Is Rinus Micehels 1970's Ajax system possible with a lower league club?

[kazm]

i am loving the football that my team are playing using this formation. but my full backs are awful. i don't have any specific instructions at the moment but most goals conceded come from wide positions

AFAIK that's bound to happen in this patch. I haven't played a few days while waiting for improvements.

[Coyh]

This is my take on things been doing better and better as they are learning the tactic more and more.

I am always closing down all there defence and gk to keep the pressure up as well.

[Lord Dakier]

For those having issues with their full backs I recommend following my player instructions. In this version of the game the defence is pretty bad so we need to make sure we don't loose the ball as much or at least win it back nicely.

EDIT - The idea is that full backs will stop crosses into the box while the 3 MC's cover the 2 defenders and press. In all honesty I may try and adapt it so that 2 MC's press and central MC-D tries to aid the CB's a bit more.

[Fox]

nice one Dakier

[Lord Dakier]

nice one Dakier

Let me know how it goes, pal!

Let's grab a cuppa and load up some FM!

[Orri]

Very interesting concept and an excellent and detailed thread! Maybe I will test this as well.

[Lord Dakier]

"At first it was going well, then set back after set back"

Port Vale 0 - 3 Burnley: Capital One Cup 1st Rnd

We knew Burnley was a league above, and it showed on the pitch ever so slightly. In truth we shouldn't of lost by 3 goals. Yet there is one issue that I'm startin to notice with this tactic and I'm not sure if it can be fixed. In this game we probably focused on the middle a bit too much. It's a bit of a balancing act, but on this occasion we failed to make the pitch bigger and just played into an already cramped defence. This didn't help by the Burnley midfield dropping deeper and their wingers overlapping. It proved a deadly weakness to our tactic.

Colchester 1 - 0 Port Vale

It was a game that we was predicted to lose 1-0. Curse of the commentator no doubt. One again we that regular patter where we dominated the play and still lose. There's not much to go on except we're failing to slot the ball in. On the heatmap we can see how defensive they are. It's a shambles of organisation, but its men behind the ball that we can't get past. Our BBM's aren't pushing high enough, yet I'm not sure I want them to either. No clear cut chances certainly says something about lack of creativity on our part.

Port Vale 1 - 3 Bradford

It was a depressing time I was having as I wrote this. I have a tactic which is so fun and vibrant in attacking football, yet it's just not clicking. We're outplaying these teams and we know we're doing it. What we're failing to do is get real clear cut chances. It's sad to see that we're out playing these teams only to be beaten by poor tactics. Personally I'm stuck for ideas at the moment. If we can't score, we can't win and that's exactly how it's gone for us.

So do we have any ideas on how to turn this around?

[kazm]

Imo:

- Change keeper passing, to defender collect or fast throwin.

- change to push up higher instead of push up very superhigh. (that might also help with the keepers horrible passing %).

Other than that this patch is bad. Still waiting for the next one myself.

[Cleon]

If you look at your heat maps you can see there is no link up from the midfield to the striker making him isolated. This is also (imo) the reason why the shots not good shots due to not having a better option or movement up front. It'll be very easy to defend against because they defence out number your striker 2-1. You use a flat 3 in the middle so its important you get the roles right and offer support. Your heat maps show them really deep and I'm 100% sure this is a major issue. Your AMR is also very deep which doesn't help at all and only further isolates your striker.

[Lord Dakier]

That's certainly seemed to of helped. I've applied our MC-L as a Central Midfielder with an attacking duty. Also made our BBM get forward more. It's still a bit soon to tell, but that link into the final third is certainly there now.

[Fox]

i have been having much more success now i have dropped my fullbacks into a flat back four. i also have changed my fullbacks to close down more and play wider.

their ratings are much better and i even done well against liverpool in the league cup.

hopefully i will keep a nice bit of form going now...

[kazm]

About the gk distribution:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/369914-Goalkeeper-Distribution

[Lord Dakier]

For all those trying to use the advice in this thread I really recommend setting harder tackling to everyone except the MC-D in the centre and the two CB's. In games not expected to win I've removed instructions on the defensive line but dropped deeper if I'm under immense pressure. I'll try and get some pictures together for people to see, but let's just say currently we've gone on a 6 game unbeaten run and beaten top of the league!

EDIT - Does anyone want to play my Port vale team so I can see how this tactic does against some other human tactics out there? Since I originally posted I'm continuing this streak! We're playing some amazing football!

[Lord Dakier]

I'll try and get some more analysis up of the recent games I've played tomorrow after I finish my football game. Hopefully I grab another goal or two 3 in 7 as a sub #Clinical.

As we can see here I've had a good bit of fortune and gone from somewhere like 17th all the way up to playoffs. The thing is with these leagues is that anyone can beat anyone. Tranmere were top when we played them, Peterborough are currently. I'm probably going to upload the tactic to Steam Workshop at some point. I have it working pretty well and then hopefully some more players will give it a try. I don't want to create a 'wonder' tactic like I said, I just want to prove that a poor low league team can play excellent football and that is what I've been seeing in these games. I'm tempted to make a Youtube video or something to show these highlights because the football we're playing is stunning!

I have cheated slightly in the Leyton Orient game. Upon consuming vodka I let my friend have a go on my save on the basis he didn't save so I did see how they was going to set up for when I played, but other than that the save is completely legit.

So I'm now convinced more that the most effective change I've made since the Carlisle game was tackling hard for everyone except our CM-D and two CB's. The team is causing havoc on the pitch and it looks almost as if all my boys have been training with the Spanish national team for passing and Brazil for how dirty they can be! The idea is that our CM-D and CB's will mostly be in the box when we're under pressure while the other players will be heavily pressing positions outside the box. We also win a large amount of tackles so I've not really had any incidents where I'm worried about a player being sent off except in the Cup game against Oldham, but our Fulham loanee left-back who we don't really need played pretty well so I can't complain.

Overall I'm happy with the tactic at the minute and not really sure how I can/where I can improve it. Our players are still a bit slow at getting back, but playing as supporting wing backs they're going to be as they're not the fast either. If I can continue these results and form I could hit automatic promotion, but FM is a funny game and football funnier. We need to keep the run up to avoid relegation if I'm to keep my job but, hitting mid-table is my expectation and it's a tough ask.

[Lord Dakier]

Port Vale 0 - 0 Peterborough

So as we can see although Peterborough was top of the league we generally controlled the match. This was good as the media predicted us to lose also. I think it's certainly showing fantastic progress we're making with such a weakened squad. If we look at the average positions we have it working almost flawlessly with the tactical positions show by Cleon in one of the earliest posts. You can really see just by looking at the average positions and tactics which players are looking to move where and that brings a good bit of organisation to what people mistake to be a messy unorganised tactic in real life where all people do is move freely.

In this game we failed to create enough goal scoring opportunities which is a disappointment. Emile Mpenza hasn't been playing too well and Gavin Tomlin isn't really the best replacement so I've been hesitant to rotate. Come January I'll try and release a player or two and make another signing for a striker if possible. Alas onto the bit everyone wants to see!

For those who can't make out the red text I do apologise. On the team instructions I simply remove push higher up and the offside trap as I feel it's not wise to play it against generally more attacking sides who are going to break forth with regularity. For the BPD it simply states that he's not that important I find. I don't think a CD would be too much different considering we play the ball out of the defence and the BPD focusses heavily on longer more counter attacking balls I find. Like I say we still seem a bit week in the areas behind our MCL/R, but the last time we conceded more than a goal was against Oldham 10 games ago! One thing I have done is in the Paint Trophy gone heavy attacking rather control at least till I have the first goal.

Has anyone else been having similar success? If you're struggling then please let us all know and we can see where.

Also as stated in my previous post, if anyone wants to play a few versus games I'd really love to see how the tactic works against stronger and weaker teams.

[jakem016]

I hope my images posted. Anyway, I've previously posted and I should mention that I'm not using the exact tactic, but the philosophy is similar. I've (hopefully) posted images of my tactic heading into my recent Man Utd game. I changed my tactic slightly going into the Man Utd game to counter their speed. I usually play both IFs on attack duty, my fbl as a fb-s and my cmr as a cm-s or bbm. However, I wanted to sit a little deeper to protect against their speed on the flanks so I ask sat a little deeper (and used regular passing and a higher tempo). United were without Rooney and Van Persie, but I'm still exceptionally pleased with the result. My heat map shows that my right if is a little isolated which is frustrating because I asked him to play a support role and play narrower in order to protect against this consider I played my rcm as a dlp-s (and he has the drops deep to get ball ppm). However, I found it interesting that Suarez, who was playing on the left wing, wasn't playing narrower and as a result (or maybe just a coincidence), my striker tended to drift left to find space. We also focused much of our passing down the left hand side of the pitch even though, for large parts of the game, I instructed the team to exploit the right flank to take advantage of Fabio (who had a terrible game before getting injured) and our designated midfield playmaker was on the right side.

Again, I know this isn't the exact same formation or a lower league team, but it's pretty close and I thought it would be relevant to share. I asked this previously, but have you considered moving your cm-d to a dm role? I've been told that Ajax didn't play with a dm (I've only seen highlights of those teams, so I can't speak on it myself), but I think that could make the formation stronger. I find that a dm helps me build from the back (although looking at your heat map, it looks like the cm-d is already dropping pretty deep) and it allows my to play inside forwards without worrying about them running into the cms. I think this impact would be increased if your cbs aren't great passers as they always have a short passing option. Also, have you completely removed the push higher up and offside trap instructions or was that just a tactical adjustment for one match? I was hoping you'd stick with the offside trap with a staggered cd pairing because I don't know how the ME would respond to that and it's something that I've been too scared to try myself. Are you happy with your bbm? Have you considered making him a cm-s? I like the bbm, but I find that he roams too much for my liking if paired with a cm-a. Personally, I find that I've had more success with the cm-s because instead of driving into the box he tends to sit in the hole. That may be a bit redundant with a false 9, but now that you're using an if on the same side, do you find that they are running into the same space when in the final third of the pitch?

Good job so far. I'm really enjoying this post.

[Brizza]

I've been inspired by your thread and am trying something similar on my Dulwich save in the Conference Prem.

A lot of the things which I have noticed are similar to you -

Having a high defensive line was suicidal. I started this with two slow centreback and that was painful to watch. I've dropped them for two worse centrebacks who can actually run. I've also stopped using the command to push up, but have kept the offside trap on. I've not thought deeply about the offside trap thing, but I've not seen us getting sprung so until things so badly I see no negative in keeping that ticked.

I had a mix of central midfield roles with ball players and box to box merchants, I swapped to your more standard approach and things seem to have improved. I'm not sold on exactly what I want to do with the central midfield roles yet. I'll work that out over time - I suspect they're roles which will be dictated by the sorts of midfield one has and many different ideas could work.

When we were being caught on the counter, I changed my wingbacks to similar settings to you. They still seem to join in my attacks though - particularly my leftback acts as a second winger. I really like the idea of using the complete wingback setting though. Hopefully I'll find a way to bring that back down the line.

I'm struggling a little to score goals. Ball retention is good, we play some lovely stuff, but getting the ball in the net seems to come from balls breaking around the edge of the box and someone thumping it in. I feel like we should be cutting defences to shreds with off the ball running and through balls though. Maybe that's a match engine thing. Maybe it'll come with a bit more fluidity.

The things underpinning this is that my team are not very good. We're maybe the 3rd/4th weakest team in the league but are sat 2nd in the division. With better players, I'm sure this tactic could become something really special. Hopefully as I come up the leagues and finally find myself in a position where my players are at least adequate for the level, I can start to dominate matches.

No screenshots at the moment - I just wanted to you know that someone's reading and thinking about the same things!

Looking at your tactic, you've got two inside forwards who are both left footed. How do you find that works? I can see that your plan is to have the right back overlap while the right winger cuts in (with the opposite on the left flank) do you find that's working? Also, any consideration to having your wide men swapping position? I've got that set up on mine, but looking at the heat map they're totally ignoring me.

[Lord Dakier]

Funny that I too have tried playing down the right side at times and find my team heavily prefer the left-wing. Not sure why this, maybe because of how aggressively the left midfielders are at attacking? I have considered using a DM, but I dominate so much of the midfield I can easily match championship teams in the central area. I find without it this tactic really does have a hard time so I guess it's good to see how well we control the middle. Now although my CB's aren't great passers we're still getting 65%+ pass completion from them and up to 80% which is fantastic. The BBM I've had no real problem with. Players a very, very supportive role to be honest and I rarely really notice my BBM do anything specific, but whoever I play there is all over the place providing support, kind of reminds me of Claudio Yacob for West Brom always free to be passed too. The offside trap I only remove against teams like Man United i.e you know it's going to be a tough game and the last thing you want to do is have your defenders play catch up with a player like Javier Hernandez should he not be offside. The players do a very good job of not occupying the same space unless under pressure and I really love that they'll come close when under pressure to slip the ball away from heavy pressing opposition.

I played an online game! This was against an Italian guy I believe. He had Verona in the top league and some pretty good players. I lost 3, drawed 1 and won 1. Of the 3 games I lost only the last one was bad the other two were only by one goal. It's not perfect tactic testing against a larger club, but I was impressed with how easily I controlled the game, his forwards and wingers just had to much for me to deal with though.

[Brizza]

Just realised that I'd set my default approach to "Contain" rather than "Control". Some of my above analysis may not be totally accurate....

[jakem016]

I'm not happy with my 3rd tactic at the moment and Lucas is my only dm at the moment. I think I'm gonna move my dm up to cm for that tactic and see how it goes. I've been debating between a more traditional 4-2-3-1 and a 4-3-1-2 for the 3rd tactic. I don't really like playing the 4-2-3-1 so I'll give this a try and see how it goes.

[jakem016]

I just tried your formation. It worked well, but it was a little too up-tempo for my liking. I want to be able to press with that intensity, but then be more patient in possession. Having said that, the pressing was amazing. I imagine that buying quality cbs and a quality cm-d is incredibly important with this tactic. I played against Crystal Palace and they played a very attacking 4-2-2-2 formation (I wasn't expecting that) and I lost Agger for 5-6 weeks in the 3rd minute. Fortunately, Sakho was amazing and won every ball that came his way. I wonder how effective the tactic would be if you left everything the same, but changed the mentality to counter or standard and instructed the team to push up much higher?

[Lord Dakier]

Brizza, apologies I didn't see your original post. I too do generally struggle to score goals sometimes. I think this FM is spot on for producing realistic results though and when I don't score it's usually due to opposition packing the box. It really does help if you have players with good long shot capability for those games where the team struggles to find space inside the box.

Jakem, changing to counter, I'm not sure but I have changed to attacking against weaker teams and it can be quite venomous at goal scoring, but you don't want to keep it on all game. I go attacking and grab the early goal and switch it back to control at that point the opposition needs to come out to score again. Same goes for defensive, if you're under immense pressure don't be afraid to set the tactic to defensive and drop deeper. Standard I don't use much anyway, but feel free to try it out in your cup games if like and let me know how it goes.

I've started to hit a bit of a patch where I'm struggling, no real surprise as the board want mid-table and we're relegation candidates. Maybe the AI is adjusting a bit to the tactic so I'll have to try and mix it up a bit

[11v11]

if im not mistaken, rinus michels had his wingers stay wide, van gaal uses this method in his rigid system and evolved it towards his version of a 4-2-3-1. I play a 4-3-2-1, 2 wingers and my wide MC goes all the way to the box similar or same to michels. CM2 had this tactic and we could see long arrows fromt he MC's towards the FC position. my central mc key and is what I call the konzertmeister where he orchestrates everything and plays a huge part in defense as well. MC as DLP sitting right in the middle of the tactic is far more effective than a DM going it where this design is merely to start a counter attack. the 'konzertmeister' role, with two MC's already up, fills a huge hole created by the rinus michels offensive plan and link every single player to both hold possession, create key passes to put the opposition defense in danger and also to assist. a DM cant quite cut it as he would be too far back and his killer passes would be longer. an MC would have nearly equal passes all around like the center of a spider web. I also notice if the MC/DLP is playing as a side MC, it doesn't quite trigger this dominating effect. i play carrick and vidal here, and can get 100 plus passes easy becoming the ultimate link player. as much as we look at the three at the top, wingers and cruyff, I think that MC position is a major player as well in rinus michels plan. creating a circile of players around one konzertmeister

[Lord Dakier]

11v11 I understand what you're getting at, however like you say. You play this tactic with Carrick and Vidal, I use Chris Birchall lol. I know I can make this tactic more of a copy what Rinus Michels used, however I have several points to take into account;

1. FM will never offer the exact precise instructions used by Ajax back then

2. The style of football is 40 years old and needs/has been adapted for the modern game

3. I'm Port Vale in League One

Although I want Rinus Michels style of play I have to make sure it works for my team.

[Kevunited]

how is your season going since Lord Dakier?

[11v11]

well, port vale is not bad at all comparing to the players 40 years ago haha!

[jakem016]

I think you could be onto something with this tactic. So far I've won all 3 games I've played with it (2-0 away to Crystal Palace, 4-1 home against Swansea and 4-0 home against Hull). Granted, the opposition hasn't been the strongest, but we completely dominated each opponent and we were playing with a heavily rotated squad . I've messed around with some of the roles/instructions in order to try to play a more patient and probing game when in possession, but I've left it mostly intact. I changed the left winger to an if-a and I'm currently playing around with the 2 wide midfield roles. So far I've found playing both as bbms is working out well (but I played a bit with a if-s and cm-s on the right side). We've created an insane amount of half chances and my cms are constantly left open for a shot at the edge of the box (scored 4 of my 10 goals). It really is stunning to watch at times. When playing with 2 ifs, I also instruct my striker to run wide with the ball, sometimes to hold up the ball and to shoot less. I have found that this results in him being more patient and waiting for the cms/wingers to get involved in the play instead of taking speculative 25 yard shots. I've also played most of the game at the regular control tempo and without the pass into space shout (I'm usually changing both of those throughout the match). Anyway, here are some screenshots of of my wins against Hull and Swansea (Hull had a player sent off just before half time).

[Lord Dakier]

Well I just got past Xmas and then my game decided to freeze. Luckily I thought I'd try CTRL+S to save the game and when I reloaded it had actually saved lol! Gotta love cheating a good crash like that.

Season wise we're doing ok. I just rejected a contract from the board because the chairman still won't expand the wage budget. My idea is to go as far as I can and make sure I have my way with the board. The chairman's almost as tight as West Bromwich Albion's very own Jeremy Peace. The pitch is in poor condition and that really doesn't help a team like ours that play 'sexy football'.

It's only after uploading these two pictures that I've just noticed MK Dons are second and we haven't lost to them. Peterborough I have no idea what's going on with them, but they've only conceded 9 goals. I want whatever they're team drinks for my own lads! Gillingham are gone, Coventry are doing better than first thought and I hope Walsall and Shrewsbury stay up. We had an awesome little rivalry piece against Shrewsbury's Graham Turner where we both bad-mouthed each others style of footballs although we both play good football, it was like a kids argument of who's dad's harder lol. I do usually managed Shrewsbury, but it annoyed me that you couldn't build a new stadium for 20 years and they only built there's in 2007. As most may notice, I am a Birmingham lad myself so I stay local to the Midlands

So back to Port Vale as you can see we've reached the finals of the Paint Trophy against the Dingles (Wolverhampton Wanders). They're doing better than they was when I played them in our draw which really, really does worry me. In all honesty I'm not too bothered about winning the Paint Trophy it's just as a WBA fan I can't be losing them lol. In the FA Cup I think we're definitely getting to the 4th round and hopefully the 5th. We certainly have the tactics to allow us to go far should we get that first goal. So in the League itself we're 7 points behind where I want to be, but as you can see we get a lot of draws. Is this from teams going deep against us? Maybe it's from not having that bit of extra class in the final third? Or maybe it's down to this tactic not being good enough in the final third. In all honesty it's probably a bit of all of them. I'm going through contract negotiations and trying to free up as much space as possible, but I doubt we can sign another good striker. Emile Mpenza although he get's a high rating a lot still doesn't grab enough goals which does make me thing it may be more so the tactic. Think I'll try him as a DLP-A and see how I get on for a bit against some weaker teams. While I'm at it, I may as well show some stats from the last game against Notts County.

Well I would upload the details, but Photobucket decided it would be a great moment to do some maintenance while I was half-way through this post. They obviously don't realise that the Football League Show require these stats for when they compare me to Micky Adams their real-life manager!

[Lord Dakier]

Jakem, Jesus look at those chances lol! You've completely tore Hull to shreds in that game mate! Keep them coming. I'll get the Notts County analysis up once Photobucket decides to let me upload more.

[Lord Dakier]

Port Vale 0-0 Notts County

As can be seen the Notts County game we had was pretty intense. Both clubs doing well and Notts County the favourites Not much to go on in the stats I don't think and if you look at the positional chart our midfield was a bit all over the shop in a disorganised way. In truth it's probably the passing which we struggled with in the final third of the pitch. That's what this tactic relies pretty heavy on creating good chances on the edge of the box because we're going to be outnumbered.

One thing I've done after this is allowed my wingers to play more risky passes, the idea behind this is that they only really look to make attacking movements anyway rather than support the play. So we're going to give Kerker and Myrie-Williams a bit more freedom to look at ways they can exploit those dangerous areas. Although I am happy with the general control of game we usually have I don't want another Barcelona tactic, I want my Total Football and to do that we sometimes we have to take the more risky option, but we'll see how it goes.

[jakem016]

[video=youtube;1wQwEv6nrTI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wQwEv6nrTI

Yeah, this tactic really creates a lot of chances. Unfortunately, I just validated all the critics who question the ability of foreign flair players to perform on a cold, rainy night in Stoke. We were up a man and leading 1-0 until Stoke ruined what would've been a memorable debut for Keisuke Honda when we allowed them to tie the game in the 3rd -- and final -- minute of extra time. They didn't have any real chances the entire game and then we couldn't clear the ball and they finally capitalized on Mignolet's poor positioning (well, on a rebound off of a wonderful reflex save). The goal was my fault as I didn't adjust and played suicidally high line up until the final minutes. During the game, I figured that the only way they were going to score was off a Crouch header and I wasn't really worried about him beating me for pace with his 4 acceleration.

Anyway, the screenshots are all about the same, but I uploaded a video of our goal which was just terrific. Lucas intercepted the ball and then we patiently moved the ball around and allowed our players to create space for each other. During the buildup, both wide cms are roaming around and our striker dropped deep. Then, Suarez, playing as our left winger, came deep and allowed our lb to move forward until he eventually became our cf and proceeded to find Honda with a one-touch through ball. He had 3 separate passing options and, to be honest, he should've returned the ball to my striker, but I think this epitomizes total football. It's by far my favorite goal I've scored on FM 14.

I really do think that some of your draws might be related to not slowing the tempo down a little when the opponent is sitting deep. When your tactic is working correctly, it really pushes the oppnents deep and creates an incredible amount of off-the-ball movement. If you are too aggressive when in possession, you might not give you players time to find/create space.

[Lord Dakier]

"You didn't think it'd be that easy did you..."

Port Vale 0 - 3 Swindon

Swindon Analysis

It was a pretty depressing game. In fact we have't had a game as depressing since losing to the Wolves... a game ago. It seems like that's all these teams want to do is cower in the castle. We changed our tactics up a bit playing some mega high tempo football and as Jakem stated I think it's going against us. It's ok saying well we have the statistics, but the truth is while they're box is filled with more men than you could fit in a 16th century brothel we just aren't going to get anywhere.

I take responsibility for this poor run, because personally I was hoping that with a higher tempo we'd be able to rush into the opposition area before they retreat. It does now seem obvious that no matter how much battering on their gates we do they won't come from their little comfort zone and our teams long shot capability is comparable to shooting a bird 700 meters away with a shotgun. We're pretty accurate, but they're feeble shots in truth. Should anyone have more suggestions then feel free to add them to the mixer.

So we have 3 derbies in the next 4 games. Unless I'm mistaken isn't Crewe also pretty close by? I need to also turn around this Wolves result away which I'm pretty confident won't happen although who knows. The problem with this tactic I'm starting to find is it does struggle against aggressive attacking football. This may be because of my side not being too good in the defensive department I'm not sure. Seems we always have a tight game against 442 which is what Wolves played last, although it doesn't help when you have Sako running at our Yates who in all honesty is not a league one player, Duffy is barely usable in a system like this but we make do with what we can I guess. Also yes I am embarrassed to say we lost against Hartlepool. I thought I'd be a shmuck and play a rotated squad due to fixture congestion which at this level is a nightmare. So there we have it 14 games left not including if we manage to somehow beat the dingles, I mean Wolves. With us just on the inside edge of play-offs I'm fairly confident we can stay in a play-off spot, but honestly can't see us winning like this. Also trust us to have Peterborough last who have pretty much already won the league.

Jakem, your Liverpool team are looking sharp mate! Good to see how well your side is handling that heavy pressure. Definitely will take your advice on lowering tempo. Think I may start with high tempo in the regular games as honestly I'm probably doing better in them than I am against the mid-table sides.

[Lord Dakier]

"Take my hand and together, we'll ascend to the stars..."

Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-1 Port Vale: Play-off Semi-Final First Leg, The Molineux

Well we couldn't ask for a better start to our campaign. We didn't think we could make it, Wolves had previously beaten us in the Paint Trophy and we knew we had to spring a surprise or two. Roy Keane (Wolves Manager lol) thought he had us figured out and believed the win would be easy. Markus Jerone on the other hand was hesitant that it may be the case. We had to prove him wrong at his own place. We spent the year trying to play like AJax 40 years ago with a modern touch, in this game we changed it up and went with a defensive strategy to avoid the heavy pressure that Wolves would pile on us. Seeing Kevin Doyle miss chance after chance brought a smile to my face as they struggled to find any real shooting positions. It went well, but the journey had only just begun as we had to do this again at home!

Port Vale 2-1 Wolverhampton Wanderers: Play-off Semi-Final Second Leg, Vale Park

Have you ever seen an angry Irish man? I did that day. Roy knew what he had to do, Jerone knew what he had to finish. This was the 6th and final match again Wolves, after our win we expected heavy pressure and oh boy did we get it. With an early goal disallowed Wolves let their head drop and gave us the chance to slip one into the back of the net. Chris lines with a fantastic effort. It wasn't long before the game got scrappy and in this period the different in players shown as Wolves managed to claw one back. We wasn't confident being level as we didn't expect to win a penalty shoot-out and 2 away goals would see them go through over us. It wasn't until a serious error by Wolves that put Martin Boyle through one-on-one where he fashionably went around the keeper and scored. I screamed like a girl and my mother and sister told me to shut up as they was watching TV. They didn't understand...

"If we pull this off, and I'm not saying we will..."

Bristol City - Port Vale: Play-off Final, Wembly

If three weeks ago you came to me and said "Playing as League One team Port Vale I want you to best emulate Rinus Michels style of play and get promoted in one season" I'd of said after looking at the squad I had it can't be done. Yet here we was on TV in front of all the people at home, playing this sexy style of football and dominating the play. Bristol City wasn't all that, and in truth they only just managed to get where they did with a late season performance. We was just as good so we felt as though there was no need to switch from what we knew.

"When I met you I was but the learner, now I am the master"

This moment, we owned it. Getting automatic promotion is always comfortable and lovely, but when you go through play-offs as the underdog and battle till the end and win, that's something else entirely. We proved to all through this season that we wouldn't accept relegation and instead we'd push on for the opposite and get promotion. The title would of been nice I can't deny it, but I wouldn't change this journey we've been through (except losing to Wolves, and Shrewsbury but I'm over that one).

So it seems we're onto the next journey which is no doubt going to be harder than the last I guess, but tonight I sip wine from cups given by Olympus himself, or we're just heavily intoxicated in some London hotel.

Thank you all for reading and especially to those who have helped me on developing this tactic and have experienced and shared this journey with me.

[Kevunited]

would you be uploading it mate?

[Lord Dakier]

would you be uploading it mate?

The tactic?

[Kevunited]

ya?

brilliant results anywas..best of luck next season

[Lord Dakier]

ya?

brilliant results anywas..best of luck next season

Yeah I can do. I'll throw it up on the steam workshop

And thank you

[poobington]

Yeah I can do. I'll throw it up on the steam workshop

And thank you

i only have the demo is it still accessible?

[jakem016]

Congrats on the promotion...that was a great success. What are you gonna do now? Are you gonna do now? Did you get the increased budget/new contract that you wanted? I imagine you could find a stronger team in the Championship if you really wanted. Or, of course, you could try to institute your 4-3-3 with a team that is completely ill-prepared to play in the championship...that would be an incredible challenge. I'm still in my 1st season with Liverpool, but we're currently in 1st after 25 games (56 points in 25 games and 4 points ahead of Man Utd). We played all the big teams at home during the 1st half of the season (I was given an incredibly generous schedule for a 1st year manager not playing in Europe) and I don't know that we'll be able to hold on, but to be honest, I don't care. I'm still alternating between what is basically your tactic, a more traditional 4-3-3 and a more aggressive 3-5-2 depending on my opponent. I usually take a long time to finish a season, but I plan on hurrying up as I really only care about Champions League at the moment. I don't expect to finish 1st and I've been playing this entire season in anticipation for season 2. I've got some important personnel decisions (i.e., extending Johnson, who is a great fit in my proposed formations, or selling him in the last year of his contract for around 100,000/week at 30). Anyway, I'm planning on moving to a much different system next year (based on a combo of my understanding of old-school Ajax and modern-day Barcelona) and I'll post my suggested tactics to see if you or anyone else has any insight on them soon. In the meantime, I'll post the current League 1 standings in my save to make you feel even better about your accomplishment...

[kazm]

Those tactics have nothing to do with a 433 Rinus Migchels system though.

[jakem016]

Yeah, ignore those. I had been thinking about designing a 4-3-3/3-4-3 type system with 1 cb (and fbs) and either a libero behind or 2 hbs in front and they turned out very differently after getting home from happy hour. I'll delete the post to avoid taking up too much space as it distracts from the post. My apologies...

[kazm]

Not saying they aren't good or interesting but in that case imo they need their own thread.

Btw as a Feyenoord fan i have taken around 50 showers the last few days because i felt dirty contributing to a copy Ajax thread . On a sidenote Feyenoords side that won the Europacup and World cup for teams played pretty similar to this total football except with Theo, the tank, Laseroms and 'Iron' Rinus Israels as DCs. Two pure defenders.

[jakem016]

I know. The thing is, I hate it when people do post stuff completely unrelated to the thread. It initially seemed relevant, but they weren't. It just seemed best to delete the post as that's what I'd want someone to do if this was my thread.

[Lord Dakier]

@Poobingont, Steam Workshop isn't accessible with the demo I don't think

@Jakem and Kazm, I don't mind really, Like I said, I'm no expert on the game so sometimes seeing what other people are playing does help. Problem is with the tactics posted they lacked width which is what my tactic is really all about. We want to emphasize making the pitch bigger when we have the ball and I think that's something we manage quite well.

I've yet to start the second season, took a break out from FM as I have sunday league football training, 7-aside football and sunday league over 4 days lol, that coupled with the fact of I'm thinking about trying new things or not. The board have now let me scout Europe which is good. Just need to keep my eye out for some gems but the budget given looks good. Need to try and increase my squad size ideally and get more players in the middle too. Etheridge (GK), Duffy (RB), Morris (MC), Mpenza (ST) all need replacing whether or not I keep them as cover I'm not sure. Well Morris and Mpenza will want to stay at the club as they get quite cushty wages for their ever-declining abilities. So I guess we'll see.

[Babak G]

Great work.

By the end of the season, how would you say your tactics play out in terms of the style compared to the initial ideas you set out? Have you compromised the vision for the new ends?

[Lord Dakier]

Great work.

By the end of the season, how would you say your tactics play out in terms of the style compared to the initial ideas you set out? Have you compromised the vision for the new ends?

Well it's a bit hard to say because I wanted an Ajax system, but at the same time I knew it had to be adapted slightly to suit modern football and a lower league team. I'd say I achieved that. The question would be what can I do to utilise this for a top team. For a start I'd certainly have more specialist player roles and rather than DLP-D or CM-D I'd go for support as I'd have much more faith in the defence.

[Lord Dakier]

Hey what's up guys. Sorry I never got around to loading the tactic, I've been a bit busy with my application into the army and such then I kind of erm... lost the save file to my beloved game When I say lost I blame my friend for overwriting the save. Yet now I feel even more stupid because I also lost the tactic, except an earlier version of it good god!

Anyway to the point I was looking to get back to FM and being annoyed that my friends can't play anything close to a tiki-taka or total football system at 7-aside I decided I'd go and do it with my other friends, you lot.

So I'm thinking a new game. I'd love a new objective, but I'm short on ideas personally and Port Vale has the best expansion in that league (for a midlands club). So who's down for getting to the premiership in 5 years? I think that's certainly doable with you guys and some tactical guidance