rocheyb
Member
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2013
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WHY SO 4-2-3-1?
VISIT THE TACTICS forum and take a look through many of the screenshots that FMers have posted, all over this website, of their own preferred tactics, and you'll find an abundance of 4-2-3-1 formations - far more than for any other specific tactical set-up.
They're not all the same: some prefer the narrow three with variations on the theme of Advanced Playmaker; others like traditional wingers either side of a single AP or Trequartista; while those with a "blocked shot" fetish go for Inside-Out Wingers, cutting in-field so they can kick the ball at the nearest centre-back - as often as possible - from 25-yards out.
Why is that?
Assuming that the average FMer is aged somewhere between 12 and 28 (though some of us are much older!), none of those who actually played the real game of football could have grown-up participating in a 4-2-3-1 formation in their school teams, Saturday/Sunday leagues etc. for any length of time. Surely, only those who have been trained at club academy level during the last 3 years, or by a would-be Trappatoni - who missed his calling in life and lives the dream by coaching kids at the weekend while treading the same dull treadmill of normal occupational distraction as the rest of us - have any kind of real familiarity with the system.
You certainly aren't going to learn much about it by watching matches through the narrow gaze of a television camera, as excellent as Sky's coverage often is. Even the 'Neville & Carragher Hour' only offers snippets of useful information for those wanting to learn more about how to positively apply this most fashionable formulation of footballing finesse, being naturally - given the identity of those two one-club wonders - biased towards examining defensive frailty rather than attacking ingenuity and flair.
Or maybe, like me, when you FMers go to Premier League matches you like to sit high in the stand, talking to no-one and watching the off-the-ball movement of players in an attempt to learn something new about the same sport you've been hooked-on since you were old enough to trip over a size-5 ball; like how telling 11 grown men to stand here or there during the kick-off can translate to a more successful domination of possession and space than just simply inviting them to wing-it for 90 minutes, agreeing to collectively hope for the best come the final whistle.
So, I put it to you, the FM Community, that it is your obsession with a tactical formation that you have never actually participated in during a real football match - one that you don't really understand on any detailed, practical level - that is most responsible for undermining your efforts in your chosen FM universe, and not some conspiracy of malevolent ME/AI/IT pre-determination.
Or rather, it doesn't matter what system you play; the point is that you really need to understand how your chosen tactical system (or better yet, systems) actually works and what each of your individual players brings to the party - including, for example, how substituting one Deep-Lying Playmaker for another can necessitate changes to specific Player Instructions or impacts upon those set at the Team level, and provides clues as to which areas you should target for player development with specific training regimes.
Simply trying to crowbar the team you inherited from the initiation of your current save into whatever set of abstract numbers dedicated full-time coaches in the real world, like Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, currently happen to favour doesn't require much thought at all, and is unlikely to be rewarded with similar success by a game that attempts to assess your tactical competency by testing it via the many and varied formations employed by the AI-powered opposition teams.
VISIT THE TACTICS forum and take a look through many of the screenshots that FMers have posted, all over this website, of their own preferred tactics, and you'll find an abundance of 4-2-3-1 formations - far more than for any other specific tactical set-up.
They're not all the same: some prefer the narrow three with variations on the theme of Advanced Playmaker; others like traditional wingers either side of a single AP or Trequartista; while those with a "blocked shot" fetish go for Inside-Out Wingers, cutting in-field so they can kick the ball at the nearest centre-back - as often as possible - from 25-yards out.
Why is that?
Assuming that the average FMer is aged somewhere between 12 and 28 (though some of us are much older!), none of those who actually played the real game of football could have grown-up participating in a 4-2-3-1 formation in their school teams, Saturday/Sunday leagues etc. for any length of time. Surely, only those who have been trained at club academy level during the last 3 years, or by a would-be Trappatoni - who missed his calling in life and lives the dream by coaching kids at the weekend while treading the same dull treadmill of normal occupational distraction as the rest of us - have any kind of real familiarity with the system.
You certainly aren't going to learn much about it by watching matches through the narrow gaze of a television camera, as excellent as Sky's coverage often is. Even the 'Neville & Carragher Hour' only offers snippets of useful information for those wanting to learn more about how to positively apply this most fashionable formulation of footballing finesse, being naturally - given the identity of those two one-club wonders - biased towards examining defensive frailty rather than attacking ingenuity and flair.
Or maybe, like me, when you FMers go to Premier League matches you like to sit high in the stand, talking to no-one and watching the off-the-ball movement of players in an attempt to learn something new about the same sport you've been hooked-on since you were old enough to trip over a size-5 ball; like how telling 11 grown men to stand here or there during the kick-off can translate to a more successful domination of possession and space than just simply inviting them to wing-it for 90 minutes, agreeing to collectively hope for the best come the final whistle.
So, I put it to you, the FM Community, that it is your obsession with a tactical formation that you have never actually participated in during a real football match - one that you don't really understand on any detailed, practical level - that is most responsible for undermining your efforts in your chosen FM universe, and not some conspiracy of malevolent ME/AI/IT pre-determination.
Or rather, it doesn't matter what system you play; the point is that you really need to understand how your chosen tactical system (or better yet, systems) actually works and what each of your individual players brings to the party - including, for example, how substituting one Deep-Lying Playmaker for another can necessitate changes to specific Player Instructions or impacts upon those set at the Team level, and provides clues as to which areas you should target for player development with specific training regimes.
Simply trying to crowbar the team you inherited from the initiation of your current save into whatever set of abstract numbers dedicated full-time coaches in the real world, like Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, currently happen to favour doesn't require much thought at all, and is unlikely to be rewarded with similar success by a game that attempts to assess your tactical competency by testing it via the many and varied formations employed by the AI-powered opposition teams.
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