be put on his weaker foot because this may give your forwards the oppurtunity to punish the goalie's bad ball control in the event of a backpass?

Question 2)

Considering some of them are in the team and player instructions, what does the opposition instruction exactly do?. Would specifying always/never override the player and team isntructions?. What is the result of leaving no instructions?. Can "show X foot" be a reason to have defenders avoit o get between rival with ball and goal?

Thanks in advance

opposition instructions basicaly make your life easier because they are added instructions to give to your players to revent the other team from scoring.. for example, if say messi only had a right foot, setting the instructions to puting him on his left foot will minimise the oppurtunities he gets to put he ball into your peno area..

 

[Zebedee]

Just a couple of things because this seems to be a very common problem for players of the game.

while playing a wider game may help, have the closing down options as alover the pitch could also help?

High closing down is probably the reason for the excessive bunching being seen. Less closing down is probably a better solution, while using the OI will ensure players will gravitate towards the player in possession of the ball. It isn't a bad thing to force the team in possession to try and play wonder balls across the pitch, providing that you have some cover.

This is a case of your defenders not being set to perhaps hold the ball up or play it short? set their passing to short or mixed and it may help?

Holding the ball up in defence is very dangerous. Losing the ball when in possession there will lead to certain chances and a lot of goals being scored against you. Short passing and mixed will mean the ball still being hoofed forward into space unless you provide the player in possession with options. Likewise, if the player's mentality is set to defensive he may well reject a risky passing option and still hoof the ball forward. Allow the player to have longer passing options so they can hit the front men or make more passing options.

For the OP, I'd suggest many of his problems could be solved by figuring out what is going on with his central midfield. Seems like tinkering there would resolve the root cause of many problems - a defensively minded MC needed?

 

[Death Ball]

Zebedee, the closing down on goalkeeper I've just started to place now, I hadn't done it before. Without it I got those strikers to rob the goalie (second goal that gave me tranquility against ManU was done that way), since the ball is originally in opposition's goalie's feet there's no offside, just getting the ball and push it into goal. First match after playing with some of the ideas expressed, I saw one instance with goalie having the ball off the area and a striker near; my striker started to go to rob him not immediately but fast, the goalie kicked the ball immediately though, so not enough to judge. Besides that striker I have to close down at the minimum looking to start attack plays with him clear of opposition for counter attack chances.

Regarding the wings, I used to set close down always to them, but also all midfielders and strikers, with wingers had them in tight always too. This one match I just looked the assistant's advices and set the show foot and close down he asked, which was show foot to strikers, close down the two DMCs. Haven't seen lone players, but too soon to be celebrating.

Regarding tempo, passing and width, it was a disaster as I misclicked and set the wrong sliders *facepalms* so I got to a 0-3 before realizing. One of the times I get to react well, only managed to get to 2-3 and two close free kicks.

When I've played some more matches with these new ideas I'll report for the benefit of everyone.

PD - Just saw your last, by hold ball defence I didn't mean the hold up ball checkbox, but more of defensive mentality and short passing. Which I see answered anyway.

 

[Zebedee]

Ah, I see - closing down keeper always, not tight mark always Yeah, it can be effective. Just keep an eye on the striker's condition. He's going to be a very tired boy at the end of 90 minutes!

About OI instructions - they are to counter specific threats and overuse is worse than underuse! Setting closing down always on all 6 attacking opposition players is a recipe for defensive chaos as you'll lose all defensive structure with players having to cover each other, being pulled all over the pitch etc etc. Keep an eye on what happens with your AM's advice - a central midfielder may need to be closed down - but ideally that should be by your central midfield, and not your defence!

Good response to going down 3-0 though, and it should give you confidence in the settings you chose to get it back to 2-3.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that the problem was being directly addressed with 'hold up ball' check box not being the answer when under pressure. If the player isn't under pressure, then it might be a very good idea.

 

[Death Ball]

Yep, the second paragraph is exactly the problem, too many people set to close down. It's logical the defence gets disorganized. Comes from my first matches where I kind of had the same problem, not setting nay instructions, but then the problem was I had closing down too high (as I had not started to tune the default tactic setting). Instead of going one by one, and say make close down rarer for my defence, I did both: close down to little and close down every non defender. So I didn't see the difference. Grrr.

Yeah, it was great recovery even if I didn't win, usually I'm like they say Vicente del Bosque is like, just don't get to make tactic reactions, if a match goes wrong, it continues on unless it was one lucky play by an inferior team. This time I did beyond simply addressing the missclicks: I had a 4-4-2 (set by moving a player from the 4-5-1 dropdown so to speak), in first half, already 0-3 was when I solved missclicks, I got better chances but not enough to point a recovery, so at min 52 or so I made a sub to make the 4-4-2 into a 3-4-1-2, which gave me the first goal. Then as 70 min arrived still 1-3 I made new subs: one defender with yellow card for another to prevent a second and then a striker to change to a 3-4-3, which gave the second goal and the two close freekicks. All changes made by sliding players in the tactic screen as oppossed to use the dropdown tactics, list, which brings one small question: how's that it recognized I started with 4-4-2 and not a 4-5-1, and after the game I get criticism for not making changes to the 4-4-2?. Were too late for the fans taste or once the game start will only recognize picking a tactic from dropdown?

---------- Post added at 02:23 PM ---------- Previous post was yesterday at 06:24 PM ----------

Well, it looks great. For the moment I've used a defensive kind of 4-5-1 so the games are the style to get 1-0, few chances, but good (though first lost 1-3 to Aston Villa, but no frustration bit whatsoever ; my goal here was the striker robbing the goalie very fast, like the close down always made it). Well, in these two matches, mainly the second I've finally seen my team being the one with unmarked wingers and a striker got free of mark three times, though the guy with the ball only saw one (and that was the goal to win Tottenham by 1-0). Three in two matches opposed to the previous three in two seasons and half.

Next match I'll keep the tactic as I face Chelsea, which will be a tough match (not lack of chances to win as before making the changes from this thread they sweated to beat my team, and my team beat ManU once and Liverpool needed a last second to get a 2-2 tie), but I plan on moving to some more offensive tactic, likely a 4-4-2, perhaps try the 4-2-3-1 I started, either in the two DMC or two MC version, and see if then I'll get to a spectacle high scoring style of play (get many goals in the end or not)

 

[Death Ball]

After the 14 matches played till the end of season since it and not counting the second half of the first when I had to solve missclicks and make more changes than these ideas to get back, even if didn't get enough goals, there's the first bit of idea about results.

The result is that even if perhaps the final stats are not that good (5 wins, 2 drawns, 7 losses), the truth is that the changes have been noticed quite a bit:

- The team feels much more solid.

- With 4-5-1 system it was many less chances to get goal, but much more quality ones. With other systems chances haven't gone down, and the quality has been better.

- I've got more than once my strikers to get unmarked, though their teammates haven't seen many of them.

- The rival attackers haven't been left unmarked as often as before, even it's dropped to levels comparable to those in my favour.

- Throw ins are still gifted to the ipposition in a 95%, not odd since that wasn't a point brought here.

- When under pressure the team still tends to kick the ball long to no-friend land, but I've seen a few when the ball was indeed kicked to an area with some teammate to fight for the ball.

Now, if the results were so good, why the W-D-L stat isn't that better, even including two 1-3 and one 0-3 defeat?.

One of the 1-3 was Aston Villa taking the 4-2-4 the full second half that had began 1-1 and me not doing the proper changes, then when getting 1-2 the changes done not working, on top of sacrificing a bit of defense wanting a goal.

The other was the first match that I made changing the 4-5-1 to a 4-4-2 and it was not well tuned in terms that don't really affect the changes made from this thread.

The 0-3 was Chelsea, and even if the score was big against, they had to sweat their first goal, which arrived at minute 54. The other two were consequence of going more offensive and the changes weakening my midfield more than expected.

The other four losses were close matches lost by 0-1 that could have gone either way. And one 1-2 that would have been a tie if the other team hadn't had some good luck with a mere fight for the ball ending in a lob over the goalkeeper that had gone forward.

The wins include a relatively comfortable 1-0 to Manchester City, using the proven and well set 4-5-1 and a 4-2 which isn't that great if we take into account it was against Barnsley that had come from Championship and had only 5 ties in the league and for some minutes they seemed like they had a chance. But still it was a 4-2 and my team was always ahead from minute 1.

Now if I manage to get some good striker to accompany Manucharyan, or two and leave Manucharyan to rotation and maybe do one or two changes to the defence line, next season should go really well. Perhaps to win I'd need some more extensive player changes than that though, and I'm unsure my team can go all that far in the market this summer. So far, offloading players is not that easy without gifting them.

 

[Zebedee]

Sounds like you're really getting to grips with tactics now Death_ball Definitely sounds like there's been a lot of improvements as a result of your changes. Hopefully, things will continue to improve as your 'feel' for the game gets better and your understanding of the options available to you increases.

 

[Death Ball]

Yup. This time I'm making preseason more seriously. Watching matches fully and trying a tactic each, and then changes to the tactic in second half. Then before last preseason friendly will choose the one to be my default and see it in the last for any fine tuning I could do.

So far so good. Forgot some offers pending to buy strikers, as I made them in may and got asnwer in july, so I now have more strikers than needed. Oh well, at least got Adrián (spanish guy from Deportivo de la Coruña) and Jimmy Briand, which look significantly better than I had. Niculae doesn't look as bad as I thought, but still no fast enough.

Aiming now for two defenders, one for DR-WB who can play center or left and another DC. Carson is leaving me and Javi Varas should be good enough, though will be taking a new goalie for injuries (O'Brien in reserve squad is still too average).

First one against Karlruhe, proved the 4-3-3 plus the variatons off it (4-3-2(wingers)-1, 4-4-2, 4-2-2-2) and it went well. They got lucky with less possession and less chances to escape with a 2-2, I got many offsides and more chances, with good runs behind the defense. Points for improvement in the side strikers, too many failed passes and even one or two passes when they should have tried to dribble and face goal.

Now I'll see if in my steam version there's a manual to see the exact meaning of a couple options I'm not up to start thinking about.

(EDIT: AArrghhh! I just remembered the 4-3-2-1 is bugged and gives the player an unfair advantage. Well, I had it up only from 52 to 62 minute and no goals were scored, neither was a great boost noticed)

 

[Death Ball]

Well, the close down goalkeeper always doesn't really seem to make a difference with strikers not set to close down the whole pitch, and I'm somewhat reluctant to add that change. I think as things are they have got enough chances at taking the ball from the goalkeeper.

So far things look good, though still needs a few more matches to ensure there's not the usual form slump at second or third league match.

So far the preseason has served to test five tactics:

1st friendly: - 4-3-3, which looks good to keep for comeback needs. Fast and long passing, the attacks are quick, not too worked but numerous. 2-2 away against Karlsruhe, small field. Had acceptable portion of possession, my team drew in last minute corner. May need a few touches in defense, specially the sides (less close down). Changes to 4-42 and 4-2MC-2-2. Both setups kept the strength of the play

2nd friendly: - 4-2-3-1, mostly finished, slow, short passing. Needs touching as ball is not kept as much as desired for this tactic. 2-2 home against Udienese. Long wide pitch (already ordered the relay in this setup, opposed to my old small pitches). I was ahead and Udinese was the one scoring in last minute, possible concentration lapse?. Changes to 4-4-2 and 4-5-1 (in fact I got to 4-2-3-1 from 4-5-1 at building). 4-5-1 improved the possession time, though did not do much for the attack.

3rd friendly: - 4-4-2, normal toward attacking, longish passing, medium tempo. Needs work, ball is quickly lost and getting to the attack costs some effort, even if there's an acceptable number of opportunities. 2-1 at home against Feyenoord. Changed to 4-2MC-2-2 and 4-5-1, not really giving much valious info. Planned to work in the fifth and last friendly but...

4th friendly: -4-4-2 diamond attacking, I had planned to test the 3-5-2 defensive but forgot I hadn't done it. Not bad, possession was mainly in my team, apparently better than with any other of the previous tactics, however the attack kept crashing on the rival defense, losing the ball at the last passes too often. 2-2 at home against Español. Changed to normal 4-4-2 and to 4-3-1-2.

5th friendly: - 3-5-2 defensive, since I hadn't done it, leaving 4-4-2 to be worked later on some match expected to be easy win. Results are quite good!. The team doesn't has possession as much as it did in the diamond match but still it's around 50% or a little better. normal or slightly attacking, short passes, medium or slow pace, wide, pumped up defense and offside play, the defense has a good control of the game, giving my team most of the opportunities, though still there's several balls lost in the last meters of side runs, which will be about small changes to individual instructions. 4-1 home against Bologne (third in italian serie A past season). Change to 5-3-2 worked pretty close, removing the play offside. And 4-0 to Bolton at home to get first position with first match. Next game is against Liverpool

Got something else to comment more interesting than the above but I don't remember.

---------- Post added at 11:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:23 PM ----------

I remembered the coment, more of a small question for confirmation:

It's regarding to when making a change to tactics that include a formation and player substitution.

When I do changes there's two phases to them: first a "making tactical changes" that triggers while play is going on and then a second in the first gameplay stop from there (throw ins, goal kicks, corners, free kicks). Say I turn a 4-4-2 into a 4-5-1 dragging a striker to the midfield and substitute the striker for a midfielder, apart from changing the mentality, passing style, tempo and time wasting. For what I've seen the formation changes and subs are left for the second and last phase of changes, but what changes are done in the first?. Does it include such like team instructions and individual instructions? Or just opposition instruction changes?

PS - Haha, almost hammered Liverpool in their home playing a 5-3-2 after the first goal got with the 3-5-2 defensive (corner, deflected from crossbar into Reina's **** and intogoal), three crossbar shots and one ball removed from the line. They escaped with just a 0-2 defeat. My first win against them, I think Chelsea's the only big team I've not beat yet.

 

[Zebedee]

Good question about the changes. My personal feeling is that everything is done in the second phase but some of the preliminary processing is done in the first phase (preparation by the ME to try and make the changeover fairly smooth). But that's just a feeling because the tactical changes don't seem to kick in straight aways.

 

[Death Ball]

Yeah, that's my guess too. It would be very unfortunate to change the team instructions before the formation and the changes making it very vulnerable. Imagine to change so that some central defender will be moved to midfield with attacking duties, you might get with a defence in which one of the DCs is missing because that has taken the ( A )MC instructions but hasn't changed the position yet.

In some cases, it could have an easy solution (viewing full match, else adds the uncomfort of having to switch when changes are planned) of doing the second phase first then the other. Wouldn't be always possible to do it to the best satisfaction, imagine that change where the one going into DC and placed temporarily as ( A )MC would not have that position among the ones he can play.

By the way, I strongly recommend watching matches full, at least a few for novices: it reveals the AI team getting some of the things when saying only parts only seem to happen to the human team, cleans pretty well the feeling of cheating in some regards. You know, "why it's always my players who kick the ball into a companion or kick it ten meters behind?" and all that sort of things. That does indeed happen to the AI team with a comparable frequency, it just rarely happens in key plays, unlike the human's.

---------- Post added at 01:13 AM ---------- Previous post was yesterday at 01:32 AM ----------

Could spot something in my last match: when I don't do player changes there isn't second "tactica changes" message phase.

Also the engine is some of a *****. I was one goal ahead of West Ham in the League Cup. They had been using a 4-4-2 for the whole game. Around minute 75 I decided to change my 3-5-2 into a 5-4-1, waste time max, slower tempo and more attacking mentality plus the DL/R set to man mark and not run forward too often in preparation for the expected change to 4-2-4 by West Ham. I moved to the opposition instructions, mainly because West Ham had just made their last sub and I saw they were already in a 4-2-4, they just had done it. Back into the game, bringing up the formation screen there's West Ham into 4-2-4. However, the text at the bottom didn't say a word until... minute 87! Twelve whole minutes after the change had been done.

 

[Death Ball]

New observations: When there's two phases the first always is a little before the ball gets out of play: goal kick, free kick, corner or throw-in, which seems to be in fact the processing of the changes before the moment to make them arrives.

Actually, the engine is running the match like 30 in game seconds ahead of what is shown, so it happens when the moment has arrived for the play calculations and the engine has to do the changes to calculate the events following that, while the player is still shown what happened a little earlier.

 

[Zebedee]

Also the engine is some of a *****. I was one goal ahead of West Ham in the League Cup. They had been using a 4-4-2 for the whole game. Around minute 75 I decided to change my 3-5-2 into a 5-4-1, waste time max, slower tempo and more attacking mentality plus the DL/R set to man mark and not run forward too often in preparation for the expected change to 4-2-4 by West Ham. I moved to the opposition instructions, mainly because West Ham had just made their last sub and I saw they were already in a 4-2-4, they just had done it. Back into the game, bringing up the formation screen there's West Ham into 4-2-4. However, the text at the bottom didn't say a word until... minute 87! Twelve whole minutes after the change had been done.

Yeah, there is a significant lag in when screens update. However, over time, you get to spot the changes when they are actually made. Harder to do in 3d match mode than in 2d though.