Revenge of the nerds

[Trepanated]

I. Introduction

I enjoy developing from within and throwing young players straight into the fire. On FM 13 my main save followed in Cleon's footsteps -- err, I took rather more footsteps than he did to win the Champions League, heh, but eventually I did! -- by playing as Ajax and only bringing in youth players. I enjoy the development side of the game the most. I've had an idea kicking around in my head for a save in FM 14 that I'd like to incorporate into the above, and I'd like some feedback on feasibility, how to best go about it, tactical implications, and whatever else you can offer.

II. The Idea

"Football is a game you play with your brain". -- Cruyff

I'd like to run an academy in which I take in all of the smartest kids I can find, relentlessly develop their mental attributes, and then see what happens when I eventually put the most brilliant, mentally dominant team on the pitch that I possibly can.

Now, I'd like to clarify a couple of things in FM terms at this point:

1) I'm aware that not all positions need all mental attributes. So I won't be bothered about getting Positioning on my strikers or Off the ball on my defenders.

2) I cannot (and would not want to) develop players that solely have good mentals while being total crap in the technical and physical realms.

So perhaps refine the idea and state it in FM terms, my goal is to develop players with the strongest possible mental attributes for their role, and whose weak points (to the extent they occur) are in either the physical or technical attributes. I expect that attributes like anticipation, decisions, determination, teamwork, and work rate would be uniformly high throughout the squad. Other mental attributes might be higher than normal throughout, but not evenly distributed, so we might have high team creativity and flair for example, but more so up front than in the defense. As I mentioned above, some mental attributes are mainly relevant for attackers (OTB) or defenders (Positioning).

III. Teambuilding

While this idea was rolling around, I happened to come across an excellent and very useful entry in the blog of EdsFM where he talked about creating contrast: http://fmcoffeehouse.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/overhauling-your-squad-wolves-2026/#more-123. That in turn linked back to a post by furiousuk here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/309213-Building-The-Squad?p=7902240&viewfull=1#post7902240. I like the thought, and it occurred to me that I might incorporate it into my own idea by creating a mix of players for each position. All of them mentally strong, of course, but some with a more physical emphasis and some a more technical emphasis. So for example you could imagine building a striker with excellent anticipation, off the ball, and work rate who was also an outstanding athlete. What he lacks in technical skills can be made up for by his ability to relentlessly work to get himself into good positions where he's isolated with a defender, whom he then overwhelms with raw physicality. You could likewise imagine building a striker with great anticipation, decisions, creativity, and flair who may not be able to run by you, through you, or jump over you, but who can beat you with a dribble and a clinical finish, or play in a teammate with a pinpoint pass. Then you choose the right striker for the occasion based on the opponent, conditions, etc.

IV. Tactics

I have less to say here as I'm really far from an expert. I think what I'd be going for here is something like Total Football with a twist. I've never played very fluid tactics, but I think that would be the theme here. On a team full of guys with big brains who make good decisions, I want to give them the freedom to decide for themselves most of the time. My first though was a Very Fluid/Counter 4-1-4-1 with a DLP at DM, a midline of WM(A)-CM(S)-CM(A)-WM(S) and a DLF up front. But I've also just been reading Cleon's latest on his defensive system, and I do think that 4-4-2 narrow diamond would be pretty interesting. My version would be totally different though, as my goals are altogether different. So mine would be Very Fluid and with far different team instructions, sharing really only the shape. There I envision CWBs for widith, a DM for a bit of stability, 2 CMs, and an AF/DLF combination up top. Not sure about the AMC role; I wouldn't want something too specialized in a Very Fluid mentality, so perhaps just some kind of AM.

V. Problems

The biggest problem I see here is that young players just don't tend to start with very high mentals, and they don't develop as quickly either. Mentals, as I understand it, develop better in older players. So it's a long term project, and swimming upstream all the way. I'm hopeful it can be done though. I'd consider using a higher level of team training than I normally do, and keeping it on Tactics most of the time. Individual training would be biased towards those mentals that can be trained, along with individual role training that happens to hit a lot of mental attributes (AP for attackers for example, and maybe something like Halfback for defending types).

There's also the question of which team to start this with. I could just go with my current save, which is in its second season at RB Leipzig in Germany. They are a decent candidate and I'm enjoying it well enough there so far.

VI. Conclusion

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. I'd be glad to hear from you. I'd also like to say that while I'd love to turn this idea into one of those awesome diary type posts that people do, I don't think I'm the guy to do it. I play far too slowly and I'm not a great tactical mind. So if anyone else wants to pick this up and run with it, you would be most welcome to share your results and thoughts!