papamogl Posted July 3, 2020 Share Posted July 3, 2020 (edited) Hi everyone, This is a really special tactic. For the first time in Football Manager I managed to recreate an idea I had, and for me it is extremely succesful. 5-1-2-2 Perfect Football.fmf The tactical background A few years ago, a new tactical approach emerged where with a four man defense, a DM drops into the defensive line when in possession. These teams are playing with a four man defense when out of possession, and a three man defense (2 DCs plus the halfback DM) when in possession. My idea was to exactly reverse this. As many teams are now playing with a single striker, two men are enough to defend against a lone striker when in possession. How to achieve this? Well, my idea was to play with three DCs when out of possession. When in possession, a DM (=halfback) will drop deep, creating 4 DCs! This allows the DCl and DCr to spread out wide, and actually become wingbacks! The DC and the halfback will be left to cover the center of the pitch. This gives you a very solid 3-3-2-2 when defending, and an explosive 2-6-2 when attacking. For opponents it's very difficult to defend against inverted wingbacks already, but it becomes almost impossible when central defenders suddenly become fullbacks marauding the flanks. My inverted wingacks and the DC/WB hyrids both assembled huge scorer point tallies: I marked the players that were my main wingbacks, and inverted wingbacks throughout the season (* Talles Magno played around 1/3 of his games as striker). The following graphic shows the formation when out of possesssion, and the players movements when possession is won. The implementation in FM The hybrid between DC and Wingback that we are using has not been implemented in FM. The way I got this to work was to position them as WBs, have a narrow defensive width and specifically instruct them to mark opponents ST (l) and ST (r). When you are playing against a lone striker, your DC will mark him. This is very stable defensively, and the wingbacks still contribute a lot to the attacking phase of play. Note that I had much better results using winbacks with good defensive stats in the DC/WB hybrid position, than playing DCs there. To give due credit: the standards were taken from Lisa's @terminator tactic: https://fm-base.co.uk/resources/fm-20-4-4-3-3-terminator.673/ In practice I enjoyed a hugely succesfull season with Ajax with this tactic. Winning the league unbeaten, the domestic cup, and becoming runner up in the Champions League (narrowly beaten in the final by Liverpool). The football this tactic produces is spectacular. it isn't primed for huge spells of possession. Instead there are blazingly fast attacks with quick short passing, and lots of unexpected movement. I really enjoy this tactic a lot, and I hope you will too. Let me know if you have any questions. Edited July 3, 2020 by papamogl Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
papamogl Posted July 4, 2020 Author Share Posted July 4, 2020 Here is a screenshot of the tactic and team instructions, in case you are on Stadia: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
papamogl Posted July 10, 2020 Author Share Posted July 10, 2020 Is anybody using this tactic? It's doing wonders for me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jupmachine Posted July 11, 2020 Share Posted July 11, 2020 I'm going to give it a go on my new Man Utd save. I'll let you know how I get on. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
papamogl Posted July 11, 2020 Author Share Posted July 11, 2020 Cool, thank you! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
markv1 Posted July 13, 2020 Share Posted July 13, 2020 What type of player do you use in IWB (a) and WB (auto)? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
papamogl Posted July 14, 2020 Author Share Posted July 14, 2020 For IWB (a) you can actually use a winger there. Raphael Guerreiro and Achraf Hakimi are fantastic in this position, but I am also playing Jadon Sancho there. Ideally you will use a wingback that specialises in attacking. Some defending skills are still necessary, but the focus is on the attacking skills. Speed, dribbling, off the ball movement and finishing are important factors. For WB (auto) I use wingbacks with very good defensive stats. It is tricky, as these players are basically central defenders that double as wingbacks. If you have a DC with some speed and crossing skills, that will work too. I'm playing Lukas Pisczeck and Marcel Schmelzer there. I also play Dan-Axel Zagadou there if facing tough opponents, even if his crossing is lackluster. If your opponents play with two strong strikers, playing a DC in this position can help neutralizing them. If they play only one striker, fielding wingbacks can help your attacking intent. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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