Rising of Betis - And my understanding [Tactical Help]

[Sainten]

Hey everyone who sees this,

Now i do it! For long, i wanted to make a thread to get out of my FM hole.

I never really dared doing this, proberly beeing afraid that peope will hate on me.

How i came to this forum, was after trying to start games with a Top team, a mid team, and then a team from 2. Bundesleague. All where i found myself either in the bottom, and with the top team mid table. I found a link to [highlight]Going against the Grain, a journey from rage quit to complete satisfaction[/highlight]. Read it, and got inspired. I have read through alot of the good articles on the forum. And i feel that im getting the hang on this game, still im not doing very good. Unfortunally.

I thought 2 days ago, now i do it, now im going to learn this game! So i have started a game with Betis, a team i have played with in numerous Football Manager games, and often with good succes.

My plan with this game is:

- Learn to create a tactic, based on my material.

- Learn to scout, and exploit opponents weaknesses.

- Get familiar with shouts, how to use them according to opponents weaknesses.

- Develop youth players to my first team.

- Play more than 1 season.

So what have i been doing in my first time as Betis manager?

I started as the first thing, to compare my team against other teams in the league.

From this, i thought that i have to play the ball around, alot. Also i wont be pressing too much due to low aggression.

Not much to say here, other than i should get a keeper with better handling and reflexes. 2 of the stats i personally always look for in a keeper.

Good tackling, but really slow. I guess this mean having a deep backline is vital. I also set my tackling to aggressive.

This 1 i think is hard, i have some good creative midfielders. But my team really lacks stamina, so in real life that would mean that i should be compact, to avoid running too much after the opponent.

Good finishing, means i should get some shot on goal. But the trick is to get that. I have a strong attacker in Molina (16 STR, 15 Jmp, 18 det, 16 OTB, 18 work, 16 hea, 17 fin) - got castro and joel campell which have some pace. Beside that nothing spectacular.

By looking at my strengths and weaknesses, i have come up with this tactic.

I played 2 matches with short passing, but read in a thread that good passing wasnt equal to Short passing. So after switching to default i saw an improvement. But it was against a very weak team.

This is a thread i hope can help me, and maybe others, to improve their game.

I wont give up until i get the hang of this, so im hoping someone has the patience to help me out.

- Sainten

[Sainten]

First match of the season played, even tho the result, i dont think theres much to be positive about.

It took me 15 seconds, before my DCR gave the ball directly to Athletic. Again at the 17th minute, the same player gives the ball away, and then have to make a penalty. I had this played as Limited Defender, but changed right after to Normal Defender, in the hope that he would play the ball instead of getting tackled as the last man.

Is this normal that limited defenders hold onto the ball?

[llama3]

A few points from what I can see:

• Limited Defenders tend to hoof the ball clear, and sometimes ignore the short passing options. If they dwelt on the ball perhaps they did not feel they had good passing options. Perhaps a normal central defender may encourage him to play a simple pass instead.
  
• You have a deep back-line and aggressive tackling, a very counter-intuitive option, it makes your team give up their good defensive shape very close to your own goal, change your tackling, after all, you have noted yourself your team is not very aggressive. I would go so far as to tell them to stand off opponents more, you have the shape for it, and the makings of the system for it. It would also help the fact your team has poor stamina too. You can keep the ball and be creative even if you do not press your opponents.
  
• A lone Target Man is often isolated. The AMR will help, being an IF(A), but tbh a DLF(S) would link play far better.
  
• This problem is exacerbated by the lack of midfield runners too. The DM & DLP both have rare forward runs, your BTB Midfielder would probably be better as an AP/CM(A) instead, and this would help link play far better in the final third, without exposing your defensive cover in midfield.
  
• Your left hand side is VERY static. No midfield runner (DLP will not make enough runs), along with a lack of movement from your winger and full back - 1 of these should be an attack duty, and if you insist on that remaining the same, then swap your 2 central midfielders around to provide better cover & through-balls on the right hand side.

Hope that helps.

[RonnySanchez]

I agree with Llama3 on the points he makes. Especially on the point that one of your midfilders has to have an attack mentality (probably that guy Sevilla)

What I would add on top of that is you seem to play too offensively away from home, Athletic is a quite strong team, you can't expect to have success playing with Control strategy, it’s too offensive.

You can switch to control strategy for shorter periods of the game if you see that the opposition has pulled back/plays more defensively or if you go a goal behind but if you stay on control for the whole game it will hurt you at the end.

Play on standard from the start, if you seem to get pegged into your own box then you need to change something, man mark their fullbacks with your wingers or adjust the d-line with a shout, but if they don't penetrate to your box, just play around it and shoot from distance then you do not need to change anything, sooner or later you'll get your chance. If they on the other hand constantly create counter and semi-counter attacks, then that's an indication that you can't rely on controlled attacks for this game, you might want to pull back and change your strategy to counter or defensive.

Concerning the limited defender problem that you had, look where was your right full back at the time that the limited defender had the ball, he might have been too far up so he got confused what to do, if he dwelt on the ball right after a goal kick or a save you might consider giving an instruction to your goalkeeper to distribute the ball to your other DC or to your left back.

I have noticed also that you substituted your DC, it’s a small picture so I can't read if it’s really so, now it may be so that you substituted him because of an injury but otherwise I don't think it’s a good idea, he's low rating is because of the mistake leading to a goal but if he's stats after that are fine, (he wins headers, makes interceptions and good tackles) then he is probably doing fine, his rating won't show it but he might be doing fine. Bringing in a new DC in to the game will more often than not cause more problems than it will solve them.

[drinkmixer84]

Everything llama mentioned is spot on. I like that you have an attacking fullback but I don't like that both options on the right wing are attacking while the left flank is both supporting. This is how I would setup:

LFB: FB-s

LCB and RCB: CD-d

RFB: FB-a

DM: DM-d

LCM: CM-a

RCM: DLP-s or AP-s

LAM: W-a

RAM: IF-s

ST: CF-s/DLF-s/CF-a/AF-a

You have lots of options with the ST role it just depends on the attributes of your player. I'd also think with a Control strategy you want to keep possession so I'd look into Pressing set to Press More or default. I'd also consider changing tackling to default.

You seem like you have the right attitude to learn the game, let us know the results of your changes...keep in mind if you've lost a few in a row morale might be down so a team meeting could be a good idea to make sure your tactics are the deciding factor and not the morale.

[Sainten]

Just got home from a mini vacation, so its time to try and tune the tactic.

Im really happy with the replies also, it makes perfect sense. Im a bit sorry, that i cant figure this out myself, but thats why i made this thread, so i can learn to do so.

Update on changes will come tomorrow.

- Sainten

[Sainten]

So after changing up some things in my tactic, and the way i use Tactic strategy. Then i had a succesfull match vs Osasuna.

I started out by looking at their earlier matches, and found out they play with 2 DMs and their offense was like this: 1 AML, 1 AMC, 1 AMR and 1 ST. So i decieded to play narrow, exploit the flanks & hit early crosses.

The early crosses was to avoid loosing to many balls on the flanks.

Match stats:

I had alot of chances, think its the first time in FM2013 i had this many. Alot from long range tho, but i think thats because sevilla has a the "shoot from distance" ppm. Might consider to get another player for this position. (Or trying to get him to stop this ppm)

In the other end of the game, im happy that i limited my opponent to have alot long shots. Means that they dont break through.

All in all, i think im going in the right direction, but i still have a long way to go. Even tho i won, i should have created some CCC and i didnt.

[drinkmixer84]

Glad to see you're playing a little better, but i think i know why you're lacking any CCCs...your final 3rd strategy is failing, which is why you have so many long shots (the ppm definitely doesn't help this either). In my opinion you need to change either the Target Man to a CF-S/A or a DLF-S/A and/or switch out the DLP-S for an AP-S. Basically your CM-A is the only player attempting to break through their d-line. The TM-s really isn't meant as a lone striker, thats your biggest problem. You could probably get away with the DLP-S if you changed the strikers role.

Good luck, hope to hear some stories of success soon!

[Sainten]

Its all going fine i would say, after changing TM/s to CF/s my play has improved, and i think my defense is very tight.

Almost got 1-1 against At. Madrid away, but lost in overtime on a direct free kick. And scored 3 goals against Valencia, but conceded 6 (3 on long throws???, 2 on free kick, 1 where my defender gives soldado a run against an empty goal.) Can take alot with me from that game.

But how do you stop them from scoring on long throws, never seen that before. :o

Can post some screens later.

[llama3]

Glad you changed that TM, it really didnt suit the system.