Stoke, wimbledon, nondescript northern teams with no money...

[Saveonsam]

Is it possible to make a long ball team. I don't mean direct, pressin quick tempo. I mean proper lump,pump and hump it forward. The sort of rubbish us league two fans have to watch (bar swindon, gillingham and wimbledon)?? I've been trying since 08 to do it and by jove i cannot do it!! I want to be top of the list from scoring from corners, IDK's, long throws and such (without using the super tactic thingys)

has anyone else had any joy doing this?

if so, care to share? help an old long ball fan out?

[Romanista1994]

Never tried playing like that, but it's certainly on my to-do list.

I'd suggest taking a look at your playing staff first:

Goalkeeper: Get in a strong goalkeeper who is good in taking aerial balls and one on ones.

Fullbacks: The tall, defensive type which doesn't like to get forward but is able to cross at a decent level.

Centerbacks: Giants, with no offensive capability bar being able to out-jump the opposition centerbacks at set pieces.

Central Midfielders: Brave, aggressive and hard-working, perhaps one more defensive minded coupled with a box-to-box player.

Wingers: Quick, hard-working and good at crossing. Height can be useful her if you want to score from back post crosses.

Strikers: Bullying forwards capable of brushing off opposition defenders and good enough at passing to put the midfielders or wingers through. You can also partner a bully-forward with a smaller, more agile goalscorer to increase the variety of attacking threat.

Throughout the team you'd like to see attributes of at least 15 (scale down according to the level you're playing at) for: Jumping, Workrate, Strength, Team Work, Determination, Bravery and Aggression as well as the key attributes for each position.

I'd suggest a tactic looking like this (if you're into 4-4-2's):

Rigid, Counter, Long Passing, Less Creative Freedom, Less Roaming, Hard Tackling and Floated Crosses.

Fullbacks: Automatic or defend, whichever fits you best in defending.

Centerbacks: Defend

Central Midfielders: Ball-winning Midfielder (defend) or Central Midfielder (defend) coupled with a Box-to-Box man.

Winger: Winger attack

Striker: Targetman(attack) with TM(support), or TM (support) with Poacher

I'll add set-piece instructons and shouts to this post soon.

[Saveonsam]

well, you have literally just described how i set my teams out. The issue i have is that we seem to be too succeptable to teams with any form of mobility!

i'd be interested to know if you are actually able to be successful with it. I tend to only really take teams from lower leagues up to the champ and then los steam and never make the prem.

i'm thinking although in real life the lower you are the easier long ball is it is actually harder in fm.

best quote ever though "if they ain't good enough, get em fit enough"

out lord Big Sam, Amen to that!

[santy001]

Work Rate, Determination and Teamwork are the three underpinning attributes you need. I have Stoke on FM12, I play a 4-3-3 which is:

Fullbacks on automatic

Centrebacks as Limited Defenders

Centre Mid as Ball winning midfielder (defensive)

Wingers on support

2 Target Men either side of a defensive forward

The defensive forward joins attacks but spends a lot of time in midfield. The passing is direct, rigid and little creative freedom. When its working its a match for anyone, other times though you can get a bit of a hiding, because it requires all the players to be working hard when I lose someone to injury or a red card I usually find my team conceding 3/4 goals late on as they're so exhausted by that point. It's getting better for me though lol.

[furiousuk]

Normally I'd say that FM is capable of any style of play given the right players, conditions and tactical instructions but I haven't heard of anyone really producing old-style Crazy Gang tactics. Getting players to gang-tackle consistently isn't possible in FM, occasionally you'll get a couple of defenders in a tight space and they'll gang up on a player but it is usually from a set-piece where the usual positions can be changed. Also, the way the passing length slider works is that a long passing length means players are free to play the ball long if they want, not that they necessarily should be - it doesn't encourage long passing, it's just that is doesn't discourage it (that's a tight bit of logic for you first thing in the morning). There is no tactical mechanism to really encourage the long ball that I've heard about.

At a push I'd suggest setting a target-man with play to head and see if that encourages your players to 'lump it' up to him more often. Given that a higher mentality and tempo actually encourages players to get the ball directly to goal more often it might make sense to have your defenders on a higher mentality than normal but making sure you keep a deep defensive line. This sounds counter-intuitive but in FM terms it makes a bit of sense (not sure it would actually work though and might create more problems). You'd need to limit their short options somehow to further encourage the opposite as well - this could maybe be done by getting players will poor(ish) technical ability and poor off the ball. I'd agree that work rate and team work is crucial for this style of football but in FM this will mean that players are working hard to get into positions to receive the ball which might be why you are seeing more short passes than you want.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

I have no idea what he is doing but I saw this;

My RB/LB are playing 70 yard through balls to my striker who is clean through on goal as a result. Weird.

Post #517 here;

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/279193-*OFFICIAL*-Football-Manager-2012-Feedback-and-Discussion-Thread?p=7245741#post7245741

maybe ask him.

[Saveonsam]

Seems there aren't too many others that enjoy the ball stuff then! appreciate what you guys are saying. Do you think then that the game isn't capable of doing it? Or is it more that the way in which the tactics engine works means that it is difficult to create what I want?

have you ever come up against an AI that plays long ball?

[Falahk]

it might be difficult to get it right, but it should probably be possible in some way

playing like this is one of things I have wanted to try for quite some time, but I feel that im sort of limited by my lack of experiance of watching the real life counterpart