Man marking in Football Manager 2022

[LingLing]

Hello. Long time no posting here. Sorry if there's something like this, feel free to point me into the right direction.

 

So, my question is - how viable is man marking in FM22? Even more, is marking a thing anymore? I mostly sim games so I do not watch, but now I've decided to take a look at the Champions League game against my team HSV and Roma. And I've noticed some funny things.

Formation is:

 

Spoiler

 

And I've noticed the lack of marking. even though players have TI "Use tighter marking".(please ignore players inability in CD and AM positions, I made a substitution after the goal and I changed the formation)  Example:

 

 

Spoiler

 

So 3 CDs and 2 of them are marking no one. Even the middle one, who's on "stopper" duty is walking backwards and not attacking the ball carrier ( am I mistaking what CD - Stopper should be doing?), but that's not the point. When I saw that, I asked myself, what is the point of playing with 3CDs when 2 of them are doing nothing? So I switched to 2 at the back, classing 4-1-2-1-2. And again, the same thing happens:

 

Spoiler

 

Fofana is CDR and he's marking a striker. The guy standing in front of Tsimikas is my RB and the player who's marking their player on the byline is Camavinga. So what are my other CD doing along with my other CM?

 

I'm posting this as I play, This is another headscratcher for me. Roma has a free kick. Look at the marking ( everything is set on default when it comes to set pieces).

Spoiler

 

 

 

Lenget is unmarked, as are two Roma players in the far post. While 4 players are marking 2 players in front of the goalkeeper. Ball goes to Lenget who shoots, my GK makes a save, but the ball falls to unmarked player on the far post.

 

I can seemingly go on and on, so I'll put all the other screenshots into one big spoiler:

 

Spoiler

 

 

Any thoughts?

[Mitja]

Tight marking or specific man marking?

Tight marking doesn't mean players will always stand close to someone. That being said defending has never been a strong point of any FM me.

[Rashidi]

Tight marking is just zonal marking (Team Instruction = everyone zonally being closer) whether they do or not depends on attributes, roles and duties and to some extent your team instructions.
Man marking in the game is a specific action that is achieved by using custom personal instructions via the player role edit page. To the left you should see an option to mark a position or mark a specific player. That unfortunately needs to be done on a game to game basis, as opposed to opposition instructions which can be applied by position. And these stick provided you don;t make subs during a game, when you do do you need to reapply it for the sub being brought on

[LingLing]

Thank you for responding. I have a few questions based on it.

1) Players marking ghosts as presented in those pictures is perfectly normal?

2) Tight marking is actually zonal marking? The tooltip on "Tight marking" reads

 

3) Any tips how can I achieve for players to be more active on defensive end ( roles, instructions etc.) bar the "mark specific player"?

 

[Rashidi]

Not sure what you mean by marking ghosts. They have a zone, when a player enters the zone they mark him. If they are on tight marking then they are closer to him.  If you want players to be more 'active' to their assigned roles, then you should consider mentality and choosing the right role for the player. Don't forget your LOE serves to act as a cue for the 2 strikers in front to begin the press which in turn can affect others around them. So choosing the right pressing instructions for the team is also important.

[LingLing]

Alright, this is helpful in my understanding how marking works in FM. So if I understand correctly, each players has a zone he marks, and man marking will only trigger if a player enters that zone? If this is true, this would explain a lot.

 

My marking ghosts - take a look at the 2ndscreenshot. Two of my 3CDs are not marking anyone. Why is my CDr marking a striker instead of a CD allowing CDr to move down and close their player on the wing?

LOE is doing what I'm asking of it, its triggering correctly as far as I can tell. Its high for both lines. Is wide center back bad for covering wide area? My defensive width is set to standard so they should be spread, right? Even in attacking my width is "fairly wide".

[nully29]

Tight marking means coming close to an opponent attacker, as if to prevent him from getting the ball. This comes with a risk that an attacker can take a run behind the defender.

 

Not tight marking means giving a cushion to the attacking player. This gives an attacker a bit of time and space to receive a pass. However, it removes the option of making a run behind a defender.

[nully29]

19 minutes ago, LingLing said:

My marking ghosts - take a look at the 2ndscreenshot. Two of my 3CDs are not marking anyone. Why is my CDr marking a striker instead of a CD allowing CDr to move down and close their player on the wing

Your CDl is going to pick up ops RW and your CD is going to pick up that Pellegrini dude. So your CDr has to mark ops ST. And no one is left to cover ops LW since both of your wingbacks are behind ops wingers, and your DM(?) is behind Pellegrini. So ops are going 4on3 on your CDs

[LingLing]

59 minutes ago, nully29 said:

Your CDl is going to pick up ops RW and your CD is going to pick up that Pellegrini dude. So your CDr has to mark ops ST. And no one is left to cover ops LW since both of your wingbacks are behind ops wingers, and your DM(?) is behind Pellegrini. So ops are going 4on3 on your CDs

But they are not picking them up. Last spoiler contains screenshots that show that.

First one: 3 players around Bernardo. Why?

Second: Central defender closest to my GK is Fofana. If you take a look at the next 2 screenshots, he's the furthest defender of my backline. I have 7 players defending and they have 5 attacking. So players should be able to mark them comfortably? They were all marking their man properly, until Almada got the ball. Then my central of 3 CDs went to close down Almada, player who in previous screenshot lost Almada was following his player, while Fofana should be able to cover player in the middle? But he decided to let him go to cover player who already was being covered by DM. And my LWB was jogging watching the action from 5 meter apart instead of helping?

 

I'm trying to understand how marking works so I can adjust.

[nully29]

1 hour ago, LingLing said:

But they are not picking them up. Last spoiler contains screenshots that show that.

First one: 3 players around Bernardo. Why?

Second: Central defender closest to my GK is Fofana. If you take a look at the next 2 screenshots, he's the furthest defender of my backline. I have 7 players defending and they have 5 attacking. So players should be able to mark them comfortably? They were all marking their man properly, until Almada got the ball. Then my central of 3 CDs went to close down Almada, player who in previous screenshot lost Almada was following his player, while Fofana should be able to cover player in the middle? But he decided to let him go to cover player who already was being covered by DM. And my LWB was jogging watching the action from 5 meter apart instead of helping?

 

I'm trying to understand how marking works so I can adjust.

Switch WBs to support duty. Personally, I would even drop them down to FB, but it's up to you.

Drop pressure down a notch or, at least, add PI to CDs to press less often

Change Stopper duty to Defend. I tried Stopper and found it is running out to close down way too much..

Change WCB to CD with Stay wider.

You would get something like the one below, and it works amazing in this ME

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by nully29

[LingLing]

@nully29Thanks for responding, but that's really not the point.

[Dutchy1983]

Can't really help you too much as I think the defensive side and marking isn't the best in the ME. But some things I have noticed, I find opposition instructions , tighter marking a position has very little effect. Even a player instruction marking a position doesn't seem to change much.

But the player instruction of mark specific player actually works. As long as your player has a decent marking and decision attribute they will stick to them in the defensive phase... obviously can mess with your defensive shape though

With your back three for instance, it can work well, either against a lone striker where your central defender is assigned the player instruction to mark that player, or two up top have the two outer ones with the Player instruction.

[DarJ]

1 hour ago, Dutchy1983 said:

I find opposition instructions , tighter marking a position has very little effect

I disagree it’s this. I use that in allo of my tactics and it works well to the point that it could be catastrophic if I don’t apply it properly 

[LingLing]

A slight bump.

[kepz]

On 06/01/2022 at 06:07, LingLing said:

( everything is set on default when it comes to set pieces).

You should not play this way and then complain that your players don't mark properly. 

[fraudiola]

On 06/01/2022 at 19:07, LingLing said:

So, my question is - how viable is man marking in FM22? Even more, is marking a thing anymore?

On 06/01/2022 at 22:16, LingLing said:

My marking ghosts - take a look at the 2ndscreenshot. Two of my 3CDs are not marking anyone. Why is my CDr marking a striker instead of a CD allowing CDr to move down and close their player on the wing?

are you setting them to mark a specific player or a position? 

[Gianni Brera]

Ive experimented with marking schemes a lot.

Simply put, zonal defending has become so dominant and default in modern football of the last 20 years that in FM, it is the default setting as well. More specifically, in FM the default marking style is "man-oriented zonal marking". This means the team is zonally positioned in relation to the ball, but the defending players mark the man who enters their zone of responsbility. The TI "Use tighter marking" makes this simply more extreme. The defending players will mark the man entering their zone closer, breathing in their necks.

This style of marking is commonly associated with types like Jose Mourinho. It relies on physical strength and anticipation.

Pure zonal marking, or "space oriented zonal marking" is a system in which the team organizes a compact shape in relation to the ball, ensuring that there is as little space between the lines as possible, and forcing opponents to play around the defensive block. This requires the defenders to focus on their own positioning in relation to eachother, and largely ignore the positioning of opponents. This is particularly used by the teams that want to press a lot. In FM its hard to replicate, although setting the "mark tighter NEVER" in the OI's for every opponent does approach this style a bit. The ME is still programmed to make players defend man-oriented however, and there is no setting to switch to genuine space orientations.

Old-fashioned man-marking, the kind utilized in Germany until the early 2000's and Italy, is also difficult to replicate.

In the player instructions, one needs to opt either for "mark specific position" or "mark specific man". The latter will make your player track his assigned man across the pitch. The entire pitch. So beware. During defensive transitions, you'll see your defenders first jump -forward- to find their man, and then run after them as they try to keep up with them in the counterattack. Transitions become extremely chaotic and panicky as a result of collectively applied specific man marking.

However, if implemented in a clever way and having some free holding midfielders or covering defenders, your team can do enough to slow down defensive transitions to settle in a defensive shape with every opponent marked. The chaos during transitions would be solved by real teams through passing on marking targets to avoid players being dragged too far out of position. With this option, players don't pass on their man and mark like "eleven donkeys".

Mark specific position is a very vague option in my experience. If the assigned position is too far away for the marker, he will ignore the marking instruction. And unlike what people often claim, the "mark specific player" option does adjust automatically to tactical changes of the opponent. If a player is substituted, his marker will mark him instead. The "mark specific position" is not intended to solve that organizational issue. It is genuinely a different marking method.

What I suspect is that its a "loser" method of man-marking. Players with a direct opponent (such as a DM vs an AM) will be told to man-mark while the rest of the players without a direct opponent will be zonally marking. If the AM is removed and the DM loses his "direct" opponent, he will mark zonally again. But this is speculation on my part from what Ive seen.

So based on my own experiences, it is not possible on FM to replicate man-marking as a collective marking method. The mark specific player option seems to have been included to mark key opponent players only, not entire teams.

[marko82]

Man mark a specific postion is really useful in Mourinho type tactics.
I mostly put my forward to mark their deeper midfielder, this way you do 2 things:
1.your forward sometimes steals the ball and opens a counterattacking opportunity
2.you slow down opponents transition so your defenders get into their positions on time and you are really tough to break
If it's a bigger team who adapts and starts transitioning through wingbacks, i man mark them with my AML/AMR.
I'm not a tactical mastermind by any means, just watched a lot of Mourinhos games and i used this (in my opinion) very underrated article by @Experienced Defender: