The Deep-Lying Playmaker/Advanced Playmaker Partnership
The playmaker is one of the most vital roles in every team, every successful team has one, and teams who don't will struggle greatly in goal scoring. There are two main types of playmaker, one is the deep-lying, holding regista (e.g. Pirlo pictured above) who plays long through balls from deep or keeps it simple to maintain possession. The other is a more attacking player in the form of an advanced playmaker who makes runs forward to support the attack and looks to receive the ball already in an attacking position, usually in between the lines of defence and midfield. The flaw in this however is that the opposition can simply play a player who's job is to mark the playmaker, effectively lessening his influence by stopping him from receiving passes.
A Combination to Fix the Problem
By playing both roles together, it not only gives your midfield double the amount of creativity, but it also means that the opposition would have to sacrifice 2 players to mark them, and since that is too big of a risk, they won't do it and therefore one playmaker will always be available. Even if they do choose to mark both players, that will mean that the rest of the team will find it easier to get into space so it's a lose-lose situation for them.
In my system, the advanced playmaker is more of a 'box to box playmaker'. He will look to get into attacking positions as often as possible, and make late runs into the box but when we lose possession, he quickly hurries back to the midfield to help out.
On the other hand the deep-lying playmaker stays deep and rarely, if ever, moves into attacking position. This allows him to dictate play and send through balls to the attackers ahead of him.
Because of how they're both set up, when defending the team creates a 4-3-3 formation, but when in possession of the ball, the box to box midfielder joins the attack to create a 4-2-3-1 system.
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[TD="class: tr-caption, align: center"]Left - Formation When Defending | Right - Formation When Attacking[/TD]
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The Double-Pivot
When used well, the double-pivot can make your midfield movement dramatically better. A very simple strategy which only consists of the two midfielders switching positions regularly. Despite it being incredibly easy to implement, it is very difficult to play against. This is because the man marking will not work, as the opposition will be marking lets say Player A during one attack, but then he switches with Player B for the next attack, so the person marking Player A at first, now has to mark a different player so he won't get used to marking a specific playing throughout the whole game. Also, playing the box to box playmaker role uses a lot more energy than the regista, so neither player will get too tired as Player A can rest from the attack when he switches from the b2b playmaker to the regista and let Player B do the attacking.
Advantages and Disadvantages
+ It allows for a very creative midfield (since you can field two playmakers at the same time, there will be more than one outlet for defence-splitting passes)
+ You can dominate teams easily (for pretty much the same reason as the above advantage, plus most of the time there will be a playmaker available for a pass since they will struggle to mark both simultaneously)
+ It is difficult to stop (since if you do mark both playmakers, other players will be available to receive an easy pass, but if you don't they'll control the game)
- It is weak defensively (although this is countered slightly by the advanced playmaker being more of a box to box player, so he tracks back more. Playmakers aren't meant for defending, so you need to pair them with a good defending midfielder, which brings me on to my next point)
- The partnership requires a water-carrier (It needs someone to play the Makélélé role, to sit in front of the defence as the playmakers won't be able to do this effectively enough)
In Game Analysis
As requested, I have used Arsenal's Mikel Arteta and Aaron Ramsey for my example. Both are creative players and good attackers whilst still being reasonable at defending.
We start here with arteta just playing a pass to Alex Song (10) and he is closely marked, notice that Aaron Ramsey is not. This is because the opposition have to mark 2 playmakers, which as I've already said, is very difficult. This positioning from Ramsey will prove vital and it requires a good
Off The Ball attribute (15) which means he can find space easily as well as a decent
Anticipation (12) as he has realised that if he gets into a good position, he will receive a pass from a teammate.
Ramsey anticipates the play well and receives a pass from Song, he then cleverly drags the defender towards him by waiting which creates space for his teammate Van Persie, this uses a good
Creativity (15). The Welshman then uses a great
Agility (17) and
First Touch (15) to quickly take it around the defender, finally giving the ball to the fantastic striker.
The Dutchman then does what he does best and swivels onto his favoured left foot before sending a shot into the far corner of the goal to make the score 4-1 with an assist for Ramsey. In the game Ramsey ended up performing better than his Spanish teammate making 3 key passes with an overall completion rate of 93.1%. Although Arteta did make more passes and with a higher success rate, 94.6%.
The Roles
The Regista:
He has a defensive mentality so he drops deep to collect the ball from the defence. Run From Deep and Run With Ball set to rarely so he doesn't run into an attacking position. And through Balls on often so he makes long balls to the attackers often.
The Advanced/Box to Box Playmaker:
He is told to Roam From Position to find space, Run From Deep often to join the attack and Through Balls often so he can make defence-splitting passes. Also make sure that he is told to swap positions with the other CM (who will be the regista)
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