Tactics creating guide (unofficial, just based on my own observations)

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Igneos79

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For anyone wondering how to setup their tactic, I would recommend this thread:

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot...ics/205292-team-shape-roles-duties-guide.html

From it, you will learn proper roles and duties and proper team shape for your team.

What I would like to add, is how to incorporate this into your own tactic and make a final "product".

A good tactic will work everywhere equally. If You win 1-0 with a great team, it doesn't mean you will lose the match with a bad team. You will probably also win 1-0 as you will be against a lot weaker opponent. Great teams play against great teams. IT is not true you can't create a passing tactic for LLM. You can, and you will probably regain possession and keep it in equall manner as a great team, as, again, your opponent will be weaker.

Regarding formation, you should use a more layered formation when playing less fluidly, and you should pick a more fluid team shape with a flat formation.


It is important not to go against the ME!!!

What I mean by that, is that if you order your defenders shorter passing by playing more agressively, you shouldn't use any TI that will order them more direct passing. This is just an example, but it applies to just about everything. The most banal approach, but very effective.
Therefore, if you opt for fluid team shape that orders your players to roam and gives them more creativity, you shouldn't stick to position and play more disciplined. It goes against the team shape.


With regard to before mentioned team shape guide, if you want to play strictly possession football, you should avoid roles that are supposed to initiate counter attacks, like BPD's and SK's, and roles that just clear the ball, like limited defenders, and of course use them if you want to play on counter. Defend, counter and overload team mentalites play on counter.

Some things often confuse people, so I think I should clarify.

First of all, do not pick a crossing TI. It relies on the height of your striker, and if you want others to use your tactic, they wont have success if they have short players, and you ordered float crossess. Even you will probably change the striker from match to match, or inside a match, so it gets tiring to keep adjusting. Whipped crosses could work for any height, but are really demanding, and weaker players will have trouble trying to do 'em.

Second, passing instruction should be adjusted only if using a standard mentality. Other mentalities change passing to both shorter and direct to your defence and forwards, so if you pick a passing style, you will go against the ME.

Play out of defence can be used in standard and more agressive mentalites. However, you will need to push defensive line up, as this will shorten their passing range, so you want them closer to midfielders.

Work ball into box or shoot on sight is linked to tempo. The faster you play, it will be more difficult and perhaps unwanted to work ball into box, whilst a slower attack buildup will favor it.

You should run at defence or play through defence. Play through defence will favor a narrower width.

You should be very carefull when picking penetration options. I recommend only to use them when opponent has a player sent off in that aprticular side of the pitch during match. They shouldn't be used as a starting TI.

Playing width is linked to tempo. You can either play wider with higher tempo, or narrower with lower tempo. Narrower will mean a slower attack buildup, better defending, better keeping of possession, wilst wider will be better in terms of giving space to both you and your opponent, which will make your attacking efforts and goalscoring easier.

Defensive line depends on the passing range of your defenders. If you play with a less agressive mentality, it will be sliglhtly more direct, so you can play slightly deeper.

You should always close down empty space. The wider and deeper you play, the more space you need to close down, and the more compact you play, more your players can and should stand off. This isn't how agressive they will be, this is just range of closing down, or better put, how far will they move out of their position to close down.

Tackling shouldn't be touched. Getting stuck in will get you cards and injuries, wilst stay on feet will create way to many fouls.

Offside trap is usefull with a high defensive line. Should be used with two or more defenders on defend duty.

Regarding mentality and team shape, they go hand in hand. A more agressive mentality will order more players to roam, so you want a more fluid team shape. It is believed that every attacking tactic is total football. It often isn't, but really should be, as the mentality should really be very fluid, and formation should be flat, like 442 or 433. It works the other way around aswell. No great philosophy, just a very banal approach.
 
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Nice quick and easy guide. :)
My one question is that wouldn't short passing be counter-productive under the counter mentality. Would direct passing not be more appropriate in order to switch from defense to attack quicker?
 
No. Direct passing is for when you want to play an attacking style usually. Counter attacking as a mentality however is a fairly defense setup, basically the counter part to control on the offensive side of the mentality spectrum.

You also don't need to set direct passing for this as it will automatically switch to that if a possibility for a counter presents itself. That is the one thing where the counter attacking mentality differs from all other mentalities quite drastically.
 
Nice guide, will help a lot of people who want to build a certain type of tactic, anything on player instructions? I very rarely use pi myself but wasn't sure if you have any findings using them?
 
Mentality: Counter
Team Shape: Structured
TI: shorter passing, work ball into box, play out of defence, play narrower, drop deeper, close down less, stay on feet, lower tempo.
Formation: Will fit a formation like 4-3-3 DM Wide, with a defensive midfield triangle.

When you say defensive triangle. Do you mean 2 DM's and a CM?
 
Additional explanation about counter attacks:

Counter attacks are basically killer balls played when opponent is out of balance. It is often missunderstood for direct balls, and it's not about directness. When counter is not an option, players should play a slightly shorter passing game, and more cautiosly. Since the ball is won deep in your own half, you need to be disciplined and stick to position, which is why structured team shape is necessary. The best way to execute a counter, is to do it as soon as the ball is won, and try that killer ball, which is why you should order all your players to try more risky passess, which is basically pass into space TI. It is not a good idea to use a playmaker in this setup, as that will take prescious time, and maybe allow opponents to fall back.

However, Bayern in 2012-2013 season, made exactly this, but adjusted all other options aswell. They played more agressively, with control style (in OP), and used a DLP to execute counters, which is why they seemed to play counter attacking football. Control requires fluid team shape, which would leave striker free for those killer balls from DLP, and with fluid, wingers were asked to track back to releive pressure on sidebacks. However, fluid means lack of discpline, and less sticking to position, so defensive line also must be pushed higher. Not much higher, to give space behind their defence to run onto. All other options were a bit more agressive aswell, as stated in OP.

There you go. Hope this clarifies things.
 
Are there certain things you can do to help less technically gifted (lower leagues) players perform in a possession based tactic?
 
Are there certain things you can do to help less technically gifted (lower leagues) players perform in a possession based tactic?

Don't forget that the players from the other teams are also less gifted. A possession would be harder to implement in LLT because players with good mental attributes are needed.
 
First of all, i really do enjoy your language :D
My english is far from being good and your comments make me see the whole beauty of it. Thank you.

Another one extremely worth reading guide, good job
 
Absolutely wrong on counter attack.

Every mentality will counter attack. In he ME a counter is initiated when you outnumber the opposition. So you are right to play a short passing game while having a counter mentality selected as you will keep the ball until the counter opportunity arises but saying not to play a playmaker and to set your team shape as structured is just wrong.

Team shape has NOTHING to do with your mentality. It is always based on your allocation of roles.

More specialists - Structured, Very Structured
More generic roles - Fluid, Very Fluid
Balance of the two - Balanced

Play makers are fine for a counter attacking set up. Well at least a DLP is, as he is a more direct player which will play passes forward and quicker than an AP. Telling (all) your players to play more risky passes is silly. You want them to keep the ball until the opportunity to counter is there. When it is there then tempo, width, directness etc is set to max and your players exploit the space. Asking them all to play risky passes will just see them give the ball away time and time again.
 
This thread coupled with the link in it, and along with the thread linked below Tricking the Wizard – Guide for Understanding the Tactical Creator Dynamics copied from the SI forums are in my opinion the most enlightening posts I have ever read in the going on 15yrs I have played this wonderful game. There is just such a wealth of easy to understand and logical information in them, in fact, more than likely everything you need to know to be an expert manager if you so wished. They will not give you a "plug and play" tactic in which you set it up and then go on holiday for 6mths in order to play a season in an afternoon. What they will give you though is the basis of setting up a very good footballing philosophy from rigid to very fluid and coupled together with watching the game in either full length or extended mode and reacting to what you see by either going wider/faster, narrower/slower, stand off/close down or whatever your own personal view on it may be you will certainly win more than you lose. Thanks very much for posting this Igneos79. Guys like yourself, Damian Rice and jpcote09 who can see what many of us others can't but still take the time to post the information available for others to learn from are truly inspirational in my opinion. Happy 2015 to you all.
 
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