Reputation for tactical suprises?

[Sabresosar]

During FM09 i went through a phase of trying to always counter the opposition formation and tactics and to a certain extent it worked, although obviously i suffered some close 1-0 losses and a a number of very boring 0-0 draws because my team would be 100% cancelling the other team out. I tried this on FM2010 too and it worked. In both games i recieved many media comments in my inbox saying i had developed a reputation for springing tactical suprises after my team was on form with high moral and won quite a few games in a row.

I stopped mid season because i had gotten too many bore draws in a row and in all honesty it was alot of effort to analyse and completely cancel out the opposition team every single match, while having enough creativity to score a goal or two if i was lucky.

I haven't explained the system very well but essentially if a team played 4-2-1-3 (with wingers) attacking, i would play 3-1-2-4 counter. if I saw them play 4 3 3 control, i'd play 3-3-4 attacking and get in their face so they couldnt retain possession. This way every player was cancelled out, and their defenders had no option to "cover" other in trouble defenders without them leaving another player free to pass to and eventually being swamped by my players. It created an almost constant position where my attack equalled their defence numerically, similar to a situation of always being on a half dangerous counter attack, whilst also cancelling out all immediate counter attacking options.

The fact it was commented upon in-game by the media made me think it was a good approach to take, and a unique one as most people seem to just find one set of tactics and adjust it to every match. The obvious downside was the players had no time to get used to the formation or tactics before it was switched resulting in a few dodgey performances.

I just was just wondering, has anyone else experienced this? and has anyone else had any success with these types of large scale tactical changes before a match?

 

[loveangel]

I see that you are matching the opposing team's formation by placing your players where their players will theoretically be, but what exactly are you doing to actually "counter" or "cancel out" their players? Even if you use a different formation, it does not mean your players can't man mark. Also, in terms of defensive strategy, I think it's generally accepted to match their attackers +1. You say you are canceling out their attackers, but you could just as easily say you are attempting to overload their defenders; is there any real truth to either of those statements?

If you can explain phrases like "get in their face so they couldnt retain possession" and "their defenders had no option to "cover" other in trouble defenders without them leaving another player free", and why your strategy produces those things as opposed to using normal formations, then fair enough. But I suspect you are just "seeing what you want to see", so to speak. For example, if you play 3-3-4 against 4-3-3, your defenders can't cover each other either, it's not just the other team having that problem. I guess what I am trying to say is that you have obviously formed a good, solid strategic goal (countering their tactics), and you have come up with a plan to do that... but I think you are probably making assumptions and forming biased opinions about whether or not it's really working.

Anyway, not trying to put down your tactical strategy here, just trying to contribute to the discussion. If you can explain the details of how you counter them tactically (not just formation wise) then that would probably help move the discussion along. Btw, the tactical surprises thing is almost definitely a product of having a low tactical consistency stat in your profile (by low I don't necessarily mean "bad", just as opposed to using the same tactic always).

 

[Sabresosar]

I love a good discussion

I should definately have found a better way to explain this. That is true, i think you could use any formation, it was just easier that way mainly because it would be the player's "default" position and the man marking options were pretty much already selected when assigning marking, more of a convenience than anything else.

"You say you are canceling out their attackers, but you could just as easily say you are attempting to overload their defenders; is there any real truth to either of those statements?"
Could you explain what you meant?
I think maybe again i explained it terribly, but the objective was to attempt to do both of those things. Essentially negate the threat posed by their strikers whilst offering more options to overload their defence. The biggest flaw among many being that, when you both have 11 men, it can really be a stalemate.

Ah, what i meant by that was. I worked out a basic, quite primitive system that was quite successful. Every system has a weakness yes? And mostly teams will play either
possession football,
high tempo "attacking" (high closing down. eg "in their face") football
or defensively counter attacking football.

It made sense that when someone attacks, you counter that attack with a strong defence and a strong counter.
If someone is playing possession football, don't give them time on the ball to play dangerous passes and attack quickly while they reorganise.
Counterattacking strategies should be opened up with possession football, it allows more time to break a defence down and moves opposition players out of position in order to exploit that space.

Sorry if thats already well established or im just flat wrong, i havn't had alot of interation with the FM community :O

"their defenders had no option to "cover" other in trouble defenders without them leaving another player free" - haha i think you are right with this one. I was very used to using a 4-2-1-2-1 formation with 2 DM's, 1 CAM and 2 wingers therefore i only had 4 players in attack roles (the CAM, ST & 2 Wingers) which would be outnumbers by the 4 defenders + a DM/CM. It does offer more opportunities when compared with 4-2-1-2-1 against a team playing 4-4-2 but 4-4-2 naturally offers 5 players attacking so my bad there

The opposition instructions were key here too, i can't believe i didnt mention this. Tight marking very dangerous targets who couldn't dribble their way out of trouble (eg fabregas) whilst giving other more "obvious" passes to their weakest player (wallcott) whom i could dispossess and retain possession easily. Closing down players great with passing and backing off the dribblers. I know all this is quite standard but i did it for every player and made sure every one of my players were capable of outdoing the player they were assigned too. Eg against Arsenal i used alot of crossing to beat their defenders who are not exactly world class in the air. I spent alot of time analysing how to play and how not to play against a specific team.

I knew chelsea were good in the air so long balls were a no. Against Arsenal trying to skin clichy or sagna wasnt going to end well because i had nobody faster, therefore i had to cross from deep, allowing me to double up on dangerous players like arshavin, or being able to have more stopping power against wallcott. I recognised that chelsea had slow defenders (they had ivanovic on instead of bosingwa and cole was injured) so my pacey players went out. They used attacking at first so i counterattacked and because their CB's had pushed forward when they were on the attack, my pacey strikers easily outpaced them.

I'm not sure if its clear what i mean, but essentially i attempted to use specific defenders and opposition instructions to take any attacking players out of the game (never did sign a fast a RB to stop arshavin though) whilst using my rock paper scissors theory of tactical approaches to counter their system (this was really the only reason i would ever score. i know its obvious, but when i tried matching their tactics AND formation it was the most boring match ive ever seen)

Basically i would rotate between possession football, counterattacking football and fast paced attacking football depending on what the opposition used. I don't know if this is a common strategy? i just assumed most people would find a "system" and sign players who best fit their system (Eg out-posession playing barcelona using a different formation, although i still believe its impossible! ^^))

And yeah i do understand there is probably a **** of alot of bias involved haha but i guess we all wish everything that happens is due to our specific plan

Ahh i see, maybe this is a total different discussion but thinking about it, is a low tactical consistency actually bad? I always assumed that low tactical consistency was bad, even though as soon as you said low, i knew you meant low and not bad. It certainly didnt help the squad gelling, but when it worked properly, it seemed to work quite well. whether this was luck or not is totally debateable ofcourse