Aggressive Fluid Passing Football (In the mold of Wenger)

[The3points]

The Finish to the 21-22 Season       The Cup Final

I won 3-0 in the last game, but nobody cared about that match: the big one was the cup final against Benfica to potential finish with a great season.

Unfortunately, RPM Andre Horta got injured just before the match, so Andre Castro replaced him in the middle. Abel Ruiz was likely playing his last game off the left, making an XI of Matheus; Yan Couto, Tormena, Leite, Sequeira; Al Musrati, Castro, Mineiro; R. Horta (C), Vitinha, Ruiz.

We find our best moment around half an hour into the match, but we don't capitalise

Like many cup finals, the match was stale and devoid of chances. Toni Martinez often pressed the 3rd midfielder in buildup to nullify the 3v2. We were also sloppy with the ball. They got 12 interceptions in the midfield, showing how Roger Schmidt was tactically clever on the day.

We made 21 interceptions on the day for reference, but only 10 were in the middle 3rd of the pitch. 

I tried to retain the ball and not allow them to bully us like they did before, but we didn't make much ultimately and lost due to a great action from the better team on the day. 

Joao Mario can pick a ball wide to Rafa due to a gap between the RW and the RPM. Our defence is still in the process of moving into position, going from "Nike" defence to a straight line.

This good ball wide causes all sorts of problems

Ignoring the fact that Tormena is slow to turn, track the run, and get back (and has been all season, including vs Legia), we still have a massive gap in defence where Toni could go down the line and cross for Nunez to win it.

It really is a shame that we lost the cup final in such a manner, but in the end it was a great season. I'm still nervous about the future though: Vitinha broke a top scorer record for the club, and Abel Ruiz hit 20 goals in the league, but I'll have to work perhaps with neither next season

[The3points]

22-23 Preseason

We had many transfers over the summer: here I'll list them all with all the drama attached:

Abel Ruiz was the quickest to go, after getting a £26.5 million offer from Fulham. I didn't even get a chance to decline due to our financial issues. 

The release clause of captain Ricardo Horta (£25.5M) was triggered by Everton, and his brother was close to leaving for England as well, but Andre Horta remained at Braga despite a £15.5M offer.

Wolves, always wanting more Portuguese talent, offered for veteran midfielder Andre Castro for 650K. Due to a lack of depth in midfield I rejected.

Since I was lacking an LW old enough to drink, I though of moving Andre Horta to the left and getting transfer-listed Mathias Jensen as an RPM, quickly after Nantes had bid for him. Around 5 other clubs joined the party and Jensen picked Sheffield United.

An £11M offer for Tormena was declined.

Alongside lacking a winger, I wanted a defensive midfielder to cover Al-Musrati, and another RPM since Horta would not play there. Another striker was also welcome to play in the EL and the cups.

Jaime Seoane and Jessy Deminguet were two options I had on the table, however Seoane had no interest in joining the club, despite us barely missing out on him in January.

I got a young Spanish DM, Turrientes, at a steep 4.3 million but made up for it by getting Gonzalo Pacienca off of Frankfurt for only £650K.

Atletico Madrid threw a spanner in the works by making a 10 million pound offer for my keeper, Matheus. In January he was already annoyed at me for declining a move to Brazil, and I knew if I rejected, he'd be livid. So I negotiated the deal up to £15M and off went my starting keeper. The backup, Tiago Sa, had gone for Brazil just a week earlier.

Phillip Kohn was the favourite to replace him, however there was a cost issue so I went for Aitor Fernandez. The way I kept the deal cheap was to give away a CAM who couldn't really make the XI.

Deminguet wasn't really anybody I was aggressively chasing: he was an option that I had on my shortlist since January, but I was pleased when he and £3 million came for backup RB Fabiano Souza.

Backup RW Piazon depatred, leaving me searching for another winger to try and buy to either compete or surpass Medeiros. Harvey Elliott was an option I tried on loan. He was expensive, but a player that could bring us to another level.

Finally, some business at CB: Paulo Oliveira wanted to get more game time and I couldn't guarantee it, so I sold him to Shaktar and brought in a CB on loan, Jon Pacheco. I extend Diego Leite loan and added an Obligation to Buy for the next season.

As for the actual football, we lost 1-0 to Mainz, but beat Burgos 4-1 after going 1-0 down. New signing Pacienca got an injury that would put him out for the start of the season. 

I've had some saves where when the turnover is high, you do awfully, and one at PSV where I recruited well and pushed to new heights. We'll see which type of save this one is...

Edited October 18, 2022 by The3points

[The3points]

August 2022 (Start of 2022-23 Season)

The first game of the season starts with Harvey Elliot getting goal on his debut, and Vitinha scoring a hat trick cementing his key place in the team

Horta shifting inside was key for the goal, as Vitinha (CF-A), Horta (IW-A), Mineiro (CM-S) and Castro (RPM) all linked up, with Horta being tackled and the ball tricking to Elliott (IW-S) for the tap-in.

Here is the creativity of the team being compact and fluid in passing and in movement.

The RPM, Castro, rushes in behind to be picked out by the DLP. He drags the CB with him and squares for Vitinha.

Vitinha showed his poacher instinct by redirecting a shot from outside the box into the corner, something he was lacking last year. However the CF-A was perfectly capable of showing link play as he slid in the IW-A, who in return cutback for the RPM to add another.

For the last goal we drag them quite narrow: less than 20m based on the grass colourings, and spread wide before the cross was converted.

Deminguet made his debut in the next match and finished with a goal and an assist. He ran in behind for Vitinha to find for the second goal, before overloading the flank and crossing for Victor Munoz (soon after sent on loan) for the third. Vitinha scored the first after a Sanusi cross.

Against Pacos, we score 2 from set pieces (a goal straight from a free kick, and a corner) while Vitinha beats the offside trap like his trait demands to slot home. Last year he would have missed that chance.

Against Rio Ave we struggled to keep the ball, with the newly promoted side causing us some trouble. Despite the lack of the ball, we make chances that we don't finish, and we're bailed out by a Deminguet penalty for 1-0.

This 5 game winning run immediately put us in the forefront of all minds when considering challengers. Almost like Arsenal now: Benfica, a more proven team, were behind us and we had a test at the end of the month in the shape of Sporting. 

Continuing the metaphor, Estoril were our Fulham: we went down but 2 great goals by Vitinha turned the game on its head and we were looking down on Sporting pre-match for the first time of my reign.

Sporting CP are a very good side in buildup play, making a 3-2-5 or sometimes a 3-1-6 and they have free men in the wide areas, which they use to score. But the game is all about Jessy Deminguet.

The new signing had 6 key passes all creating good chances

The "worst" of open-play ones

Brilliant pass that led to the following chance

That's not the best of 'em

Good, but the following one is the best

Leading to this chance

Despite the loss, we can take many positives, and I think Deminguet has pencilled himself in the starting midfield. Our player of the month, and the entire league's player of the month was Vitinha however, with 7 goals in 6 games.

[The3points]

Apologies for the long delay, due to FM23 I'll wrap up as much as possible before the full game release.

Anyways, we finished at the end of August where Manchester United had purchased my trusty DM/CB David Carmo for 1.3 million. Our 31 players out led the league.

Jessy Deminguet continued his brilliant vein of form by scoring a nice longshot and free kick against Boavista. Almost straight after the match Vitinha has his release clause triggered by Sporting: but Vitinha turns them down to stay at the club (most likely to wait for a bigger move to come up).

In Europe I try the 4-4-2. Surprisingly with the game possession stats we can't keep the ball against Jablonec but we break through with some individual dribbling brilliance by the RB. Paciencia scores his first competitive goal.

Against rivals Vitoria, they swing a long ball behind our line to go 1-0 up before an over-eager challenge by the fullback leads to a conceded penalty. 2-0 down against our bogey team. But we work it back to the CM-S and Vitinha gets 1 back. A free kick in the 80th minute levels it.

And in the most improbable of ways, the DLP-D smashed the ball half the pitch length for Vitinha to get a 90th minute winner. 3-2!

The European game vs PSV was a continuation of Vitinha good form as he bagged a brace. We then followed it up by winning in the FA Cup 3rd round.

But the big game of the month was a Europa League top of the group clash between us and Arsenal, the inspiration for the whole save. We lose 3-1, but the game was certainly more than an open and shut case.

Here Al Musrati finds the ball and plays a vertical pass to Vitinha, who plays the ball between defenders. Deminguet is denied.

Our creative midfield finds space behind their defence to isolate our IW-A with their RB

Horta beats Tomiyasu and the shot gets blocked by the CBs

However heaven comes a minute later. As smoothly as Nasri and Clichy would swap, Horta and Sanusi have done the same

This pass split the Arsenal defence, Sanusi and Elliott running 2vGK, where Sanusi is unselfish and we lead at the Emirates. Sadly this does not last long after half-time. Partey pushes forward extremely high and his cross for Emile Smith Rowe was tapped in. We simply cannot take any more Arsenal pressure and 2 more late goals from Saka and Gabriel (a set piece) beat us.

At which point October takes over, and I top the Managerial Awards for September. Young winger Infande and Vitinha score to beat B-SAD which starts a 4 game winning run against easy teams in the League Cup (2) and the FA Cup (1).

We face Benfica searching for revenge. The game starts with us providing a threat on the counter as their possession juggernaut continued. New signing for them Ludovic Blas gave away the ball allowing Horta to run through. The ball was quickly switched via 3 quick passes to where the full back nearly smashed home like Carlos Alberto but hit the post.

10 minutes later Vitinha ran the length of the pitch: his shot was saved by their WC goalkeeper.

On the 28th minute, Aitor Fernandez smashed the ball far up the pitch for Vitinha, who turned his defender but could not finish the 1v1.

We finished the 20 minute spell from the 14th to the 33rd with a goal from Horta after great passing play.

Al Musrati finds a stellar 1 touch ball forward to Vitinha

Vitinha lays off to Deminguet, my new favourite player, who slides it in behind for Andre Horta, who dinks the keeper from the D. The ball kisses the bar on its way down.

We hit the post again in the second half, we play pretty triangles giving Horta and Vitinha chances that are spurned and we eventually pay. Oli Giroud scores a screamer of an FK and the key title clash finished 1-1

[The3points]

Fall Update Part 2

Unluckily, Vitinha is wanted by loads of clubs: Arsenal, BVB, Bayern, PSG, RB Leipzig, Napoli, AC Milan, Juventus, Norwich, West Ham, Sevilla, Leicester, Inter Milan, Burnley, and Brighton.

In the EL game against Arsenal, Sequeira hits a curling ball in behind for the RPM and we take an early lead. Again we can't hold on as Maxence Lacroix scores 2 set piece goals.

In the League vs PTM we win 1-0 but play nice football encapsulated by the GIF above.

Vs PSV we bottle it. Their 4-4-1-1 pressing shape gives us build up problems and when they hit a long ball we can't deal with it. Elliott found Castro who put a stellar ball in behind for Paciencia to score, but we gave back the lead when their stunning counterpress struck. 

Sangare, pressing hard all match to the point of being on a booking, won the ball and played a short pass to Romero, that found a gap between our CBs that the DM wasn't covering. Vinicius ran in and scored a 2nd

Against Santa Clara, we got a red card and subsequently lost. Our pre-world cup run ended with a whimper as we lost against Jablonec in a dead rubber EL tie to drop down to the ECL.

[The3points]

Winter Update

Against Porto, we conceded early on. Their high press caught Castro on the ball and scored soon afterIt got worse when they exploited a large gap out wide to score

They scored a 3rd from a set piece and pretty much finished the game despite us fighting back. We overloaded the left and the resulting ball was converted by Vitinha, and the superstar striker scored a penalty late on as consolation. The run of 4 straight losses in all comps was followed by an almost blemishless January, jampacked with 8 games, the majority of which had a gap of only 3 days. We have ended up being punished for doing well in the cups and Europe.

Against Mafra, Vitinha showed his class for us one last time. AC Milan, Borussia Dortmund, and Juventus all hit his release clause and he was destined to leave. 2 assists and a goal was how he departed in a 3-1 victory.

David Carmo came back to the club on loan due to Manchester United's neglect of him, and Pacheco's loan was ended because he wasn't playing BPD. 

Against Vitoria in the cup we won quite straightforwardly, but the first goal was quite a nice goal in terms of the movement that the left sided players made.

The IW-A makes a narrow movement inside, ready to pick the ball off of the CF-AAlthough their RB is quick to react, this leaves loads of space out wide for the fullback to cross and we score.

After a boring 0-0 draw, we came back with a 4-1 win against Arouca. Castro at RPM had a great game, scoring 2 goals and running the play, while Carmo got his first goal since he came back.

BSAD were a tricky proposition in the FA Cup and their long ball to the back post immediately equalised after youngster Infande started the scoring. But we broke through soon after they had a red card in the 79' minute.

Against Gil Vicente we won 1-0, desperately trying to conserve energy for the League Cup semifinal.

In which we started well, scoring the opening goal when Deminguet overloaded the left, squaring for Elliott. But Benfica were lucky with another 90th minute goal, where they stole the ball off of our tired midfield and struck from the edge of the box to force pens. After 6 pens, one of which we missed, we won due to last minute goalscorer Martinez missing in sudden death.

Quite hilariously, Benfica follow up with an offer for Tormena and one of our coaches. I reject the Tormena offer obviously.

In the final, they score off a set piece, and we threaten through out the 90, hitting the woodwork twice

After just receiving the ball from the RPM Castro, Tormena slides Infande, who strikes the post. 

We have a set piece goal denied, and Paciencia's long shot hits the bar. In the last minute, they counter attack and Pedro G ends our cup hopes.

Despite this, I win manager of the month for winning 4/5 League matches in the 8 game month

 

[The3points]

February

We battered Familicao with a great game for the IW-A  (split between Horta and Infande). Constantly we found space in behind and exploited it, with the IW-A finding Paciencia up front twice.

Against Estoril we missed many chances but a Horta goal got us the victory. 

The major match of the month was against Sporting, where we kept finding Horta in space in behind early in the first half, but he couldn't finish the chances.

We have to wait for the 2nd half for a goal however, and it comes via Horta. 

Turrientes shows why we paid the money for him with an exquisite ball splitting the Sporting defence

And Horta is obligated to score.

Deminguet added a 2nd late on from a free kick. We have finally beaten Sporting in the league, and that is a good sign for our PT Cup semifinal. The win puts us in title contention:

Benfica 49 points, Braga 47 points, Sporting* 47 points, Maritimo** 38 points, Porto* 37 points (Sporting and Porto have 19 games and Maritimo has 21 compared to our 20)

We beat Bodo-Glimt in the ECL playoff (one leg, I think it might be a bug), win via FK against Boavista and drew 0-0 against Vitoria. We need all the gritty wins we can get in the business end of the season

[Moutorious]

Pics of the tactics you've used possibly please? I'm interested but finding it hard to keep up with just match pics  

[The3points]

The main tactic: CF-A forms diamond, IW-A runs in behind, IW-S comes in a supports midfield, FBs overlap on both flanks

4-2-3-1, not really in use anymore due to my only #10 also being my only good LW. This would be the team I'd pick if I had to play it now however. 10 helps overload flanks and solid back 4 help recycle.

The 4-4-2, which went out the window when Vitinha got sold. Only used in 2 European matches. I'm working on bringing in another striker to play the CF-A, the injured lad is a 1 star and 20, and primarily an LW anyway.

 

[The3points]

Spring Update

We lost unfortunately to Young Boys due to a late turn around, again only in one leg. It seems like that will be the case IRL? Didn't know, otherwise I wouldn't have gone aggressive late on when they scored the first.

We won 4-1 against P Ferreira, a collective performance with 4 different goalscorers.

But our misery returned again with a Sporting beating where they started quick and dominated the ball as they did always.

In the league we followed with 7 points from 5th BSAD, 16th Casa Pia and midtable PTM, which sounds good in theory but we met our Stoke in Casa Pia with them knocking us back a peg after a late equaliser. They followed that up with a 1-0 win, this time in April, due to a quick keeper punt and us losing the first ball. Furious, we looked to move on and give Mafra a beating. A GK error put us on the wrong foot after half an hour, and our small squad was certainly feeling the heat with Andre Horta's absence being felt. Paciencia scored after 66 minutes but we couldn't find a winner against another relegation side.

After a breath, we had to make-do with a scrappy win vs Rio Ave: 1-0 the final scoreline.

The biggest match was against Benfica to try and get back on track: we'd actually let our 10 point February lead on Porto slip up and they were a point better than us before the Rio Ave match.

A 0-0 was good, but we should have won. We had a 0.6 xG chance missed, because of that our xG per chance was much better than theirs.

(Despite the caption, the ball actually got past their keeper and was cleared by Grimaldo.)

We also hit the post twice. One was on Elliott longshot: the other was more sophisticated however...

Medeiros nearly put us one up after beautiful passing in the first half. 

With all the results: here's how the table looks with Porto*, Santa Clara, Famalicao and Maritimo all left to play *(match is 3 days after PT Cup semifinal second leg)

 

[The3points]

Rest of the Season

Against Sporting, they got another early goal with Pedro G. I just shut down there and then: our biggest game of the season was in 3 games, so I took out a load of instructions until intensity was blue. On 40 minutes I took out Horta and Elliott, both key players for the Porto game and Only Commentary-ed the rest of the game.

But we still ended up scoring an impressive goal with beautiful football, just by the roles and the Shorter Passing, and Paciencia scored to make it 1-1 on the day.

Against Porto Paciencia is really tired but he has to play or else it's Bobby Duncan from the U18s. I also try the classic Wenger move: Deminguet goes on the right as Elliott isn't fully fit. He played there for the 2nd half vs Sporting and did well

Aitor Fernandez shows he isn't suited to this sort of role, with a 60% pass completion rat in the first 20 minutes.

Here in 2D you can see how Deminguet on the wing affects the side. 4 players are quite tight centrally and the fullbacks run the flanks if the ball is worked there. The shot we work centrally is blasted high.

For them, Taremi roams wide often, like a #10 in a 4-4-1-1 trying to make overloads, as the both of our teams grapple for the ball. Aitor's disasterclass isn't helping though: every time he gets a ball, he doesn't wait for the CBs to get into position and just hoofs it.

Medhi's roaming allows him to pinch a ball on the way to Al Musrati, and then soon later, their keeper hits a long ball which has been all our trouble this season, and Porto score.

And then shockingly just before the break Vieira scores from a tight angle. We seem to be down and out.

Pretty much every second half highlight is a corner. But we hit the bar from a crack from 30 yards and suddenly we're motivated. Paciencia's attempt from a low cross was blocked. Elliott's attempt went in. 8 minutes to win. 

But every cross is headed or deflected out by their defence. Mari, Ginter, Sosa all deflected or headed out late crosses and Mario was key in stopping many of them. I now understand a little bit of how Wenger felt. We were top for 10 matchdays, and in the top 3 for 26 matchdays yet it is pretty much impossible to get CL football. Fatigue, injuries, and a drop in form, led to a lot of dropped points against smaller teams, especially with one win in April against relegation opposition. 

But the season isn't over yet and Porto can still slip up.

Against Santa Clara we absolutely dominate, but only break through from a great shot from the edge of the box from Turrientes.

The pressure's on Porto: but they win late 1-0 to Famalicao, our next opponents. They then condemn us to 4th with a 3-2 win against Martimo. 

A 2-2 draw with Famalicao hits the nail in the coffin

We finished the season with a 2-0 win against Martimo.

2 seasons, 2 4th place finishes, but very different feels. This one was a large disappointment as form dropped so quickly, while in the other season, we picked form and felt more positive with the League Cup trophy. 

Wengerball replicates real life in the beauty of the football when you train and purchase intelligent footballers: the amazing interplay and relatively solid defensive backbone provides positive results, but one must beware of injuries and low form periods of inconsistency, and the loss of crucial players.

Despite the lack of a league title or Champions League football, I think the tactic was a success