any guideline to break the conservative, parking bus defensive from opposite team?

[keithfc]

This is my tactic. May be I win too much in this save. Most of teams are parking bus when they are against me. Sometimes I can get a goal from some FK or CK lucky. But it is rare to see i can goal from a open play.

Sometimes I encourage 2 WB dribble more and crossing more often to provide more cross. Even my striker can head the ball from the cross, but all shots are missed, not even on target.

Sometime I encourage more direct passing from my DLP and AP, it works. My strikers always get one on one or half one on one to GK from a back court direct pass. However, opposite defender always have a slide tackle from the back of striker and win the ball back easily without foul.

It is so frustrating how to break their conservative defensive. I dont have any problem on defending the counter attack from opposite team.

Can anyone suggest some advice how to break it? Any instruction or players roles changing can be added to solve the problem? Thanks.

This is the picture to show opposite team always play an unbelievable defensive.

[Cleon]

I did a post about breaking teams down in this thread;

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/377489-Creating-A-Tactic-Design-Create-and-Maintain

​

Breaking Down The Walls

There are quite a few options I could use when facing stubborn sides who sit deep and are hard to break down. I could be relentless and do attack after attack in the hope that sooner or later I force them into a mistake and that they buckle under the constant pressure. This approach tends to have more shots but less accuracy because the higher you play and the more aggressive you are then the more cramped the final third becomes.

Another option would be to try and force them up the pitch more by going counter attacking and hope they had to push on more. You’d be surprised how many times this can actually work due to the opposition becoming more adventurous. The down side is they will still probably be solid at the back and set up well, normally narrow too. So it can still be tricky.

Or you can take the approach I’ve just used against Port Vale;

Port Vale lined up with a bog standard 4-4-2 so I knew I’d find space behind their midfield and with the half back I had the numbers advantage in the middle. So what I decided to do was switch from the attacking strategy to a control one so I wasn’t positioned too high and removed the push higher and faster tempo shouts so I could actually play at a slower pace. This meant that I’d be deeper than normal which in turn gives me more space to work with. Space and movement is the key for beating any side who sits deep and is happy to defend against you. For a bit of extra security I also used the retain possession shout and the exploit the middle one too. This was so I could impose myself on the game from a central position and force Port Vale’s midfield duo to mark my players which shouldn’t be an issue because the half back should be more like a central midfielder in this game so I’d always have a free man in the centre.

This automatically creates space without me doing anything because Vale’s midfield either drop off and sit deep to protect their defence and stop runners from my midfield. Which would mean my central duo would be more like AMC’s and would be in great positions to feed the wide men the ball, especially on my right side were the wide midfield cuts inside and supports, this would create an overlap on the inside.

Or they push up and try and hassle my midfield pairing which creates space behind them for the free midfielder or wide midfielder to run into. It could go either way and I’ll have to see how it goes during the game itself.

You can see once the game starts how deep I am compared to normal. The yellow line is roughly where we normally take up position. You can see already that my two central midfielders have space which means they can dictate the game and hopefully influence it more.

This screenshot shows Port Vale have 8 men back in this move. It also highlights my central three and the triangle they create giving whichever one of them on the ball a passing option. It might look like I don’t have any options but I actually do because any kind of long/direct/through ball now would split Port Vale open and put them on the back foot. It would be hard to defend against too because it would catch them out and make the defenders flat footed because they are still atm and 2 of my players are actually in movement. So I’d say this gives me the advantage and edge if the ball does reach one of the highlighted options.

The players actually took none of those options though and saw something which I didn’t which resulted in this goal;

That’s the deep lying playmaker, advanced playmaker and the half back all combining and doing exactly what I wanted them to do. I actually think this goal highlights how important it was for the player to have space to run into and make movement from deep. If I was more attack minded for this game then the space he ran into before the pass for the striker would have been congested and wouldn’t have existed.

The first real time Vale committed men forward moments after the goal above, this happened;

Do you see why I always bang on about space and movement? It’s so vital and important for winning games that the strikers have support, especially if you use a lone striker. Its a quick counter attacking move but it exposed their MC’s when they pushed on too far. It just allows me to dictate through the centre.

The third goal I scored came from a corner.

I’m not set up to create lots of chances but instead the tactic relies on creating quality good chances. You’ll get more of an idea when I post more about this at a later date.

The game played out as you’d expect, I had lots of possession, a few good chances and restricted them to just blocked shots.

The individual players actually had lots of passes between themselves;

And the heat maps looked like this;

I know some of you might be disappointed by this post and was expecting more maybe, but this is all the changes I did. I believe I play the game in a very simplistic way and don’t make drastic changes. My threads always seem more detailed than the way I actually play the game because I’m trying to translate how I play across. But I play at a very high speed and I truly believe that less is more when it comes to minor tweaks based on what is happening on the pitch.

The changes I made for this game took about 10 seconds to do and I just thought about it logically and looked at were I could do the damage from and how I can take advantage of that. Hopefully it comes across okay and you can see and understand why I did the changes, I’ve tried to explain it the best I can but it doesn’t always come across right when trying to write down the way you think

[lil ole me]

nice post Cleon, very easy to interpret and understand.

[RTHerringbone]

This "parking the bus" conundrum is the one that always crops up, and it can be a really hard thing to overcome (thinking of Chelsea vs. West Ham in real life!)

I tend to go down the route of trying to get the AI to come forwards, because I have a real hate of generating lots of inaccurate shots, and that nearly always happens if you just keep attacking senselessly.

[keithfc]

I understand direct pass from the back court can help to break the defensive. However, it is not quite effective for my team. I just want to get some advice, or any new idea how to break it. Anyway, thanks for all you guys replying.

[Cleon]

I understand direct pass from the back court can help to break the defensive. However, it is not quite effective for my team. I just want to get some advice, or any new idea how to break it. Anyway, thanks for all you guys replying.

No type of passing from the back is realistically going to help you break down a side who is defensive. It's movement and space that will help with that and is what you need to focus on hence my post.

[bababooey]

You have to find a way to create space to move into. If a team just sits back you've got to either dribble through them (good luck) or create the space.

So you can try sitting back more and drawing them out, or stretching them wide and then coming inside. Stuff like that really.

I'd also say getting wingbacks forward is ESSENTIAL in this circumstance.

[rune_star]

Try going counter or even defensive in those games where the opponents park an airplane (Mourinho, was it?) in front of goal... Like the posts above say, you have to draw them out to give your own players space. Otherwise you WILL end up with an obscene amount of shots on goal, all of which will most likely be the dreaded longshots. A defensive approach will also give your own players a more patient build up. Just remember to give short passing instructions to defenders with defensive duties as otherwise, these will use direct passing which will NOT suit your needs in this scenario...

[Erith22]

I too have found dropping deeper to be effective in these situations.

The question I have, is this realistic when compared to real life? I've never heard of Barcelona or Man City or Bayern dropping deep and defensive against a vastly inferior side in order to 'create space'. In real life if I'm Port Vale and my opponents drop deep and defensive, I'm gonna say 'great' and pass it between my two center backs for 90 minutes. My understanding is they press up, play fast, fight ot win the ball back immediately and rely on their superior skills and players to crush their opponents.

This is where I think all the arguments that FM match results don't seem to make sense because players managing super teams try this and fail horribly.

So the question is, what is realistic? And is this a gamey solution to a game problem, rather than applying real life football? I honestly want to know, as I said I'm not an expert.

[keithfc]

i know spacing is important for creativing chance. That"s why i change from 4231 to 433. in the past, i put my the most creative player in amc in 4231. but what i have found is lack of spacing and too tight. now i put the most crative player in mc position. it creatives more spacing. it is better than 4231 for creativing chance when facing parking bus defence. because of 433 and no players in amc position, aml and amr can be more aggressive and cuting inside more effective.

[AvatarST]

I too have found dropping deeper to be effective in these situations.

The question I have, is this realistic when compared to real life? I've never heard of Barcelona or Man City or Bayern dropping deep and defensive against a vastly inferior side in order to 'create space'. In real life if I'm Port Vale and my opponents drop deep and defensive, I'm gonna say 'great' and pass it between my two center backs for 90 minutes. My understanding is they press up, play fast, fight ot win the ball back immediately and rely on their superior skills and players to crush their opponents.

This is where I think all the arguments that FM match results don't seem to make sense because players managing super teams try this and fail horribly.

So the question is, what is realistic? And is this a gamey solution to a game problem, rather than applying real life football? I honestly want to know, as I said I'm not an expert.

What you say can also work if you go even more adventurous. Much higher def line, hassle opponents, Overload mentality etc. will likely result in mistakes from an opposing team that doesn't want to attack and eventually end up in a goal.

One of the issues with that right now is that long shots just plain don't work so building from deeper is almost unarguably a better option, but come 14.3 that will be another way to score goals.

[Erith22]

What you say can also work if you go even more adventurous. Much higher def line, hassle opponents, Overload mentality etc. will likely result in mistakes from an opposing team that doesn't want to attack and eventually end up in a goal.

One of the issues with that right now is that long shots just plain don't work so building from deeper is almost unarguably a better option, but come 14.3 that will be another way to score goals.

I hope you are right. I've been tracking stats, and in my matches only about %3 of goals come from long shots, which is about 1/4 of what it should be.