Pep's Bayern tactics

[ellismcfc]

Ive been trying for the last few days to recreate Pep's philosophy at Bayern this year, after using Bophonet's tactic to limited effect.

Basicslly, what I want to achieve is 3 tactics that will enable the user to switch between tactics as an when they feel necessary, similarly to what Pep does IRL.

The first tactic is a weird shape, it's basically a 3-1-4-1-1:

SK
BPD CD CD
DLP
WM BWM AP W
SS
CF

the forward line is based on Bophonet's tactic, and I've seen some fantastic wing play and crossing into the box, scoring 11 in 3 games. However, I would like to see some more possession play, better pressing as well as a more solid defence.

For now I'm focusing on that tactic, however I would like some help with developing it as I get limited time for FM, and I'm not the best at improving tactics. If possible, could anyone see where this could be improved to make more realistic? (Hard without screenshots but thanks anyway)

If anyone would like to download and test it let me know, cheers

 

[Keith Ang]

possession play doesnt necessary means you will win the match. thru my experience fm16 punishes quite often for having unnecessary possession especially away. unless your goal now is just to emulated peps bm and not care whether it will win or not i suggest dont fix whats not broken. but thats my 2 cent

 

[ellismcfc]

possession play doesnt necessary means you will win the match. thru my experience fm16 punishes quite often for having unnecessary possession especially away. unless your goal now is just to emulated peps bm and not care whether it will win or not i suggest dont fix whats not broken. but thats my 2 cent

Possibly, but surely if the defence is solid enough then chances on the counter are limited? Bayern have conceded 16 goals this season

 

[Keith Ang]

in RL pep style has been more ball time but he did specify that he doesnt like tiki taka that is just to pass the ball around. every pass must have a purpose. thats what he said. i would read that as a possession is nothing when u just pass the good **** ball around without ever getting into a dangerous position where u can score.
now if we talk about fm, i m trying to play something like that. i mean im a possession base person but honestly so far nothing with high possession seem to be good. u have to strike a good balance. Eg. i notice when the *** man says that the opponent is having alot of the ball not because they are doing well but because we are shockingly giving the ball away needlessly. and sure enough when u check match stats u are having about 45 to 48% of possession. but weird thing is we are up 2-0 or even 3-0. and when i tweak the tact a little just to get better possesion i start to control the game more. meaning less attack or counter attack from the opponent and i hit pass another 2 goals on em.
so there u see that tweak a tactic just purely so u can see a better match stat isnt a good idea. well thats to me and thats because i wanna win matches not match stats

 

[The Otter]

Would need to see the match and player instructions used. I like to think Pep's teams are focused around the pivot, so when I try and create them I only use the pivot as a playmaker, I think a lot of things are down to preference though

 

[ellismcfc]

Would need to see the match and player instructions used. I like to think Pep's teams are focused around the pivot, so when I try and create them I only use the pivot as a playmaker, I think a lot of things are down to preference though

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There's the formations and the TIs for both tactics. The 4-1-4-1 is based losely on the formation that they played against Arsenal, not really tested it properly yet. Agree regarding your point of the pivot, however I'm fairly happy with how the midfield 3 (DLP, AP and BWM) are performing.

 

[domdom10]

whats the reasoning behind the attacking winger and lb on the left side, and then the supporting wide midfielder and support rb on the right side?

 

[ellismcfc]

whats the reasoning behind the attacking winger and lb on the left side, and then the supporting wide midfielder and support rb on the right side?

The LM attacks the full back and gets crosses in from the byline, whereas the RM cuts inside and is more varied in his actions. I haven't actually tried the 433 yet so the full back roles will probably change.

 

[The Otter]

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There's the formations and the TIs for both tactics. The 4-1-4-1 is based losely on the formation that they played against Arsenal, not really tested it properly yet. Agree regarding your point of the pivot, however I'm fairly happy with how the midfield 3 (DLP, AP and BWM) are performing.

Right I want you to try a couple of this with the tactic and see how they work, remove the shorter passing and retain possesion TI's. This may seem backwards in regards to the retention of possesion but think of it this was, right now you are telling your team to look to the closer player to them, this isn't always going to be the best option and will sometimes mean the players pass into trouble more than they should, you have a team who have high technical skills, high passing skills and high vision, trust them to use it and they will retain the ball for you.

I also find find in the essence of balance that when playing fully fluid it is best to play on a more standard setting instead of attack and control, this may just be a personal preference but with how fast teams counter in German it may be worth a look.

I dont know about Bayern this season so much but I k ow in his first couple of years Pep used to give complete freedom to his attacking unit, so I would personally get them to be more expressive, again they're good players so let them show a bit of magic, Pep also wanted them to cross quite a bit, so I'd remove work ball into the box.

they way I see your TI's is that you're asking for ticitaca which will lead them to get loads of possesion but not using it correctly. You're asking them to play like UTD under LVG.

i think I would also get rid of the exploit the flanks, the wide players movement should attract the ball there anyway

 

[ellismcfc]

Right I want you to try a couple of this with the tactic and see how they work, remove the shorter passing and retain possesion TI's. This may seem backwards in regards to the retention of possesion but think of it this was, right now you are telling your team to look to the closer player to them, this isn't always going to be the best option and will sometimes mean the players pass into trouble more than they should, you have a team who have high technical skills, high passing skills and high vision, trust them to use it and they will retain the ball for you.

I also find find in the essence of balance that when playing fully fluid it is best to play on a more standard setting instead of attack and control, this may just be a personal preference but with how fast teams counter in German it may be worth a look.

I dont know about Bayern this season so much but I k ow in his first couple of years Pep used to give complete freedom to his attacking unit, so I would personally get them to be more expressive, again they're good players so let them show a bit of magic, Pep also wanted them to cross quite a bit, so I'd remove work ball into the box.

they way I see your TI's is that you're asking for ticitaca which will lead them to get loads of possesion but not using it correctly. You're asking them to play like UTD under LVG.

i think I would also get rid of the exploit the flanks, the wide players movement should attract the ball there anyway

Will try and remove the TIs regarding possession and passing and see how it works, and will always drop the setting to standard and see how that works. All about experimenting at this stage however the initial signs are good, having lots of possession and scoring goals for fun.

Regarding the be more expressive, the players are given plenty of freedom anyway due to the very fluid system, so in order to retain some form of tactical discipline I left that off.

Also, the crossing from the flanks has been the best part of the play so I'm going to keep that. Douglas Costa's average rating is around 8, he's getting assists for fun so I'm happy with the wide play so far.

main tweaks I'm looking at are defensively, my only 2 losses were in the CL away at Arsenal (3-0 we got smashed) and 4-2 away at Monaco (we smashed them).

 

[The Otter]

Will try and remove the TIs regarding possession and passing and see how it works, and will always drop the setting to standard and see how that works. All about experimenting at this stage however the initial signs are good, having lots of possession and scoring goals for fun.

Regarding the be more expressive, the players are given plenty of freedom anyway due to the very fluid system, so in order to retain some form of tactical discipline I left that off.

Also, the crossing from the flanks has been the best part of the play so I'm going to keep that. Douglas Costa's average rating is around 8, he's getting assists for fun so I'm happy with the wide play so far.

main tweaks I'm looking at are defensively, my only 2 losses were in the CL away at Arsenal (3-0 we got smashed) and 4-2 away at Monaco (we smashed them).

Ok cool. Defensively how are your centre backs playing? Do you have any PI's set on them? I've always struggled with mass amounts of closing down as I see my centre backs doing it far too much, which draws them out of position and creates gaps in my team, gaps a fast team like Arsenal may exploit. I tend to set my closing down a little lower, then personally set all players to much more on the player instructions and change the cbs too less, same with the pivot.

Also so do you find you get many cards? I personally wouldn't use the 'get stuck in' side of this as this will lead to players diving into tackle which can also draw them out of position, if the stand up and get drawn out they remain in there feet more and shift back into there place better

 

[ellismcfc]

Ok cool. Defensively how are your centre backs playing? Do you have any PI's set on them? I've always struggled with mass amounts of closing down as I see my centre backs doing it far too much, which draws them out of position and creates gaps in my team, gaps a fast team like Arsenal may exploit. I tend to set my closing down a little lower, then personally set all players to much more on the player instructions and change the cbs too less, same with the pivot.

Also so do you find you get many cards? I personally wouldn't use the 'get stuck in' side of this as this will lead to players diving into tackle which can also draw them out of position, if the stand up and get drawn out they remain in there feet more and shift back into there place better

Similar problem really. Sometimes they close down too much and leave gaps, although sometimes they win the ball back quickly and high up. Other times they don't close down at all and allow crosses from wide areas. Might try that actually and see how it goes.

I added the get stuck in instruction because players used to press but not put a tackle in. I've actually not had 1 red card yet surprisingly!

 

[The Otter]

Wow that does surprise me, yea do that and should see an improvement in the defending

let me know if you see any improvement in the system as a whole, let me know what's working well and what's not working so well

 

[domdom10]

I've tried the 4-1-4-1 with spurs and my performances have improved. However, I'm still leaking a few goals for some reason so was wondering if you have improved on that? other than that the signs are good. Im with spurs atm but i think it would work nicely with swansea as well

 

[ellismcfc]

I've tried the 4-1-4-1 with spurs and my performances have improved. However, I'm still leaking a few goals for some reason so was wondering if you have improved on that? other than that the signs are good. Im with spurs atm but i think it would work nicely with swansea as well

Conceded 11 goals in the league with the back 3, so obviously an improvement is needed. Most of my goals tend to come from a crossing position,not sure where your goals are coming from but you could try dropping the defensive line, which would sacrifice some of your ball retention and pressing.

 

[ellismcfc]

Into the end of January now and tweaked the tactic slightly, and the defence is pretty solid. Not conceded in 6 now.

However, we're missing a lot of chances, and in certain games it's costing us. Most games we get through okay as the volume of chances created means some will go in, however some games we won't score despite having 5/6 clear chances and drop points as a result. Anyone know any way to improve it?

Also, having between 60-70% possession on average and between 450-600 passes if anyone's interested.

 

[The Otter]

I am very interested.

How owe are the team with the tactic? Are they fluid in it yet? I always find the longer my teams play the same way the better the performances, I'm currently playing a possesion based system with Ipswich and it's taken until October November to really get them firing, is it just poor shot conversion? Like have you watched the CCC's?

 

[ellismcfc]

I am very interested.

How owe are the team with the tactic? Are they fluid in it yet? I always find the longer my teams play the same way the better the performances, I'm currently playing a possesion based system with Ipswich and it's taken until October November to really get them firing, is it just poor shot conversion? Like have you watched the CCC's?

Yeah it's mainly poor shot conversion tbh, however sometimes they'll shoot from poor positions (i.e twice in my last game a through ball was played to ribery and he was inside the 6 yard box, next to the byline and shot instead of squaring it for a tap in). I'm hoping that training them on attacking movement will put the players in better shooting positions, because apart from that the tactic is pretty successful.

 

[ellismcfc]

Could do with some tactical advice in order to help develop the tactic onto a level I'm happy with before releasing.

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This is a screenshot of the most recent tactic and it's TIs, which I have used since the start of friendlies in January. Obviously it's fairly solid defensively, however I want to see a slight improvement in terms of goals.
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This is from the game against Atletico at home, which shows the tactic's capabilities. Their 'half chance' was a long shot and we could've been easily 2/3 up before the red card (as it was we were only 1-0 up). We passed the ball in dangerous areas and pressed high up the pitch.
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This game is another representation of how some matches go. We battered them and didn't take our chances, basically. The chance conversion at times is poor.
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This is from a game where we scored in the last minute, but we created minimal chances and were fairly lucky really.

These games are really the 3 ways in which the matches tend to go. I'm happy with the defensive, possession, passing and pressing parts of the tactic but I could just do with some advice in how to score a few more goals and create a few more chances, before I'm happy releasing it if anyone has any ideas.