lessthanjake
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So I tend to not really use other people's tactics that much because I want to find the best recipe myself. With that said, I've had a lot of failing tactics before. I've tried to go super complicated and change a lot of stuff and it normally doesn't work well. And when you change so much it really is hard to know what aspect of the tactic is wrong. Recently, though, I made an extremely simple foundation of a tactic that seems to work extraordinarily well.
It's so simple that there's no real point in uploading it (also, I dont actually know how to and a lot of the tactic is conditional anyways). Here are the positions:
The Foundation
GK: Defend
DR: Wingback-Attack
DC: Central Defender-Defend
DC: Central Defender-Defend
DL: Wingback-Attack
DM: Deep-Lying Playmaker-Defend
CM: Advanced Playmaker-Attack
AMR: Winger-Attack
AML: Winger-Attack
Striker: Target Man-Attack
Striker: Poacher-Attack
Philosophy: Very Rigid
Starting Strategy: Attacking
Passing Style: Default
Creative Freedom: More Disciplined
Closing Down: Press More
Tackling: More Aggressive
Marking: Default
Crossing: Default
Roaming: Stick to Position
Counter Attack: Yes
Play Offside: No
That's the foundation of it.
Possible Adjustments:
From there, you can make a few important adjustments based on your team's personnel:
1. You can generally get a sense of whether you team is more capable of scoring through headed crosses into the box or whether they have the passing/poaching abilities to work more effectively through the middle. Basically, if you have a great target man and your wingers are better than your CM/DM, then you are better off going with a crossing game. If your poacher is your better striker and/or your CM/DM are better than your wingers, then you are probably better off with a through the middle approach.
If you are better with a crossing game, then set your "Focus Passing" to down both flanks. If you are better through the middle then set your "Focus Passing" to through the middle, switch "Width" down to about halfway, and switch your wingers to "Cuts Inside" for wide play (or you could just make them Inside Forwards. There isn't a huge difference I dont think). If you can't decide what approach suits your team best then it doesn't matter; either will work well.
2. If you have a really good team (ie. you're managing teams like Manchester United, Man City, Barcelona etc etc) then put "Time Wasting" all the way down. This way you give your team as much time as possible to win the game against inferior opposition. Adjust this based on how good your team is and how good your opponent is. If you're Middlesbrough playing Manchester United at Old Trafford, then you're probably gonna be happy with a tie. So put time-wasting all the way up to maximize your chances of getting a tie.
3. Similarly, adjust Defensive Line a bit based on opponent. Playing as a good team, I would not change it from where Attacking strategy puts it unless you're playing a game against another powerhouse. In that case, move it down to halfway or slightly below that. Playing as a much lesser team, you'd probably be better off moving the Defensive Line even further back against the better teams, obviously. Against equal level teams, though, leave it.
4. Beyond that, you can make small adjustments based on the players you have. For instance, I got Lionel Messi and put him at the AMR position. However, I wanted to utilize him as best I could so I told him to cross rarely and put a lot of through balls in. This way, I use his great passing abilities much more than I use his only solid crossing. Another example is that I had Pique and decided to give him a Ball-Playing Defender role instead of Central Defender in order to better utilize his passing abilities. You could also give your defenders the "Stopper" and "Cover" roles if you want. I don't generally bother. You really don't need to make adjustments though. I only adjust at all in exceptional circumstances (hence why this is such a simple tactic).
Philosophy Behind It
Here's the reasoning behind the tactic:
It's all about creating space to either get a cross in or get a pass through the middle. Having wingers AND wing-backs on each side is the method of doing this. Two things tend to happen a lot.
Firstly, having 4 players attacking on the wings forces the fullbacks and midfielders of the opposing defense to go wide. This will leave only the central defenders for the strikers to contend with. As a result, if one of the strikers or the CM manages to dribble by his man and force another player to close down on him, there will almost always be a massive space open for one of the strikers to receive the ball in front of goal. The defenders who are out wide will have a really hard time recovering to stop this.
The only way to stop this is to pack the middle despite all the attacking players out wide. Teams will try to do this. However, this tends to mean that the defense is undermanned on the wings. Your winger can typically beat just one guy and get a cross into the box. But even if he can't do that, you will get a cross into the box. What I find a lot with this tactic is that if my winger tries to run down the touchline to get a cross in but he can't get himself space for one, the wingback will frequently be sitting in entirely open space behind him. The winger just turns around and passes to the wingback who has all the time in the world to cross it into the box himself. As a result, you WILL get plenty of opportunities from crosses if an opponent tries to pack the box with defenders.
I play with such a rigid and disciplined system in order to maximize these previous two things. The tactic creates space to make opportunities. This will work as long as players stay where they're supposed to be. I believe that fluidity and roaming would just limit this space.
Lastly, the pressing and aggressive tackling is important because of how attacking this tactic is. Having your fullbacks set as attacking wingbacks obviously makes you vulnerable on the wings, as does a relatively high defensive line. Thus, it's important to steal the ball back high up the pitch. I also find that it is really nice to have two very tall central defenders. Your vulnerability on the wings means that the most dangerous attacks from opponents will be from wingers crossing the ball. Two tall central defenders tend to limit the effectiveness of this a lot.
RESULTS:
I have so far only used this tactic with a really really good Man City team. However, the results were still extraordinary.
1. We didn't just have an undefeated Premier League season, but rather a 38-0-0 season with 128 goals and only 14 scored against us! To a large degree, that was almost certainly a matter of luck; the same team and the same tactic could probably have easily ended up with a few losses and a few draws, but still, I feel as though the tactic must be good to get that kind of result even with some luck and a really good team.
2. We won the Champions League, with the crowing achievement being an 8-0 destruction of Barcelona in the finals. Again, my team was certainly good enough to beat Barcelona, but I think any tactic that can yield an 8-0 victory against them has to be good.
3. This isn't exactly that big of a deal but this tactic also yielded the most lopsided game I've ever seen in FM. My team played Hyde (quite a weak team) in a pre-season match and won 21-0! A team of my caliber should be winning that match by a good 5-8 goals, but 21 goals was just absurd.
While I have yet to try this with a lesser team, I am optimistic about how it would work. Lesser teams tend to respond well to rigid and disciplined tactics without much creative freedom and that's exactly what this is. Of course, it is also a very offensive tactic, so lesser teams may have to tone down the attacking nature of the fullbacks a bit against better quality teams, but overall I really do think the tactic would work well with any team.
DOWNLOAD
Here are the downloads. I have made two of them: one for teams more suited to going through the middle, and one for teams more suited to going down the flanks. Bear in mind that the results I posted below are using the through the middle tactic (and if I had to bet, I'd say that one is probably going to be better for most teams), though the same team had positive results using the other one the previous season.
THROUGH THE MIDDLE:
http://www.filefront.com/17863071/Simplest Tactic Middle (Man City, Sep 2014).tac
DOWN THE FLANKS:
http://www.filefront.com/17863075/Simplest Tactic Flanks (Man City, Sep 2014).tac
PHOTOS
Note: I got a 4-0 victory over Real Madrid, 4-0 over Man Utd, 3-0 on Chelsea in the FA Cup Final, a 6-1 overall thrashing of Arsenal in a Champions League tie, a 5-0 away victory against Tottenham, as well as a few absurd victories by like 7-9 goals in the Premier League against other teams, but I don't think I have a save where I am able to load those match reports anymore, so for now these are the only pictures:
It's so simple that there's no real point in uploading it (also, I dont actually know how to and a lot of the tactic is conditional anyways). Here are the positions:
The Foundation
GK: Defend
DR: Wingback-Attack
DC: Central Defender-Defend
DC: Central Defender-Defend
DL: Wingback-Attack
DM: Deep-Lying Playmaker-Defend
CM: Advanced Playmaker-Attack
AMR: Winger-Attack
AML: Winger-Attack
Striker: Target Man-Attack
Striker: Poacher-Attack
Philosophy: Very Rigid
Starting Strategy: Attacking
Passing Style: Default
Creative Freedom: More Disciplined
Closing Down: Press More
Tackling: More Aggressive
Marking: Default
Crossing: Default
Roaming: Stick to Position
Counter Attack: Yes
Play Offside: No
That's the foundation of it.
Possible Adjustments:
From there, you can make a few important adjustments based on your team's personnel:
1. You can generally get a sense of whether you team is more capable of scoring through headed crosses into the box or whether they have the passing/poaching abilities to work more effectively through the middle. Basically, if you have a great target man and your wingers are better than your CM/DM, then you are better off going with a crossing game. If your poacher is your better striker and/or your CM/DM are better than your wingers, then you are probably better off with a through the middle approach.
If you are better with a crossing game, then set your "Focus Passing" to down both flanks. If you are better through the middle then set your "Focus Passing" to through the middle, switch "Width" down to about halfway, and switch your wingers to "Cuts Inside" for wide play (or you could just make them Inside Forwards. There isn't a huge difference I dont think). If you can't decide what approach suits your team best then it doesn't matter; either will work well.
2. If you have a really good team (ie. you're managing teams like Manchester United, Man City, Barcelona etc etc) then put "Time Wasting" all the way down. This way you give your team as much time as possible to win the game against inferior opposition. Adjust this based on how good your team is and how good your opponent is. If you're Middlesbrough playing Manchester United at Old Trafford, then you're probably gonna be happy with a tie. So put time-wasting all the way up to maximize your chances of getting a tie.
3. Similarly, adjust Defensive Line a bit based on opponent. Playing as a good team, I would not change it from where Attacking strategy puts it unless you're playing a game against another powerhouse. In that case, move it down to halfway or slightly below that. Playing as a much lesser team, you'd probably be better off moving the Defensive Line even further back against the better teams, obviously. Against equal level teams, though, leave it.
4. Beyond that, you can make small adjustments based on the players you have. For instance, I got Lionel Messi and put him at the AMR position. However, I wanted to utilize him as best I could so I told him to cross rarely and put a lot of through balls in. This way, I use his great passing abilities much more than I use his only solid crossing. Another example is that I had Pique and decided to give him a Ball-Playing Defender role instead of Central Defender in order to better utilize his passing abilities. You could also give your defenders the "Stopper" and "Cover" roles if you want. I don't generally bother. You really don't need to make adjustments though. I only adjust at all in exceptional circumstances (hence why this is such a simple tactic).
Philosophy Behind It
Here's the reasoning behind the tactic:
It's all about creating space to either get a cross in or get a pass through the middle. Having wingers AND wing-backs on each side is the method of doing this. Two things tend to happen a lot.
Firstly, having 4 players attacking on the wings forces the fullbacks and midfielders of the opposing defense to go wide. This will leave only the central defenders for the strikers to contend with. As a result, if one of the strikers or the CM manages to dribble by his man and force another player to close down on him, there will almost always be a massive space open for one of the strikers to receive the ball in front of goal. The defenders who are out wide will have a really hard time recovering to stop this.
The only way to stop this is to pack the middle despite all the attacking players out wide. Teams will try to do this. However, this tends to mean that the defense is undermanned on the wings. Your winger can typically beat just one guy and get a cross into the box. But even if he can't do that, you will get a cross into the box. What I find a lot with this tactic is that if my winger tries to run down the touchline to get a cross in but he can't get himself space for one, the wingback will frequently be sitting in entirely open space behind him. The winger just turns around and passes to the wingback who has all the time in the world to cross it into the box himself. As a result, you WILL get plenty of opportunities from crosses if an opponent tries to pack the box with defenders.
I play with such a rigid and disciplined system in order to maximize these previous two things. The tactic creates space to make opportunities. This will work as long as players stay where they're supposed to be. I believe that fluidity and roaming would just limit this space.
Lastly, the pressing and aggressive tackling is important because of how attacking this tactic is. Having your fullbacks set as attacking wingbacks obviously makes you vulnerable on the wings, as does a relatively high defensive line. Thus, it's important to steal the ball back high up the pitch. I also find that it is really nice to have two very tall central defenders. Your vulnerability on the wings means that the most dangerous attacks from opponents will be from wingers crossing the ball. Two tall central defenders tend to limit the effectiveness of this a lot.
RESULTS:
I have so far only used this tactic with a really really good Man City team. However, the results were still extraordinary.
1. We didn't just have an undefeated Premier League season, but rather a 38-0-0 season with 128 goals and only 14 scored against us! To a large degree, that was almost certainly a matter of luck; the same team and the same tactic could probably have easily ended up with a few losses and a few draws, but still, I feel as though the tactic must be good to get that kind of result even with some luck and a really good team.
2. We won the Champions League, with the crowing achievement being an 8-0 destruction of Barcelona in the finals. Again, my team was certainly good enough to beat Barcelona, but I think any tactic that can yield an 8-0 victory against them has to be good.
3. This isn't exactly that big of a deal but this tactic also yielded the most lopsided game I've ever seen in FM. My team played Hyde (quite a weak team) in a pre-season match and won 21-0! A team of my caliber should be winning that match by a good 5-8 goals, but 21 goals was just absurd.
While I have yet to try this with a lesser team, I am optimistic about how it would work. Lesser teams tend to respond well to rigid and disciplined tactics without much creative freedom and that's exactly what this is. Of course, it is also a very offensive tactic, so lesser teams may have to tone down the attacking nature of the fullbacks a bit against better quality teams, but overall I really do think the tactic would work well with any team.
DOWNLOAD
Here are the downloads. I have made two of them: one for teams more suited to going through the middle, and one for teams more suited to going down the flanks. Bear in mind that the results I posted below are using the through the middle tactic (and if I had to bet, I'd say that one is probably going to be better for most teams), though the same team had positive results using the other one the previous season.
THROUGH THE MIDDLE:
http://www.filefront.com/17863071/Simplest Tactic Middle (Man City, Sep 2014).tac
DOWN THE FLANKS:
http://www.filefront.com/17863075/Simplest Tactic Flanks (Man City, Sep 2014).tac
PHOTOS
Note: I got a 4-0 victory over Real Madrid, 4-0 over Man Utd, 3-0 on Chelsea in the FA Cup Final, a 6-1 overall thrashing of Arsenal in a Champions League tie, a 5-0 away victory against Tottenham, as well as a few absurd victories by like 7-9 goals in the Premier League against other teams, but I don't think I have a save where I am able to load those match reports anymore, so for now these are the only pictures:
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