MID-BLOCK How To

[Andrew Marines]

We're all already familiar with  gegenpress/high blocks. It works and all but if you watch IRL(or in the game), you'll see there are moments where a team doesn't press high. We already saw the awesome guide by Cleon about the Low BLock, here i wanna talk about one of the tactics i was developing: a 442 Mid Block.

 

Let's start with the basics and after let's get into the FM world(i'm gonna use some pics from different websites)

Mid-block is called like that cause it focuses on the middle. Easy enough. The goal is to protect the middle third of the pitch. Being compact both laterally and vertically, delay the opposition's attack and try to start a counter.

FORWARDS: They need to know when to press and when to just close passing lanes

Spoiler

In the england formation you can see the forwards closing passing lanes. The goal is to not make them get the ball in the middle of the pitch. Sides are okay, middle is not.

 

MIDFIELDERS: They gotta work with the defensive block a lot.

Spoiler

You can see how close they are to each other. They need to hold position and, even if the opponent's midfielder get the ball not make him get forward. The goal is to make him go back or try a long throw at the sides.

 

DEFENDERS: Working with the midfield block, they are high in the pitch and will leave a lot of space for long passess. They gotta be smart and fast enough to recover.

 

Spoiler

This is just a training so it's exaggerated. But still we can see even in real matches how high they are.

 

What happens when the ball get to the sides?

Spoiler

The entire team will get into that side of the pitch closing the ball carrier.

 

Now we should be able to understand what we're trying to do. Make them go forward enough, get the ball and try to counter while still not getting deep enough to make them get into dangerous zones.

As any defensive style in football, you can't play mid block all the match, all the matches. There are moments(for example while you're losing and don't have that much time) where you need to switch to something more offensive. That's totally fine.

Boring part for a part of you done, let's get into FM.

I'm not gonna explain the in-possession tactic so i'm not gonna show roles or tactical instructions. You can play a tiki-taka even if you're using a mid-block. That's not important.

 

Let's start with the basic formation. Remember, roles will say how you attack the shape how you will defend generally. As we saw into the previous screenshots, we still gonna press when it's time, we're just not gonna do it all the time and not on all the players.

 

 

You can see how we're forcing them to get the ball back to the defender or try a risky pass.

But, even whey they get back, there's not much they can do.

 

What happens when they lose the ball?

In this situation, we defended correctly and made them go into a wider zone. Here they didn't have space but the player still decided to try a risky pass that our fullback reached. You can see now, even if the counter didn't score, they weren't in position to recover.

If you try it yourself with what i shared with you, you're not probably gonna see the same defensive movements by the forwards and the wingers. Why? Because i  added an undervalued PI to them:

MARK SPECIFIC POSITION.

Left forward

Right winger

Even with lower pressing line and stay narrow, you'll see that they still tend to not do anything and just wait. we want them to be included in the defensive phase and help us.

This is when this instruction goes in. They will mark the players that goes into that space. In this case, it helped a lot cause, even if the midfielders got back to a defensive position, they won't mark them all the way and just close passing lanes when they are and aren't there. Wingers will usually stay more narrow while forwards will close passing lanes more effectively.

 

You can use a mid-block even in a 4231 or any other tactic. I used it even in a 343. Why don't give it a try?

 

Edited September 21, 2022 by Andrew Marines

[bosque]

I don't understand the last bit about the left forward and right winger marking specific position. You left your left winger and right forward without PI's?

[Andrew Marines]

3 minuti fa, bosque ha scritto:

I don't understand the last bit about the left forward and right winger marking specific position. You left your left winger and right forward without PI's?

I just didn't have enough space for any attachments so i didn't put them. All 4 have those marking PIs on their side

[bosque]

hace 2 minutos, Andrew Marines dijo:

I just didn't have enough space for any attachments so i didn't put them. All 4 have those marking PIs on their side

Aaah ok. So its like this?:

Left Forward: Right DM

Right Forward: Left DM

Left Winger: Right CM

Right Winger: Left CM

[Andrew Marines]

In questo momento, bosque ha scritto:

Aaah ok. So its like this?:

Left Forward: Right DM

Right Forward: Left DM

Left Winger: Right CM

Right Winger: Left CM

Yes! That is correct. We're trying to not get the ball into our middle but we don't want them to mark those players all the way!

[bosque]

hace 3 minutos, Andrew Marines dijo:

Yes! That is correct. We're trying to not get the ball into our middle but we don't want them to mark those players all the way!

Interesting! I never understood the diference between mark player and mark position but now I think I understand a bit better. They will mark the zone of the position, right?

[Andrew Marines]

39 minuti fa, bosque ha scritto:

Interesting! I never understood the diference between mark player and mark position but now I think I understand a bit better. They will mark the zone of the position, right?

Mark player means that your player will mark the opponent everywhere in the pitch. 

Mark specific position means that your player will mark a player that is in the specified position. If nobody is there he'll stay in his designated area.

There are situations where this doesn't work 100% but it's still useful. Probably gonna do a bit more research about the different marking systems and post here again

[Tsuru]

Interesting. What would you do if you play a single striker system, like a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1? Would you ask the advanced midfielder or the third man midfielder to mark the DM position? If so, how would you decide the side to mark?

[Andrew Marines]

6 minuti fa, Tsuru ha scritto:

Interesting. What would you do if you play a single striker system, like a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1? Would you ask the advanced midfielder or the third man midfielder to mark the DM position? If so, how would you decide the side to mark?

Watch the defenders spoiler. That is a 4231. The AM(LR)s need to go inside and close those passing lanes. Same with a 433. 

If i didn't know how to write/read, i'd just go into a full match, and try to get what we asked for. I would probably ask the wingers to mark the position and leave the single striker/AM(C) alone to decide what he should do and in case change it based on the opponent

[prched55]

Do you notice a lot of balls over the top? How fast are your defenders? 

[Andrew Marines]

1 ora fa, prched55 ha scritto:

Do you notice a lot of balls over the top? How fast are your defenders? 

Yeah, they can happen. That's why i specified that defenders gotta be smart and fast. they gotta be positioned well and ready to recover those

Edited September 22, 2022 by Andrew Marines

[Andrew Marines]

Edit: Added Mark Tighter to central midfielders. This instruction will help closing the center a lot more. Without you could see their midfielders eventually finding a pass. With it it's a lot more rare

[Andrew Marines]

Adding a few screenshots to give an idea on how the tactic behaves against an online 424 tactic. They couldn't get into our final third

 

 

[vasilli07]

How will this translate to FM 23? Much higher D-line + low block + step up more + trap outside?

[Andrew Marines]

8 ore fa, vasilli07 ha scritto:

How will this translate to FM 23? Much higher D-line + low block + step up more + trap outside?

I'm not gonna get the game so i really don't know how to answer but in theory, yes. Just remember there are a lot of defensive PIs that could not work the way i intended to