Bladesman1963

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In a moment of extreme close season boredom I decided to try creating the most adventurous tactic I could think of! So far, touch wood, it's going much better than I imagined.

I created a club from scratch and, using the editor, duplicated the best 16 and 17 year-olds I could find using genie scout to become it's first players.

Now for the tactic. It's a Fluid tactic with Control strategy. I wanted to play with the highest defensive line imaginable, so I invented the Virtual Centre-Back in order to make this possible. The Virtual Centre-Back (or False 5!!!!) is really a DM with his mentality ratcheted down to 6 on the slider. Creating 2 VCBs to play alongside 2 WBs means the main defensive line ends up somewhere over the half-way line when we're attacking! The insurance policy, if you can call it that, is a Libero with an attack duty, who also gets up to or beyond half-way when we're in possession! I set the Defensive Line to "Push Up", with the slider at 15. In front of the VCBs is a BWM with defend duty. Ahead of him are a narrow trio of attacking midfielders on support duty, an AP flanked by 2 IFs (who are set to swap position with each other). The final piece of this crazy jigsaw is a Complete Forward on attack duty.
All of the outfield players, except the WBs, have their wide play set to "Move Into Channels" and, of course, everyone has long shots set to rarely! The WBs are also set to "Cross Often".

After a frustrating start with my new club, trying tactics I'd used in previous saves, I implemented the "All 4 1 (1-8-1)" tactic. With the passing style set to "Shorter" and everyone on "Move Into Channels" we've managed to produced some decent football in the 3 games so far. All 3 have resulted in wins, without conceding a goal. The not conceding is the most surprising thing about the tactic this far. With 8 midfielders, not surprisingly, possession has been high (mid 60s in each game). It has produced 6 goals but, with a more experienced set of players, should produce more. The next step is to dare to try it with a more experienced team. It may come completely unstuck against better opposition but, with my tried and tested tactics, this set of young players were conceding in every match and now, with just 1 recognised defender, I have 3 consecutive clean sheets!

I would be interested to hear everyone's ideas and opinions on this crazy tactic.
 
Any chance of uploading it so I could also have a little play? :p

I'd love to test this, it sounds very interesting. I'm sure with the right tweaks and 8 midfielders you could also aim for the 80% possession mark and maybe bag yourself a real life job at some random Eastern European club no-ones ever heard of. ;)

Also, if/when I have a little play any chance I can tweak it, rest assured I won't be uploading it. :)
 
Here's a link. I hope it works!

Feel free to test and tweak! As I mentioned, I've only played 3 games with it so far, so it might have been shear surprise on the oppostion's behalf that produced the results! In a real life situation it wouldn't look that unusual, it's just the positions you have to use on FM to create it that makes it a virtually defenceless tactic.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ahn8muxiojkqt1n/ALL%204%201.tac
 
Here's a link. I hope it works!

Feel free to test and tweak! As I mentioned, I've only played 3 games with it so far, so it might have been shear surprise on the oppostion's behalf that produced the results! In a real life situation it wouldn't look that unusual, it's just the positions you have to use on FM to create it that makes it a virtually defenceless tactic.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ahn8muxiojkqt1n/ALL%204%201.tac

Oh sweet, well I had 3 or 4 ideas I want to try out, will get back to you. ;)
 
View attachment 365902

Just tried this for 3 games with Napoli the results as follows were,

Roma 2-0
Ascoli 5-1
Juventus 3-0

Built on what you had, but made it a little more secure at the back and changed a few roles, also changed the wide play of a few players, works very well.

Very interesting concept, I think you've definitely come up with something special there.

Also managed 91% possession against Ascoli, their goals was the result of a corner.

So good stuff. Hope you build on it and get a release going. :)
 
A couple of bizarre results in the next 2 games. A 3-3 draw followed by a 4-4 draw! These are actually the kind of scorelines I was expecting when I first created the tactic, so I was sort of spoiled a bit with the initial run of clean sheets!
I'm now going to try a couple of tweaks. The Libero will become a BPD on cover duty. I guess this is very similar to the Libero role, just higher up the pitch. I'm also change the Complete Forward for a Poacher.
 
View attachment 365902

Just tried this for 3 games with Napoli the results as follows were,

Roma 2-0
Ascoli 5-1
Juventus 3-0

Built on what you had, but made it a little more secure at the back and changed a few roles, also changed the wide play of a few players, works very well.

Very interesting concept, I think you've definitely come up with something special there.

Also managed 91% possession against Ascoli, their goals was the result of a corner.

So good stuff. Hope you build on it and get a release going. :)

I played a match with your tweaked tactic an lost 1-0 in injury time! In my opinion the LD makes it a little too direct as his long balls are mainly hoofed clearances rather than the long passes of either the Libero or BPB.

As I've said before though, the way this tactic plays has a lot to do with the experience and composure of the players being used. None of my players are older than 18 at the moment so I'm probably going to have to take a look at it with my other save in the EPL where my team has lots of more experienced and composed players.
 
This looks extremely interesting.

I actually started something similar - a team with no forwards and about 7 players in mf with the intention of controlling matches (explained in MANUMAD's box of sweets).

Will be trying it out!
 
This looks extremely interesting.

I actually started something similar - a team with no forwards and about 7 players in mf with the intention of controlling matches (explained in MANUMAD's box of sweets).

Will be trying it out!

Thanks. Let us know how you get on and any tweak suggestions.

I would guess that, if you're doing this with Man U, Phil Jones is almost the perfect player for one of the DM roles.
 
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