Tactical Help

[RyanRealNice]

Can anyone please give me some advice please. I often use other people's tactics when playing this game, but i can imagine anything more satisfying than creating my own tactic and ruling the world of football with my own creation.

No matter what team i choose i suck at creating a tactic, i dont know what im doing wrong, can anyone tell me the secret to creating a decent tactic which will perform well at any level?

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[Bigpapa42]

Doing some reading of some guides is usually helpful. There are some great ones on the SI Forum tactical section. There are also some YouTube accounts that offer some great insight.

My simple suggestions would be the following....

-be realistic in your expectations. Don't try to make Stoke play like Barcelona in the first season and get frustrated that you can't get 80% possession against Chelsea.

-identify your strengths. While you don't have to built a tactic that suits the strengths you have, it does tend to work better. That might mean evolving your tactic into something else as you evolve your squad over time.

-have a clear idea of how you want your team to play. This is where emulating a real side can have value. What do you want each player to be contributing? Where are attacks going to come from? How will you defend? This is really REALLY helpful when it comes to watching matches and looking for issues - if you don't really know what you want out of the side, how you can identify when something isn't working?

-its easy to get caught up in mentality and fluidity. The in-game descriptions can be vague. Rashidii has a great way of explaining them. Fluidity is how much creative freedom you give the team as a whole. The more rigid, the more the player will be required to do their assigned role and that's it. Mentality can be simplified to risk. So playing Defensive doesn't automatically mean you are parking the bus - fluidity, roles, and duties still come into it.

-when it comes to roles and duties, look for balance. The same thing is true for the actual shape. Don't get too caught up in player suitability for the role - if they have the attributes and PPMs, they should still do well. But its about fitting the overall tactical intent and being balanced.

-go easy on TIs. They are like tweaks. Some people like to add a ton of them by default. But if you don't know how the base tactic performs, how can you tweak? Even TI has knock-on effects and some of them stack. I highly recommend add no TIs, or only the absolutely required ones to create your preferred style (short passing, pressing, or whatever). Then watch some matches, look for issues, and tweak from there. Have a baseline.

-watch the matches. Don't just watch highlights. Don't just look an event - look at the lead up. Cleon had an article on his method - create a base tactic, play thru several matches with no tweaks or changes, then watch the matches back to look for issues. Then start to tweak and adjust. But if you aren't watching, you can't really solve the problems. When you ask for help, you can't really provide specifics and the help can't be helpful.

-be logic and considerate. Its not that hard to think your way thru issues with at least a moderate level of understanding of football. You don't have to be a tactical god to realize that playing a 4-2-4 and wondering why you are leaking goals with the front 4 all on attack should be self-explanatory.

 

[RyanRealNice]

Wow thank you.

It is very easy to get caught up with OI's and TI's.

I will do what you said and watch the matches, I usually just watch the key highlights.

Could you post the links to the guides your speaking of please pal?

Thanks again

 

[Bigpapa42]

Some links:

Bust the Net - Rashiddi's channel - Torino series is highly recommended
Links to Guides on SI's tactical forum
Very Fluid - Ozil to the Arsenal has several threads on the SI forum that are great but this is his most recent. Highly influenced how I go with tactics now
http://www.fm-ManUMad's thread - great stuff, some tactical musings and some links

I can't access it from where I am but the Stikerless blog by Guido is great stuff.

A few other thoughts....

-watching is vital. On full if possible, comprehensive otherwise. The old 2D, while less pretty, is often the easiest for tactical analysis. Don't JUST look for goals conceded - chances created and not taken can tell you just as much or more. And on the attacking side, having a bunch of attacks fizzle out and not even really be a highlight can be the root of a problem.

-again, analyzing and tweaking is much easier with a clear idea of how you want to play. How is your team going to defend? How you are going to attack? Where is the creativity going to come from? How are you going to get movement between lines? Be reasonable and logical in how you expect things to work - don't take over a 12th division amateur side and expect Barcelona like passing.

-again, minimize TIs and avoid PIs at first. PIs can be really valuable in getting a role to perform in a certain why. But you need to find the right role first. Again, I worry more about the role and duty fitting the tactic than being ideal for the player. If you decide you want to try to keep a solid team shape as a form of defending, but you use a BWM because that suits your player, you may find the aggressive ball chasing pulls the BMW out of position all the time. Maybe you are okay with that because your shape covers, or maybe it leaves a gaping hole that opponents exploit. You need to watch to see.

-realize is there are an infinite number of ways to success. There is not only one "right" way. If you have a problem and ask for help, two different people could offer very different advice. Both could work.

-everything connects. Making one change affects other things. That makes tweaking a lot of stuff at once kinda useless. Its why a ton of TIs all at once can be a problem too. If you don't clearly know what adding a TI is gonna do, why add it?

-recognize flexibility. I've seen people say stuff like "I can only play a 4-4-2 because that fits my players". That kind of thinking is really limiting. Players can be moved to other positions, retrained, etc. So you have more flexibility than you might realize in terms of the shape/formation. But what really matters more than the formation is the way its setup, the roles and duties, etc.

Edit....

-view the tactical process as an on-going one, not a singular process that you "finish". Look to continually tweak and improve, even once you have something that is working. Not to say you should seriously mess with a winning formula, but winning formulas rarely stay that way forever.

And please be aware, these are just my thoughts and suggestions (mostly borrowed or outright stolen), not the "right" way or any such thing.

 

[Edd1920]

Not much to add to those pretty comprehensive responses.

The only thing I would add is, in order to get the league games off to a good run, is to arrange friendlies and start to perfect the tactic then - I always arrange 6, 2 against lower teams, 2 same sort of size and 2 against much better opposition...you'll get a pretty good idea if the tactic can work against the lower teams and then this gives you the opportunity to tweak it and see what works in the following games.

I'd echo the comments about watching the games in full as well, gives you a much clearer idea of where the tactic is weak and what you can do about it.