The story of how i stopped being a baddie.

[kazm]

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Well, i suck at this game. I have been playing since CM3 (Robbie Keane scoring 120 goals a season w000t), still my favorite game so far was CM01-02 obviously .

Since 01/02 ive ALWAYS been using plug and play tactics made by other people, never actually thinking whats happening and why stuff works and why it doesnt. After all, who cares when To Madeira scores 45 blindfolded?

Right now using plug and play tactics just bores me, i dont want to abuse the system anymore. I actually want to be decent at the game and have some understanding of the game.

Thats why im starting a game with Feyenoord (probably the worst team to start with but w/e) and ask for your help in creating a tactic. Hopefully showing progress.

About Feyenoord:

Professional Dutch football club founded in 1908, actually the first Dutch club to win the Europacup 1, 2 and Worldcup for teams (FU Ajax ) Traditionally one of the top 3 dutch teams. Took a nosedive financially and is just now recovering with Ronald Koeman as an awesome coach.

The pros:
-LOOOOOOOOOOOTS of talent, lots of 4-5star young players
-2 good midfielders and 1 good rb coming in for free 1/7/2012
-good training and youth setup, Feyenoord has the best youth setup of the NL irl (in game its 18 vs Ajax 20 which is complete bs based on the past)
-....................
-ehm well i guess realism is good lol

The cons:
-no money...150k transfer, no wage budget left, paying a lot of money to debts.
-2 of best players are loaned: John, Threedetti, Guidetti and Otman Bakkal, tho Bakkals contract finishes 1/7/2012 and may be signed free.
-high and unrealistic expectations: predicted 3d lmao get your facts straight, EVERYONE at the club said the goal = 5th place so i edited that right now predicted is 5th/6th.
-no squad depth, lots of talent but not a lot of backup players with CA.

 

[Aannddyy]

So plug and play tactics bore you yet you want us to "help" you make a tactic.. That just seems silly.

 

[ollieconnolly]

I agree with your plug and play theory did this on the last fm, noiw have made my own tactic where the players play how I want, which makes it all the more sweeter when your talents get recognized by barcelona and you go on to win the champions league

 

[kazm]

View attachment 228618

The team:


GK:
Mulder 2,5/3,5
Darley 2/3,5
Lamprou 1,5/4

Def:
Vlaar, experienced 26yo DC, decent enough to be ballplaying if needed. 4/4
de Vrij, young talented DRC, also can be ball playing but low jumping/heading 2,5/4,5
Martins Indi, young DLC, limited def 2/4,5
Rammsteijn, DC less talented still nice as a backup in the future, 2/3,5
Nelom LB, fb low crossing (9) 2/4
Fernandez, RB, experienced rb but not really good 3/3
Swerts, RB, experienced but injured 7months, 3,5/3,5
Leerdam, can play rb, dm, mc, mr and if necessary also dc, 2,5/4,5 really usefull. Almost everything pretty decent except from the attacking stats.

Midfielders:
el Ahmadi: DMC/MC, APsupport, 4/4 very good technique, good passing, dribbling, first touch, quickness but cant score if his life depended on it (finishing 6, heading 5.) I see him as a player who connects the midfield with the attackers, which is what he does irl.
Bakkal: AMC/MC, APattack, 4/4 loaned from PSV, good technique, pretty decent stats overall, also not that dangerous in front of the goal (which is bs but oh well)
Mokotjo: DMC/MC (can also play def if needed) 3,5/4,5, DLPsupport, small and not fast but great mental stats and defensive stats combined with decent passing/creativity. Can do more than just defend.
Clasie: DMC/MC, BWMs, 3,5/4,5 imo should be a DLP instead of a BWM especially cause he only has 5 for tackling and 10 positioning.
van Haaren: versatile MC, APs 2/5 pretty usefull player can play MC/ML/MR and DMC.
Trinidad de Vilhena, 17yo big talent AMC, APattack, 1,5/4,5

Wingers:
Schaken: AMR, Winger-attack, 3,5/3,5 experienced pretty decent, decently fast 14/15, low crossing 10, low scoring 7, decent dribbling and technique 12/12.
Cabral: AML, Winger-attack, 2,5/4,5 take Schakens stats and add 2 basically, useless in defending tho.
G. Fernandez: Striker/AMR/AML: pretty decent but NO crossing, 3,5/3,5
Cisse: Striker/AML: good backup, 3/3

Strikers:
Guidetti: TMa, 3/5, good overall stats but not tall and not too strong, not a Carrol type tm more a Rooney type tm, can also dribble a bit and create chances himself.
Achabar: 17yo, Striker/AML/AMR, great talent low CA, 1,5/4,5
Manu, 18yo, Striker, another big talent but lower CA, 1/4,5

So that is the first team. Ill make a list of all the talents later. I dont really want to sell anyone and i cant buy anyone. Looking at the team the midfield is by far the strongest part of the team. Bakkal, Ahmadi, Clasie, Mokotjo and to a lesser extent Leerdam can all fit in easily and create a good balance: Attacking: Bakkal, Ahmadi, Support: Ahmadi, Clasie, Mokotjo, Defending: Mokotjo, Leerdam, Clasie. To me it seems ideal to take a DMC + MC + MC midfield.

The attack:
Guidetti is a pretty decent TM if played to his feet, and Guyon Fernandez is a good backup as a poacher, the wingers are average with in general mediocre-bad crossing. Id say use them as Wingers with cuts inside selected would be the best idea.

Defense: average, fortunately we have Vlaar, the other defenders have potential but not much CA. Cause of their low CA it seems taking low risks would be a good idea, using a narrow (?) formation while not moving up too much?

Keepers: mediocre, Lamprou has nice PA but isnt very tall: 1m76 so prolly not gonna make it anyway, will try to loan him out. All of them are GKdefend btw.

 

[kazm]

So plug and play tactics bore you yet you want us to "help" you make a tactic.. That just seems silly.

Yes, that crossed my mind. To an extent that is true, but the goal of this is to help me learn, i wont learn anything by using a plug and play tactic. I hope to learn from building a tactic that fits this team by getting tips from more experienced players. If that makes sense. Every game i havent used a PandP tactic so far i got sacked if i didnt ragequit in time.

 

[kazm]

Tactics here but w0rk f0rst

Anyway all feedback is welcome, i hope some people will help me and some people will just find this interesting. On a sidenote: it can also make other people learn from my mistakes/your tips?

 

[apvmoreira]

Well, you can do what i do. Just get a tatic that you like, it can be plug and play, and then try to change little things, like roles, mentality, crosses, corners.

This way you will change it along the season, the team will not drop the performance and you will learn.

IMO, if ou start from scratch, you will take the triple of the time and get more frustated if results dont appear.Changing little things will let you see in game the results, but dont change several things in one time, or else you will not get to know what you did good or bad.

 

[kazm]

@avpmoreira i thought about that but theres a few reasons i decided against it:
- i wouldnt know why the tactic was working, i want to create a simple tactic so i can understand it better.
- i dont want to win the league first season. Feyenoord has the team to reach 6-4th place, winning the league with a PandP tactic doesnt appeal to me. I want to take it slow and rebuild the club like Koeman does.

On a sidenote im not gonna do worse so i wont win the league suppose i would have the chance lol. But not with a PandP

 

[kazm]

Looking at Feyenoord when deciding for a tactic:
- 4 good midfielders.
- no real wide midfielders (ML/MR), 4 options for AML/AMR tho.
- a TM striker and a poacher
- mediocre defense but kinda versatile: most DCs can also play on a flank and its possible to use cover/stopper/ballplaying etc defenders.

This leaves me imo only a few options: 4132/4312 which arent really options for me cause that means selling the wingers, 41221 and 4231. With wingers ofcourse.

I will go for a 4231 like this:
View attachment 228743

The idea:
Keeper: he is mediocre, so nothing fancy.
FBs: they both suck at crossing dribbling, scoring, have decent passing and decent speed, i put them on defense and added 1 notch to their mentality. I hope they will provide passing opportunities for the midfield but not move up too far.
-DCs: both can play as stoppers and bp defenders, if i play with a stopper ill want a cover-player too. I put de Vrij as a stopper+ball playing defender cause he is the slower of the two and i want to train him as a ballplaying def. Vlaar functions as a Covering regular DC cause he is quicker. The reason i use a stopping defender is that i hope he fills part of the hole that is created by having no DMC. Combine this with the overall setting being not very wide and the Fbs on defensive duty and i hope to create a block of 4 defenders in a flat diamond not too far away from each other. Now i just hope the game agrees with me .
-MCs: this is were im not sure yet. I made Clasie DLPdefending on the right mc cause deVrij is ball playing stopper on the left so i hope that creates 2 players between midfield and defense comparable to 1 DMLC and 1 DMRC (tho not quite). Ahmadi has reasonable pace/stamina/work rate etc, he cant score though, im not sure if i should change him from a BBM which he kinda is irl too just a regular MCsupport. Bakkal is the obvious APLattack.
- Wingers: support, this is the preset, support may work better for the system even though they both prefer Winger-attack. About Cabral btw: he has the shoots from distance ppm and the cuts inside ppm, his weaker leg is reasonable btw. Thats why i let him switch position with Schaken.
- Guidetti: unsure which is best, AF or TMa/TMs . Guidetti isnt really a tall, strong header but more a pass-to-feet TM which seems to work with wingers cutting inside, but apart from Cabral i fear my wingers arent really fit for that.

 

[kazm]

First friendlies:

Away at SC Neusiedl am See, who hasnt heard of those?
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As expected I won easily. I think they are some German semi-amateur club otherwise I'd probably heard their name before. Unfortunately Mr. @Superguidetti (thats his twitter ) got injured for a few weeks.

Second match was at home against Ukranian giants Shahktar Donetsk. I was already buying lubricant so the rape wouldnt hurt too much, a 0-4 loss wouldnt really have surprised me beforehand. They never really made a real attempt at controlling the game, they were dangerous on counters but definately not as dangerous as they could have been. Their second goal was pretty embarrassing for my defense though: their AML runs all the way past my RB to the back line, moves inside, BOTH de Vrij and Vlaar move to intercept him, he just runs past them and scores.

In the end this is the final result with which I'm pretty happy cause they have some pretty beast players.

View attachment 228745

I wrote down some stuff I noticed:
++van Haaren came in as a sub for el Ahmadi both matches (65th and 34th minute) and did very good, in fact better than El Ahmadi, scoring ones and giving 2 assists. El Ahmadi scored from a corner but I dont really count cornergoals in terms of playing good/bad.
++Vlaar seems to be doing decent as a covering DC, saw quite a few interceptions. Also scored a corner and won most headers.
++ Trinidad de Vilhena(17), Achahbar(17) and Nieto(16) all scored and so far the youth players havent been doing bad at all.
++ some decent counters against Shahktar. Started of with the tac mentioned above but switched to counter with some different shouts halfway through 2nd half, I couldve scored 1 more at least.
++dangerous wingers, lots the goals created in combination with the wingers.

-- El Ahmadi low possession first match only 14 passes as BBM in 65minutes...Bakkal not doing that great either, though he got a good assist on Fernandez 2nd game. I also saw some opportunities for T-balls when El Ahmadi ran deep which never came. Might change El A. back to MC-support.
-- WAAAAAAAAAY too many possession losses cause of holding/dribbling too long. Saw it in both matches, it seemed to get better 2nd half after I started using 'get ball into box' shout.
--de Vrij only 5 passes in 65minutes first match......against a really bad opponent, maybe i should change it so that the covering defender is the ball player? Vlaar also has the 'tries long balls' ppm so that makes sense.
--de Vrij and Vlaar moving on to the same striker in the box... dont know if its the stopper/cover stuff or just the fact that they arent gelled.
--this:
View attachment 228746
That seems like a really big difference, I guess it is cause of Clasie being a DLP-defensive. Since Schaken (AMR) is weaker than the AML it might be an idea to compensate by moving Clasie to the MLC position and el Ahmadi to the MRC (keeping their respective roles though).

Anyway I hope someone finds this interesting, any feedback/criticism/advice is welcome!

 

[kazm]

My goals with Feyenoord:

-1st season:
Reach Euro playoffs and survive as a manager.
Scout for Dutch talent
Improve the coaching staff.

-2nd season:
With Goossens/Vormer and Janmaat joining we should be able to challenge the top 3.
Further improve the coaching staff.
Try to improve the youth and or training facilities.
Improve the scouting staff.

Overall goals:
I want to bring the club back to the place where it belongs: a top 3 club playing CL, competing for the #1 spot, with preferably players from the own youth setup or Dutch players from other teams. I want to do this by improving the facilities and creating a good staff consisting hopefully of Ex-(Feyenoord)players.

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In the end ofcourse this dude just needs another bath, so its about time we celebrate a prize at the Coolsingel again:

View attachment 228837​

 

[kazm]

The Friendlies:

We just finished all the friendlies. Things are so far going better than I expected.
The results:
View attachment 228851

On a sidenote: I let the ***.Man. do the 6-0 win. The 2-3 loss shouldve gone better, we had more and better chances than them but we didnt finish enough and the crossing still is not that great. Its annoying that so far we havent been able to play with Guidetti. Fernandez is doing good as a striker though.

Here the 0-4 win against Nantes, again not expected at all. Fernandez managed to score very early when he got the ball halfway through their half, skipped past 2 defenders and scored. We then changed to deeplying, counter tactic and scored 2-0 and 3-0, again couldve scored more. They then switched to a boring defensive tactic, we scored ones more and thats it.

View attachment 228856



​

 

[kazm]

The first match!

Finally we are going to play our first match, against Limburgian (lolwut) giants Roda JC. Famous in the Netherlands for not having a youth setup but instead buying young Africans from Africa and Belgium and resell them, kinda like VVV Venlo did with Honda and Musa.

View attachment 228877

They play a defensive, short passing, narrow 4-1-3-2 with Ruud Vormer who is joining us 1/7/2012 as a DMC. The match starts slow, they arent really trying, we arent really able. We get some small chances but we cant really reach Guidetti, it really shows that he isnt gelled in yet. (and that i have no clue if he will function properly like this or if I should switch him to TMsupport lol) Donald scores the 0-1 for them by heading in a corner, which remembers me again that I hate corners with a passion. Fortunately for us Ron Vlaar does what he was doing all pre-season: he heads in a fk (hate that too but i'll take it )

During the break I start calmly explaining that I will crush their Ipads/GalaxyTabs if they dont start playing better which apparently remembers some players that they hadn't checked their twitter for 45 minutes which makes them start crying.

(Calm-unhappy, 2 players reacted neg.)

We do start the second half with more passion though fortunately. Leading to some chances for Bakkal and Guidetti and some breaks on the wings followed by insanely bad crosses. No big chances though. Until.........the obvious.........40meters sick over the top through ball from MotM Donald to their other new signing Fledderus....who slots it home past Mulder. I almost ragequit immediately but since the Middlesborough-ragequitter isn't ragequitting so can't I )

I try to focus down the wings and play wider but we just can't create real chances. I blame it on our lack of skill, combined with not being familiar with the tactic 100% + the game being broken

We lose our first match at home 1-2, fortunately I dont make morale worse after the match though.

Best players:
Vlaar, 1 goal 7.9
Bakkal, 1 assist 7.7
Nelom 6.8

Worst players:
Guidetti, barely got involved 5.7
De Vrij, not very confident 6.1

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I hope this is getting a bit more interesting now I'm trying to add more story-stuff. I really could use some insight on the tactic I am using. I am trying to adapt and learn but a lot of stuff I just do not know yet. Like for example I don't know exactly how to adapt to a tactic like this. Playing wider seems to take advantage of their narrowness but also makes me more vulnerable. Also I could use some tips/criticism about the player roles.​

 

[kazm]

The following matches:

De Graafschap - Feyenoord
2-2
The newly promoted Superfarmers proved to be a tough challenge, scoring 2 times. I switched to a more attacking playstyle and we had some chances resulting in Saeijs, their drunk DC, scoring too own goals. Bad Game but at least 1 point taken. (own goals are stupid! if my striker shoots and hits a leg its not ALWAYS an own goal right?)

Feyenoord - AZ Alkmaar
0-0
Pretty boring match, we hit the woodwork twice, they missed two CCC's. Still I rate them just a bit higher than us so no crisis yet.

Vitesse - Feyenoord
0-2
First win!, they had a bit more possession and more chances but we scored 2 nice goals, 1 throughball on Guidetti from LB Nelom and a counter finished of by 17yo Achahbar whose first league goal it is. Very happy with this tough win and both players first goals.

Feyenoord - NAC Breda
2-1
Again a tough match, we had the possession but they scored . We just couldnt create chances. Another mediocre game but I''ll take the corner and freekick goals .

FC Groningen - Feyenoord
2-2
Hardfought draw, they scored 1-0, I switched some shouts, we made 1-1 but on a counter they immediately score 1-1 (******** countering at home! ) I was already throwing stuff at my computer. We started piling on the pressure though and in injury time we got a penalty, obviously hammered in by Superguidetti. Game was actually somewhat better cause my shouts actually seemed to 'click' 2nd half: we had all the play and chances. They had 1 chance = 1 goal .

Leaguetable:
View attachment 229057

The players:
++ The captain doing what he should, leading the team. Scored an important goal and doing 7.3 so far.
++ Nelom, the former Feyenoord Youth, who played at daughterclub Excelsior a bit has been doing pretty good so far: good overal rating 7.03 and a very important assist on the 1-0 against Vitesse.

+- El Ahmadi, Bakkal, Clasie, Schaken, Cabral. Average, needs improvement

--Guidetti, can't really blame him but he is not getting involved as he should so far.
--Mulder, 6.58 isn't good enough, he is improving in stats though
--de Vrij, had some good games but more mediocre ones, needs improvement​

 

[kazm]

Corners make this game worse and are implement really bad.

 

[Death Ball]

What kind of moves does your striker do that you consider bad gelling?.

Some quick comments, because it's late and I'll have to run off in a little:

- When I read you were using a cover/stopper to cover for the space open by lack of DMs my immediate thought, more seeing a balanced approach, was "that centerback will be running out of position a lot". But it seems it doesn't as you haven't commented on that. And that would be explained for the defensive nature of the midfielders in front of him: he doesn't shoot up the middle of the pitch because the players he'd run to mark are marked already by a midfielder.

- I'm tempted to decree the crossing ability has little importance. One of my best crossers (16) in my team doesn't get beyond a 16% and it's not a big difference. If you want to help crossing, playing narrower would be a help: you increase the population in the central area where the crosses will be sent to.

- The two centerbacks going for the samme striker at the same time: consider zonal marking.

- Take into account that no matter what tactic you use, the centerbacks are always told to mark tight. When you want to have people behind the ball and deny angles for shooting rather than getting the ball quick, you may want to set that to no in the individual instructions. I've been using that in my first season with Torino and it's worked very well, as you may see in my story (seventh placed, my best ever top flight position). Of course, in some matches and with some tactics, having Centerbacks who don't mark tightly has its own problems.

- Keep an eye on fitness, you can make a custom view in tactics to show that. Make sure you keep them fit so you don't have to play with more than one or two a bit short. I think that's one of the new things I did during that great season with Torino, a good policy of rotation. It doesn't to be too much, a lot of my players still got more than 90% of starts.

And that's it for the moment.