No decent direct football, deep defence/counter tactics?

[fryer]

Hi Everyone,

I've been looking through the tactic test forum here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...A7CT7nlz5F3SB-yPFSHjhYtxGk/edit#gid=252646727

It seems to me that the vast majority of the top tactics are all short passing, high pressing styles. In fact apart from the very bottom ranked tactic (conceding a truly horrific amount of goals) they are all high press short passing.

It leads me onto the question, will the FM16 match engine allow deep defence with a direct, long ball counter philosophy to work? Has anyone had any success with a tactic like this?

IMO this is the type of tactic which Leicester made so much success out of this year, and yet replicating it seems very difficult. I've been trying to create a deep sitting defence with long balls out on a quick counter, but cant get it work.

Part of my reason for wanting to use a direct deep defence counter is I've picked a conference side to start with with a big tall target man up front and a quick advanced forward alongside him. I also have one quick winger (the best player in the team). So it makes sense that I would utilise that pace and a big man tall man relationship up front.

I would also say that playing fairly complex and modern high pressing short passing tactics with lower league teams is quite unrealistic, and not representative of what you would observe in lower league football.

I'll post some screenshots of things going wrong here so people might be able to point out how it can be adjusted...

The full tactic is in post 4.

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[England66]

Hi Everyone,

I've been looking through the tactic test forum here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...A7CT7nlz5F3SB-yPFSHjhYtxGk/edit#gid=252646727

It seems to me that the vast majority of the top tactics are all short passing, high pressing styles. In fact apart from the very bottom ranked tactic (conceding a truly horrific amount of goals) they are all high press short passing.

It leads me onto the question, will the FM16 match engine allow deep defence with a direct, long ball counter philosophy to work? Has anyone had any success with a tactic like this?

IMO this is the type of tactic which Leicester made so much success out of this year, and yet replicating it seems very difficult. I've been trying to create a deep sitting defence with long balls out on a quick counter, but cant get it work.

Part of my reason for wanting to use a direct deep defence counter is I've picked a conference side to start with with a big tall target man up front and a quick advanced forward alongside him. I also have one quick winger (the best player in the team). So it makes sense that I would utilise that pace and a big man tall man relationship up front.

I would also say that playing fairly complex and modern high pressing short passing tactics with lower league teams is quite unrealistic, and not representative of what you would observe in lower league football.

I'll post some screenshots of things going wrong here so people might be able to point out how it can be adjusted...

I have had significant success with such a tactic based off the way Atletico play. If you let me know what you are struggling with I may be able to help you with sorting out such a tactic. If you want just post some screenshots and tell me what seems to be the problem.

You can make most things work with the match engine, it just takes time to develop the tactic.

 

[wkdsoul]

There are about 10 Leicester replications knocking about and about 3 Athletico ones,

 

[fryer]

I have had significant success with such a tactic based off the way Atletico play. If you let me know what you are struggling with I may be able to help you with sorting out such a tactic. If you want just post some screenshots and tell me what seems to be the problem.

You can make most things work with the match engine, it just takes time to develop the tactic.

Cool thanks, do you have any links for those tactics. My issue with the so called replicated Leicester and Athletico tactics is once you download them you see they have almost no resemblance to how either play, I've seen several Leicester ones that are very high line, high pressing short passing tactics.

I've uploaded the tactic here, and added some screenshots. Defence seems a little bit of an issue though I'm not that many games in so it hasn't gelled yet.

I've uploaded the tatic and some screenshots. I'm getting quite a lot of assists coming from the my right wing area (probably due to the space between defence and the winger) but i may move him back to a more regular winger position.

I've also added an image of the tactic Leicester use and I am trying to replicate.

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=i&r...8_NI8SrI8tj_zB1LSJEyK7tQ&ust=1468521368826267


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[Tyton]

Its pretty hard to do in this match engine, yeah. I couldn't set it up using just team instructions, the players just kept booting long balls it to the opposition and instead of counterattacking, I was being counterattacked. I ended up manually editing instructions for individual players to limit amount of long balls they send out.

Limited Defenders in particular are the worst offenders. The point of counterattacking with long balls is booting it only right after you win possession, but they just boot it all the time and **** all ever comes out of it.

 

[fryer]

Heres a match save of a game where I drew 2-2, conceding a couple of bad goals.

 

[FMSaddler96]

I've found a couple that work. Both use the same instructions which are:
- Higher Tempo
- Close down more
- More direct passing
- Pump ball into box
- Look for overlap
- Slightly Deeper
- Defensive Mentality
- Structured team shape

The two tactics I've used are:

5-2-1-2: Attacking full backs, BPD in the middle of the 3 CB's, DLP and BBM (both CMs), SS and then DF and AF

4-2-4: Attacking full backs, 2 CD's, DLP and Regista (both DM's), attacking IF and W in support then a DF/DLF/F9 with CF/P/AF

Both tactics I've had success with. Managed to beat the drop a lot using them, also managed to win the premier league with the first. Other than that I've just got shock results with them (beat Man City 4 times in 1 season using the 5-2-1-2 when they were top and I was in relegation battle with Stoke).

Attacking full backs with the overlap works because they come back to defend but when the ball is put forward quickly the full backs get forward quickly and look to help put the ball into the box

 

[Rods Fanni]

You should try a control mentality and set it deeper and more narrow. The counter mentality is actually better suited to poession football. It's slow and cautious and you'll see lots of sideways and backwards passes.

Despite its description control is very direct and will transition quickly.

 

[vanTiggelen]

You should try a control mentality and set it deeper and more narrow. The counter mentality is actually better suited to poession football. It's slow and cautious and you'll see lots of sideways and backwards passes.

Despite its description control is very direct and will transition quickly.

The text descriptions of mentalities need an update. AFAIK the AI don't use them this way too though, just go more attacking and more defensive based on their matches. It's like the classic sliders, the mentality stuff governs risk taking/overall forward thinking. If on old games you would set the mentality ultra low you would see much more back passes, and vice versa. However the defensive mentalities aren't possession based as such. They can be if you tweak a little. In fact defenders are encouraged to clear under pressure, and the counter attacks in counter is that on this mentality counters are triggered more readily (they are triggered when upon intercepting there's less than x players between the forward and the opposing goal). If it isn't things may look more cautiously indeed.

However one may watch if dropping deep and going with some of the more attacking stuff. I too had try to replicate Leicester with attacking mentality. The passing percentages was well below 70% on average, just as theirs, bottom of the pile in terms of possession. What that means it that you quickly lose the ball and may face an opponent just having a go wave after wave. Success was also fueled due to the big guys playing on very aggressively lines often, and in this version this leaves a lot of space for through balls all over the pitch (almost expect this to be tweaked). Not sure how things would have looked like once they would have played more cautious. It was that freaky that pretty much every 6th overall shot went in. May have been a lucky run too. If you would take leads, opponents typically push up... if you don't they may not need to. Totally quick run on commentary with no second approach/tweaks. Likely no coincidence that the points were dropped against the small guys thus.

TIs: prevent short keeper distribution (maximizes closing down for the advanced players to attempt to replicate the initial high press, more direct, drop deep, run at defense, pass into space -- better to limit this to individual players probably). Problem area to maintain can be the left side as if a LB is on defend (just stays deep) and the winger in front of his on attack (runs forward much), this can create a big gap. Right flank a deliberately overload.

The tactical testing forums are a bad place to gauge as people try to game the ME and AI. Firstly there's a long-term obsession with trying to dominate statistics, in particular possession and shot counts, so naturally you'll see a specific type more oftenly. Dominating stats can lead to a false sense of security, speaking of which (high lines exposed multiple times also showing how useless the CCC is, the build-up/through ball had them go totally chicken ****)...

On average also they don't try to replicate styles they throw stuff and see what works best on average. Creates a multitude of problems, such as every time an update rolls out it all may stop being effective either due to ME patches or the way AI mans approach tactics. Most don't replicate any realistic football, such as everybody running fwd every single minute of a season or playing ultra narrow. Playing ultra narrow makes you more likely to dominate possession but can be problematic against opponents dropping deep, players would visibly just sit boxside sticking closely, no pass to pull the defenders over the place. If you have 25 corners/match, that's nowhere near balanced. You'd need a totally different approach every time you would play the little guys as in FM it is possible to have every shot off set piece. The game doesn't have stats for this you would only see this if you clicked every shot in the analysis. Loads of guys claiming they've been cheated but going through their matches it is crazy how despite 25 shots they never carve anybody open only pinning them back, making it easy to clear the ball for throws and corners endlessly. IRL you need 30 corners on average for a goal..do the Maths.