Planning for Next Season / Tactical Evaluation / Mid Block Success

[bababooey]

Introduction

So I've got one match left (it's a throwaway, the table is set already) in what has been a fantastic first year with Atlético Madrid.

When I started this I was a bit nervous because to be honest, my FM 23 experience has been mixed. I've had brilliant results in Italy with Inter, and below par results in the Premier League with Chelsea + Newcastle.

I also knew that there was a possibility this Atlético Madrid side would be a little bit too old and on the decline.

My style of play is not the same as Diego Simeone, so winning over the fans and board would be tricky, too...

We've ended up in second place (minimum 3rd depending on pending results), behind a totally dominant Real Madrid side. We also pushed far into the UCL, beating City in the first knockout round (my favorite achievement) but losing to Bayern in heartbreaking fashion in the quarter-finals. An early-ish exit in the Copa Del Ray was annoying, but the fixture came at a bad time, with injuries and squad rotation, and a tough draw on the road.

The league was absolutely my top priority, because the club is in a poor financial state, and making the UCL is *critical* to our sustained future.

If you have seen my other thread "the days of a single tactic are over" you'll know my shape and set up, but if not, here it is (two tactics with the same shape, and very similar settings)

The "main approach" used at home and against weaker sides when we are the clear favorites to win:

The "im not so sure about this one" approach away and against teams that are closer to us (and better).

Here are some key statistics that have defined our season

These are all La Liga stats, so they do not include the UCL or Copa del Ray.

- 57% possession (7th in La Liga)

- 2.3 points per game (2nd in La Liga)

- 69 goals (nice) 2nd in La Liga

- 0 goals from direct free kicks (this has to improve)

- 6 goals from indirect free kicks (this was great)

- 90% pass completion (tied for 2nd in La Liga)

- 129 chances created (3rd in La Liga)

-  6th in final third passes for, 10th in dribbles per game, and 7th in possession lost

- 2nd in conceded goals

- 74% tackles won (11th in La Liga)

- 4.52 Opposition passes per defensive action (10th in La Liga, we need to look at this closely)

Who do you think our top goalscorer was? Keep in mind the system above!

Did you guess Joao Felix, the False 9?  If you did, you got it.  Initially, my thought when designing this system was that our inside forward on the right, Griezmann would have been the top scorer. But he ended up being the top chance creator, and assist maker. I believe the reason for this is that we struggled against teams playing in a 4-2-3-1 DM AM system (which we faced a ton).  I'll write more about this in a minute.

Basically, the general idea was I wanted to attack space in 3 different ways.  The F9 drops deep, the IW drifts across horizontally, and then the inside forward directly attacks diagonally.

Often times, what happened was that the F9, after being involved in helping build up play, would make a run from deep and someone else would find him with a great through ball.

The other big goalscorer was the inverted winger on the left. I think this was because often times he was able to make it to the near post (or far post, depending on where the ball is), relatively unscathed. It helps that he's a fantastic player (Yannick Carrasco) but you know, I didn't really think this would be the case. Again, I figured the IF-A would be our primary goalscorer.

Funny how these things go.

Lets take a deeper look at our shape, and how we fared against other shapes

Okay so the first image here is our shape, and you can see that we used this for basically the entire season, save for like 1 match.

I'm happy with the stats here but not thrilled either. +28 is nice, but it's not like, anything to write home about. I think we can improve that "chance every 78 minutes" stat significantly. The chance against stat is good, but I've seen better.

 

Here is where things get interesting...  Our nemesis! The 4-2-3-1 DM AM Wide formation.  This formation gave us so much trouble!

I can live with the chance against stat here, but the chance every 127 minutes is abysmal. We HAVE to figure out a way to do better against this shape.

It also happens to be the shape we see most often.

We faced this shape 4 out of the 6 group matches in the UCL, and 17 times in La Liga. That's basically half a season's worth of games in the league.

Going back to the data hub, our analyst team is telling me we faced that shape 37% of the time in our last 50 games played (so basically across an entire season of league, UCL and domestic cup games).

That's more than 1 out of every 3 matches!  If we can improve how we do against this shape, while not regressing how we played against other shapes, we should be able to secure the title in the future.

 

Okay so, why does the 4-2-3-1 DM AM Wide give us so much trouble?

This is harder to answer because I can't say I know for sure.

So what I've done is, I've taken the AVERAGE POSITION WITHOUT THE BALL from one of our toughest opponents, Real Betis. They use this shape, and they gave us so much trouble!

I've also taken our AVERAGE POSITION WITH THE BALL and combined it with Betis' without ball shape, and copied that into a tactics board so we can better analyze what's happening.

As you can see here, the thing that jumps off the page is the sheer amount of players Real Betis has in the middle of the pitch, compared to us.

Remember our style of play? It involves a deep build up phase, with the F9 dropping into space, and our midfield trio probing the ball looking for the key pass.

Well, is it any surprise that our F9 really struggled to perform in these matchups? Look at what he's dropping into! He's got no chance being surrounded by 4 players (sometimes more, depending on where he is).

Without the F9 dropping into space, it forces us to pass the ball backwards and sideways.

This is our passes completed *ONLY IN THE ATTACKING HALF* and look how sparse it is. Clearly, we had absolutely no influence on the game in the most important area of the pitch for good quality chance creation (zone 14, etc).

And here is our passing combination map:

See how often we were basically forced to just cycle the ball deep? We had very little influence on the game, and I think this helps show why.

 

Now, check out this image, which is our passes completed IN THE ATTACKING HALF, in a game we won 4-0 against Girona, at home. We faced a 5-3-2 type of system.

The difference is pretty staggering. We completely dominated midfield, and I think we had something like 16 key passes, and 6 scoring chances (4 half, 2 clear).

So what can we do against that damn 4-2-3-1 shape?

Here is one idea I have. 

In this case, the right back (#2) would invert and help out in central midfield. Additionally, the left forward (#11) would be encouraged to sit narrow (likely an IF-S or IW-S).

We would also change the left central mid (#10) from MEZ-A to something supporting, maybe a CM-S, I don't know. But I think I would need him to stay close to his midfield partners.

Now, my concern with this approach is the lack of penetration. We would be relying quite heavily on the right forward (#7) to be the main outlet for attacking the space, and the left back (#3) to get forward and cross.

We wouldn't have a runner from deep in this case, which is something I usually want, and so that's a significant trade-off. Whether it's a MEZ-A, CM-A or whatever else. I don't want that player to vacate the space and allow the opposing team to dictate play in the middle. Even the MEZ-S will leave too much space in the middle behind him.

 

Now here is another option, which is to basically try to overload the wide areas and bypass the center...

In this scenario, I would be asking the #10 and #8 to sit wider and really encourage that link up play out wide. The forwards #7 and #11 would both need to support rather than attack. Having them sit narrow might be the idea, OR I could have them stay wide and draw the center mids towards them....

Then, I would ask BOTH wide defenders to be adventurous and get forward. That would help us complete those passing triangles on the flanks.  In the meantime, the striker #9 would be tasked with staying high and pinning those center backs so that they cannot disrupt our passing with heavy pressing.

The problem I see with this (potentially) is that once again we won't have great options for penetration. LOL.

I think we would be relying on something like this:  the ball is kept in wide areas, cycled between those players, we wait for someone to break the lines (likely from the opposite flank), and play a ball over the top and behind the defense to run on to. 

But, something to remember! You don't need both sides of your team doing the same thing!

What if, we decide the best option is like using half of one of these?

What if, we intend to flood one side with players to keep possession, and then use the other side to penetrate? (lol).

Here is what I think we should do.

Instead of trying to overload the middle with players, and instead of trying to dominate both flanks with players, why not split the pitch in half?

It's fairly obvious from the diagram, but the point here is to overload one side, and attack the other. A very simple concept you see all the time in real life.

I like the way this looks, and so I'm going to try to implement this into our tactics in the game. We can still keep our "main approach" because, why throw out something that clearly works well enough? Having a second plan is a good thing.

Translate this back into FM 23

Given the players we have, and the fact that we're heading right into the summer (so I can make transfers) I've decided we're going to implement this idea on the opposite side to the diagram above. So, don't let that confuse you.

 

The first thing we'll do is focus on the defense roles + duties.

- The wingback on the left is there to support the attacking players ahead of him, and provide width.

- The inverted wingback on the right is going to help by sitting centrally, giving the midfielders ahead of him another passing option, AND hopefully helping us not get outnumbered in there.

- The ball playing defender will be encouraged to dribble more which should, in theory, pull an opposing player towards him and help open passing lanes. I also hope he will play directly towards the left flank when possible.

- The other center back is just a typical CD-D. I don't need anything fancy from him.

- The GK is a SK-S because that's how I want to roll.

Next, let's focus on the midfielders

-  The DM-S is told to dribble less, and take fewer risks.  I don't want him turning the ball over, and I don't want him being too individualistic.

- The CAR-S has no added PI's, and neither does the CM-A

The idea here is to have the CAR sitting wide and helping us keep possession on that flank, interacting with the AP, DLF and IWB.

The CM-A is tasked with attacking space. I don't need him to be super involved in any build up play. I want him to cause a problem for the defense, not just sit there and get himself into trouble.

Now the forward group

- The DLF-S is my choice because by default he moves into channels. This is great because I'm hoping to see him move towards that right flank, combining with the players there to create a real problem for the other team.

- The IW-A on the left side is sort of like a wide striker. I could have gone with IF-A, but IW suits my players better.

- The AP-S on the right is SO important here.  I've told him: dribble less, hold up ball, and stay wider.  

Why stay wider for the AP? Because, remember the goal is to overload the flank, not the middle. If I told him to sit narrow, he's getting too close to that nasty double pivot + center back combo when facing a 4-2-3-1 deep.

Also, we're using "hold up ball" on him because I need to draw players towards him. I don't want him to just immediately release the ball, because then we're not really doing much to disrupt the defensive shape of the other team. So, hopefully this helps us take a minute to play a better pass, perhaps one that unlocks the defense on the other side....

The team instructions have changed slightly, too.

- Shorter Passing, Play out of defense, UNDERLAP right, and fairly wide.

- Roll it out, distribute to specific player (the BPD-D), counter + counter press

Out of possession hasn't changed.

So the thinking behind those changes is this:

- I want to encourage the build up play to skew towards the right flank. So we distribute to the BPD on that side, simple.

- I want to encourage holding onto the ball on the right flank, so we use an underlap. This will be interesting, I may have gotten this wrong. We'll see.

- Fairly wide in possession in order to encourage our passing to the flanks

- Counter in transition because I really want to add this to our game now. We use a mid block exclusively, and that means there should be space to take advantage of. Should also help us get the ball forward quickly / switch play when it's clear that our left side of attackers are ready to pounce.

 

Edited January 21, 2023 by bababooey
Added an image I didnt need by mistake

[HanziZoloman]

Well written! I have the same issues in 3rd division and have been experimenting similar to you. Your analysis helps much, thanks

[bababooey]

Okay the funny thing here is, and I really didn't plan on this happening, but it looks like we're going to end up using a 4-2-3-1 next season so... this entire post is kind of moot now!

But you know. It was fun to write!

[HanziZoloman]

That’s football 

[Skywalk3r83]

7 hours ago, bababooey said:

Okay the funny thing here is, and I really didn't plan on this happening, but it looks like we're going to end up using a 4-2-3-1 next season so... this entire post is kind of moot now!

But you know. It was fun to write!

Show us😄

[Cloud9]

On 21/01/2023 at 12:02, bababooey said:

Introduction

So I've got one match left (it's a throwaway, the table is set already) in what has been a fantastic first year with Atlético Madrid.

When I started this I was a bit nervous because to be honest, my FM 23 experience has been mixed. I've had brilliant results in Italy with Inter, and below par results in the Premier League with Chelsea + Newcastle.

I also knew that there was a possibility this Atlético Madrid side would be a little bit too old and on the decline.

My style of play is not the same as Diego Simeone, so winning over the fans and board would be tricky, too...

We've ended up in second place (minimum 3rd depending on pending results), behind a totally dominant Real Madrid side. We also pushed far into the UCL, beating City in the first knockout round (my favorite achievement) but losing to Bayern in heartbreaking fashion in the quarter-finals. An early-ish exit in the Copa Del Ray was annoying, but the fixture came at a bad time, with injuries and squad rotation, and a tough draw on the road.

The league was absolutely my top priority, because the club is in a poor financial state, and making the UCL is *critical* to our sustained future.

If you have seen my other thread "the days of a single tactic are over" you'll know my shape and set up, but if not, here it is (two tactics with the same shape, and very similar settings)

The "main approach" used at home and against weaker sides when we are the clear favorites to win:

The "im not so sure about this one" approach away and against teams that are closer to us (and better).

Here are some key statistics that have defined our season

These are all La Liga stats, so they do not include the UCL or Copa del Ray.

- 57% possession (7th in La Liga)

- 2.3 points per game (2nd in La Liga)

- 69 goals (nice) 2nd in La Liga

- 0 goals from direct free kicks (this has to improve)

- 6 goals from indirect free kicks (this was great)

- 90% pass completion (tied for 2nd in La Liga)

- 129 chances created (3rd in La Liga)

-  6th in final third passes for, 10th in dribbles per game, and 7th in possession lost

- 2nd in conceded goals

- 74% tackles won (11th in La Liga)

- 4.52 Opposition passes per defensive action (10th in La Liga, we need to look at this closely)

Who do you think our top goalscorer was? Keep in mind the system above!

Did you guess Joao Felix, the False 9?  If you did, you got it.  Initially, my thought when designing this system was that our inside forward on the right, Griezmann would have been the top scorer. But he ended up being the top chance creator, and assist maker. I believe the reason for this is that we struggled against teams playing in a 4-2-3-1 DM AM system (which we faced a ton).  I'll write more about this in a minute.

Basically, the general idea was I wanted to attack space in 3 different ways.  The F9 drops deep, the IW drifts across horizontally, and then the inside forward directly attacks diagonally.

Often times, what happened was that the F9, after being involved in helping build up play, would make a run from deep and someone else would find him with a great through ball.

The other big goalscorer was the inverted winger on the left. I think this was because often times he was able to make it to the near post (or far post, depending on where the ball is), relatively unscathed. It helps that he's a fantastic player (Yannick Carrasco) but you know, I didn't really think this would be the case. Again, I figured the IF-A would be our primary goalscorer.

Funny how these things go.

Lets take a deeper look at our shape, and how we fared against other shapes

Okay so the first image here is our shape, and you can see that we used this for basically the entire season, save for like 1 match.

I'm happy with the stats here but not thrilled either. +28 is nice, but it's not like, anything to write home about. I think we can improve that "chance every 78 minutes" stat significantly. The chance against stat is good, but I've seen better.

 

Here is where things get interesting...  Our nemesis! The 4-2-3-1 DM AM Wide formation.  This formation gave us so much trouble!

I can live with the chance against stat here, but the chance every 127 minutes is abysmal. We HAVE to figure out a way to do better against this shape.

It also happens to be the shape we see most often.

We faced this shape 4 out of the 6 group matches in the UCL, and 17 times in La Liga. That's basically half a season's worth of games in the league.

Going back to the data hub, our analyst team is telling me we faced that shape 37% of the time in our last 50 games played (so basically across an entire season of league, UCL and domestic cup games).

That's more than 1 out of every 3 matches!  If we can improve how we do against this shape, while not regressing how we played against other shapes, we should be able to secure the title in the future.

 

Okay so, why does the 4-2-3-1 DM AM Wide give us so much trouble?

This is harder to answer because I can't say I know for sure.

So what I've done is, I've taken the AVERAGE POSITION WITHOUT THE BALL from one of our toughest opponents, Real Betis. They use this shape, and they gave us so much trouble!

I've also taken our AVERAGE POSITION WITH THE BALL and combined it with Betis' without ball shape, and copied that into a tactics board so we can better analyze what's happening.

As you can see here, the thing that jumps off the page is the sheer amount of players Real Betis has in the middle of the pitch, compared to us.

Remember our style of play? It involves a deep build up phase, with the F9 dropping into space, and our midfield trio probing the ball looking for the key pass.

Well, is it any surprise that our F9 really struggled to perform in these matchups? Look at what he's dropping into! He's got no chance being surrounded by 4 players (sometimes more, depending on where he is).

Without the F9 dropping into space, it forces us to pass the ball backwards and sideways.

This is our passes completed *ONLY IN THE ATTACKING HALF* and look how sparse it is. Clearly, we had absolutely no influence on the game in the most important area of the pitch for good quality chance creation (zone 14, etc).

And here is our passing combination map:

See how often we were basically forced to just cycle the ball deep? We had very little influence on the game, and I think this helps show why.

 

Now, check out this image, which is our passes completed IN THE ATTACKING HALF, in a game we won 4-0 against Girona, at home. We faced a 5-3-2 type of system.

The difference is pretty staggering. We completely dominated midfield, and I think we had something like 16 key passes, and 6 scoring chances (4 half, 2 clear).

So what can we do against that damn 4-2-3-1 shape?

Here is one idea I have. 

In this case, the right back (#2) would invert and help out in central midfield. Additionally, the left forward (#11) would be encouraged to sit narrow (likely an IF-S or IW-S).

We would also change the left central mid (#10) from MEZ-A to something supporting, maybe a CM-S, I don't know. But I think I would need him to stay close to his midfield partners.

Now, my concern with this approach is the lack of penetration. We would be relying quite heavily on the right forward (#7) to be the main outlet for attacking the space, and the left back (#3) to get forward and cross.

We wouldn't have a runner from deep in this case, which is something I usually want, and so that's a significant trade-off. Whether it's a MEZ-A, CM-A or whatever else. I don't want that player to vacate the space and allow the opposing team to dictate play in the middle. Even the MEZ-S will leave too much space in the middle behind him.

 

Now here is another option, which is to basically try to overload the wide areas and bypass the center...

In this scenario, I would be asking the #10 and #8 to sit wider and really encourage that link up play out wide. The forwards #7 and #11 would both need to support rather than attack. Having them sit narrow might be the idea, OR I could have them stay wide and draw the center mids towards them....

Then, I would ask BOTH wide defenders to be adventurous and get forward. That would help us complete those passing triangles on the flanks.  In the meantime, the striker #9 would be tasked with staying high and pinning those center backs so that they cannot disrupt our passing with heavy pressing.

The problem I see with this (potentially) is that once again we won't have great options for penetration. LOL.

I think we would be relying on something like this:  the ball is kept in wide areas, cycled between those players, we wait for someone to break the lines (likely from the opposite flank), and play a ball over the top and behind the defense to run on to. 

But, something to remember! You don't need both sides of your team doing the same thing!

What if, we decide the best option is like using half of one of these?

What if, we intend to flood one side with players to keep possession, and then use the other side to penetrate? (lol).

Here is what I think we should do.

Instead of trying to overload the middle with players, and instead of trying to dominate both flanks with players, why not split the pitch in half?

It's fairly obvious from the diagram, but the point here is to overload one side, and attack the other. A very simple concept you see all the time in real life.

I like the way this looks, and so I'm going to try to implement this into our tactics in the game. We can still keep our "main approach" because, why throw out something that clearly works well enough? Having a second plan is a good thing.

Translate this back into FM 23

Given the players we have, and the fact that we're heading right into the summer (so I can make transfers) I've decided we're going to implement this idea on the opposite side to the diagram above. So, don't let that confuse you.

 

The first thing we'll do is focus on the defense roles + duties.

- The wingback on the left is there to support the attacking players ahead of him, and provide width.

- The inverted wingback on the right is going to help by sitting centrally, giving the midfielders ahead of him another passing option, AND hopefully helping us not get outnumbered in there.

- The ball playing defender will be encouraged to dribble more which should, in theory, pull an opposing player towards him and help open passing lanes. I also hope he will play directly towards the left flank when possible.

- The other center back is just a typical CD-D. I don't need anything fancy from him.

- The GK is a SK-S because that's how I want to roll.

Next, let's focus on the midfielders

-  The DM-S is told to dribble less, and take fewer risks.  I don't want him turning the ball over, and I don't want him being too individualistic.

- The CAR-S has no added PI's, and neither does the CM-A

The idea here is to have the CAR sitting wide and helping us keep possession on that flank, interacting with the AP, DLF and IWB.

The CM-A is tasked with attacking space. I don't need him to be super involved in any build up play. I want him to cause a problem for the defense, not just sit there and get himself into trouble.

Now the forward group

- The DLF-S is my choice because by default he moves into channels. This is great because I'm hoping to see him move towards that right flank, combining with the players there to create a real problem for the other team.

- The IW-A on the left side is sort of like a wide striker. I could have gone with IF-A, but IW suits my players better.

- The AP-S on the right is SO important here.  I've told him: dribble less, hold up ball, and stay wider.  

Why stay wider for the AP? Because, remember the goal is to overload the flank, not the middle. If I told him to sit narrow, he's getting too close to that nasty double pivot + center back combo when facing a 4-2-3-1 deep.

Also, we're using "hold up ball" on him because I need to draw players towards him. I don't want him to just immediately release the ball, because then we're not really doing much to disrupt the defensive shape of the other team. So, hopefully this helps us take a minute to play a better pass, perhaps one that unlocks the defense on the other side....

The team instructions have changed slightly, too.

- Shorter Passing, Play out of defense, UNDERLAP right, and fairly wide.

- Roll it out, distribute to specific player (the BPD-D), counter + counter press

Out of possession hasn't changed.

So the thinking behind those changes is this:

- I want to encourage the build up play to skew towards the right flank. So we distribute to the BPD on that side, simple.

- I want to encourage holding onto the ball on the right flank, so we use an underlap. This will be interesting, I may have gotten this wrong. We'll see.

- Fairly wide in possession in order to encourage our passing to the flanks

- Counter in transition because I really want to add this to our game now. We use a mid block exclusively, and that means there should be space to take advantage of. Should also help us get the ball forward quickly / switch play when it's clear that our left side of attackers are ready to pounce.

 

I've moved away from the 4-3-3 as well because the midfield feels lopsided when the attacking minded player goes forward. Asymmetrical 4-3-3 can be super but the generic version feels a little off in fm.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Cloud9

[El-Ahrairah]

Love the bit about how your attacks don't need to be symmetrical. I came into FM with almost zero "soccer" knowledge (American) and had a tendency to make symmetrical attacks as my default until I thought about American Football one day which I am a huge fan of fan and thought "how stupid and predictable would it be for a team to run every play symmetrically? That coach would get laughed out of the league!" 

 

Ever since that I've primarily used asymmetric attacks from symmetrical formations I feel like it just gives you a built in plan b. To me there's no real use to attack symmetrically because asymmetric = more options = more ways to score = less defenses that can keep their sheets clean (both on the box score and their mattress covers)

 

I had success in my last save with a similar tactic to this one. Same formation with the the IF on one side and either an AP or winger on the other. I would employ a target man or F9 as my striker depending who my opponent was.

Had pretty good success. Got a lower end league 2 squad up to a respectable league 1 team with that tactic without overhauling the roster.

My midfield mezzala was actually my leading player on offense. I was unsure at first as I already had a fullback and AML out wide on the formation, but it worked. He would come up in the space the IF vacated when he cut inside and this also allowed the fullback behind to focus on defending and helping inside (the space just opened up by the mezzala)   instead of having to cover the wing in the advanced area. The mezzala loiters on the wing occasionally strafing across the front of the penalty area, facilitating chances and burying long shots. (He wasn't even a good shooter he was just getting prime long shot chances from the space he had.) If it sounds like it didn't have a great amount of penetration it's because it didn't. But I swear it consistently broke down defenses.

 

I even mixed in a wide target man once because I was born with audacity.

 

That was a fun tactic indeed. This post got me thinking of some new stuff to try.