Achieving a 'Hybrid' Playing Style

[Manutd1999]

We have a lot of threads about trying to create 'possession', 'gegenpress' or 'counter attacking' football, but I'm looking for some advice as to how to start to put together more of a hybrid system. Essentially I want my team to counter-attack if the opportunity is there, but recycle possession if there's no space or when starting from a goal-kick.

Real-life examples (only the style, not necessarily the formation/roles) would be Man Utd 2007/08, Barcelona's 'MSN' in 2015, maybe even England at the 2018 WC and the current Liverpool side. 

What kind of team instructions would suit this style? At the moment I'm thinking of combining typical 'possession' TI's (shorter passing, lower tempo) with the counter-attack and pass into space instructions to create variety. 

Positive mentality

Shorter passing                                        Counter                             Higher defensive line
Lower tempo                                                                                        More urgent pressing
Pass into space
Play out of defence
Work ball into the box

Roles and duties are still a work in progress. I'm currently thinking about a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 system with a mobile, fluid front 3 (like Barca's 'MSN' or Rooney/Ronaldo/Tevez), maybe something like this:

                  DLF-A                       CF-S

                                  TRQ-A

WM-S                                                             WM-S                                   

                      DLP-D          BWM-S                     

            CD-D            CD-D             BPD-D

                                  SK-D

 

Any advice is much appreciated

Edited April 29, 2020 by Manutd1999

[Justified]

1 hour ago, Manutd1999 said:

Essentially I want my team to counter-attack if the opportunity is there, but recycle possession if there's no space or when starting from a goal-kick.

 

1 hour ago, Manutd1999 said:

Positive mentality

Shorter passing                                        Counter                             Higher defensive line
Lower tempo                                                                                        More urgent pressing
Pass into space
Play out of defence
Work ball into the box

Would selecting Counter or WBIB really be what you're looking for? Sounds like you want something in between those (as in letting players decide) and nothing of the extremes, yet you've selected both. PooD makes sense, PiS should be used situationally.

[Piperita]

For Hybrid-Style tactics the best tactic is to have almost no tactic. Players with fitting roles will find the 'correct' play. 

An idea(!) for your formation: Put your BPD in the middle, teach him and your playmakers (if he can do it, also the BWMs) to dictate the tempo and activate the Play out of Defense and Exploit the Middle Ti. Do not change the standard values for tempo and passing range. If you are feeling adventurous, make the BWM run forwards more often or change him to a VOLs. 

The game will naturally be focussed on the middle through the two playmakers and the play through the middle TI.

If they see it fit, they will play fast combinations forwards. They might play it short with the BWMs/Vol running forwards as connector, or your two deep creative players might play it long for the Treq who can pass back and wide or send the strikers. 

If they don't, your players will pass for position until an opening emerges. Your front three are all hybrids who can pass and score and your wingers are wide options for recycling or runs or (early) crosses. 

/edit: As a personal preference I'd also swap your two strikers as d-duty midfielder and a-duty attacker creates a gap that might overextent your winger or might open up too much space for your Treq to roam into, making him less of a dual-threat.

Edited April 29, 2020 by Piperita

[Djuicer]

That United team is a personal favourite. I think Rooney was a DLFs and Tevez (today either a CFs or F9) Ronaldo is the one I always struggle with. Was he a IFa? a striker or maybe a winger on attack? That team can be described both as strikerless or with 3 forwards.

[Manutd1999]

Quote

Would selecting Counter or WBIB really be what you're looking for? 

Maybe it is better to remove them, I will test it. Generally though, I imagine WBIB more as a deterrent against long shots, not necessarily as the opposite to counter-attacking

Quote

For Hybrid-Style tactics the best tactic is to have almost no tactic. Players with fitting roles will find the 'correct' play. 

This sounds good. Maybe less is more. Again, I'll try it and see

Quote

That United team is a personal favourite. I think Rooney was a DLFs and Tevez (today either a CFs or F9) Ronaldo is the one I always struggle with. Was he a IFa? a striker or maybe a winger on attack? That team can be described both as strikerless or with 3 forwards.

Serious danger of thread creep here, but most of the time I think Ronaldo was an IF-S on the right-wing. Yes he scored a lot of goals but for Man Utd he was still primarily a wide player and actually provided a lot of assists. Tevez was maybe a CF-S and Rooney a DLF, but they switched positions regularly. 

The exception to this is in big away games, where Tevez was often sacrificed and Ronaldo played as the main striker. This allowed Park to come into midfield, with Rooney playing on the left. 

[Experienced Defender]

5 hours ago, Manutd1999 said:

DLF-A                       CF-S

                                  TRQ-A

Whatever style - or a hybrid of styles - you are looking to create, I would certainly avoid having all forward players in essentially the same type of roles (creator). At least one of them should be played in a simple runner/scorer type of role. 

[Djuicer]

55 minutes ago, Manutd1999 said:

Serious danger of thread creep here, but most of the time I think Ronaldo was an IF-S on the right-wing. Yes he scored a lot of goals but for Man Utd he was still primarily a wide player and actually provided a lot of assists. Tevez was maybe a CF-S and Rooney a DLF, but they switched positions regularly. 

The exception to this is in big away games, where Tevez was often sacrificed and Ronaldo played as the main striker. This allowed Park to come into midfield, with Rooney playing on the left. 

I agree at large, but for me the only one on attack duty was Ronaldo. Even if he started deeper at times (or most of the times).

Edited April 29, 2020 by Djuicer

[zyfon5]

5 hours ago, Manutd1999 said:

We have a lot of threads about trying to create 'possession', 'gegenpress' or 'counter attacking' football, but I'm looking for some advice as to how to start to put together more of a hybrid system. Essentially I want my team to counter-attack if the opportunity is there, but recycle possession if there's no space or when starting from a goal-kick.

Real-life examples (only the style, not necessarily the formation/roles) would be Man Utd 2007/08, Barcelona's 'MSN' in 2015, maybe even England at the 2018 WC and the current Liverpool side. 

What kind of team instructions would suit this style? At the moment I'm thinking of combining typical 'possession' TI's (shorter passing, lower tempo) with the counter-attack and pass into space instructions to create variety. 

Positive mentality

Shorter passing                                        Counter                             Higher defensive line
Lower tempo                                                                                        More urgent pressing
Pass into space
Play out of defence
Work ball into the box

Roles and duties are still a work in progress. I'm currently thinking about a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 system with a mobile, fluid front 3 (like Barca's 'MSN' or Rooney/Ronaldo/Tevez), maybe something like this:

                  DLF-A                       CF-S

                                  TRQ-A

WM-S                                                             WM-S                                   

                      DLP-D          BWM-S                     

            CD-D            CD-D             BPD-D

                                  SK-D

 

Any advice is much appreciated

Personally I will replace shorter passing with standard so that players can choose what passes to use in different situations. Work ball into box and pass into space should be used occasionally depending on situations.

[Manutd1999]

Quote

Whatever style - or a hybrid of styles - you are looking to create, I would certainly avoid having all forward players in essentially the same type of roles (creator). At least one of them should be played in a simple runner/scorer type of role. 

I was hoping the DLF-A would be the main goal threat. What would you recommend as a runner/scorer, maybe a PF-A? Or change it to

DLF-S --- CF-A

        TRQ-A

[Experienced Defender]

59 minutes ago, Manutd1999 said:

What would you recommend as a runner/scorer, maybe a PF-A?

Runner/scorer roles are: PF, AF and poacher. 

Creator roles are: CF, TQ, DLF and F9

Target-man can be a bit of both, depending on both the player playing the role and how those around and/or behind him are set up (which in turn would depend on your preferred tactical style).

 

59 minutes ago, Manutd1999 said:

Or change it to

DLF-S --- CF-A

        TRQ-A

No, because it's still all 3 creator roles (only with swapped duties).

You also need to take into account the rest of your setup, because roles and duties do not work in isolation. 

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, Manutd1999 said:

I was hoping the DLF-A would be the main goal threat

I was not talking about who will be main goal threat, because it depends on more factors than just a (type) of role. I was talking about avoiding tactical overkill of any kind. Theoretically, any role can turn out to be the main goal threat, because you cannot predict how opposition will play and how their manner of playing will affect your players in a given situation.

[Manutd1999]

I think it's time for an update on how this is progressing. Based on people's feedback so far (thanks!), here's the tactic I've gone with:

SK-D
I want the goalkeeper to be comfortable on the ball but not too reckless, especially as my keepers aren't the best with their feet (yet). More De Gea than Neuer

CD/BPD - D
PI - stay wider
3x defenders, all on defend duty to keep them together as a unit (also enbaling the offside trap). The one with the best passing attrubtes is given more creative freedom as a BPD. The two wide CB's have the 'Stay Wider' option, encouraging them to act as quasi full-backs in the buid-up phase. The PPM 'Brings ball out of defence' is useful for this as well.

DLP-D
PI - Take more risks
The heartbeat of the side, responsible for running the game from deep. Think Xavi/Scholes/Pirlo etc. 

SV-S
A deeper lying box-to-box midfilder, not doing anything flashy but always in the right place at the right time. Florentio Luis is perfect for this role with his positioning and stamina. 

CM-A
PI - take more risks, dribble more
This is the role I had most trouble with. I tried lots options in the AMC position (TRQ/AP/AM) but none had much impact. I suspect this is at least partly due to the ME issues with central play. However, I found a CM-A works better. The deeper starting position means the player sees more of the ball, with lots of PIs to make him more of a creator. 

WM-S
PI - hold position, cross more often
The more defensive wide player. I imagine this role to be like Beckham, sitting deep and crossing or switching play with long passes. I need to develop the right player for this though

IW-S
PI - cross less
A more attacking winger. Playing a left-footer as an IW adds great variety - sometimes he cuts inside, sometimes he stays wide. 'Cross less' is used to try and encourage cut-backs and passes in the final third.

CF-S
The more skillful striker but not exclusively a creator. Vinicius has scored quite a few goals in this role, linking well with the PF-A

PF-A
A fairly simple role. An out-and-out striker when we have the ball, but hard-working out-of-possession.  
 

The tactic is still a work in progress but it's going quite well so far. We tend to dominate possession at home and get around 50% away, with a nice variety of counter-attack and "tiki-taka" goals. Some issues I've noticed:

- The CB's are slightly too conservative and often needlessly pass back to the goalkeeper, are there any ways to reduce this?
- The CM-A is better now but still not the Iniesta type player I'm looking for. Any ideas how to improve this role?
- I'm using 'Defend Wider' to try and counter-act our obvious vunerability on the flanks. Is this appropriate or best left to the default setting?
- Any tips on how to adapt for bigger games, especially in Europe? I'm thinking of developing a second, more defensive tactic with reduced defensive line/line of engagement. Essentially the same but more disciplined and counter-attack focused.
 
 
Playing with Benfica, I've managed to put together an exciting array of young talent. Holding onto the best players is going to be a challenge (Man City are already circling Dias....), but the potential is huge:

Dias - already one of the best CB's in the game and club captain. Whether I can hold onto him for long though remains to be seen.....

 

Luis - the perfect SV if he can improve his passing a bit. Hopefully I can keep him for a few more years
Tonali - the new Pirlo. A club record signing but hopefully worth the money

Grimaldo - a good combination of defensive, attacking and mental attributes makes him a great all-rounder on the left wing

Almada - lots of threads about this guy already. Hopefully I can get the CM-A role working properly so he can shine. I also signed David Silva - not exactly young but I couldn't resist when he was available on a free(!) transfer from City. The perfect tutor for Almada and co.

Edouard - excellent work rate and finishing make him a good fit for the PF role 
Arezo - joining in the next transfer window, the plan is to develop him for the CF role alongside Edouard

 
 

Edited May 2, 2020 by Manutd1999

[Experienced Defender]

1 hour ago, Manutd1999 said:

This tactic looks pretty decent. Perhaps some small tweaking might be needed (primarily instructions-wise), but definitely a good starting point 

Just make sure it suits your players and keep in mind that this can be a bit tricky system (due to the lack of any fullbacks or wing-backs).

[Adonalsium]

The key to United's system wasn't the tactic, really. It was the players. So with that in mind, I think the best way to create such a 'hybrid' system is a simple Balanced system with standard passing and very minimalistic TIs. The key to achieving your chosen playstyle then would be your players' PPMs and attributes, as well as choosing your player roles carefully. I've regularly achieved 55-60% possession with my St. Pauli sides playing a Balanced, Standard passing system - the players don't really take too many risks because it's still the balanced mentality, but they will also play balls in behind and counterattack aggressively when they win the ball back because I'm playing a Shadow Striker in a 4231 which is a very good role to facilitate fluid play on the break. 

I like your tactic so far though! It looks like you're trying to replicate how a system like that would look like in real football, in which wide players and the attacking midfielder often start out from deeper positions.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Adonalsium

[Hilly1979]

3 hours ago, Adonalsium said:

The key to United's system wasn't the tactic, really. It was the players. So with that in mind, I think the best way to create such a 'hybrid' system is a simple Balanced system with standard passing and very minimalistic TIs. The key to achieving your chosen playstyle then would be your players' PPMs and attributes, as well as choosing your player roles carefully. I've regularly achieved 55-60% possession with my St. Pauli sides playing a Balanced, Standard passing system - the players don't really take too many risks because it's still the balanced mentality, but they will also play balls in behind and counterattack aggressively when they win the ball back because I'm playing a Shadow Striker in a 4231 which is a very good role to facilitate fluid play on the break. 

I like your tactic so far though! It looks like you're trying to replicate how a system like that would look like in real football, in which wide players and the attacking midfielder often start out from deeper positions.

I like this, people fall into the trap that the formation on the screen is the finished article but in reality it’s the defensive shape that needs turning into a attacking shape via roles and duties.