How important is having a team dna

[SuperChaos]

Over the past couple of years more and more people are incorporating a team DNA where they look for certain attributes throughout their team that will compliment their tactical philosophy, I've tried to do this at times but I've never felt much of a benefit from this approach. From my personal perspective I prefer not to limit myself when squad building, I tend to sign all types of players as usually if one player is weak in one aspect they could be stronger in another. If I want to make a tactical philosophy with quick passing at its core I'd certainly make sure my attacking players have good passing, composure etc, but I wouldn't go as far as wanting my whole team to have those attributes. I'd choose to value positioning higher than composure for my central defenders and look to maximise what attributes I can get for the player role rather than a club dna. All of this has got me thinking that maybe having a club dna lends itself more to a fluid approach where players are expected to fill in for each other and take on the mantle of the club's philosophy whereas my preferred approach where I look to maximise attributes for player roles I would expect to be a more structured approach, I want my defenders to be really good at defending even at the cost of sacrificing a team philosophy.

What I'd like to know is how important do people find having a club philosophy and a core DNA throughout the squad? Is that a better approach than having more specialised players tailored for their roles at the expense of a team philosophy. Are both ways of playing equally successful? And lastly does one lend itself more to a fluid approach and the other to a more structured approach?

[blackdevil]

This sounds to me like you have your own philosophy already, it's just different to what other people have posted about.  It is important to know what your own approach is going to be, even if it's difficult to articulate what it is.

It's not necessarily related to players attributes/skills but how you approach the building of a squad and system of play.  I for example like to have a back 4, 3 in the middle of the park, 2 wide attacking players and 2 central attacking players....and a goalkeeper.  For players I can take one glance and decide if they fit in to what I want or not...it'd take quite a while to articulate what it is that I'm looking for.   Ideally it'd be 10 Wayne Rooney's at his peak in terms of mental attributes and then add on top of that the attributes needed for particular roles.  And then a good off-field approach like Cristiano Ronaldo or Garry Neville so they conduct themselves in the correct manner and try to improve themselves.

But even then it may be that someone that isn't what I want is the best available so have to be flexible to a certain extent the same as any manager.

[eriktous]

47 minutes ago, blackdevil said:

I for example like to have a back 4, 3 in the middle of the park, 2 wide attacking players and 2 central attacking players....and a goalkeeper.

That's twelve?

[westy8chimp]

27 minutes ago, eriktous said:

That's twelve?

good philosophy then  

[blackdevil]

I didn't say that was the formation  It's the effect I want my setup to achieve.

As I was expecting that response I quickly chose a random formation and started a friendly match and captured the screenshot which shows the above details.

The formation is a 4-3-1-2 narrow which I've never used previously and only created it 4 in-game days prior to the friendly.  But you can see 4 at the back more than one 3 in the middle and two wide attackers and 2 or 3 or even 4 depending on your interpretation attacking through the middle.  (I'm the team in red btw)

Normally I'd play a 4-1-2-3 DM I just chose this formation at random to demonstrate.

[noikeee]

I think this whole idea of "I need these 3 or 4 attributes in every single player", makes more sense in very specific systems like all-out possession football (everyone needs first touch, composure, etc), or all-out compact, gritty defensive play (everyone needs work rate, teamwork, etc). I can see that being a critical factor in getting some systems to work. In fact, we've had in this forum several examples over the years where people built immensely impressive sides, that others couldn't replicate with lesser teams, because they lacked the equivalent attributes.

However I think you can be just as successful with more generic systems, where attributes are more contextual to each player's role/requirements, and not so spread throughout the entire team. I've been doing alright in FM17 with a couple different sides and different systems, and whilst I play close attention to every player's skills, I don't really have a "team DNA" type of thing.

I don't think it's about Fluid/Structured neither. You don't need every single player to share certain attributes to do well on Fluid. Ideally you'll do better if they're more complete players than usual, but you don't need to identify a specific attribute and stick to it throughout your entire squad.

[ajsr1982]

I'd echo much of what @noikeee says above. I can see the appeal of having a team/club DNA, but I think it's only required for highly specialised systems like those that Klopp or Guardiola employ. That's not the same as systems with a high number of specialised players, just to be clear.

There are certain attributes I favour in players (decisions, teamwork, determination), but the reality is that you can't always get those players and sometimes you have to trade certain things off against others.

[OCD]

I tend to use a team "DNA".

I play a pressing game and therefore I only bring in players with high work rate, teamwork and stamina.

While managing a top league team for example every single player on the field (aside from gk) will have at least 15 in each of those ratings.

It seems to work well in my case.