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Tactical Theorems '10
Welcome to the first teaser article for Tactical Theorems '10! Another year, another edition of the most comprehensive guide to tactics on the web.
Every couple of days from now until the release of Football Manager 10, we will be releasing some snippets of the guide. These are edited chapters from the new document which covers everything to do with the new tactical interface and football strategy. The full guide contains over 60 pages of advice, hints and tips - all in plain English.
TT10 will be published in full on October 30 to coincide with the release of Football Manager 10. As usual, it will be available to download from FM-Britain.co.uk.
Today, we will be exploring the new tactics creator and how you can use it to build tactics in the FM10 demo and full release.
Introduction to the new creator
Brand new to Football Manager 2010 is the tactics creator. Whilst this does not replace the ?classic? sliders from previous versions of Football Manager, it does provide a cleaner and more intuitive tactics system based on real-world football terminology.
The creator acts as a new, easy-to-use interface, but all of its instructions use the old slider system. So, every time you make changes in the creator, the sliders ?underneath? the interface will change according to your instructions. What makes the new creator useful is that with one or two clicks you can make changes which would have required many different slider changes in FM09 and its preceding titles.
Choosing a Formation
The starting point of any tactic is designating the placement of players on the field in a formation. Traditionally these are quoted in a ?defenders-midfielders-attackers? format. So, for example, the ?4-4-2? formation has four defenders, four midfielders and four attackers. Some are a little more complex than that, but will tend to quote the positioning of players in bands up the pitch. So, the 4-2-3-1 has: four defenders; two more-defensive midfielders; three more midfielders placed higher up the pitch; and finally one attacker. This is basic football terminology that most of you will know, but it is an important concept which needs to be understood. In later, more complex discussions about formation theory it will become clear that these names are rather limited.
Choosing a formation is relatively straight forward, but it?s good to think of how your squad is made up and what their strengths are. For example, if you only have one good central midfielder, is a formation that uses three central midfielders really a good idea? Either you will need to change your tactical plan or will need to use the transfer market to supplement the squad with the required playing staff.
The creator has most of the world?s most common formations already in its database. If you want to use something more complex then you can drag players around on the pitch diagram to suit your needs.
Philosophy
Philosophy is a key component of tactics in the tactics creator. It decides how the team attacks and defends and how your players behave relatively to one another. This seems like a complicated and unrealistic idea at first, but it becomes clear why they are there once you see the philosophies.
In the previous incarnation of Football Manager, teams were only set up using sliders. Those sliders are still there in the background. One of those sliders, mentality, decides how attacking players are and roughly how they position themselves on the pitch. In many tactics, managers would have set up their players so that their individual mentalities were spaced out to set the team's shape; but not so much of a gap that the players are too far apart and cannot communicate with each other. In other tactics, teams may have favoured a more fluid system where most, if not all, of the players had the same mentality (sometimes referred to as a ?global? system).
The philosophies in the tactics creator decide how big those gaps are how strictly you define the roles of ?defender?, ?midfielder?, ?attacker? and so on. Rigid philosophies tell the players to stick to their role and their position. Fluid philosophies allow defenders to join the attack and also encourage the forwards to track back.
Simply, rigid philosophies can work well with weaker players with low mental attributes, whereas players with great creativity, positioning and decision making skills may well thrive in the more loosely constructed tactic. That is a simplification, and good tacticians will quickly work out what works best for them. Experiment, and see what gets the most from your squad.
Playing Style
Formation and philosophy, of course, only say so much about a tactic. What can really define one formation from another is the style of football they play.
The creator in FM10 allows the following modifications to be made to the team?s style of play. Each of them has an effect on the team and individual instructions:
? Passing Style
? Creative Freedom
? Closing Down
? Tackling
? Marking
? Crossing
? Roaming
These options have three setting which effectively equate to ?shorter/less/lower?, ?default? and ?longer/more/higher?. Experiment to see which settings suit your team, your formation and your own personal preferences. Bear in mind, however, that different strategies, touchline instructions, duties and roles may change these style parameters. For example, more attacking strategies will automatically employ more creative freedom. Be aware of how instructions interact in order to judge how to most effectively change your style of play.
Roles
Roles are dependent on positions. For instance, you cannot play a full back in the FC position. You can, however, have a variety of different types of player who play in the MC position. Roles allow you to dictate what you want your player to do, and as part of a general team tactic can mould your side and style of play.
Full backs provide an excellent example of this. A full back is a defender who plays in the DR or DL position. He concentrates mainly on defence, but will support the winger when asked. An attacking full back can play in exactly the same position. He concentrates more on supporting the wingers and putting in crosses. A wing back will play even more like a winger. So, while they might all play the same DR position, they are playing in different roles.
The creator has many such roles which you can assign to different players on the pitch. For instance: as Milan manager playing with Andrea Pirlo, one might decide to play him in the DMCc position with the role of ?deep-lying playmaker?. This is because you may want him to sit deep and play balls to the wingers and forwards. You could also play him as a defensive midfielder to cover the defensive line and make lots of tackles. However because of Pirlo?s lack of height and size, it might be better for him to play with the ball at his feet rather than try and play the hard man. Genaro Gattuso on the other hand, might do things a little differently.
Experimentation is the best way to work out which of your players will perform best in certain roles. The game can help in this regard by highlighting the key attributes for each position when making your tactical selections. The section in this guide on roles will also describe them in more detail and outline which players perform best in certain situations.
Equal to the importance of choosing a philosophy, choosing roles (and duties) will define your style as a coach and the balance within your team. Defining roles will have a massive influence on how your tactics will connect or fail. In this regard, you are making similar choices to the ones a 'real' coach has to make. How many times do we have to ask whether Lampard and Gerrard can play together? Roles are the tools to answer this conundrum.
This is the essence and spice of creating tactics, and most likely it will determine your success as a manager. If you are not sure which way to go, rely on default selections made by the creator until you gain the experience and the confidence to make more complex decisions.
Duties
Essentially, duties control whether the player is more concerned with attacking, defending, or supporting the attack and defence in equal measure. Based on your strategy, the game will automatically choose the appropriate amount of ?defenders?, ?attackers? and support players. Attacking tactics, naturally, have more attackers.
Finding the right balance for the right tactics and in-match tactical situations will determine your success as a coach. Duties are also crucial in adding more flexibility to a formation.
One of the common misconceptions is that all defenders must defend, all attackers must attack and all midfielders must support. This is not the case. Or, at least, you could try doing this, but the team would play in three separate units, not communicating well with one another and finding it difficult to play anywhere but in isolated bands.
Mixing duties means that the team play more evenly around the pitch, can move the ball from one stratum to the next, and, crucially, can cover and support attacks whilst being able to defend in a co-ordinated way. Lone forwards, for example, will usually be given a support role (instead of the ?attack? role that you might expect a forward to use) because if they didn?t they would remain isolated. By dropping back a little bit they can use midfielders to help them if they get into trouble, whilst still being able to play on the shoulder of the defenders and nip forward to receive through balls and crosses.
Similarly, having a midfielder in the defensive role helps out the defence when they need cover. Attacking full backs can aid attacks in more offensive strategies. And support players dotted around the pitch provide better cover and more options for the attackers when they get into trouble.
Duties can be affected by match strategy (more on this later). Getting the right blend of duties is very important. As far as possible, the strategy choices you make may override some of the duties you have set. If you disagree, then you can go back later and switch the duties back. Some players may be given an ?automatic? duty, which will change relative to how attacking the team?s strategy is.
Even if the advanced instructions (slider settings) players get given based on their duty look odd compared to the way you used to play before FM10, it is best to give them a try before you think the system is ?broken?. It may open your eyes to new ideas and help give you a tactical edge.
Strategy
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have strategy. On the macro level, strategy determines the broad outlook of the team and its general shape.
Sometimes, you will want to attack the opposition hard to get a goal. Other times you will want to desperately keep the ball out of your own net. This is one of the most basic of tactical decisions to make, but perhaps one of the most difficult. Do you go for that second goal and risk conceding the equaliser, or sit on your lead and hope the opposition don?t break you down? Or do you do something in between?
The creator has seven strategies to choose from, each of which affect how attacking the team will be, the duties of the players on the pitch, and, to a certain extent, aspects such as width, defensive line, creative freedom and tempo. Roughly, the more defensive you are the deeper, narrower, less creative and slower the team play; and vice-versa for attacking strategies. However, this is just a very rough guide, and by using other instructions, shouts and players you can play with other effects than just these bog-standard strategies.
You can split strategies into 3 rough categories. First, we have the ?standard? strategies: defensive, standard and attacking. These are not too complicated and simply direct the team to hang back a bit more and be more cautious, to go forward and try and cause the opposition problems or to go somewhere in between.
Second, we have the ?breakdown? strategies: counter and control. Counter looks to sit back a little more than the standard strategy and hit opponents on the break as they push forward into the space you leave them. This can give you counter attacking opportunities against sides that coming on to you, providing clear chances to score. Control looks to attack a little more, but does so by holding onto the ball and drawing the frustrated opposition out of their hole: rather useful against sides who ?park the bus?, since you can control possession and force them to come out and tackle you, leaving a hole which you can then exploit.
Third, and finally, we have the ?extreme? strategies of overload and contain. Overload looks to throw caution to the wind and push many players forward in order to overload the opposition?s defence with waves of attacks. Contain looks to flood your defensive area with bodies to keep the ball away from your goal, but does not care if the team don?t attack: safety first is the key.
Choosing the correct strategy at the correct time can make or break a side. It is dependent on the relative skill levels of the two teams, the score line and how long there is left in the game. We will return to this topic in depth later, as it really can be the thing that clinches those tight games.
Welcome to the first teaser article for Tactical Theorems '10! Another year, another edition of the most comprehensive guide to tactics on the web.
Every couple of days from now until the release of Football Manager 10, we will be releasing some snippets of the guide. These are edited chapters from the new document which covers everything to do with the new tactical interface and football strategy. The full guide contains over 60 pages of advice, hints and tips - all in plain English.
TT10 will be published in full on October 30 to coincide with the release of Football Manager 10. As usual, it will be available to download from FM-Britain.co.uk.
Today, we will be exploring the new tactics creator and how you can use it to build tactics in the FM10 demo and full release.
Introduction to the new creator
Brand new to Football Manager 2010 is the tactics creator. Whilst this does not replace the ?classic? sliders from previous versions of Football Manager, it does provide a cleaner and more intuitive tactics system based on real-world football terminology.
The creator acts as a new, easy-to-use interface, but all of its instructions use the old slider system. So, every time you make changes in the creator, the sliders ?underneath? the interface will change according to your instructions. What makes the new creator useful is that with one or two clicks you can make changes which would have required many different slider changes in FM09 and its preceding titles.
Choosing a Formation
The starting point of any tactic is designating the placement of players on the field in a formation. Traditionally these are quoted in a ?defenders-midfielders-attackers? format. So, for example, the ?4-4-2? formation has four defenders, four midfielders and four attackers. Some are a little more complex than that, but will tend to quote the positioning of players in bands up the pitch. So, the 4-2-3-1 has: four defenders; two more-defensive midfielders; three more midfielders placed higher up the pitch; and finally one attacker. This is basic football terminology that most of you will know, but it is an important concept which needs to be understood. In later, more complex discussions about formation theory it will become clear that these names are rather limited.
Choosing a formation is relatively straight forward, but it?s good to think of how your squad is made up and what their strengths are. For example, if you only have one good central midfielder, is a formation that uses three central midfielders really a good idea? Either you will need to change your tactical plan or will need to use the transfer market to supplement the squad with the required playing staff.
The creator has most of the world?s most common formations already in its database. If you want to use something more complex then you can drag players around on the pitch diagram to suit your needs.
Philosophy
Philosophy is a key component of tactics in the tactics creator. It decides how the team attacks and defends and how your players behave relatively to one another. This seems like a complicated and unrealistic idea at first, but it becomes clear why they are there once you see the philosophies.
In the previous incarnation of Football Manager, teams were only set up using sliders. Those sliders are still there in the background. One of those sliders, mentality, decides how attacking players are and roughly how they position themselves on the pitch. In many tactics, managers would have set up their players so that their individual mentalities were spaced out to set the team's shape; but not so much of a gap that the players are too far apart and cannot communicate with each other. In other tactics, teams may have favoured a more fluid system where most, if not all, of the players had the same mentality (sometimes referred to as a ?global? system).
The philosophies in the tactics creator decide how big those gaps are how strictly you define the roles of ?defender?, ?midfielder?, ?attacker? and so on. Rigid philosophies tell the players to stick to their role and their position. Fluid philosophies allow defenders to join the attack and also encourage the forwards to track back.
Simply, rigid philosophies can work well with weaker players with low mental attributes, whereas players with great creativity, positioning and decision making skills may well thrive in the more loosely constructed tactic. That is a simplification, and good tacticians will quickly work out what works best for them. Experiment, and see what gets the most from your squad.
Playing Style
Formation and philosophy, of course, only say so much about a tactic. What can really define one formation from another is the style of football they play.
The creator in FM10 allows the following modifications to be made to the team?s style of play. Each of them has an effect on the team and individual instructions:
? Passing Style
? Creative Freedom
? Closing Down
? Tackling
? Marking
? Crossing
? Roaming
These options have three setting which effectively equate to ?shorter/less/lower?, ?default? and ?longer/more/higher?. Experiment to see which settings suit your team, your formation and your own personal preferences. Bear in mind, however, that different strategies, touchline instructions, duties and roles may change these style parameters. For example, more attacking strategies will automatically employ more creative freedom. Be aware of how instructions interact in order to judge how to most effectively change your style of play.
Roles
Roles are dependent on positions. For instance, you cannot play a full back in the FC position. You can, however, have a variety of different types of player who play in the MC position. Roles allow you to dictate what you want your player to do, and as part of a general team tactic can mould your side and style of play.
Full backs provide an excellent example of this. A full back is a defender who plays in the DR or DL position. He concentrates mainly on defence, but will support the winger when asked. An attacking full back can play in exactly the same position. He concentrates more on supporting the wingers and putting in crosses. A wing back will play even more like a winger. So, while they might all play the same DR position, they are playing in different roles.
The creator has many such roles which you can assign to different players on the pitch. For instance: as Milan manager playing with Andrea Pirlo, one might decide to play him in the DMCc position with the role of ?deep-lying playmaker?. This is because you may want him to sit deep and play balls to the wingers and forwards. You could also play him as a defensive midfielder to cover the defensive line and make lots of tackles. However because of Pirlo?s lack of height and size, it might be better for him to play with the ball at his feet rather than try and play the hard man. Genaro Gattuso on the other hand, might do things a little differently.
Experimentation is the best way to work out which of your players will perform best in certain roles. The game can help in this regard by highlighting the key attributes for each position when making your tactical selections. The section in this guide on roles will also describe them in more detail and outline which players perform best in certain situations.
Equal to the importance of choosing a philosophy, choosing roles (and duties) will define your style as a coach and the balance within your team. Defining roles will have a massive influence on how your tactics will connect or fail. In this regard, you are making similar choices to the ones a 'real' coach has to make. How many times do we have to ask whether Lampard and Gerrard can play together? Roles are the tools to answer this conundrum.
This is the essence and spice of creating tactics, and most likely it will determine your success as a manager. If you are not sure which way to go, rely on default selections made by the creator until you gain the experience and the confidence to make more complex decisions.
Duties
Essentially, duties control whether the player is more concerned with attacking, defending, or supporting the attack and defence in equal measure. Based on your strategy, the game will automatically choose the appropriate amount of ?defenders?, ?attackers? and support players. Attacking tactics, naturally, have more attackers.
Finding the right balance for the right tactics and in-match tactical situations will determine your success as a coach. Duties are also crucial in adding more flexibility to a formation.
One of the common misconceptions is that all defenders must defend, all attackers must attack and all midfielders must support. This is not the case. Or, at least, you could try doing this, but the team would play in three separate units, not communicating well with one another and finding it difficult to play anywhere but in isolated bands.
Mixing duties means that the team play more evenly around the pitch, can move the ball from one stratum to the next, and, crucially, can cover and support attacks whilst being able to defend in a co-ordinated way. Lone forwards, for example, will usually be given a support role (instead of the ?attack? role that you might expect a forward to use) because if they didn?t they would remain isolated. By dropping back a little bit they can use midfielders to help them if they get into trouble, whilst still being able to play on the shoulder of the defenders and nip forward to receive through balls and crosses.
Similarly, having a midfielder in the defensive role helps out the defence when they need cover. Attacking full backs can aid attacks in more offensive strategies. And support players dotted around the pitch provide better cover and more options for the attackers when they get into trouble.
Duties can be affected by match strategy (more on this later). Getting the right blend of duties is very important. As far as possible, the strategy choices you make may override some of the duties you have set. If you disagree, then you can go back later and switch the duties back. Some players may be given an ?automatic? duty, which will change relative to how attacking the team?s strategy is.
Even if the advanced instructions (slider settings) players get given based on their duty look odd compared to the way you used to play before FM10, it is best to give them a try before you think the system is ?broken?. It may open your eyes to new ideas and help give you a tactical edge.
Strategy
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have strategy. On the macro level, strategy determines the broad outlook of the team and its general shape.
Sometimes, you will want to attack the opposition hard to get a goal. Other times you will want to desperately keep the ball out of your own net. This is one of the most basic of tactical decisions to make, but perhaps one of the most difficult. Do you go for that second goal and risk conceding the equaliser, or sit on your lead and hope the opposition don?t break you down? Or do you do something in between?
The creator has seven strategies to choose from, each of which affect how attacking the team will be, the duties of the players on the pitch, and, to a certain extent, aspects such as width, defensive line, creative freedom and tempo. Roughly, the more defensive you are the deeper, narrower, less creative and slower the team play; and vice-versa for attacking strategies. However, this is just a very rough guide, and by using other instructions, shouts and players you can play with other effects than just these bog-standard strategies.
You can split strategies into 3 rough categories. First, we have the ?standard? strategies: defensive, standard and attacking. These are not too complicated and simply direct the team to hang back a bit more and be more cautious, to go forward and try and cause the opposition problems or to go somewhere in between.
Second, we have the ?breakdown? strategies: counter and control. Counter looks to sit back a little more than the standard strategy and hit opponents on the break as they push forward into the space you leave them. This can give you counter attacking opportunities against sides that coming on to you, providing clear chances to score. Control looks to attack a little more, but does so by holding onto the ball and drawing the frustrated opposition out of their hole: rather useful against sides who ?park the bus?, since you can control possession and force them to come out and tackle you, leaving a hole which you can then exploit.
Third, and finally, we have the ?extreme? strategies of overload and contain. Overload looks to throw caution to the wind and push many players forward in order to overload the opposition?s defence with waves of attacks. Contain looks to flood your defensive area with bodies to keep the ball away from your goal, but does not care if the team don?t attack: safety first is the key.
Choosing the correct strategy at the correct time can make or break a side. It is dependent on the relative skill levels of the two teams, the score line and how long there is left in the game. We will return to this topic in depth later, as it really can be the thing that clinches those tight games.
Spoiler: show
New member of the FM-Britain tactical think tank, playmaker, has written a superb guide to the basics of real-world football tactics. He has kindly made this available, in full, in the download pack for Tactical Theorems '10. The full version also comes with some rather useful diagrams to help explain certain tactical concepts.
TT10 will be published in full on October 30 to coincide with the release of Football Manager 10. As usual, it will be available to download from FM-Britain.co.uk.
Tactical Visions
Football Manager 2010 sees a seismic shift in the way tactics are approached from the human perspective, seeking to replace ?slider think? with football speak. The focus is no longer on finding the correct settings to master the simulation, but on understanding how to create a coherent tactic using proper football terminology.
The best way to understand the new tactical system is to look at what the real tacticians do. The aim of this article is not to tell you how to play, or which system is best, but to provide a solid platform on which to build your own ideas.
If you?ve read books such as Jonathon Wilson?s ?Inverting the Pyramid? then hopefully this serves as a handy reminder. If not, then hopefully this will give you some ideas how to put your tactics together. You might agree with some points and disagree with others ? in which case I have done my job, because you are thinking about football and not computer games.
Beginnings
As an Englishman I am obliged to stipulate three things.
1. We weren?t the first people to think of kicking a ball around.
2. We were the first to have a hissy-fit about rules and threaten to take our ball away, thus creating the modern version of the sport played worldwide.
3. We don?t understand how our own creation works and our tactics have the subtlety and sophistication of a herd of stampeding elephants with toothache. Which is pretty much how we do everything round here.
The rudimentary form of the game adopted within public schools in the early 1800s involved a senior pupil dribbling the ball towards the goal (by which I mean nothing more technical than propelling the ball forwards), with the younger boys ?backing up? ? lining up behind him in order to pick up the ball if it bounced loose.
Kicking lumps out of your opponents shins, or ?hacking?, was perfectly legal at this time, while passing was considered unmanly ? though long forward passes would come to be grudgingly accepted.
Football was quite simply a charge towards goal, based on bravery and iron will. For all the technical innovations of the last century or so, the only change in requirement to describe the modern English game is to replace the word ?was? with ?is?.
Formation ? A Means to an End
Formation Neutrality
Ideally your first question should be ?how do I want to play? rather than ?what formation should I play?. Though formation is the first step in the Tactics Creator, this is merely functional as player roles and duties cannot be assigned without defining the formation first.
Throughout the history of football the great tacticians have used formation to answer a specific problem or requirement, usually finding space to attack or denying space for opponents to attack. The formation should come about as a conclusion to your chosen style of play and overall aims and in itself is neutral. That is, no formation is overtly defensive or attacking, but rather it is the instructions that are issued to the players that make it so.
Rappan?s ?Verrou? (a.k.a. Swiss Bolt) employed the same 1-3-3-3 formation as the imperious Dutch brand of ?Total Football? that dominated the 70s, yet it was employed as a rigid spoiling tactic and was vastly different to the fluid football of Cruyff and Neeskens.
Likewise, playing more forwards does not automatically mean you will be able to attack more. Indeed, it may be difficult to get the ball far enough forward to take advantage of the extra men. Withdrawing forwards may actually increase possession and therefore create more attacking situations. Formation is, as the heading suggests, merely a means to an end.
Pragmatism and First Steps
Before you get too carried away, it is worth noting two things - firstly that you will be inheriting a squad designed to play your predecessor?s preferred formation and secondly that most tactical innovations came as a result of subtle alterations to the previously employed formation.
Alterations to style and formation may require some aggressive action in the transfer market, so in the meantime it is worth considering the formations suggested in the Backroom Advice section, if only as a pragmatic short term solution. New managers playing players in their preferred position is often credited with a turn round in form.
Notation versus Shape
As football fans we have become accustomed to referring to formation by numerical notation. Many of the top managers see this as a rigid media device that does not reflect the true complexity of their tactical master plan. Alex Ferguson claims that he has never played a standard 4-4-2 at Manchester United, but rather he has always employed split forwards.
In fact, it could be argued (and has been) that the formation employed in the mid-nineties was actually 4-2-3-1 and not a 4-4-2 at all. Eric Cantona played in ?the hole? behind strike partner Mark Hughes, Ryan Giggs and Andrei Kanchelskis played as advanced wingers, and the central midfield partnership of Roy Keane and Paul Ince took up deeper positions. It may not have been as explicit as the formation that featured Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez, but there is no denying the similarity.
Likewise, the 4-2-4 employed by Brazil in winning the 1958 and 1962 World Cups could just as easily be described as 4-3-3 or 4-5-1. Attacking shape is a product of situation or context rather than explicitly defined as a secondary formation. In other words, it is the instructions given to players and the way they react to them as opportunities arise or their path is blocked that defines attacking shape.
Jose Mourinho talks about breaking lines. The 4-3-3 formation he employed at Chelsea does exactly that by employing two wide players who operate between the midfield and forward line. If you could freeze the action during the match then sometimes it would look like a 4-1-2-3, but at another time would look more like 4-1-4-1.
While Bolton played the same formation under Sam Allardyce, in this context it was more commonly referred to as 4-5-1. The difference perhaps, is the aggressiveness with which the Chelsea wingers would attack, rather than merely offer support.
In case you are wondering, that is a none-too-subtle clue as to Football Manager 2010?s approach to changing from a defensive shape to an attacking one. Like real football, assigning duties produces more dynamic and less robotic movement ? that is, it is contextual rather than predefined.
Matching the Opposition
In setting out your team?s formation it is easy to forget that it does not just define how 11 players play, but that there are 22 players to consider. That may sound like stating the obvious, but it is easily overlooked, even by real life managers. To demonstrate this, we need to look at an example rather more mundane than those discussed so far.
Paul Hart, in employing a 4-4-2 diamond for Portsmouth?s relegation six-pointer against Bolton in September 2009, neglected to take the opposing 4-5-1 formation into account, placing considerable stress on his defence and midfield and resulting in a 2-3 home loss. With no width in midfield, the full backs were over exposed against Bolton?s advanced wingers, while the midfielders on the right and left side of the diamond were left to deal with a central midfield opponent and an advancing full back.
Meanwhile Bolton?s lone striker regularly drifted into the space occupied by Portsmouth?s defensive midfielder, taking away valuable cover for the overworked pair in the centre. Worse still, as Bolton frequently got behind the full backs the nearest centre back was drawn across and with him the rest of the defence, leaving Portsmouth vulnerable to the ball being switched to the opposite flank.
Managers are often left perplexed when individual errors consistently affect results, but this can easily be explained as a failure of system placing defenders under undue stress. The aim of formation is to somehow create a spare man in both attack and defence ? something that cannot be achieved without first taking the opponent?s formation into consideration.
The easiest way to match an opponent is to play exactly the same formation (which explains the widespread adoption of successful formations, even without the elements that made them work), though this can reduce the game to a simple test of quality rather than system ? something Portsmouth would be ill advised to attempt when facing Chelsea?s diamond system.
Balancing Requirements
Throughout the history of football, the greatest triumphs have come about by balancing attacking play with defensive structure. Brazil may have placed an extra man in defence, but it allowed the full backs scope to attack from deep positions. Herbert Chapman?s ?WM? (3-2-2-3) withdrew a midfielder into the defence, but compensated the loss by moving the inside forwards back into the midfield.
Coming up to date, the 4-2-2-2 that has become popular in Brazil balances two overtly defensive midfielders with two out and out attacking midfielders and the 4-2-3-1 maintains a similar balance of attackers and defenders.
Defensive Structures
Situational Defending
Speaking to forum member ?footynut?, Ray Wilkins describes how the defence react in one given situation: ?If the ball is coming down your left hand side your left back presses the ball, your left centre back is marking his player, your right centre back is slightly deeper on the cover in a position that he can see his left centre back?s shirt number and your right full back would be pushed up in level with your left centre back.?
In this example, it is not clear what marking system the defence is playing (though it sounds a lot like zonal), but it seems that players are not ?glued? to their marking responsibilities in text book fashion. Instead they are reacting according to the situation - closing down, marking or covering according to both player and ball position.
Much of the defensive work that takes place during a match simply comes down to common sense - positioning, anticipation, decision making and good old fashioned teamwork (coincidentally all player attributes in Football Manager!). The covering centre back will position himself with reference to his man or zone, but will anticipate the threat in behind his partner.
Zonal Marking
These days it is relatively uncommon to find a team that does not employ a four man defence marking zones. Man marking is largely consigned to the past ? a legacy of Brazil?s most dominant years. Zonal marking is often conceived as two banks of four covering one entire half of the pitch, but in reality is a good deal more dynamic than that. Applied in such a basic manner it would result in large gaps appearing.
Zones expand or contract according to demand, allowing defenders to cover each other as the situation demands, whether it is to cover a team mate in an advanced position, to back up an overloaded zone or to close down an attacker who has bypassed another zone and poses a significant goal threat. Zonal marking allows the defence to react to dangerous situations rather than dangerous players.
Loosely speaking, zonal marking relies on anticipation and communication rather than speed ? though with the pace and athleticism of the modern game, speed has to be taken into account.
The primary function in an attacking strategy should be allowing the full backs to get forward and attack or to support the midfield (again, Brazil are one of the best exponents of this), whereas more defensive teams may prefer to use zonal marking to maintain defensive shape and form an impenetrable barrier to goal.
Man Marking
?Global? man marking systems employing the whole team as man markers may be rare in modern football, but that is not to say they are unheard of. Man marking can work very well when formations provide an obvious player for player match up ? as two opposing ?WM? formations would have prior to the formation?s demise in the 1960s.
However, the system can be broken down by pace and movement (and red cards!) as Reading found to their cost when Manchester United beat them 3-2 on New Year?s Eve in 2006. Wind the clock back to 1953 and Hungary provided an early warning of the deficiencies of man marking as they destroyed England 6-3 and a year later 7-1 by instructing players to interchange positions or to drop into ?the hole? ? causing much confusion in the English defensive ranks.
That defeat owes a good deal to the naivety of the English in failing to adapt to the situation ? closing down or marking players when they should have been covering. Fortunately, FM is a good deal more sophisticated, limiting how far players will stray from their position to follow their man and maintaining a degree of common sense, whilst still prioritising the man more than zonal marking does.
It should be noted that man marking in this sense applies purely to the overall team setting and not individual player settings (player x follows player y wherever he goes) or opposition instructions (the whole team keeps a close eye on player y).
Coaches and fans alike will often refer to getting ?touch tight? (mark the player tightly, rather than stand off him). This is not specific to man marking and can apply equally to zonal marking ? remembering that zonal marking still requires the defender to close down or mark attackers in certain situations (such as having the ball).
Mixed Marking
Sweeper systems such as Catenaccio place a zonal marker behind three or four man-markers, ensuring that any break down of the man marking system is covered, though again it should be noted that the original asymmetric nature of Catenaccio pitted the defensive side of the team against the opponent?s attacking side, providing a player for player match up.
When Greece won Euro 2004, they employed a sweeper behind three man markers, a five man midfield and a lone striker ? in essence, the formation was much the same as Rappan?s Verrou, but with the wingers withdrawn into midfield, and perhaps a flatter back four. The five man midfield suggests that the extra man acts as cover for four more man markers, but that is speculation on my part ? it may just be a way of packing the midfield. While Greece were undeniably superior to the Swiss team of the 1930s, their success owed something to the surprise element.
During the 1980?s and 90?s the sweeper was commonly deployed in a 3-5-2 formation and was often referred to as Catenaccio, though it bore little resemblance to the original system beyond the spare man.
Sweeper systems deal with the opponent?s attacking unit as a whole by adding a zonal marker to a man marking system. This combination can be reversed, adding a man marker to a zonal defence to deal with a specific individual threat. Manchester United did this against Barcelona in 1994, using full back Paul Parker to mark Romario, while the remaining three defenders retained their zonal responsibilities ? though a lapse in concentration allowed Romario to run onto a through ball and score.
Most real life mixed marking systems only employ one defender and perhaps one midfielder with different instructions to the rest of the team. That is not to say you should only stick to systems that real managers have used. Football Manager 2010?s ?Default? marking assigns zonal or man marking according to position, role and duty and could result in a 50/50 split. If you are comfortable with that (i.e. it seems to work, or it fits your tactical vision) then there is no reason to change it.
The Transition Phase
Space Management
For the past few years I have been a season ticket holder at my local club, Portsmouth. There is a middle aged woman sat behind me (and a few seats to the right, thankfully) who yelps every time the ball enters our penalty area, even when there is clearly no danger. Now this may be an over-reaction, but there is generally a stage in the match, shortly before conceding, where the yelping increases and the passage of play is generally characterised by one of my friends using the phrase ?we?re sitting too deep.?
The defensive line is all about controlling the space and while the failure to control it may result in conceding sloppy goals, it can also be used to turn defence into attack. Herbert Chapman?s Arsenal team did this by sitting deep, drawing the opposition out of defence and holding them at the edge of the penalty area, before launching a swift counter attack into the space created.
Valeriy Lobanovskyi took the opposite approach with Dynamo and USSR, playing a high line in combination with the offside trap and aggressive pressing. This meant that possession was won higher up the pitch, placing his teams in a much better position to attack and containing the opposition in one half of the pitch. While this was successful in Europe, it was referred to as ?the donkey line? in Brazil as it was considered stupid ? pass one man and you pass them all.
Both strategies require a strong back line, but are not necessarily the preserve of world class teams. Equally, both strategies require concentration as there is less margin for error. Where they differ is in their approach to possession ? a deep line prioritising quality of possession over quantity and a high line the opposite.
Defensive Midfielders
You are probably wondering why I have singled out just the one position. This is because of its importance in making the whole team function. When the England team lacks a good defensive midfielder the question is often asked ?why do we need a holding player anyway?? The answer is perhaps that we don?t necessarily need one ? but it doesn?t half help.
Brazil?s rampaging full backs and the artistry of Pele, Zico or Ronaldinho are made possible by the protection that a defensive midfielder (or two) offers when play breaks down, covering the empty space left behind and snuffing out attacks before they get started.
The 4-2-3-1 formation used by France in the 1998 World Cup uses two holding players as a platform for the four attacking players, who are afforded greater freedom than they would have in other systems, and also allows the full backs some attacking scope.
When possession is regained the defensive midfielder becomes the fulcrum around which the midfield pivots. This is particularly true in a three man midfield where a triangle will frequently exert greater control than a flat line.
Football Manager distinguishes the defensive midfield position from that of a ?standard? midfielder, but to all intents and purposes, a standard midfielder with a defensive duty is performing the same task in the attacking phase- staying behind the rest of the midfield. The only difference comes with the position adopted in the defensive phase ? the defensive midfielder covering ?the hole? while the standard midfielder who defends forms a line with the rest of the midfield.
Attacking Play
Possession Football
Losing managers are often asked why their team did not win a match that they seemed to control. Somewhere amongst the rambling excuses there will most likely be some kind of reference to having ?the lion?s share? of possession (i.e. more than the other team). Occasionally a more pragmatic manager will simply say ?They scored more goals than us.?
Goals win football matches, not possession, or for that matter shots (a common complaint on Football Manager forums). The relationship between possession and goals is not clear cut. Counter attacking football actually relies on having less possession than the opponent, but it is quite obvious that you can?t score goals when not in possession of the ball.
You may remember we started this article by talking about the English predilection for moving the ball rapidly in one direction only. It came as something of a surprise then in the 1880s, when Scotland lined up in a 2-3-5 formation and used short sideways passes to maintain possession of the ball and patiently wait for an opening ? though the game ended in a goalless draw.
Austria and Hungary then showed the true potential of the passing game, by realising that a good first touch meant that the ball could be released quicker. Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil took it a step further, celebrating the technique and artistry of football more than winning ? though they frequently did win ? and taking their time over possession, thus creating better quality chances.
If it is true that attack is the best form of defence then possession is the mechanism by which attack and defence operates. English fans may get impatient, boo back passes and yell ?get it forward?, but paradoxically they still expect to retain possession of the ball.
The Long Ball Game
Teams adopting a long ball game are often derided as playing anti-football ? partly because it goes hand in hand with a more physical approach, leaving the opposition battered and bruised. It?s certainly not pretty, but as Wimbledon and Watford proved in the 1980?s, it can be highly effective for teams looking to punch above their weight.
Charles Hughes, who unfortunately was made Technical Director of the Football Association, analysed 100 matches and concluded that 80 percent of goals come from three or less passes. On the surface of it, this appears to support getting the ball forward quickly, but his deeply flawed analysis fails to properly account for another statistic ? that 91.5 percent of moves consist of three or less passes, which actually means that there is an 11.5 percent shortfall in the number of goals that should be scored.
Long ball football is likely to produce a high turnover of possession and that is perhaps why the more successful exponents (as Graham Taylor was, at least at Watford) tended to play a pressing game to re-balance possession in their favour. What it does give you is ?penetration? of enemy territory, provided the long balls are not just aimless ? that is, they either have a specific target, or in the case of David Beckham, the passing is of a high quality.
Both Wimbledon and Watford had big, physical target men to look for (as Bolton do today in Kevin Davies) and willing runners from midfield to collect the knock downs, achieving a good deal of success without relying on technically gifted players. That is not to say that it couldn?t fail spectacularly when meeting a team with enough technical ability to maintain possession under pressure.
While long ball football does not necessarily have to be about analysis, statistics and percentages (it is doubtful many lower league managers take such a scientific approach), Football Manager 2010 does give you some pretty useful data in the match day ?Stats? tab.
Strike Partnerships
While 4-5-1 is gaining in popularity, many formations still rely on a two man strike partnership. The key to any successful partnership is division of labour and this is perhaps what makes it easier to get two men working than a lone striker.
That division most commonly comes in two forms ? the ?creator/scorer? combination, or the ?big man/small man? combination (small man usually implies pace). This will often see one man drop into the hole as deep lying forward, support striker or trequartista (three-quarters), while the other takes a more advanced role. In Football Manager, as in real life, it is much easier to mark two strikers who play in line with each other.
There are other combinations that work of course. Real Madrid won La Liga five times in a row in the 1980s with two strikers who didn?t even like each other and rarely dovetailed, but in Hugo Sanchez and Emilio Butragueno they had a power and subtlety.
Arsenal?s Bergkamp/Henry combination is perhaps one of the most complete partnerships. At first glance they could be described as a typical creator/scorer combination, but that doesn?t take into account Henry?s blistering pace or Bergkamp?s aerial ability, which made them as effective as any big man/small man combo, or their ability to swap creative and goal scoring roles.
At the other end of the spectrum, Portsmouth found moderate success due to Kanu?s flair and Benjani?s work rate and determination. Perhaps the only quality they shared was the ability to hold the ball up, but there is no denying that the almost total split of abilities worked to good effect.
The apparent exception to the rule is the partnership of Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka. Many pundits doubted that they could work together, considering them too similar in many aspects of their game. However, this ignores their obvious qualities beyond mere goal scoring. Like the Bergkamp/Henry combination at times they can be a big man/small man combination and at other times a creator/scorer combination. Though the lines are much more blurred (particularly since both can operate as lone strikers or do each others job when playing together), they are there.
Universality versus Specialisation
The heroes of the past were the wingers, playmakers and goal poachers, but the modern game is an altogether different beast that does not allow room for so called ?luxury players?. Improvements in physical fitness and defensive organisation mean that space on the football field is limited, there are fewer mistakes and less gaps (even if the Match of the Day pundits would have you believe otherwise). This has given rise to two very different types of footballers.
?Complete? players, or hybrids such as Christiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Wayne Rooney combine multiple abilities ? creativity, dribbling and finishing ? that mean they can pop up in different areas of the pitch and be equally adept as a playmaker, winger or striker. Didier Drogba is another take on the theme, complimenting his power and strength with moments of finesse.
Valeriy Lobanovskyi called this ?universality? - to which the specialist would be the philosophical opposite. The universal player is unpredictable and, at his best, unplayable, while the specialist plays purely to his strengths. Emile Heskey, Michael Owen and Stephane Guivarc?h are perfect examples, much derided for their limitations, but frequently the key component in victory ? in Guivarc?h?s case, World Cup victory.
Further back, Claude Makelele was often held up as the perfect example of a defensive midfielder in his heyday, doing little other than breaking up attacks and playing short simple passes to his more creative team mates. Even so Jose Mourinho (Makelele?s manager at Chelsea) is quick to bemoan English coaching for failing to create young players who are multi-functional.
Most players, of course, fall somewhere between the two extremes and the top teams employ a mixture of hybrids, specialists and ?general purpose? players. If you are lucky enough to have a hybrid or two it is worth remembering that, since their abilities blur the lines between midfield and attack, their position tends to follow as does withdrawing a striker.
Manchester United?s front four of Rooney, Ronaldo, Giggs and Tevez interchanged between three attacking midfield berths and one strike position (more on this in a minute). At Arsenal, Bergkamp dropped deep and Henry drifted out wide. Maradona was a midfielder who could play as a support striker, explaining why a long line of Argentinian playmakers have failed to become ?the next Maradona?.
Drogba, again, is an exception, operating on his own as an out-and-out striker under Mourhinho, but in partnership with Nicolas Anelka under Carlo Ancelotti.
Movement and Interchanging
As we have already seen with Hungary?s destruction of the English, good movement and good attacking play go hand in hand. Rigid formations have their place, but stationary players can be easy to mark. This is perhaps why many teams employ a big striker to hold the ball up, concentrating on grinding the opposition down rather than ?pattern weaving?.
Total Football is often seen as the ideal ? defenders attacking and attackers defending in one fluid formation. The reality was a good deal more organised than it sounds, even if it would be difficult to implement at the pace the modern game is played. Players in the 1-3-3-3 formation interchange along vertical lines. For example, if the left midfielder came forward, the left wing forward would cover.
It was different to merely swapping positions as two wingers would do, having more to do with balancing forward runs and freedom to roam with defensive responsibility.
Revisiting another of our previous examples, Manchester United?s front four used a similar interchanging of roles to good effect, but left the remaining six outfield players out of the equation, defending, supporting or attacking within their normal roles.
The aim of this type of movement is to present defenders with a threat that is unpredictable in its direction and nature, with much of the work carried out off the ball. Even then, it is not totally without structure. Alex Ferguson maintains that it is better to have forwards attack from wide positions and move into the centre towards goal, than to start in the centre and move away from goal. This may indicate why the 4-5-1/4-3-3 has become so popular, as it uses two advanced wingers that converge on the goal.
Looking beyond the obvious wisdom of Ferguson?s point, it is also fair to say that defending teams looking for an ?out ball? will have greater luck finding strikers who have drifted wide, while Arsenal echoed their counter attacking ploy of the 1930s by allowing Thierry Henry to drift into wide positions to devastating effect.
As with all tactical elements there is no definitive rule ? Ruud van Nistelrooy is a good example of a striker who starts in the middle and stays in the middle and gets a lot of goals, though he would have had another striker to run the channels, such as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
The Numbers Game
The title of Jonathon Wilson?s book ?Inverting the Pyramid? is a clue as to how the balance of attackers and defenders has changed. From the time the first formation was dreamt up forwards have been withdrawn into midfield to look for space and midfielders withdrawn into defence to deny it.
Teams once attacked with eight players and defended with five (midfielders in a 2-3-5 operating in both phases), but this is generally reversed in modern football. The 4-4-2 defends with two banks of four, but at the most will only send three of the four midfielders forward to join the two strikers
This apparent trend towards negativity was set in motion by a change to the offside law, reducing the number of men required to be goal side from three to two and precipitating Chapman?s WM. I say ?apparent?, because as we have seen, withdrawing players does not necessarily mean teams are less attacking.
Shifting the right numbers between attack and defence is perhaps the key component of style of play ? more so than starting formation. Argentina found this out to their cost as they lost the 1930 World Cup to Uruguay. Both teams liked to attack in numbers, in an attempt to overload the defence, but crucially, only Uruguay gave any thought to defending.
Brazil attacked in numbers, winning the World Cup three times between 1958 and 1970, but this is generally recognised as the end of a more na?ve era. Defenders sat deeper, so Brazil were less likely to be caught on the break and their world class players consequently had the kind of space the modern game rarely allows. It shouldn?t be forgotten that they also defended in greater numbers ? though again the less frenetic style of play made this much easier.
Italian football is often seen as overly defensive and negative, characterised, not by formation, but by the use of just three attacking players. The first aim is to avoid conceding ? you can?t lose if you don?t concede. Scoring is almost a secondary aim and the national side in particular are famed for their 1-0 wins.
A Final Word
My own management career (from the first Championship Manager to the current Football Manager) has followed a similar path to the development of tactics in the real game. Early on, I simply found the best players I could, seeing football merely as a test of ability. Then came the 4-3-1-2 formation and a desire to create beautiful football, albeit it through text commentary. The luxury of a playmaker gave way to grinding out results; or rather fear of losing took over, leading to a more defensive approach and thankfully plenty of 1-0 wins.
I finally feel that I have reached a point where I understand why my tactics worked and why they subsequently stopped working ? which is why I am genuinely excited by the prospect of taking over a Portsmouth team that has sold a team and a half of quality players and replaced them with second rate journeymen.
One line of thought is to create a spare man in attack and exploit gaps in the opponents back four without sacrificing my own defensive stability - which I would hope to achieve by employing a 4-4-2 that morphs into a 4-3-3 using duties and individual width to reshape the formation.
Another approach is to control the midfield space and play to individual strengths in a 4-2-3-1 that uses two playmakers, three willing runners and a target man. In both cases the formation is the end result and not the starting point.
Both methods also require one or two additional signings to make it work, so with no money to spend it may yet be back to the drawing board!
TT10 will be published in full on October 30 to coincide with the release of Football Manager 10. As usual, it will be available to download from FM-Britain.co.uk.
Tactical Visions
Football Manager 2010 sees a seismic shift in the way tactics are approached from the human perspective, seeking to replace ?slider think? with football speak. The focus is no longer on finding the correct settings to master the simulation, but on understanding how to create a coherent tactic using proper football terminology.
The best way to understand the new tactical system is to look at what the real tacticians do. The aim of this article is not to tell you how to play, or which system is best, but to provide a solid platform on which to build your own ideas.
If you?ve read books such as Jonathon Wilson?s ?Inverting the Pyramid? then hopefully this serves as a handy reminder. If not, then hopefully this will give you some ideas how to put your tactics together. You might agree with some points and disagree with others ? in which case I have done my job, because you are thinking about football and not computer games.
Beginnings
As an Englishman I am obliged to stipulate three things.
1. We weren?t the first people to think of kicking a ball around.
2. We were the first to have a hissy-fit about rules and threaten to take our ball away, thus creating the modern version of the sport played worldwide.
3. We don?t understand how our own creation works and our tactics have the subtlety and sophistication of a herd of stampeding elephants with toothache. Which is pretty much how we do everything round here.
The rudimentary form of the game adopted within public schools in the early 1800s involved a senior pupil dribbling the ball towards the goal (by which I mean nothing more technical than propelling the ball forwards), with the younger boys ?backing up? ? lining up behind him in order to pick up the ball if it bounced loose.
Kicking lumps out of your opponents shins, or ?hacking?, was perfectly legal at this time, while passing was considered unmanly ? though long forward passes would come to be grudgingly accepted.
Football was quite simply a charge towards goal, based on bravery and iron will. For all the technical innovations of the last century or so, the only change in requirement to describe the modern English game is to replace the word ?was? with ?is?.
Formation ? A Means to an End
Formation Neutrality
Ideally your first question should be ?how do I want to play? rather than ?what formation should I play?. Though formation is the first step in the Tactics Creator, this is merely functional as player roles and duties cannot be assigned without defining the formation first.
Throughout the history of football the great tacticians have used formation to answer a specific problem or requirement, usually finding space to attack or denying space for opponents to attack. The formation should come about as a conclusion to your chosen style of play and overall aims and in itself is neutral. That is, no formation is overtly defensive or attacking, but rather it is the instructions that are issued to the players that make it so.
Rappan?s ?Verrou? (a.k.a. Swiss Bolt) employed the same 1-3-3-3 formation as the imperious Dutch brand of ?Total Football? that dominated the 70s, yet it was employed as a rigid spoiling tactic and was vastly different to the fluid football of Cruyff and Neeskens.
Likewise, playing more forwards does not automatically mean you will be able to attack more. Indeed, it may be difficult to get the ball far enough forward to take advantage of the extra men. Withdrawing forwards may actually increase possession and therefore create more attacking situations. Formation is, as the heading suggests, merely a means to an end.
Pragmatism and First Steps
Before you get too carried away, it is worth noting two things - firstly that you will be inheriting a squad designed to play your predecessor?s preferred formation and secondly that most tactical innovations came as a result of subtle alterations to the previously employed formation.
Alterations to style and formation may require some aggressive action in the transfer market, so in the meantime it is worth considering the formations suggested in the Backroom Advice section, if only as a pragmatic short term solution. New managers playing players in their preferred position is often credited with a turn round in form.
Notation versus Shape
As football fans we have become accustomed to referring to formation by numerical notation. Many of the top managers see this as a rigid media device that does not reflect the true complexity of their tactical master plan. Alex Ferguson claims that he has never played a standard 4-4-2 at Manchester United, but rather he has always employed split forwards.
In fact, it could be argued (and has been) that the formation employed in the mid-nineties was actually 4-2-3-1 and not a 4-4-2 at all. Eric Cantona played in ?the hole? behind strike partner Mark Hughes, Ryan Giggs and Andrei Kanchelskis played as advanced wingers, and the central midfield partnership of Roy Keane and Paul Ince took up deeper positions. It may not have been as explicit as the formation that featured Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez, but there is no denying the similarity.
Likewise, the 4-2-4 employed by Brazil in winning the 1958 and 1962 World Cups could just as easily be described as 4-3-3 or 4-5-1. Attacking shape is a product of situation or context rather than explicitly defined as a secondary formation. In other words, it is the instructions given to players and the way they react to them as opportunities arise or their path is blocked that defines attacking shape.
Jose Mourinho talks about breaking lines. The 4-3-3 formation he employed at Chelsea does exactly that by employing two wide players who operate between the midfield and forward line. If you could freeze the action during the match then sometimes it would look like a 4-1-2-3, but at another time would look more like 4-1-4-1.
While Bolton played the same formation under Sam Allardyce, in this context it was more commonly referred to as 4-5-1. The difference perhaps, is the aggressiveness with which the Chelsea wingers would attack, rather than merely offer support.
In case you are wondering, that is a none-too-subtle clue as to Football Manager 2010?s approach to changing from a defensive shape to an attacking one. Like real football, assigning duties produces more dynamic and less robotic movement ? that is, it is contextual rather than predefined.
Matching the Opposition
In setting out your team?s formation it is easy to forget that it does not just define how 11 players play, but that there are 22 players to consider. That may sound like stating the obvious, but it is easily overlooked, even by real life managers. To demonstrate this, we need to look at an example rather more mundane than those discussed so far.
Paul Hart, in employing a 4-4-2 diamond for Portsmouth?s relegation six-pointer against Bolton in September 2009, neglected to take the opposing 4-5-1 formation into account, placing considerable stress on his defence and midfield and resulting in a 2-3 home loss. With no width in midfield, the full backs were over exposed against Bolton?s advanced wingers, while the midfielders on the right and left side of the diamond were left to deal with a central midfield opponent and an advancing full back.
Meanwhile Bolton?s lone striker regularly drifted into the space occupied by Portsmouth?s defensive midfielder, taking away valuable cover for the overworked pair in the centre. Worse still, as Bolton frequently got behind the full backs the nearest centre back was drawn across and with him the rest of the defence, leaving Portsmouth vulnerable to the ball being switched to the opposite flank.
Managers are often left perplexed when individual errors consistently affect results, but this can easily be explained as a failure of system placing defenders under undue stress. The aim of formation is to somehow create a spare man in both attack and defence ? something that cannot be achieved without first taking the opponent?s formation into consideration.
The easiest way to match an opponent is to play exactly the same formation (which explains the widespread adoption of successful formations, even without the elements that made them work), though this can reduce the game to a simple test of quality rather than system ? something Portsmouth would be ill advised to attempt when facing Chelsea?s diamond system.
Balancing Requirements
Throughout the history of football, the greatest triumphs have come about by balancing attacking play with defensive structure. Brazil may have placed an extra man in defence, but it allowed the full backs scope to attack from deep positions. Herbert Chapman?s ?WM? (3-2-2-3) withdrew a midfielder into the defence, but compensated the loss by moving the inside forwards back into the midfield.
Coming up to date, the 4-2-2-2 that has become popular in Brazil balances two overtly defensive midfielders with two out and out attacking midfielders and the 4-2-3-1 maintains a similar balance of attackers and defenders.
Defensive Structures
Situational Defending
Speaking to forum member ?footynut?, Ray Wilkins describes how the defence react in one given situation: ?If the ball is coming down your left hand side your left back presses the ball, your left centre back is marking his player, your right centre back is slightly deeper on the cover in a position that he can see his left centre back?s shirt number and your right full back would be pushed up in level with your left centre back.?
In this example, it is not clear what marking system the defence is playing (though it sounds a lot like zonal), but it seems that players are not ?glued? to their marking responsibilities in text book fashion. Instead they are reacting according to the situation - closing down, marking or covering according to both player and ball position.
Much of the defensive work that takes place during a match simply comes down to common sense - positioning, anticipation, decision making and good old fashioned teamwork (coincidentally all player attributes in Football Manager!). The covering centre back will position himself with reference to his man or zone, but will anticipate the threat in behind his partner.
Zonal Marking
These days it is relatively uncommon to find a team that does not employ a four man defence marking zones. Man marking is largely consigned to the past ? a legacy of Brazil?s most dominant years. Zonal marking is often conceived as two banks of four covering one entire half of the pitch, but in reality is a good deal more dynamic than that. Applied in such a basic manner it would result in large gaps appearing.
Zones expand or contract according to demand, allowing defenders to cover each other as the situation demands, whether it is to cover a team mate in an advanced position, to back up an overloaded zone or to close down an attacker who has bypassed another zone and poses a significant goal threat. Zonal marking allows the defence to react to dangerous situations rather than dangerous players.
Loosely speaking, zonal marking relies on anticipation and communication rather than speed ? though with the pace and athleticism of the modern game, speed has to be taken into account.
The primary function in an attacking strategy should be allowing the full backs to get forward and attack or to support the midfield (again, Brazil are one of the best exponents of this), whereas more defensive teams may prefer to use zonal marking to maintain defensive shape and form an impenetrable barrier to goal.
Man Marking
?Global? man marking systems employing the whole team as man markers may be rare in modern football, but that is not to say they are unheard of. Man marking can work very well when formations provide an obvious player for player match up ? as two opposing ?WM? formations would have prior to the formation?s demise in the 1960s.
However, the system can be broken down by pace and movement (and red cards!) as Reading found to their cost when Manchester United beat them 3-2 on New Year?s Eve in 2006. Wind the clock back to 1953 and Hungary provided an early warning of the deficiencies of man marking as they destroyed England 6-3 and a year later 7-1 by instructing players to interchange positions or to drop into ?the hole? ? causing much confusion in the English defensive ranks.
That defeat owes a good deal to the naivety of the English in failing to adapt to the situation ? closing down or marking players when they should have been covering. Fortunately, FM is a good deal more sophisticated, limiting how far players will stray from their position to follow their man and maintaining a degree of common sense, whilst still prioritising the man more than zonal marking does.
It should be noted that man marking in this sense applies purely to the overall team setting and not individual player settings (player x follows player y wherever he goes) or opposition instructions (the whole team keeps a close eye on player y).
Coaches and fans alike will often refer to getting ?touch tight? (mark the player tightly, rather than stand off him). This is not specific to man marking and can apply equally to zonal marking ? remembering that zonal marking still requires the defender to close down or mark attackers in certain situations (such as having the ball).
Mixed Marking
Sweeper systems such as Catenaccio place a zonal marker behind three or four man-markers, ensuring that any break down of the man marking system is covered, though again it should be noted that the original asymmetric nature of Catenaccio pitted the defensive side of the team against the opponent?s attacking side, providing a player for player match up.
When Greece won Euro 2004, they employed a sweeper behind three man markers, a five man midfield and a lone striker ? in essence, the formation was much the same as Rappan?s Verrou, but with the wingers withdrawn into midfield, and perhaps a flatter back four. The five man midfield suggests that the extra man acts as cover for four more man markers, but that is speculation on my part ? it may just be a way of packing the midfield. While Greece were undeniably superior to the Swiss team of the 1930s, their success owed something to the surprise element.
During the 1980?s and 90?s the sweeper was commonly deployed in a 3-5-2 formation and was often referred to as Catenaccio, though it bore little resemblance to the original system beyond the spare man.
Sweeper systems deal with the opponent?s attacking unit as a whole by adding a zonal marker to a man marking system. This combination can be reversed, adding a man marker to a zonal defence to deal with a specific individual threat. Manchester United did this against Barcelona in 1994, using full back Paul Parker to mark Romario, while the remaining three defenders retained their zonal responsibilities ? though a lapse in concentration allowed Romario to run onto a through ball and score.
Most real life mixed marking systems only employ one defender and perhaps one midfielder with different instructions to the rest of the team. That is not to say you should only stick to systems that real managers have used. Football Manager 2010?s ?Default? marking assigns zonal or man marking according to position, role and duty and could result in a 50/50 split. If you are comfortable with that (i.e. it seems to work, or it fits your tactical vision) then there is no reason to change it.
The Transition Phase
Space Management
For the past few years I have been a season ticket holder at my local club, Portsmouth. There is a middle aged woman sat behind me (and a few seats to the right, thankfully) who yelps every time the ball enters our penalty area, even when there is clearly no danger. Now this may be an over-reaction, but there is generally a stage in the match, shortly before conceding, where the yelping increases and the passage of play is generally characterised by one of my friends using the phrase ?we?re sitting too deep.?
The defensive line is all about controlling the space and while the failure to control it may result in conceding sloppy goals, it can also be used to turn defence into attack. Herbert Chapman?s Arsenal team did this by sitting deep, drawing the opposition out of defence and holding them at the edge of the penalty area, before launching a swift counter attack into the space created.
Valeriy Lobanovskyi took the opposite approach with Dynamo and USSR, playing a high line in combination with the offside trap and aggressive pressing. This meant that possession was won higher up the pitch, placing his teams in a much better position to attack and containing the opposition in one half of the pitch. While this was successful in Europe, it was referred to as ?the donkey line? in Brazil as it was considered stupid ? pass one man and you pass them all.
Both strategies require a strong back line, but are not necessarily the preserve of world class teams. Equally, both strategies require concentration as there is less margin for error. Where they differ is in their approach to possession ? a deep line prioritising quality of possession over quantity and a high line the opposite.
Defensive Midfielders
You are probably wondering why I have singled out just the one position. This is because of its importance in making the whole team function. When the England team lacks a good defensive midfielder the question is often asked ?why do we need a holding player anyway?? The answer is perhaps that we don?t necessarily need one ? but it doesn?t half help.
Brazil?s rampaging full backs and the artistry of Pele, Zico or Ronaldinho are made possible by the protection that a defensive midfielder (or two) offers when play breaks down, covering the empty space left behind and snuffing out attacks before they get started.
The 4-2-3-1 formation used by France in the 1998 World Cup uses two holding players as a platform for the four attacking players, who are afforded greater freedom than they would have in other systems, and also allows the full backs some attacking scope.
When possession is regained the defensive midfielder becomes the fulcrum around which the midfield pivots. This is particularly true in a three man midfield where a triangle will frequently exert greater control than a flat line.
Football Manager distinguishes the defensive midfield position from that of a ?standard? midfielder, but to all intents and purposes, a standard midfielder with a defensive duty is performing the same task in the attacking phase- staying behind the rest of the midfield. The only difference comes with the position adopted in the defensive phase ? the defensive midfielder covering ?the hole? while the standard midfielder who defends forms a line with the rest of the midfield.
Attacking Play
Possession Football
Losing managers are often asked why their team did not win a match that they seemed to control. Somewhere amongst the rambling excuses there will most likely be some kind of reference to having ?the lion?s share? of possession (i.e. more than the other team). Occasionally a more pragmatic manager will simply say ?They scored more goals than us.?
Goals win football matches, not possession, or for that matter shots (a common complaint on Football Manager forums). The relationship between possession and goals is not clear cut. Counter attacking football actually relies on having less possession than the opponent, but it is quite obvious that you can?t score goals when not in possession of the ball.
You may remember we started this article by talking about the English predilection for moving the ball rapidly in one direction only. It came as something of a surprise then in the 1880s, when Scotland lined up in a 2-3-5 formation and used short sideways passes to maintain possession of the ball and patiently wait for an opening ? though the game ended in a goalless draw.
Austria and Hungary then showed the true potential of the passing game, by realising that a good first touch meant that the ball could be released quicker. Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil took it a step further, celebrating the technique and artistry of football more than winning ? though they frequently did win ? and taking their time over possession, thus creating better quality chances.
If it is true that attack is the best form of defence then possession is the mechanism by which attack and defence operates. English fans may get impatient, boo back passes and yell ?get it forward?, but paradoxically they still expect to retain possession of the ball.
The Long Ball Game
Teams adopting a long ball game are often derided as playing anti-football ? partly because it goes hand in hand with a more physical approach, leaving the opposition battered and bruised. It?s certainly not pretty, but as Wimbledon and Watford proved in the 1980?s, it can be highly effective for teams looking to punch above their weight.
Charles Hughes, who unfortunately was made Technical Director of the Football Association, analysed 100 matches and concluded that 80 percent of goals come from three or less passes. On the surface of it, this appears to support getting the ball forward quickly, but his deeply flawed analysis fails to properly account for another statistic ? that 91.5 percent of moves consist of three or less passes, which actually means that there is an 11.5 percent shortfall in the number of goals that should be scored.
Long ball football is likely to produce a high turnover of possession and that is perhaps why the more successful exponents (as Graham Taylor was, at least at Watford) tended to play a pressing game to re-balance possession in their favour. What it does give you is ?penetration? of enemy territory, provided the long balls are not just aimless ? that is, they either have a specific target, or in the case of David Beckham, the passing is of a high quality.
Both Wimbledon and Watford had big, physical target men to look for (as Bolton do today in Kevin Davies) and willing runners from midfield to collect the knock downs, achieving a good deal of success without relying on technically gifted players. That is not to say that it couldn?t fail spectacularly when meeting a team with enough technical ability to maintain possession under pressure.
While long ball football does not necessarily have to be about analysis, statistics and percentages (it is doubtful many lower league managers take such a scientific approach), Football Manager 2010 does give you some pretty useful data in the match day ?Stats? tab.
Strike Partnerships
While 4-5-1 is gaining in popularity, many formations still rely on a two man strike partnership. The key to any successful partnership is division of labour and this is perhaps what makes it easier to get two men working than a lone striker.
That division most commonly comes in two forms ? the ?creator/scorer? combination, or the ?big man/small man? combination (small man usually implies pace). This will often see one man drop into the hole as deep lying forward, support striker or trequartista (three-quarters), while the other takes a more advanced role. In Football Manager, as in real life, it is much easier to mark two strikers who play in line with each other.
There are other combinations that work of course. Real Madrid won La Liga five times in a row in the 1980s with two strikers who didn?t even like each other and rarely dovetailed, but in Hugo Sanchez and Emilio Butragueno they had a power and subtlety.
Arsenal?s Bergkamp/Henry combination is perhaps one of the most complete partnerships. At first glance they could be described as a typical creator/scorer combination, but that doesn?t take into account Henry?s blistering pace or Bergkamp?s aerial ability, which made them as effective as any big man/small man combo, or their ability to swap creative and goal scoring roles.
At the other end of the spectrum, Portsmouth found moderate success due to Kanu?s flair and Benjani?s work rate and determination. Perhaps the only quality they shared was the ability to hold the ball up, but there is no denying that the almost total split of abilities worked to good effect.
The apparent exception to the rule is the partnership of Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka. Many pundits doubted that they could work together, considering them too similar in many aspects of their game. However, this ignores their obvious qualities beyond mere goal scoring. Like the Bergkamp/Henry combination at times they can be a big man/small man combination and at other times a creator/scorer combination. Though the lines are much more blurred (particularly since both can operate as lone strikers or do each others job when playing together), they are there.
Universality versus Specialisation
The heroes of the past were the wingers, playmakers and goal poachers, but the modern game is an altogether different beast that does not allow room for so called ?luxury players?. Improvements in physical fitness and defensive organisation mean that space on the football field is limited, there are fewer mistakes and less gaps (even if the Match of the Day pundits would have you believe otherwise). This has given rise to two very different types of footballers.
?Complete? players, or hybrids such as Christiano Ronaldo, Thierry Henry and Wayne Rooney combine multiple abilities ? creativity, dribbling and finishing ? that mean they can pop up in different areas of the pitch and be equally adept as a playmaker, winger or striker. Didier Drogba is another take on the theme, complimenting his power and strength with moments of finesse.
Valeriy Lobanovskyi called this ?universality? - to which the specialist would be the philosophical opposite. The universal player is unpredictable and, at his best, unplayable, while the specialist plays purely to his strengths. Emile Heskey, Michael Owen and Stephane Guivarc?h are perfect examples, much derided for their limitations, but frequently the key component in victory ? in Guivarc?h?s case, World Cup victory.
Further back, Claude Makelele was often held up as the perfect example of a defensive midfielder in his heyday, doing little other than breaking up attacks and playing short simple passes to his more creative team mates. Even so Jose Mourinho (Makelele?s manager at Chelsea) is quick to bemoan English coaching for failing to create young players who are multi-functional.
Most players, of course, fall somewhere between the two extremes and the top teams employ a mixture of hybrids, specialists and ?general purpose? players. If you are lucky enough to have a hybrid or two it is worth remembering that, since their abilities blur the lines between midfield and attack, their position tends to follow as does withdrawing a striker.
Manchester United?s front four of Rooney, Ronaldo, Giggs and Tevez interchanged between three attacking midfield berths and one strike position (more on this in a minute). At Arsenal, Bergkamp dropped deep and Henry drifted out wide. Maradona was a midfielder who could play as a support striker, explaining why a long line of Argentinian playmakers have failed to become ?the next Maradona?.
Drogba, again, is an exception, operating on his own as an out-and-out striker under Mourhinho, but in partnership with Nicolas Anelka under Carlo Ancelotti.
Movement and Interchanging
As we have already seen with Hungary?s destruction of the English, good movement and good attacking play go hand in hand. Rigid formations have their place, but stationary players can be easy to mark. This is perhaps why many teams employ a big striker to hold the ball up, concentrating on grinding the opposition down rather than ?pattern weaving?.
Total Football is often seen as the ideal ? defenders attacking and attackers defending in one fluid formation. The reality was a good deal more organised than it sounds, even if it would be difficult to implement at the pace the modern game is played. Players in the 1-3-3-3 formation interchange along vertical lines. For example, if the left midfielder came forward, the left wing forward would cover.
It was different to merely swapping positions as two wingers would do, having more to do with balancing forward runs and freedom to roam with defensive responsibility.
Revisiting another of our previous examples, Manchester United?s front four used a similar interchanging of roles to good effect, but left the remaining six outfield players out of the equation, defending, supporting or attacking within their normal roles.
The aim of this type of movement is to present defenders with a threat that is unpredictable in its direction and nature, with much of the work carried out off the ball. Even then, it is not totally without structure. Alex Ferguson maintains that it is better to have forwards attack from wide positions and move into the centre towards goal, than to start in the centre and move away from goal. This may indicate why the 4-5-1/4-3-3 has become so popular, as it uses two advanced wingers that converge on the goal.
Looking beyond the obvious wisdom of Ferguson?s point, it is also fair to say that defending teams looking for an ?out ball? will have greater luck finding strikers who have drifted wide, while Arsenal echoed their counter attacking ploy of the 1930s by allowing Thierry Henry to drift into wide positions to devastating effect.
As with all tactical elements there is no definitive rule ? Ruud van Nistelrooy is a good example of a striker who starts in the middle and stays in the middle and gets a lot of goals, though he would have had another striker to run the channels, such as Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
The Numbers Game
The title of Jonathon Wilson?s book ?Inverting the Pyramid? is a clue as to how the balance of attackers and defenders has changed. From the time the first formation was dreamt up forwards have been withdrawn into midfield to look for space and midfielders withdrawn into defence to deny it.
Teams once attacked with eight players and defended with five (midfielders in a 2-3-5 operating in both phases), but this is generally reversed in modern football. The 4-4-2 defends with two banks of four, but at the most will only send three of the four midfielders forward to join the two strikers
This apparent trend towards negativity was set in motion by a change to the offside law, reducing the number of men required to be goal side from three to two and precipitating Chapman?s WM. I say ?apparent?, because as we have seen, withdrawing players does not necessarily mean teams are less attacking.
Shifting the right numbers between attack and defence is perhaps the key component of style of play ? more so than starting formation. Argentina found this out to their cost as they lost the 1930 World Cup to Uruguay. Both teams liked to attack in numbers, in an attempt to overload the defence, but crucially, only Uruguay gave any thought to defending.
Brazil attacked in numbers, winning the World Cup three times between 1958 and 1970, but this is generally recognised as the end of a more na?ve era. Defenders sat deeper, so Brazil were less likely to be caught on the break and their world class players consequently had the kind of space the modern game rarely allows. It shouldn?t be forgotten that they also defended in greater numbers ? though again the less frenetic style of play made this much easier.
Italian football is often seen as overly defensive and negative, characterised, not by formation, but by the use of just three attacking players. The first aim is to avoid conceding ? you can?t lose if you don?t concede. Scoring is almost a secondary aim and the national side in particular are famed for their 1-0 wins.
A Final Word
My own management career (from the first Championship Manager to the current Football Manager) has followed a similar path to the development of tactics in the real game. Early on, I simply found the best players I could, seeing football merely as a test of ability. Then came the 4-3-1-2 formation and a desire to create beautiful football, albeit it through text commentary. The luxury of a playmaker gave way to grinding out results; or rather fear of losing took over, leading to a more defensive approach and thankfully plenty of 1-0 wins.
I finally feel that I have reached a point where I understand why my tactics worked and why they subsequently stopped working ? which is why I am genuinely excited by the prospect of taking over a Portsmouth team that has sold a team and a half of quality players and replaced them with second rate journeymen.
One line of thought is to create a spare man in attack and exploit gaps in the opponents back four without sacrificing my own defensive stability - which I would hope to achieve by employing a 4-4-2 that morphs into a 4-3-3 using duties and individual width to reshape the formation.
Another approach is to control the midfield space and play to individual strengths in a 4-2-3-1 that uses two playmakers, three willing runners and a target man. In both cases the formation is the end result and not the starting point.
Both methods also require one or two additional signings to make it work, so with no money to spend it may yet be back to the drawing board!
Spoiler: show
In our third installment, we look at duties and how they affect the balance of your tactics. Duties are almost as important as the formation itself in determining team shape. Attacking players will, naturally, find themselves further up the pitch, while defending players will drop deeper. But, as with everything FM, the reality is more subtle than that.
TT10 will be published in full on October 30 to coincide with the release of Football Manager 10. As usual, it will be available to download from FM-Britain.co.uk.
Duties
Duties affect what the primary attacking a defensive duty of the player is on the team. They come in three types: attack, support, and defend. It is also possible to set certain players to ?automatic?, which means the creator will choose the most appropriate duty depending on the strategy employed.
Players using the defend duty will have lower forward runs and run with ball instructions. They are asked to concentrate on staying back, keeping their shape and making sure that the team has enough cover when the opposition has the ball. Their role will affect the specific placement of the classic tactical sliders.
Support players are required to hang further back than the attackers, but play ahead of the defenders. Their job is to receive the ball and find good passes when in attack, but to track back and act as the first line of defence once possession is lost. Because of this, they will be asked to play more through balls than anyone else, looking for the right pass to open up the defence, but will also have fewer forward runs than attackers so that they can offer an outlet should possession be lost or should the attackers need a passing outlet behind them to recycle the ball.
Finally, attack players will look to get forward whenever possible and put pressure on the opposition?s defence. They will tend to play with more forward runs (unless their role already places them on the shoulder of the last defender) and will be looking to score goals or set up fellow attackers.
Assigning duties, alongside roles, can really add spice to tactic building. Changes to duties can dramatically change the shape and feel of the side. These changes can help players push forward, push wide or pull back from their proscribed position on the tactical diagram. For most managers, this will allow subtle but important changes in shape, effects that in the past could only have been achieved by changing formation or using the ?arrows?.
Assigning Duties
It is very important that the team has the right balance of duties depending on the match strategy. Unsurprisingly, attacking tactics will need more attack duties, while defensive tactics will need more defend duties. Last year?s guide recommended that defensive tactics have around 5 defenders, 2 support players and 3 attackers. Attacking tactics would have 3 defenders, 2 support players and 5 attackers. And the tactics in between would have more support players.
The creator will look to assign roles like this anyway, and may also assign some automatic roles. These are generally given to the full backs, who will then be defensive in cautious tactics, look to get forward a little more in standard tactics, and look to attack the wings in attacking tactics.
Balance
This is the key word with everything in football tactics. Finding the right balance between attacking intent and creativity on the one hand and defensive shape and stability on the other is the ultimate juggling act. In general, it is important to use the duties to make sure that nobody on the team gets isolated and that there is always cover in key positions on the park. This is why the choice of duties is so vital to tactical success.
It is certainly not the case that all defenders should be on ?defend?, all midfielders on ?support? and all attackers on ?attack?. This would leave the team very static and with no communication from one stratum to the next. The following outlines the standard practice for setting up the basic duties for a 4-5-1 or 4-4-2.
Defence: As has been explained in the previous section, full backs tend to be given ?automatic? roles in FM10. This is because attacking full backs add necessary width to a team: and, usually, if you are attacking the opposition will be defending, meaning having four players permanently stationed in a line can unnecessarily restrict passing options. However, the two centre backs are told to stay back during open play. Their extra duty options are therefore variations on the defensive roles: stopper and cover. The stopper will look to step out of defence and confront the attacker as he comes through, while the cover will look to take a yard or two back in order to ?sweep? up any through balls.
Midfield: It is important that the midfield has both support for the front line and keeps somebody back to patrol the centre of the park. In previous guides, you may have heard this referred to as the ?MCa? and the ?MCd? system.
Having one of you central midfielders use a defend duty (be that a DMC or an MC) is incredibly useful in acting as a holding midfielder. This means that if the opposition do launch a quick break there should be enough men back to at least slow down the counter attack until the support players arrive. In attacking tactics, the ?defend? central midfield would be the third of the three players on the defend duty, along with the two centre backs.
Similarly, having the other midfielder on a support or attack duty acts as a good link with the central forwards. In a 4-4-2, support may be enough ? the second forward can act as the proper link between attack and midfield. However, in a 4-5-1 or other lone striker formations, having an attack minded MC or AMC can help bridge that gap and supply the forward with passes as well as passing options.
Wingers or side midfielders are very often given attack duties, since it is important to allow them to get forward whenever possible and cause trouble out wide. Not everyone may be given the attack duty (especially in a 4-5-1 where you have more options), but attacking wing play can be very useful in breaking down the opposition or giving you the option for the counter attack down the wing to exploit any space left by marauding opposition full backs. Alternatively, when playing against defensive full backs, it may be necessary to use the support duty to find space in the resulting hole in front of the defence.
Attack: With two forwards, it is important to ?split? the duties. One will usually act as a support player, the other an attacker. This serves two purposes. One, it can create the link between the midfield and the attack. And two, it staggers the attack which makes it difficult for centre backs to defend. Remember, of course, that the ?two? players up front may be arranged in a AMC-FC combination, which would allow the AMC to be a support player and the FC to be the attack player. Usually, the attacking player will be the goal scorer (the quicker player or the poacher), while the support player will be the link forward (the creative forward or the big target man who flicks the ball on).
With a lone forward, it is important to either give him an AMC in support or to give him a support duty of his own. Attack duties will make him press on and play on the shoulder of the last defender, but they will also leave him isolated if there is a huge gap between him and the midfield. If there are no AMCs in the formation, one of the midfielders will almost certainly need an attack duty in order to give him the required support.
How you set up your duties ultimately is up to you. Strategy and other playing style changes will tend to keep players further back or further forward in different tactics anyway ? but keeping a balance is always useful in making the team work well as a unit.
TT10 will be published in full on October 30 to coincide with the release of Football Manager 10. As usual, it will be available to download from FM-Britain.co.uk.
Duties
Duties affect what the primary attacking a defensive duty of the player is on the team. They come in three types: attack, support, and defend. It is also possible to set certain players to ?automatic?, which means the creator will choose the most appropriate duty depending on the strategy employed.
Players using the defend duty will have lower forward runs and run with ball instructions. They are asked to concentrate on staying back, keeping their shape and making sure that the team has enough cover when the opposition has the ball. Their role will affect the specific placement of the classic tactical sliders.
Support players are required to hang further back than the attackers, but play ahead of the defenders. Their job is to receive the ball and find good passes when in attack, but to track back and act as the first line of defence once possession is lost. Because of this, they will be asked to play more through balls than anyone else, looking for the right pass to open up the defence, but will also have fewer forward runs than attackers so that they can offer an outlet should possession be lost or should the attackers need a passing outlet behind them to recycle the ball.
Finally, attack players will look to get forward whenever possible and put pressure on the opposition?s defence. They will tend to play with more forward runs (unless their role already places them on the shoulder of the last defender) and will be looking to score goals or set up fellow attackers.
Assigning duties, alongside roles, can really add spice to tactic building. Changes to duties can dramatically change the shape and feel of the side. These changes can help players push forward, push wide or pull back from their proscribed position on the tactical diagram. For most managers, this will allow subtle but important changes in shape, effects that in the past could only have been achieved by changing formation or using the ?arrows?.
Assigning Duties
It is very important that the team has the right balance of duties depending on the match strategy. Unsurprisingly, attacking tactics will need more attack duties, while defensive tactics will need more defend duties. Last year?s guide recommended that defensive tactics have around 5 defenders, 2 support players and 3 attackers. Attacking tactics would have 3 defenders, 2 support players and 5 attackers. And the tactics in between would have more support players.
The creator will look to assign roles like this anyway, and may also assign some automatic roles. These are generally given to the full backs, who will then be defensive in cautious tactics, look to get forward a little more in standard tactics, and look to attack the wings in attacking tactics.
Balance
This is the key word with everything in football tactics. Finding the right balance between attacking intent and creativity on the one hand and defensive shape and stability on the other is the ultimate juggling act. In general, it is important to use the duties to make sure that nobody on the team gets isolated and that there is always cover in key positions on the park. This is why the choice of duties is so vital to tactical success.
It is certainly not the case that all defenders should be on ?defend?, all midfielders on ?support? and all attackers on ?attack?. This would leave the team very static and with no communication from one stratum to the next. The following outlines the standard practice for setting up the basic duties for a 4-5-1 or 4-4-2.
Defence: As has been explained in the previous section, full backs tend to be given ?automatic? roles in FM10. This is because attacking full backs add necessary width to a team: and, usually, if you are attacking the opposition will be defending, meaning having four players permanently stationed in a line can unnecessarily restrict passing options. However, the two centre backs are told to stay back during open play. Their extra duty options are therefore variations on the defensive roles: stopper and cover. The stopper will look to step out of defence and confront the attacker as he comes through, while the cover will look to take a yard or two back in order to ?sweep? up any through balls.
Midfield: It is important that the midfield has both support for the front line and keeps somebody back to patrol the centre of the park. In previous guides, you may have heard this referred to as the ?MCa? and the ?MCd? system.
Having one of you central midfielders use a defend duty (be that a DMC or an MC) is incredibly useful in acting as a holding midfielder. This means that if the opposition do launch a quick break there should be enough men back to at least slow down the counter attack until the support players arrive. In attacking tactics, the ?defend? central midfield would be the third of the three players on the defend duty, along with the two centre backs.
Similarly, having the other midfielder on a support or attack duty acts as a good link with the central forwards. In a 4-4-2, support may be enough ? the second forward can act as the proper link between attack and midfield. However, in a 4-5-1 or other lone striker formations, having an attack minded MC or AMC can help bridge that gap and supply the forward with passes as well as passing options.
Wingers or side midfielders are very often given attack duties, since it is important to allow them to get forward whenever possible and cause trouble out wide. Not everyone may be given the attack duty (especially in a 4-5-1 where you have more options), but attacking wing play can be very useful in breaking down the opposition or giving you the option for the counter attack down the wing to exploit any space left by marauding opposition full backs. Alternatively, when playing against defensive full backs, it may be necessary to use the support duty to find space in the resulting hole in front of the defence.
Attack: With two forwards, it is important to ?split? the duties. One will usually act as a support player, the other an attacker. This serves two purposes. One, it can create the link between the midfield and the attack. And two, it staggers the attack which makes it difficult for centre backs to defend. Remember, of course, that the ?two? players up front may be arranged in a AMC-FC combination, which would allow the AMC to be a support player and the FC to be the attack player. Usually, the attacking player will be the goal scorer (the quicker player or the poacher), while the support player will be the link forward (the creative forward or the big target man who flicks the ball on).
With a lone forward, it is important to either give him an AMC in support or to give him a support duty of his own. Attack duties will make him press on and play on the shoulder of the last defender, but they will also leave him isolated if there is a huge gap between him and the midfield. If there are no AMCs in the formation, one of the midfielders will almost certainly need an attack duty in order to give him the required support.
How you set up your duties ultimately is up to you. Strategy and other playing style changes will tend to keep players further back or further forward in different tactics anyway ? but keeping a balance is always useful in making the team work well as a unit.
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