Tifo - Atalanta

[scwiffy]

Once again my fav youtube channel has dropped a bomb. This time on Atalanta who I've always like...

 

Despite Atalantas recent rise I haven't actually seen them play! But regardless this video alone has got me wanting to translate this to FM - which seems very difficult if not impossible given the flexibility of the roles

 

So Far this is what I've cooked up....

                AF-a   CF-s

                    AM-s

IWB-s.  Mez-a  Car-s   WB-a

    BPD        CD        BPD

 

Am-s with "Roam From Position" and "More Direct Passing"

TIs = Positive, Wide, Play Out Of Defence, Overlaps, Work Ball Into Box.

Anyone watched Atalanta or have more input??

Edited May 20, 2020 by scwiffy

[Jack722]

I was literally about to make a post about Atalanta!

This is what I've gone with, and although there is room for imrpovement, i've seen some nice stuff so far.

TIs: AP-Roam, AF-stay wider

Looks like we weren't too different. 

Here is a goal I scored against top of the table Roma, that I thought was typical of Atalanta:

Typical diamond on the flank, with Gomez making his way over to support the overload. With a pretty empty midfield and an option for the switch of play

The ball switches to the opposite wing back who now has acres of space to drive into the box due to him being so wide.

Cut back for Illicic in the box who finishes it off.

I'm currently 5th after 14 games. 1 Point behind Juve. I'm also playing on FM19 where we are predicted to finish 9th

 

 

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by Jack722

[scwiffy]

3 minutes ago, Jack722 said:

I'm currently 5th after 14 games. 1 Point behind Juve. I'm also playing on FM19 where we are predicted to finish 9t

Nice, from my limited knowledge so far looks like you've got it right. After reading and watching more I'd agree one of the strikers should be an AF or PF-a, I still think a CF-s should be used as I find they often drift the widest of all the striker roles. It also seems a Mez-a is pretty much essential. 

I think you TI or focusing play down the wings is also spot on

[Jack722]

13 minutes ago, scwiffy said:

Nice, from my limited knowledge so far looks like you've got it right. After reading and watching more I'd agree one of the strikers should be an AF or PF-a, I still think a CF-s should be used as I find they often drift the widest of all the striker roles. It also seems a Mez-a is pretty much essential. 

I think you TI or focusing play down the wings is also spot on

I do agree with you that a MEZa and a CF would match Atalanta irl more closely, as the MEza can help with the overaps and swapping positions, and the CF can help with the wide overloads. But when I try to do recreations, I like to have a balance of being as close to the desired team as possible, as well as the tactic being viable in FM. In my experience, having an attacking duty in a central midfield pairing will lead to us getting "overrun in midfield" - my assisstant manager. And having both strikers drift wide will lead to there not being anyone to finish off the moves in the box.

But I encourage you to give it a go and post your results here. It could may well work.

Another option would be to use a 343, which atalanta use sometimes in real life as well, and have Zapata in the middle as a focal point, and then Illic and gomez can be inside forwards. That way you can still overload the wide areas and have a prescence in the box at the same time. I tried this first, but for some reason the attacks were very stale and we didn't score much at all. But I'd like to revisit it now that the 3412 is producing good results

Edited May 20, 2020 by Jack722

[SixPointer]

I’ve been writing Atalanta post this week with mega depth should have it out tomorrow boys. Like the look of this stuff so far. I’ve been trying to play like them for a whole season 

[giggety]

19 hours ago, Jack722 said:

I'm currently 5th after 14 games. 1 Point behind Juve. I'm also playing on FM19 where we are predicted to finish 9th

 

I really like your back 3's positioning there.

19 hours ago, scwiffy said:

Anyone watched Atalanta or have more input??

James Horncastle wrote an excellent piece for The Athletic yesterday:

Quote

 

Over a cappuccino in a village outside Modena, Sassuolo winger Jeremie Boga is in no doubt about the toughest opponent he’s played against in Serie A.

“Atalanta,” he tells The Athletic. “They press so high and play one-against-one everywhere. When they have the ball, everybody moves, so you don’t know how to press. One minute, the left centre-back is left wing-back. Sometimes, the No 10 comes deep. It’s really hard. Everybody moves.”

 

High risk, attacking, dynamic side (3rd highest scoring across the top 5 leagues, also 20 more than Juve this season). Conversely, concedes more than the top 4 in Serie A. Averages 20 shots per game (!).

Almost completely void of any central area play in buildups, they always use triangles or diamonds on the flanks to move the ball forward. This is extremely hard to replicate fully on FM. 

A central defender like Toloi, with 5 assists this season, is also very difficult to emulate, but with the right setup you can see him moving more forward and creating havoc.

The pre-match graphics often lie about the front 3, Gomez and Ilicic operate out wide and go inside. Duvan Zapata slightly offset towards Gomez on the left, as a pure striker.

I played through a season and completely shredded the Serie A, but some observations:

Ilicic, believe it or not, is not good enough on FM20. He is rated as the best player in the league this season, and was top 3 last season. He is not clinical enough in the game and his ability should be adjusted up a few notches. His overall mental stats are also too low. Gomez, on the other hand, is very true to his real self and will get assists left and right.

Below my default tactic after all the tinkering was done.

I had to abandon my plan of playing with wing-backs and instead go for defensive wingers. The reason being that WB does not press, like at all. Instead they drop down to the 3 CBs and form a 5 man defense out of possession. DW on support will press and hold the width. You also need to remember that Robin Gosens is more attacking minded than Hateboer (8 goals this season). So I gave him "take more risks" and that worked a treat in that regard.

Against Inter away:

(A random away game where the opposition is decent)

The right side of the team:

                                   Ilicic (F9)                                                                    Hateboer                                                                  Toloi

 

The left side of the team:

                               Papu Gomez                                                               Gosens                                                                      Palomino

As you can see, both Palomino and Toloi are far up the pitch, but what's interesting here is that Palomino is much more advanced than Toloi, who has more attacking PPMs. This is most likely due to a couple of factors;

• The team fluidity is very fluid.
• We use a Mez(s) on that side, plus an advanced playmaker in Gomez. We also have Gosens more advanced down the left, in the midfield strata.
• We use Toloi as the distributor from the back, forcing Toloi back to collect the ball.
• Inter was defensive their right side, using D'Ambrosio as a WB(d) and Brozovic as a DLP(s).

Don't be afraid to go with wide players in the midfield strata as opposed to wingbacks. The idea of Gasperini is that he using 3 at the back, which allows his midfield and attackers to press like it's going out of fashion while still maintaining some solidity. I used a Mez (Freuler/Pasalic/Malinovskyi) on the left CM and a BWM on the right, to have an aggressive role like de Roon has IRL. You shouldn't overthink shape either, as Gasperini doesn't really care much for that anyway. 

I never considered using man marking in the pressing phase, but that is definitely food for thought if I ever revisit this save.

Post match stuff:

                                                      Average positions                                                                                                                                                                                                Passing Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the passing network it's not exactly true to real life, but it works.

Sorry for the hijack of the thread, hope this helps in some inspiration. My goals were to create a tactic that would be able to score 7 goals against very defensive sides in the most tactical of all leagues, like Atalanta have done no less than 3 times this season alone. 

I almost got there:

[scwiffy]

1 hour ago, giggety said:

 

Incredible how you've managed to keep that wide play so bunched out wide. Thats what I thought would be the biggest challenge

Edited May 21, 2020 by scwiffy

[scwiffy]

17 minutes ago, giggety said:

Almost completely void of any central area play in buildups, they always use triangles or diamonds on the flanks to move the ball forward. This is extremely hard to replicate fully on FM. 

A central defender like Toloi, with 5 assists this season, is also very difficult to emulate, but with the right setup you can see him moving more forward and creating havoc.

Another reason SI need to add a new role for wide CBs in a back 3. Its not only Sheffield doing it now

[josel15]

On 20/05/2020 at 14:28, Jack722 said:

I was literally about to make a post about Atalanta!

This is what I've gone with, and although there is room for imrpovement, i've seen some nice stuff so far.

TIs: AP-Roam, AF-stay wider

Looks like we weren't too different. 

Here is a goal I scored against top of the table Roma, that I thought was typical of Atalanta:

Typical diamond on the flank, with Gomez making his way over to support the overload. With a pretty empty midfield and an option for the switch of play

The ball switches to the opposite wing back who now has acres of space to drive into the box due to him being so wide.

Cut back for Illicic in the box who finishes it off.

I'm currently 5th after 14 games. 1 Point behind Juve. I'm also playing on FM19 where we are predicted to finish 9th

 

 

 

Really liked that, on your tactic I would only put Zapata as a CF(s) and Ilicic as striker on the right as a Trequartista, for them to roam even more and because I feel as that is the roles they play irl, Ilicic mainly attacks but can come really deep to pick a ball while Duvan does a bit of everything, from being a target man, to appear 1 on 1 with the keeper, to be on the left really wide. Besides that everything is as I would set them up, perahps excluding the focus plays. Daljit from BustTheNet says having wide already makes the team build up, attack and actually look to play to and through the wide areas.

Edited May 21, 2020 by josel15

[denen123]

On 21/05/2020 at 14:13, giggety said:

I really like your back 3's positioning there.

James Horncastle wrote an excellent piece for The Athletic yesterday:

High risk, attacking, dynamic side (3rd highest scoring across the top 5 leagues, also 20 more than Juve this season). Conversely, concedes more than the top 4 in Serie A. Averages 20 shots per game (!).

Almost completely void of any central area play in buildups, they always use triangles or diamonds on the flanks to move the ball forward. This is extremely hard to replicate fully on FM. 

A central defender like Toloi, with 5 assists this season, is also very difficult to emulate, but with the right setup you can see him moving more forward and creating havoc.

The pre-match graphics often lie about the front 3, Gomez and Ilicic operate out wide and go inside. Duvan Zapata slightly offset towards Gomez on the left, as a pure striker.

I played through a season and completely shredded the Serie A, but some observations:

Ilicic, believe it or not, is not good enough on FM20. He is rated as the best player in the league this season, and was top 3 last season. He is not clinical enough in the game and his ability should be adjusted up a few notches. His overall mental stats are also too low. Gomez, on the other hand, is very true to his real self and will get assists left and right.

Below my default tactic after all the tinkering was done.

I had to abandon my plan of playing with wing-backs and instead go for defensive wingers. The reason being that WB does not press, like at all. Instead they drop down to the 3 CBs and form a 5 man defense out of possession. DW on support will press and hold the width. You also need to remember that Robin Gosens is more attacking minded than Hateboer (8 goals this season). So I gave him "take more risks" and that worked a treat in that regard.

Against Inter away:

(A random away game where the opposition is decent)

The right side of the team:

                                   Ilicic (F9)                                                                    Hateboer                                                                  Toloi

 

The left side of the team:

                               Papu Gomez                                                               Gosens                                                                      Palomino

As you can see, both Palomino and Toloi are far up the pitch, but what's interesting here is that Palomino is much more advanced than Toloi, who has more attacking PPMs. This is most likely due to a couple of factors;

• The team fluidity is very fluid.
• We use a Mez(s) on that side, plus an advanced playmaker in Gomez. We also have Gosens more advanced down the left, in the midfield strata.
• We use Toloi as the distributor from the back, forcing Toloi back to collect the ball.
• Inter was defensive their right side, using D'Ambrosio as a WB(d) and Brozovic as a DLP(s).

Don't be afraid to go with wide players in the midfield strata as opposed to wingbacks. The idea of Gasperini is that he using 3 at the back, which allows his midfield and attackers to press like it's going out of fashion while still maintaining some solidity. I used a Mez (Freuler/Pasalic/Malinovskyi) on the left CM and a BWM on the right, to have an aggressive role like de Roon has IRL. You shouldn't overthink shape either, as Gasperini doesn't really care much for that anyway. 

I never considered using man marking in the pressing phase, but that is definitely food for thought if I ever revisit this save.

Post match stuff:

                                                      Average positions                                                                                                                                                                                                Passing Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the passing network it's not exactly true to real life, but it works.

Sorry for the hijack of the thread, hope this helps in some inspiration. My goals were to create a tactic that would be able to score 7 goals against very defensive sides in the most tactical of all leagues, like Atalanta have done no less than 3 times this season alone. 

I almost got there:

I use wide midfielders in my RBL save, too.

        PF-a.     TMa

                AM- a

DW-su. BBM-su BWM-su. DW-su

   CD-co L-su CD-co

              Sk-a

Plus, i play on Very Attacking in the save so it is impressive to see your post that has such elements.

Good job, mate.