"What I learnt here, everything starts with the ball and finish with the ball. Sometimes we forget that this is a game with 11 v 11, WITH ONE BALL, and we try to keep this ball, we try to play with the ball, we try to make everything with the ball" - Pep Guardiola
The Origin
I, like many others, have tried numerous times to get my team playing a stylish, modern brand of football. It just hasn't worked. I've used plug and play tactics I've downloaded and I've briefly tried to create my own. Frankly I gave up, the inconsistency was crippling and when you get beat 4-0 in a game where you have 30 shots and they have 4, well that is hard to take and move forward. So I plugged in ModernWarfare442 and dominated(IMO glitched) my way to success. So if that's what you are looking for stop now, the rest of this thread might be too painful for you!
So I've got an Aston Villa(my team btw) save where I've won the PL and CL 13 out of the last 16 seasons, playing MW442. I have a ridiculous squad and £600m in the bank alongside a huge new stadium and the worlds best coaches etc. I got bored. I started a Dortmund save and it entertained me for maybe a month tops. Playing 4231 direct with IF's and a poacher, we won 5 leagues in a row after it took me 3 years to break Bayern's dominance, 3 Champion's League's and a couple of cups along the way. But dear god it was boring.
So I'm sat last week watching the Spanish U21's in awe of them. Thiago Alcantara is my new favourite player on the planet! Isco, Muniain, Sarabia etc, I just love watching these little magicians play football! This is the way I've always wanted my FM team to play but I've given up in the past, believing the hype that the match engine is broken therefore my(and many other people's) vision is impossible.
Determined to never give up I decided to start a new save and for the first 3-4 seasons I would roll with 2 tactics, firstly this one, the one I will be creating and tweaking as I go, and secondly ModernWarfare442, well basically to help keep me in the job in-case things went pear shaped for my own system.
The story of the progression of this tactic can be found here:
http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot.../121149-i-have-vision-but-just-wont-work.html
Im not going to re-tell the story of how we arrived to here but its all in there if anyone is interested... But now its the end of the 4th season and I have employed this tactic for the last 3 seasons solidly. Tweaking as I went along, but for 80% of this season the tactic has been pretty much untouched.
The Tactic
Since one of my pet hates on here is when people don't put a screen shot of the formation in the OP, that's where I'll start.
View attachment 355755
View attachment 355758
Positions:
GK: [Goalkeeper: Defend]
Ideally I wanted a Sweeper Keeper, but when I had ter Stegen as SK and pressing set to high he was rushing out even when my defence hadn't been breached. The opposition was passing around him, so I changed him back to regular GK and took off his pressing. I don't know if this is a fault with ter Stegen or the match engine.
View attachment 355779
DR/L: [Fullback: Attacking]
Both DR and DL have the exact same instructions.
View attachment 355782
DC: [Ball Playing Defender: Cover/Limited Defender: Stopper]
Both DCs have the same player instructions, but have differing roles.
View attachment 355784
CMR: [Cental Midfielder: Defend]
View attachment 355785
CML: [Deep Lying Playmaker: Support]
I prefer Thiago in this role, even though he can play further forward, I feel like he's got it all and influences the game far more effectively from deep. He really is my main man and I want him in the heart of the action.
View attachment 355786
AMC: [Advanced Playmaker: Support]
View attachment 355787
AMR/L: [Inside Forward: Support]
This is the position that's caused me the most trouble during the progression of this tactic. I started with 3 APs and changed to every option available before settling on IF with all the sliders turned down. In particular run with ball. I didn't want them running with the ball every time they get it, and even on "Sometimes" they seem to just get the ball and run, almost exclusively. I want them to play in between the lines and play with short simple passes, and many through balls. To add their own goal threat I recently changed their wide play from "Normal"(so they didn't exclusively cut inside and sometimes went outside) to "Move into channels" and it seems to have made a big difference. They now score a lot more goals.
View attachment 355788
ST: [Deep Lying Forward: Attack]
This is how I wanted my forward to be initially, in-fact the vision was to not have a true forward, but I could never get that to work so the next best thing is DLF. For a period I changed this to Poacher or Advanced Forward because it was getting too congested in midfield and the system wasn't working. Once I got Neymar though, he's really made this role his own, he and Isco(AMC) rarely get in each others way, and actually work very well together. I have both trained to play 1-2's and they do it often to devastating effect.
View attachment 355793
Results
Well we've played 63 competitive games this season, and we've had the most possession in every single game. I can count on 1 hand when the other team has created more CCCs, and they don't always win. Like Spurs at home, I played my second 11 as we had the CL SF coming up in 3 days time and were 7 points clear in the league, they had 1 CCC to our 0(very rare we get 0), but we won 2-0 with 65%-35% possession!
View attachment 355794View attachment 355795
View attachment 355796View attachment 355797View attachment 355798View attachment 355799View attachment 355800View attachment 355801View attachment 355802View attachment 355803View attachment 355804View attachment 355805View attachment 355806View attachment 355807
These stats are still with 4 games to play in the league...
View attachment 355823View attachment 355824
In 4 seasons I have won:
3 Premier Leagues(1 was using MW442)
3 Champions Leagues
1 Europa League(using MW442)
2 World Club Championships
1 European Super Cup
2 FA Cups
1 Capital One Cup
1 Community Shield
The only trophy I failed to win this last season was the Capital One Cup.
I have my assistant handle all team talks, and opposition instructions. For training I rotate it a lot, because I was tinkering with the tactic I had tactic training on a lot of the time, but when Im not messing with the tactic I change it around a lot. Team Cohesion, Attacking, Balanced etc. For match Prep I usually use Defensive Positioning or Attacking Movement. Like I said though I really dont know if it matters what training is used. Ive used all different ones over the last 4 seasons.
I have my front 4 all set to play 1-2s, look to play through balls and I have my ST set to try to beat offside trap.
Thats pretty much it, I dont really micro manage at all, I dont use any shouts except if winning late on I might switch to control and retain possession.
It seems that my team performs much better February onwards. They start off slow. I dont know if this is something to do with the team and tactic gelling together, or players getting a better feel for their positions(Muniain and Rodrigo had to be trained to play AML/R) or whatever, but they are definitely better later in the season.
Also as you can see I get my fair share of set piece goals, all I have is corner set to go near post, and I set my 2 centre backs to mark GK and go near post, and it produces results without being unrealistic.
DOWNLOAD
Now updated to version 2.
The only changes made are:
Defensive line from 20 down to 15.
Width from 15 down to 10.
Offside trap switched off.
I have had fantastic results since the changes, stops teams getting in behind as much, Ive conceded 1 goal in 14 games since I changed(and that was a penalty in a 4-1 win)
The Origin
I, like many others, have tried numerous times to get my team playing a stylish, modern brand of football. It just hasn't worked. I've used plug and play tactics I've downloaded and I've briefly tried to create my own. Frankly I gave up, the inconsistency was crippling and when you get beat 4-0 in a game where you have 30 shots and they have 4, well that is hard to take and move forward. So I plugged in ModernWarfare442 and dominated(IMO glitched) my way to success. So if that's what you are looking for stop now, the rest of this thread might be too painful for you!
So I've got an Aston Villa(my team btw) save where I've won the PL and CL 13 out of the last 16 seasons, playing MW442. I have a ridiculous squad and £600m in the bank alongside a huge new stadium and the worlds best coaches etc. I got bored. I started a Dortmund save and it entertained me for maybe a month tops. Playing 4231 direct with IF's and a poacher, we won 5 leagues in a row after it took me 3 years to break Bayern's dominance, 3 Champion's League's and a couple of cups along the way. But dear god it was boring.
So I'm sat last week watching the Spanish U21's in awe of them. Thiago Alcantara is my new favourite player on the planet! Isco, Muniain, Sarabia etc, I just love watching these little magicians play football! This is the way I've always wanted my FM team to play but I've given up in the past, believing the hype that the match engine is broken therefore my(and many other people's) vision is impossible.
Determined to never give up I decided to start a new save and for the first 3-4 seasons I would roll with 2 tactics, firstly this one, the one I will be creating and tweaking as I go, and secondly ModernWarfare442, well basically to help keep me in the job in-case things went pear shaped for my own system.
The story of the progression of this tactic can be found here:
http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/foot.../121149-i-have-vision-but-just-wont-work.html
Im not going to re-tell the story of how we arrived to here but its all in there if anyone is interested... But now its the end of the 4th season and I have employed this tactic for the last 3 seasons solidly. Tweaking as I went along, but for 80% of this season the tactic has been pretty much untouched.
The Tactic
Since one of my pet hates on here is when people don't put a screen shot of the formation in the OP, that's where I'll start.
View attachment 355755
View attachment 355758
Positions:
GK: [Goalkeeper: Defend]
Ideally I wanted a Sweeper Keeper, but when I had ter Stegen as SK and pressing set to high he was rushing out even when my defence hadn't been breached. The opposition was passing around him, so I changed him back to regular GK and took off his pressing. I don't know if this is a fault with ter Stegen or the match engine.
View attachment 355779
DR/L: [Fullback: Attacking]
Both DR and DL have the exact same instructions.
View attachment 355782
DC: [Ball Playing Defender: Cover/Limited Defender: Stopper]
Both DCs have the same player instructions, but have differing roles.
View attachment 355784
CMR: [Cental Midfielder: Defend]
View attachment 355785
CML: [Deep Lying Playmaker: Support]
I prefer Thiago in this role, even though he can play further forward, I feel like he's got it all and influences the game far more effectively from deep. He really is my main man and I want him in the heart of the action.
View attachment 355786
AMC: [Advanced Playmaker: Support]
View attachment 355787
AMR/L: [Inside Forward: Support]
This is the position that's caused me the most trouble during the progression of this tactic. I started with 3 APs and changed to every option available before settling on IF with all the sliders turned down. In particular run with ball. I didn't want them running with the ball every time they get it, and even on "Sometimes" they seem to just get the ball and run, almost exclusively. I want them to play in between the lines and play with short simple passes, and many through balls. To add their own goal threat I recently changed their wide play from "Normal"(so they didn't exclusively cut inside and sometimes went outside) to "Move into channels" and it seems to have made a big difference. They now score a lot more goals.
View attachment 355788
ST: [Deep Lying Forward: Attack]
This is how I wanted my forward to be initially, in-fact the vision was to not have a true forward, but I could never get that to work so the next best thing is DLF. For a period I changed this to Poacher or Advanced Forward because it was getting too congested in midfield and the system wasn't working. Once I got Neymar though, he's really made this role his own, he and Isco(AMC) rarely get in each others way, and actually work very well together. I have both trained to play 1-2's and they do it often to devastating effect.
View attachment 355793
Results
Well we've played 63 competitive games this season, and we've had the most possession in every single game. I can count on 1 hand when the other team has created more CCCs, and they don't always win. Like Spurs at home, I played my second 11 as we had the CL SF coming up in 3 days time and were 7 points clear in the league, they had 1 CCC to our 0(very rare we get 0), but we won 2-0 with 65%-35% possession!
View attachment 355794View attachment 355795
View attachment 355796View attachment 355797View attachment 355798View attachment 355799View attachment 355800View attachment 355801View attachment 355802View attachment 355803View attachment 355804View attachment 355805View attachment 355806View attachment 355807
These stats are still with 4 games to play in the league...
View attachment 355823View attachment 355824
In 4 seasons I have won:
3 Premier Leagues(1 was using MW442)
3 Champions Leagues
1 Europa League(using MW442)
2 World Club Championships
1 European Super Cup
2 FA Cups
1 Capital One Cup
1 Community Shield
The only trophy I failed to win this last season was the Capital One Cup.
I have my assistant handle all team talks, and opposition instructions. For training I rotate it a lot, because I was tinkering with the tactic I had tactic training on a lot of the time, but when Im not messing with the tactic I change it around a lot. Team Cohesion, Attacking, Balanced etc. For match Prep I usually use Defensive Positioning or Attacking Movement. Like I said though I really dont know if it matters what training is used. Ive used all different ones over the last 4 seasons.
I have my front 4 all set to play 1-2s, look to play through balls and I have my ST set to try to beat offside trap.
Thats pretty much it, I dont really micro manage at all, I dont use any shouts except if winning late on I might switch to control and retain possession.
It seems that my team performs much better February onwards. They start off slow. I dont know if this is something to do with the team and tactic gelling together, or players getting a better feel for their positions(Muniain and Rodrigo had to be trained to play AML/R) or whatever, but they are definitely better later in the season.
Also as you can see I get my fair share of set piece goals, all I have is corner set to go near post, and I set my 2 centre backs to mark GK and go near post, and it produces results without being unrealistic.
DOWNLOAD
Now updated to version 2.
The only changes made are:
Defensive line from 20 down to 15.
Width from 15 down to 10.
Offside trap switched off.
I have had fantastic results since the changes, stops teams getting in behind as much, Ive conceded 1 goal in 14 games since I changed(and that was a penalty in a 4-1 win)
Last edited:
