A new way ( Nothing original)

[coach vahid]

If there's anything that you want
If there's anything that you need
There's no need to be evasive
Money talks and it's persuasive
Possession

 Elvis Costello 

 

 

In the preamble i would like to explain to you that English is not my original language. I would therefore use Google translation to help me write this article

and errors may appears here or there. All my excuses.

 

And suddendly, i had a vision...

 

I have browsing this forum very regularly for a very long time and each new article compels me to create a new save to put into practice more or less elaborate ideas and theories on how to play. I'm unfortunately for myself (and especially for others) one of those players who harass those who understand the mechanics of this game. Why they choose such tactics, which players and how you  it and why not like that ect..ect.

When i started playing (cm97/98), the goal was quite simply. Whatever the tactics or the players available,  i wanted to win. But with the appearance of the game engine with the little guys on the ground ( it was cm 02/03 right? ), seeing concrete things  that looked like what we saw on TV or at the stadium became just as important. Plus stats access to the general public, things got complicated (surely for me ).  Torn between the result and the way. I still regret the famous " Tactical Theorems and Frameworks 08 by WWfan ----(https://community.sigames.com/profile/938-wwfan/). It was simple, logical and adaptable to almost all systems and teams.

So i keep taking the new version (i don't use the word "buy",because for me,it goes beyond), hoping to get there on my own or thanks to contributions from the community. And then finally i come out disappointed and tell myself it's the last time i play ect...ect.

But since the advent of social network, bloggers, a new way of expressing this FM has appeared. Great often, homorous and above all, inspiring. The goal was no longer simply to win but also to build, test and above all, to have fun. Pleasure to play,but also to share. I imagine that even in reality, the manager feels a little something, when he sees a "regen" that he has trained, take his first steps on the field, to score his first goal or to have his first selection.

 

And suddendly, i had a vision...

 

During a save, i was telling myself someting. Ok, maybe everything is not perfect, evreything may not be working well. But why not simply use what we are offered as such without complicating things ans using them. It's just a game. A f***** game, but it's still a game. How many times have we thought we were a real manager in front of the TV, taking as FM reference shouting " LOWER YOUR LINE OF ENGAGMENT" or " RAISE YOUR DEFENSIVE LINE"

The tool i'm talking about is tactical preset style with style( logical ) and even the roles that are best suited to play in this style and the question is : Yes..But what style? What do I like ? I have a special affection for what we call football possession.

 

Johan Cruyff : if you have the ball the others can't score."

 

Pep Guardiola: with the ball, you have more possibilites to create
 

For me the pass is the common language of the players between them. A good pass in space is as enjoyable as a goal sometimes. (Personal point of view of course)

 

 

so let's go

 

There are several basic propositions from SI to practice this kind of football like "Possession Control" or "Tiki Taka". I want the ball so...let's be extremists.

 

 

What does it say:  -Dominate possession ( what i expect)

                                -Relentless pressing ( logical -  to get the ball you have to recover it)

                                -Patiently wait for opening ( we'll build our future success slowly)

 

I know that maybe it will not work that my players are not "skilled" to practice this style but I'm the manager or not. I came with my ideas and they are not negotiable. This is the way i want my team to evolve for fun spectators but especially for mine. If i have to be fired for because of lack of results so be it. Because the risk exist. We all know that facing low blocks, the risk is seeing the players pass the ball without any possibility of finishing their actions or, seeing the opponent score on a counter attack ( maybe even the only shot).

I will not talk about Guardiola (who deserves a tactical style of his own all alone!) but more Quique Setién who after having qualified in europa league his team by finishing 6 th season 17-18 with a shimmering game was fired by finishing 10 th the following season. Or the Laudrup case ( winner of the cup league ) but landed for bad results the following season.

 

 

Let's take a quick look at the team

 

 

EAG (l'En Avant de Guingamp is a medium french ligue1 team with media forecasts to finish 13 th (I'm on FM19, Guingamp is in french ligue 2 currently). As you can see it is not the best. The goal is that they can progress in the opposite case i will need take care of bringing in players with technical dominance in the next years (on this screen I used what I call the O-ZIL view in reference to the contributor of this forum. Without his authorization and I apologize.).

 

To finish I put the screens of the first matches. I am rather confident for the continuation of this save.

 

 

 

 

Here is. thanks for using your time to read this little article. I hope everyone is in good health during this difficult period. Take care of yourself.

Have fun   

 

Edited April 11, 2020 by coach vahid

[coach vahid]

 

Be the ball - Life is one big arcade
Be the ball - The aim is to be the game
Be the ball - The nest four minutes are a total surprise
Be the ball - Hell-bent, damn, we learn drive

Slash's Snakepit  Be the ball

 

So a small update in on my way...
Many will think that it is stupid or that it brings nothing. But it's just to demonstrate that we can play without complicating things by using only the tactic tools simply.

 

Quique Setien: 'I understand football through the ball'

 

Objective number 1 : - possess the ball

 

 

What we can say is I had it... 

With 61% in possession, it is better than Paris and Lyon however much stronger technically. the fact of being compact had the advantage that the player with the ball always had a close solution.

 

 

look at this beautiful symmetry

 

To be compact made it easier to recover the ball. With 86% successfuls tackles (4th in this area) the players were not afraid to go and get the ball in the opponents feet. The consequences was to ending with the best defense in Ligue 1 with only 19 goals conceded. 1 less than Paris and above all, 15 less than Lyon.

 

 

It is sure that this allowed the club to obtain a historic second place. When you have the ball, you can attack and mainly you are not concede.

But if the team did not concede much, it also did not score much.

 

 

 

With only a 7th place in this area. It was not enough and it will be clearly problematic next year when we'll facing teams that will defend lower and  will wish counter me. Facing a low block is a problem.

Fortunately the fact of creating opportunities allowed me to obtain many corners kick. And with 19% goals in my 58 goals, it is clearly these chances which made it possible to change a 0-0 into 1-0 and a victory.

I knew that ,by playing this way, it could lead to sterile possession. (let's not forget that Spain was  world champions with only 8 goals scored).

Despite the whole team was able to score some nice goals built following beautiful collective movements. Repeatedly with my LOC, Rebocho, who give the season, 11 assists.

 

 

nice job!

 

But let's look at one of those pretty goals...

 

After a throw-in,Fofana (6) find Phiri (8),

who will find Blas(7) ,Thuram (11) attracts his defender,Rebocho(3)

attacks the space in front of him

Rebocho can put the ball into the box

for Rodelin (23)

who score!!!

 

 

So we have a good season in statistics terms and also with the results. Only 2 defeats 1-0 vs PSG. 

I show some results for finish.

sometimes you lose (a cup match)

sometimes you win (a ligue 1 match)

Paris was too strong for me

they deserve a rest day

 

Thanks to all.

Have fun  

[f.zaarour]

Nice thread and agree with you. it is maybe the easiest way to just play the game, but the hard part is that you start to doubt this preset styles when you dont get your results and looking at the roles and players who are not on their favorite role was also abit weird for me. But i see youre doing very nice with this team. That is someting to think about for me for sure. Im going crazy having a balanced tactic to just enjoy the game with good results. The possession numbers are crazy too and that with a average team, awesome. 

So you just used tiki taka preset tactic. Did you do something special in pre season? And do you change something in big away games, like lower DL and or LoE etc...? 

Update: I went into the preset tactics and man i have to say it is the best for me. I just played a few matches but i really was thinking why was i struggling all the time with other tactics. I knew about it ofcourse, but in the beginning i was really confused with the roles which did not match the players, but i know now it does not matter at all. I went tiki taka tactic and the play was sweet (really satisfying, high possession also), gonna use it against defensive teams where it could be hard to break thru. Won a game with it, where i normally could draw against. And then the craziest thing was, i had a home game against Barca. I chose vertical tiki taka, as i wanted to be abit direct, less agressive defensivly and as it has its mentality on balanced. So could be better against bigger teams i thought and i smashed them 7-0 lol, i was totally flabbergasted about this. 

This is it for me. Thanks for bring this up. Gonna use tiki taka for home games and away against smaller teams and vertical tiki taka for against bigger teams. And im sure im not gonna win every match, but would the tactic lose its balance when i change roles in it? Or when i lower DL and LoE in it at the end of a game etc. ? 

Edited April 14, 2020 by f.zaarour

[coach vahid]

Thanks for the feed back 

 

Il y a 4 heures, f.zaarour a dit :

So you just used tiki taka preset tactic. Did you do something special in pre season? And do you change something in big away games, like lower DL and or LoE etc...? 

Yes. I just used Tiki Taka preset style. No changes. At the beginning, i just touched the mentality (mentality affecting the DL,width,ect...) but it was non conclusive. So i said to myself : Ok so if i change my mentality it will show to my players that i am not confidant in their qualities. And it tells to my opponents now you can attack me. I have the ball, i want to dictate the tempo,if my opponent want to score,he must find the solution. When i was leading , i kept faith in my players to come back. I hoped that the opponents will make mistakes.

Bielsa said " The argument that is used to amplify a behavior in victory. It is  the same one that is used to condemn behavior in the defeat".

 

Il y a 5 heures, f.zaarour a dit :

I chose vertical tiki taka, as i wanted to be abit direct, less agressive defensivly and as it has its mentality on balanced. So could be better against bigger teams i thought and i smashed them 7-0 lol, i was totally flabbergasted about this. 

What a great idea. Top. 

[afailed10]

Yes completely agree with you. In Fm20 it got harder than ever to read the ME for me and I play since CM3 days.

I've been tremendously successful with the gegenpress preset but that's because my squad fits the profile. By using presets i get less annoyed with tactics as i dont blame the system so much (as i know it can be successful) and focus more on the player attributes, morale, PPMs and development.

About the other presets, I had success with fluid counter systems in FM19, like winning the CL with a greek side. But in Fm20 It's way harder as attacking play is stronger. So It's best to stick to your favorite attacking preset with minor tweaks.

 

Edited April 14, 2020 by afailed10

[f.zaarour]

15 hours ago, coach vahid said:

Thanks for the feed back 

 

Yes. I just used Tiki Taka preset style. No changes. At the beginning, i just touched the mentality (mentality affecting the DL,width,ect...) but it was non conclusive. So i said to myself : Ok so if i change my mentality it will show to my players that i am not confidant in their qualities. And it tells to my opponents now you can attack me. I have the ball, i want to dictate the tempo,if my opponent want to score,he must find the solution. When i was leading , i kept faith in my players to come back. I hoped that the opponents will make mistakes.

Bielsa said " The argument that is used to amplify a behavior in victory. It is  the same one that is used to condemn behavior in the defeat".

 

What a great idea. Top. 

Thanks. Yeah thru. And ofcourse the team gonna need time to be known with the style. Well it is something im going to continue with as it is best for me now. I know its in balance, so no frustrations about balancing tactics lol, as @KyleHyde said. Just gonna test some small things, what to do more if i cant get the goal, like go shoot more often, etc. And maybe against bigger teams lower DL abit but the vertical tiki taka might be an option in that situation. Hopefully this will work out, so i can get less frustrated about tactics and just play the game overall and have more enjoyment. 

[f.zaarour]

Matches after using preset tactics. Very satifying and also being much better then the opponent most of the time. Glad im on this track as this is really a solution for me. When im better i use tiki taka style, which is most of the time as im a big team. 

[afailed10]

Great results. You can always tweak a role or two to suit your players better. These presets are not only ready to go but can work as a starting point.

I'm a top4 team in the 2nd division and i've been using the gegenpress preset since the 6-1. That result was against a top2 side. Like Klopp with Liverpool, It will get much better once the defense is improved.

[coach vahid]

Il y a 5 heures, f.zaarour a dit :

Matches after using preset tactics. Very satifying and also being much better then the opponent most of the time. Glad im on this track as this is really a solution for me. When im better i use tiki taka style, which is most of the time as im a big team. 

Glad to see it works for you 

il y a 21 minutes, KyleHyde a dit :

Great results. You can always tweak a role or two to suit your players better. These presets are not only ready to go but can work as a starting point.

I'm a top4 team in the 2nd division and i've been using the gegenpress preset since the 6-1. That result was against a top2 side. Like Klopp with Liverpool, It will get much better once the defense is improved.

Yes. Training and patience. And trust in your players.

[DimitrisLar]

i had also the same "presets dont work" attitude and you ve made up my mind. One thing that i wanna ask you, are your playmakers in the middle, who everyone say there mustn't be close etc etc, help you dictate game from the middle and not building attacks from wide? cause i use a custom tiki taka system, i try to evolve it, but i have that issue that we build up superbly from the middle but in the final end i find my team in a congested narrow area.

[coach vahid]

il y a 53 minutes, DimitrisLar a dit :

i had also the same "presets dont work" attitude and you ve made up my mind. One thing that i wanna ask you, are your playmakers in the middle, who everyone say there mustn't be close etc etc, help you dictate game from the middle and not building attacks from wide? cause i use a custom tiki taka system, i try to evolve it, but i have that issue that we build up superbly from the middle but in the final end i find my team in a congested narrow area.

I didnt have this issue. But it's a risk. It was my first season. Opponents expected to beat my team, not to have defend. 

I met a very low block one time and i did not succed. But i take some example in real life. The famous " second season" is a reality too. Laudrup was fired, even with an other philosophy, Leicester, after their winning title, had less space for counter attack. 

All i can do is hoping players find the solution. Maybe with stronger players or work with ppm.

[f.zaarour]

Some nice results again. Also against City, very satisfying. What I've noticed which could be usefull is switching (with two) tactics. So i do it with tiki taka and the vertical tt one. It might help to be unpredictable for the opponents. 

And i am still trying to find out which  tweaks are effective against opponents who are really defensive, had some 1-0 games where it was hard to get more goals. The positive change also for sure is, is that many of the games im much better (more chances, more poss.). More enjoyment, less frustrations. 

Edited April 17, 2020 by f.zaarour

[MShing]

I have tried using the tiki taka preset tactics after reading this thread and it produces some of the best football I have seen on fm20. I regularly have high 60 per cent possession and quite a few games 70 percent or higher. 

My opponents seem wise to my tactics now though so need to change it up a bit

[coach vahid]

il y a 24 minutes, MShing a dit :

I have tried using the tiki taka preset tactics after reading this thread and it produces some of the best football I have seen on fm20. I regularly have high 60 per cent possession and quite a few games 70 percent or higher. 

My opponents seem wise to my tactics now though so need to change it up a bit

Thanks for your feedback... 

And glad to see you happy for the way your team play. 

[f.zaarour]

4 hours ago, MShing said:

I have tried using the tiki taka preset tactics after reading this thread and it produces some of the best football I have seen on fm20. I regularly have high 60 per cent possession and quite a few games 70 percent or higher. 

My opponents seem wise to my tactics now though so need to change it up a bit

Had the same. It really brought some enjoyment back. Yeah that is how this Fm works, after a while it can be harder to keep the same tactic as the opponent might go deeper defensive and it becomes harder to get thru that. Maybe think of using vertical tiki taka as well, as it has less agressive pressing and it has the counter element so you could be more unpredictable for opponents. Or keep tiki taka and search for some tweaks who can be effective to break the opponents defens, like be more expressive, shoot more often etc. Try step by step, look in the game what is needed and see what works. 

[f.zaarour]

Yoo is this thread still alive hehe. How you doing atm? This thread is really have been a joy for me. Just simple but it brought back the enjoyment of this game. Im now on a Ajax save, using the tiki taka preset tactic and im enjoying it a lot. 1st season went till semi finals CL and 2n season was sweet. Won the CL final vs Psg 1-0. The nice thing of this is, is that you have a clear base of what style of play your team is playing. From there i could go on and also against big teams. I used against them the counter tweak and could untick play out of defence etc. and saw that it was effective. Im happy with it and im glad having some enjoyment hehe. How you doing?

Edited May 8, 2020 by f.zaarour

[coach vahid]

It was the only objective...Take pleasure. 🙂

[Gee_Simpson]

Which tiki taka are you guys using? 4123 (4141dm in game) or 4231 wide? @coach vahid @f.zaarour

Edited May 8, 2020 by Gee_Simpson

[coach vahid]

il y a 27 minutes, Gee_Simpson a dit :

Which tiki taka are you guys using? 4123 (4141dm in game) or 4231 wide? @coach vahid @f.zaarour

For me, the 4141.

[f.zaarour]

3 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Which tiki taka are you guys using? 4123 (4141dm in game) or 4231 wide? @coach vahid @f.zaarour

Same, 4141. 

[Gee_Simpson]

18 minutes ago, f.zaarour said:

Same, 4141. 

Is your striker scoring regularly? 

[f.zaarour]

2 hours ago, Gee_Simpson said:

Is your striker scoring regularly? 

I had first Tadic on that DLF striker position and he did a good job. Scored enough. Now i have new ones, Kaio jorge who is more a adv.forward so on the DLF role he needs time, he was doing oke, but with ups and downs. Try a striker who has DLF as his primary role, i felt that those strikers who have good technicals but less finishing mindset in their attributes fits the best. In this tactic ive seen its important that you have a connector as a striker, types like Tadic, Benzema etc. to link up the play well and finally they will get their goals also. When you have a real poacher as a striker on that DLF role in the tiki taka tactic he might do well aswell but if his technicals are bad or when hes not a that great connector with others he could struggle more. But i see also the wingers who get their goals so it would be oke to get enough goals. 

[Guest]

Hah, searching for the holy grail of possession tactics setup and it's right here in the default setup. Personally prefer tinkering and setting my players up to play a certain way but I am glad this is working for people. I had a test of the Tiki Taka and vertical Tiki Taka on default and they all played out very nicely including a 4-0 win with a lovely goal and nigh on my first 1000 passes game.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Crazy_Ivan

[coach vahid]

😉 thanks for your feedback.