From Hungary with Love...Tactics with 1 centerback and 2 defensive fullbacks?

[crusadertsar]

Lately I've been reading a lot about Magic Magyars Golden Team and started fantasizing about recreating their formation with a strong team such as Barcelona. I'm just afraid that playing with one centerback and halfback will leave me too exposed in back even with 2 fullbacks that always stay back. My idea of choosing Barcelona would be just to experiment if I can outscore my opponents with my two wingers, two inside forwards and Messi as central false9 or trequartista, Magyar style. Any thoughts on how to faithfully recreate this system? Is WW formation viable in the game?

[FMunderachiever]

I think with the way this game works, you would always be vulnerable to the long through ball into the half space, even if you were playing with the ultra high press

[Thengil]

The formation that the Hungarians faced back then was the WM formation, itself an extremely offensive setup. I'd say that even though they had brilliant players, had they actually faced a team well versed in one of the more modern formations they'd been very shaky at the back...

[crusadertsar]

Do you think there is a way to make fullbacks play more as centerbacks? Inverted wingbacks on Defend maybe or instructing them to stick closer to centre. Or vise versa make two outside centerbacks to play wider and support midfield more? A sort of centreback/fullback hybrid that Hungarians seemed to have used?

[FMunderachiever]

30 minutes ago, crusadertsar said:

Do you think there is a way to make fullbacks play more as centerbacks? Inverted wingbacks on Defend maybe or instructing them to stick closer to centre. Or vise versa make two outside centerbacks to play wider and support midfield more? A sort of centreback/fullback hybrid that Hungarians seemed to have used?

Would be interesting to select two liberos but i dont think you can do that

[crusadertsar]

16 minutes ago, FMunderachiever said:

Would be interesting to select two liberos but i dont think you can do that

Yeah I agree! Wish the game was more flexible in that way

[Warrenwwr]

i've done this, but it is very risky.

i set the DRLs to Fullback (Def) with "sit narrower" "cross less often" etc etc. in other words very defensive settings.

the fullbacks definitely helped the DC when needed, but through balls in the middle were the norm. crosses were mostly unsuccessful though.

[zlatanera]

Thengil probably was on the money pointing out how offensive the W-M was, but if you want to try it here would be my advice. 

A cursory glance at wikipedia gives this:

my interpretation would be something like one of these:

Most likely with Very Fluid to get the required degree of versatility, and perhaps start out with Standard mentality just to see how the team lines up. I didn't do anything with the roles there by the way, just a suggestion of the base shape.

Having nobody in front of the wide midfielders means they will still be able to get forward as wingers. However they will still contribute in the defensive phase as explained in this thread:

"In the absence of Fullbacks, players in the MR/ML strata drop deep and defend as slightly advanced fullbacks creating a very solid back 5-3-2 shape. Bazoer will drop into the defence if anyone is out of position to kill any gaps. This is the premise of my defensive structure."

I would be really interested to see if you can get this working. A team of Barcelona's calibre is definitely who you need, no point in using sub-par players to mimic one of the all-time greats.

[crusadertsar]

28 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

Thengil probably was on the money pointing out how offensive the W-M was, but if you want to try it here would be my advice. 

A cursory glance at wikipedia gives this:

my interpretation would be something like one of these:

 

I would be really interested to see if you can get this working. A team of Barcelona's calibre is definitely who you need, no point in using sub-par players to mimic one of the all-time greats.

Yeah that's what I was thinking too.  That Suarez, Messi and Coutinho would carry the legacy of Puskas, Hidegkuti and Kocsis very well. Only the best to recreate the best. Thanks for the tips. Can't wait to put them to use!

[juusal]

1 hour ago, zlatanera said:

players in the MR/ML strata drop deep and defend as slightly advanced fullbacks creating a very solid back 5-3-2 shape. Bazoer will drop into the defence if anyone is out of position to kill any gaps. This is the premise of my defensive structure."

Just a side note, having played some 3-4-2-1 and 3-3-1-3 systems a lot recently, I would be really careful with this. Sure, the wide midfielders drop deeper, but they do not form a flat back five but tend to stay more advanced. Why I opted for ML/R over wingbacks was because they put more pressure on the opposition MR/L positions, thus helping with pressing as they don't have an easy outball out wide and with three center backs the outer center backs reduce the space outside of them a bit compared to a two center back system.  They do leave some space in behind though (the wide midfielders), and players with weaker positioning, work rate, anticipation and acceleration will get exploited a lot. This is especially true against AML/R players who tend to be more aggressive and push all the way to the defensive line, so I avoided using these systems against AMR/L as they would exploit the space so effectively. Yeah the wide midfielders would sometimes defend them very well, but it is always being on the edge so often the opponent would get the ball behind them a few times a match to a devastating effect as it pulls your whole backline apart when that happens. The issue is exacerbated if you have your wide midfielders on an attack duty as they don't drop quite as deep and narrow.

You can certainly make it work, just keep in mind that it is an aggressive setup that certainly has it's weaknesses that you need to account for.

[zlatanera]

1 hour ago, juusal said:

Just a side note, having played some 3-4-2-1 and 3-3-1-3 systems a lot recently, I would be really careful with this. Sure, the wide midfielders drop deeper, but they do not form a flat back five but tend to stay more advanced. Why I opted for ML/R over wingbacks was because they put more pressure on the opposition MR/L positions, thus helping with pressing as they don't have an easy outball out wide and with three center backs the outer center backs reduce the space outside of them a bit compared to a two center back system.  They do leave some space in behind though (the wide midfielders), and players with weaker positioning, work rate, anticipation and acceleration will get exploited a lot. This is especially true against AML/R players who tend to be more aggressive and push all the way to the defensive line, so I avoided using these systems against AMR/L as they would exploit the space so effectively. Yeah the wide midfielders would sometimes defend them very well, but it is always being on the edge so often the opponent would get the ball behind them a few times a match to a devastating effect as it pulls your whole backline apart when that happens. The issue is exacerbated if you have your wide midfielders on an attack duty as they don't drop quite as deep and narrow.

You can certainly make it work, just keep in mind that it is an aggressive setup that certainly has it's weaknesses that you need to account for.

The quote does say "slightly advanced full backs" and that fits with what you're saying - the 5-3-2 shape in defence on that tactic pretty much looked like a 5-3-2 does on the tactics screen.

OP definitely needs at least one centre mid on defend duty, possibly both, if he's taking my formation guesses into his work though otherwise even for Barca it'll be suicidal.

[juusal]

58 minutes ago, zlatanera said:

The quote does say "slightly advanced full backs" and that fits with what you're saying - the 5-3-2 shape in defence on that tactic pretty much looked like a 5-3-2 does on the tactics screen.

OP definitely needs at least one centre mid on defend duty, possibly both, if he's taking my formation guesses into his work though otherwise even for Barca it'll be suicidal.

Well yes, if that's how you want to look at it but my point here is that their defensive awareness is pretty poor and against teams that attack aggressively down the wings those wide areas will get exploited so much more than they ever would against wingbacks. The wide midfielders aren't really designed to defend the wide areas, or even read runs or passes there properly, or so it seems anyway. It is possible to pull it off but you need to compensate for it. Either you need to make sure that the wide midfielders, wide center backs and possible defensive midfielders are good enough to cover those areas, and that using a wide midfielder instead of a wingback gives some significant advantage.

The reason why I used wide midfielders was because they position themselves closer to their wide players, so it really boosts your pressing game. However, if they look to exploit the space in behind, I would always recommend dropping them to wingback positions. Wingbacks also tend to offer more offensively than wide midfielders on support, and I would advice against having the wide midfielders on an attack duty just because the risks are usually getting too high in those situations.