Creating Atletico tactic

[Cholo]

Hey.

I am going to try to recreate Atletico´s RL tactic. Everyone behind ball, strong positional defence, with some phases of pressing. Creating attacks through flanks with simple overlap actions. Filipe and Juanfran with "get further forward" instructions, Carrasco with "drible more", Koke with "sit narrower" and maybe some more.

I will put pictures and you, please, send sugestions. Of course, this is basic tactic which I am going to starth with in most of matches, but i could chance it in 10th min. if it is needed.

[ryan91]

It looks good to me. But whether it'll actually work in game is a different matter lol.

[RTHerringbone]

I guess the contentious thing is how deep your strikers get in defensive phases. A few images have been circulated of Atletico defending very deep against Barcelona in a game, and I'm not sure your Roles / Duties and perhaps formation would reflect that (if indeed that single game was representative of Atletico's general defensive depth).

[Ghents]

You could potentially make the strikers man mark DMs or MCs to have them deep. I'm very interested in a viable defensive based 442.

[Sleepydude]

Check out this thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/445435-Emulating-Diego-Simeone-s-Atletico-Madrid

[johnnyyakuza78]

I guess the contentious thing is how deep your strikers get in defensive phases. A few images have been circulated of Atletico defending very deep against Barcelona in a game, and I'm not sure your Roles / Duties and perhaps formation would reflect that (if indeed that single game was representative of Atletico's general defensive depth).

Yeah agree, a lot is said of Atleticos tactics and formations, but often the base for that is taken from what they do in the big games against superior opposition. I'm not sure thats really a good tactic to use against teams who will sit deep and defend against you.

Anyway, as for the OP, I think the general concept would be to get 'The cage' going, so that your central mids sit in deep, your wide mids come in very narrow, and go forward when you attack and leave your fullbacks to bomb on ahead. The use of Attacking Wingbacks will probably be necessary, except in big games.

I think your strikers would come a lot deeper, one being a defensive striker, the other maybe an DLF.

[Ghents]

Yeah agree, a lot is said of Atleticos tactics and formations, but often the base for that is taken from what they do in the big games against superior opposition. I'm not sure thats really a good tactic to use against teams who will sit deep and defend against you.

Anyway, as for the OP, I think the general concept would be to get 'The cage' going, so that your central mids sit in deep, your wide mids come in very narrow, and go forward when you attack and leave your fullbacks to bomb on ahead. The use of Attacking Wingbacks will probably be necessary, except in big games.

I think your strikers would come a lot deeper, one being a defensive striker, the other maybe an DLF.

I do think you need two tactics to achieve this. Kind of an "attacking" (counter maybe?) setup for home and easy games, then the defensive setup for away/tough games. I've played with this before, with that other thread that was posted, and it works but it doesn't. It struggles to score, naturally, so I don't think it can be a full time tactic. I think it needs a companion.

I just started a new save with the intent to exclusively play 442, so I might do some testing on this. I think you can get away with FB-A with "get further forward" ticked, with the latest ME update. Maybe pressing TI to force everything through the middle "cage", too with a DLP-D and BWM-D setup?

I wish you could work with 2DM/2WM but I feel the midfield gap would simply be too much to make up.

[fudge for hands]

Check out this thread: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/445435-Emulating-Diego-Simeone-s-Atletico-Madrid

The mirror on this other site has some better banter about the tactic.

http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/football-manager-2016-tactics/352025-emulating-diego-simeones-atletico-madrid.html

It inspired me to try using defensive forwards instead of DLF's but the forwards still don't track back quite enough without setting custom OI's which I try to avoid. I have been setting tactic OI's to show wingers onto their weaker foot, which works pretty good.

I think wide midfielders work well as WP-A for them to get into the box, sit narrow, and pass to each other (which traditional wingers struggle with). Attacking fullbacks on a sit wider instruction help pump crosses in, and two creative holding midfielders in the middle of the park to try to back up the defense.

When Atletico counters fail, they generally shift into a style that exploits their physical attributes such as strength and jumping ability to put crosses onto heads in the opponent's box. Men in the box are generally the opposite sided wide midfielder, and two strikers.

There are a couple of YouTube videos that helped form my opinion of Atletico's tactics.

Keep in mind today against Rayo, they came out in a 4-3-3 where their inside forwards tracked back quite a ways without the ball. Carrasco in particular was doing a lot of defensive work before being subbed off in the second half for Martinez. I think it's very difficult to emulate this in FM16 because I always have trouble getting AML - AMR to do any defensive work tracking back. Perhaps man marking the opposing fullbacks would help, but then they could get pulled way out of position and not provide any help on a counter.

[JimmyGuitarist]

The distances between all the players are always the same. So if they defend a deep line, then the strikers still maintain the same distances with the midfield as they would if they were defending high - I don't think you can really achieve that unless you do as some have already suggested & have the strikers man-mark CM's. But that ruins the whole zonal defending idea behind it.

[Ghents]

Perhaps have just one of the strikers man mark a CM?

Going to play around with this.

I can make stable tactics with the idea, but scoring always is an issue. You can shut down another team, but if you can't score it's rough. Might have to do an ST/AMC combination. Maybe a DLF and SS, and have the SS man Mark to be deeper or something.

[EuanDewar]

Great article from the always excellent folks at spielverlagerung on Atleti's defending, for anyone who's bothered http://spielverlagerung.com/2016/01/09/atletico-madrid-the-secret-behind-europes-most-solid-defence/

[Luizinho]

For those who have attempted to play a high pressing game, similar to what Simeone implements at Atletico; have you had consistent success?

I was also wandering how hard it is to implement without having the required attributes from your players?

[Ghents]

For those who have attempted to play a high pressing game, similar to what Simeone implements at Atletico; have you had consistent success?

I was also wandering how hard it is to implement without having the required attributes from your players?

You have to grind through the early part of the season until you iron out all the kinks and if you're looking for lots of goals you'll be disappointed, but I've had success using it with Newcastle. Though, I'm currently using this tactic I found (it's in german, but translate works and you can get the gist from the video even though I don't speak german): http://fm-taktiktisch.de/taktik/442-videoguide-mit-download/

Also the picture is different than the actual tactic. It's a deep 442 with an SS/DLF pairing.

It can be implemented without the ideal players, but it will be a bit inconsistent. Midfielders that will work their ass off is probably the best thing to invest in early, since they're your heartbeat. I'd also recommend pacy RM/LM, especially at the RM winger spot.

[WayneRomney]

For those who have attempted to play a high pressing game, similar to what Simeone implements at Atletico; have you had consistent success?

I was also wandering how hard it is to implement without having the required attributes from your players?

There is one aspect we can't replicate in FM, one that Simeone seems to do each season, the fact that he can get the lazy players more hard working. Players like Arda Turan and Oliver Torres. Translated into FM terms it seems that these players go from 9-10 Work Rate to 17+ in one season.

Like Ghents here says, the Simeone way is not about scoring goals, rather eliminating the variance, to use a poker term. Low risk type football. He even says that often in press conferences, he prefers to win 1-0 rather than having 6-7 CCCs each match. He just doesn't like to concede goals. I'm no expert on Diego Simeone, but I can imagine him spending more time analyzing the opponent than any other La Liga manager. The guys at spielverlagerung says it seems random whether he plays 4-1-4-1 or 4-4-2, I am sure it's not.

In this years edition you can rely more on a defensive tactic than before, as evidenced on this forum numerous times. The problem is that I feel it's impossible to replicate Simeone without using heavy OI's and this will in turn ruin your intended shape, which will again lead to inconsistent results. I have a long running save with BMG in Germany now and use a variety of Simeone. They start off with a squad well suited for a high tempo/high pressing 4-4-1-1 type thing, with Stindl as a SS and hard working midfielders in Hermann, Hahn etc. I use OI's to get the desired pressing when out of possession, but it also leaves me wide open if it fails. I can beat Bayern away 0-1 and the lose a cup match against Karlsruhe etc etc. It's not easy finding the perfect balance.

[Ghents]

The creator of the tactic on the German site I posted said he's doing a video in English on how he replicates Simeone.

Just fyi