The most perfect formation is...

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iknife

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In my opinion. 1-3-2-3-1. a star of david. i will stick by it through and through. i think it is the most balanced possible formation, without any bias due to fear of losing etc. it presumes that you will win if you have the best players. it requires the right players but i have complete faith in it, winning everything there is to win with it, using kids.

have a look

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then it is not the best :) obviously if your team is completely inferior then you cannot field so many attacking players. and if your one defender is bad, you may lose, but you give yourself the best possible chance of dominating the match. if you can field a strong balanced team, it is great.
 
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The set-up is nicely spread, but...the most perfect formation imo is the one in which it does not matter what team you play.

I myself (no offense or attack intended here) have a major dislike to people who claim their tactic to be the best there is yet they only dare to play with big clubs and/or better/good players.

The best formation (tactic) imo is the one that works for Barcelona and the level they play at...but...just the same works for amateur clubs and the level they play at, as at this point its the managers skill (pre-game instructions, motivation,touchline instructions, choice of players and the quality of training) that will determine the success of the team and not just the quality of the players.

Your 1-3-2-3-1 set-up imo covers almost everything...but...what if your opponent has quick strikers/wingers and plays long balls?
My experience is that 1 defender simply won't work in that case.
 
so what have you won with it and like the above post say try it with a small club and if u get the same results then you can come back and say its the best tac ever not having a go just come back when it works as well with a small club
 
All I'm going to say is, that imo the best tactic is the one that works best with what you have available, regardless of formation. It could be 4-6-0, 1-3-4-2 or whatever. It's what you have that defines how successful it is. IMO anyway
 
No formation is anywhere near perfect, if there was then football would be dull as the tactics would be all the same and certain types of players could never make an impact. Every formation has strengths and weaknesses and plenty of them so it's about choosing the right one for your team. 2018 with Arsenal your team is going to be better than Barcelona so it would take a rubbish tactic not to win loads.
 
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trying to answer everyone at once:

ofcourse some teams vary greatly, and are poorly balanced. but in an ideal world running by the law of averages, a balanced formation will be more succesful than something which isnt. ie 442, 433.. it is only psychology which makes a team put 4 at the back, their fear of losing is greater than their desire to win. there will never be a tactic that works for barca and a low league club because barca can keep the ball reliably. this formation is balanced but it is also well-spaced. every player has many options which make keeping possession easy. the wing backs are close to the wingers, so overlapping is doubling up is easy.

perhaps it is not the best formation for every situation, but it is my favourite. the most elegant i have came across, and the most enjoyable to watch - you can attack with greater fluidity and control than barca, and defending can be hairy so it keeps your concentration and interest.

ofcourse. you could try playing a long ball game against this formation, and you may get lucky, but going by the law of averages again, most of the time you wont because you wont be able to get the ball reliably enough to create those chances.

"2018 with Arsenal your team is going to be better than Barcelona so it would take a rubbish tactic not to win loads."

well thats not strictly relevant because i have 900k/w of 1.8m/w spare to spend on wages, and 125m transfer funds available because i only ever brought perhaps 3 players slightly over 10m, all the rest have been cheap players found at 16-17 years old.
 
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As soon as this thread gets nasty, it Will be closed.

@ iknife
I think that everyone Will missunderstand your intention with this thread, being that you mainly want to SHARE the fact that à formation with just one defender can be really Balanced if used under the correct circumstances. Naturally, with à thread name like the one you chose, its bound to happen, people assuming that you are bragging about à tactic/results using the best team in the world.
 
That quote of what I said about your team will be true just because you know how to assemble a good team cheaply doesn't mean the players aren't the best in the world. Also balance isn't everything, 4 at the back is used because it is solid and your attack means nothing if you can't defend while it isn't quite the same the other way round. Better and more fluid footie than Barcelona, the ME isn't cut out to emulate that kind of fluidity so it is impossible. In my opinion the law of averages means next to nothing in football as anything can happen.
 
gogogo golem said:
That quote of what I said about your team will be true just because you know how to assemble a good team cheaply doesn't mean the players aren't the best in the world. Also balance isn't everything, 4 at the back is used because it is solid and your attack means nothing if you can't defend while it isn't quite the same the other way round. Better and more fluid footie than Barcelona, the ME isn't cut out to emulate that kind of fluidity so it is impossible. In my opinion the law of averages means next to nothing in football as anything can happen.
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you have contradicted yourself there. what does "solid" mean? it means reliable, safe, its "ok not to win aslong as you dont lose". that is exactly the problem, it is not effecient. some teams will have a great attack, and you may stand a chance because you have 4 defenders, but others will have a weak attack, where your second CD is completely unneccessary and you draw when you should win. so generally a balanced formation will always be more profitable as you give your team decent odds of winning no matter what system the enemy is playing. we are starting to see this with barca and man city both testing 1 CD with 2 WB, and i bet we will see it more in the future as tactics get more refined.

@thebetterhalf.

indeed, well people can think what they will, i just find this formation interesting and kinda innovative, so i put it here for other people to have fun with and do their own testing. i am a strong believer in symmetry and the strength of symbols/formations, so it interests me naturally.
 
If you have a weak attack then your team is probably weak because most teams tend to spend the big bucks on Strikers and players with lots of flair. If they played an extra striker a good team would destroy them. If you used that in real life it wouldn't work. The reason why the defence prevails is because if they try and overload them you will win as you'll just hold them off and hit them on the break.
 
First off, "the most perfection formation ever" is entirely subjective, some people favour solid defence and counter attacking over fluid passing movement.

Second, what you said about Man City and Barca playing with 1 cb and 2 wb's is false. City have played with 3 cb's and 2 wb's, and in Barca's case, 3 centre backs and a defensive midfielder.

Mancini to use a three-man defence as plan B? | Zonal Marking

Barcelona 5-0 Villarreal: Guardiola switches to a 3-4-3 (diamond) and Barca run riot | Zonal Marking

No team would dare play with 1 true centre back in real life, they would get ripped to shreds on the counter attack.
 
Im using my own version of this formation and when you come up against 2 world classs strikers like rooney and RVP the single CB gets raped (through balls long balls) this could just be becuase im not set up correctly but thats what ive noticed in my save.
Huge gaps between the wbs and cb even with a very narrow width, does give me some very nice play and possesion though.
Works really well against 1 striker.
Im managing QPR.
 
My perfect set-up at this moment is a 2-3-1-3-1

View attachment 272243
I am still testing so I have no results to show.

I have tested this tactic with Barca and with my luck most of the team was injured or had international games so I was forced to play the Copa with nearly all B team players....however, I gained around 65% possession and scored once in the first game which ended in a draw, the home game again I gained around 65% possession scored 1 goal and conceded 1 goal.

Now I am playing with my team in the Dutch Jupiler league to see whats it worth.
note: I demoted FC Oss and added my own club which had 0 players, meaning I am starting from scratch in that division.

I came up with this set-up / tactic since I always find loads of (good and cheap) midfielders but are in **** when it comes to finding good left backs (most of the time they are too expensive or they are unwilling to join my club).

First I was trying to create a 1 defender tactic, covered with 3 DM's, but I found I was unable to defend against long passes and fast attacking half players.
For this reason I am "forced" to play with at least 2 defenders, but I did noticed that when playing 3 DM's in line the 2 outside DM's often go out wide to intercept the wingers.

So I placed my 2nd defender, which plays a bit higher up the pitch, kept my 3 DM's and placed my remaining attacking midfield.

At this moment I have yet to play against stronger teams with my team, but the few matches I have played against typical 4-4-2 direct playing teams and the few matches with Barca I noticed that I had a solid defence which also was capible to intercept quickly and play quick short passes.

As a result my defending half draws the opponent into my half which creates space between their defense and goaly which is fully exploited by my quick poacher when served with a quick and sharp through ball or a more direct pass from somewhere around the mid-line area.

When defending I have 6 players on my own half (3 near the mid line & 1 further up the oppenents half) who intercept nearly every direct or long ball and/or make it so crowded the opponent barely has room to play a short passing game.

The way I see it, I have a balance between a short passing and a direct passing tactic here with a pretty solid defence and now its up to me as manager to find the right players, instruct them correctly and motivate them.

So far....imo...this is the "perfect" set-up as it appears to work for both top teams and lower teams.
(sorry for the long post, I just want people to understand my ss before they draw their conclussions about this set-up thats why the background story(A))


And please, with all means, feel free to point out the flaws in my tactic :)
 
SMcManus84 said:
Im using my own version of this formation and when you come up against 2 world classs strikers like rooney and RVP the single CB gets raped (through balls long balls) this could just be becuase im not set up correctly but thats what ive noticed in my save.
Huge gaps between the wbs and cb even with a very narrow width, does give me some very nice play and possesion though.
Works really well against 1 striker.
Im managing QPR.
Click to expand...

No shame in that imo, your defenders simply got overclassed.

And with most players you have to choose between quick players or strong headers, most defenders are chosen for their strength and heading but are not real quick.

I myself don't expect my defender with say 11 pace and acceleration to beat a striker pure sang with at least 16 pace, acceleration and agility...all I can do is hope my defender positions himself as good as possible...but then again...against top strikers this is nearly impossible.

There is a reason why you can train 3 tactics for your team to use and this is why its real hard to find/create that 1 "perfect" tactic.
 
FC Knudde said:
No shame in that imo, your defenders simply got overclassed.
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That could have happened but I'd expect whoever you think is the best CB in world get raped by Rooney and RVP if the best CB in the world was the CB in that tactic.
 
Yeah well I wasn't expecting to shut utd out at OT on the opening day of the season using 1 CB.
The CB was meant to be Onuoha who has 20accel 18 pace.
He got replaced by Carvalho, but still 1CB even in a team of world all stars could find it being a hard 90 mins.
Lost 3-1.
 
The fun thing about football/soccer is exactly this...so many ways and so many theories / opinions that people could debate days about it and still they all could be right.

For that exact same reason there is no "perfect" tactic.

Managing is problem solving and as soon as you found the solution to your problem, the opponents tactic, you become the problem of that opponent teams manager who will try to solve his problem making him your problem again...and that goes on for ever ^^)

The perfect tactic is the one that needs the least of adjustments to solve "your problem" and at the end it all comes down to the managers choices.
 
There is no perfect tactic unless you exploit the game... A classic 4-4-2 worked wonders for me at Charlton, 4-1-2-1 (Narrow 442 Diamond) was unbelievable for me at AC Milan but when Barcelona made a resurgence in 2019 I ditched that for a 3-4-1-2 and 3-4-2-1... Now I have moved onto Aston Villa Iv only started this and had to completely build my own side which let me go for a 4-3-3 (DM and Wingers) which is has always been my preferred formation at Villa...
The perfect formation is the one that fits the players you have...

I do admire the tactic tho something Marcelo Bielsa would probably try...
 
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