Otto Rehhagel & old-fashioned man-marking.

[ceefax the cat]

Inspired by reading about Rehhagel's Bremen, Kaiserslautern and (especially) Greece sides, I decided to adopt an old-fashioned man-marking approach to FM, and it's proved to be a really satisfying way to play.

It's a bit time-consuming though. Rather than settling on one killer tactic and then hammering the space bar like a monkey, it demands a bespoke setup for each game and an immediate response to any changes the opposition make to their shape. It's almost like using some kind of 'football management' simulator.

The basic principles are:

• Whatever formation the opposition attack in, we man-mark them, mirroring their front line and midfield and adding a spare defender at the back (which leaves them with a spare defender too). So if they play 4-4-2, in theory we play 3-4-3, with a covering defender in between their strikers. In reality, what's important is the shape they arrive at once they get the ball, so things like liberos, segundo volantes and inverted wingbacks need to be taken into account. We need concentration, work rate, positioning, teamwork and, most of all, MARKING.
• When we get the ball, we attack as directly as we can, before they can get back into their defensive shape. The attacking focus is less on creativity and more on physical strength and athleticism - rapid attacks, early crosses, players capable of getting into the box and winning headers.
   

As far as instructions in FM go:

• Man mark their entire team except centre backs, and have a spare defender. Against really big sides, leave their centre backs alone and have an extra man in midfield too (still working on getting that right)
• Also vs big clubs: sometimes I'll leave an area of the pitch zonal, taking advantage of the extra man in midfield. For example, playing two tight marking DM's against a star AM who moves all over the place with a segundo volante arriving in the same zone.
• If they have a centre back who's dodgy on the ball, show his partner inside and leave the dodgy one alone.
• Against a lone striker, just use opposition instructions to specify that he should always be marked, and put two central defenders on him. One of them will always be free. It'd be great to be able to play a proper sweeper/stopper combo against a lone striker but the SW strata no longer exists so it doesn't really work.
• Almost always a high line of engagement (I want midfielders to follow their man into their half), but very sparing use of closing down, eg the whole back 4 and midfield will often be told to mark tighter but close down less. Just focus on man-marking. Attackers and wingbacks will sometimes have extra closing down duties.
• Standard defensive line unless they're clearly incapable of running behind (bit higher).
• Use 'Trap Outside' / 'Trap Inside' to match up with their attacking width and help your man-markers get closer. Still getting the hang of this.
• 'Step up' more if possible, to make sure everybody's marked tightly. If we're up against great off-the-ball movement and pace, we'll back off a little.
• If we're favourites, sometimes move one of the front 3 or 4 into space. Makes it harder for him to track his man but correspondingly harder for his man to get to him, which is worth it if we're dominating in most other areas.
• Since it's a reactive style: Always more disciplined, always playing for set pieces and pretty keen to waste time unless we're clear favourites.
• Always regroup, always counter unless trying to kill the game.
• Always more direct or very direct passing
• Mentality standard. Cautious if the game is too open. Positive if we're clearly better.
• Either fairly narrow + quicker tempo, or standard width + standard tempo. Tune it in each game so that you're attacking as quickly as possible while still connecting passes and finding space.

 

This approach can result in some slightly unusual formations. For example, Hannover played a 4-4-2 with an inverted fullback which meant I ended up with this:

I like to send at least one fullback forward to give them something to do think about, and the inverted fullback offered a good chance to do that. When they lose the ball, he's left with the choice of staying with the attacker who's been marking him and leaving a space to overlap into, or going back into position and leaving the no. 10 free.

Later, they turned him into a straight FB but I left the AM in place - he's capable of covering the distance and tracking back on the wing, and it still gives the fullback that dilemma.

 

 

 

 

 

Their Christmas Tree necessitates a narrow 4-2-3-1 / 4-2-2-2 type thing, with the wingbacks marking their opposite numbers. I took a risk leaving a space for their mezzala to run into, but it was worth it to get my wingback close to theirs, and give them a headache whenever Drosos got free with the mezzala nowhere to be seen. In general, especially against weaker sides, using man-marking to force players to track out of position can be quite a nice weapon. The AI probably won't do the same back, so your chap will be free in possession while theirs won't. Had Vitor Gabriel been a star player / not totally knackered by the time I made this change though, it could have backfired.

All in all, I highly recommend playing in this reactive way. It's more immersive and feels a lot more like actually managing games. When the marking clicks, it results in some incredibly low xG ratings for the opposition. I quite frequently get to 30 - 40 mins with them on 0.00 or something very close to it. On the other hand, if I make a mistake I'm quite likely to concede in the first 3 minutes thanks to an attacker being absolutely wide open, so it pays to watch the first few minutes extremely carefully.

Edited January 17 by ceefax the cat

[Rashidi]

I respect anyone who takes this approach for every game. It’s a helluva way to play the game, I’ve done it once or twice but like you said it can be time consuming,  it’s both proactive, reactive and rewarding at the same time when it comes off.

[ceefax the cat]

Cheers Rashidi.

I think this might be quite an extreme way of doing it tbh. You could probably just go man-for-man in the middle of midfield and leave it at that, or carefully mark their best 1 or 2 creative players and leave the rest to themselves. But this is much more satisfying when it works - literally making a plan to take their best 9 players out of the game.

The ambition is to make it more direct, more defensive and win just by snuffing the opposition out in every game and punishing them with a carefully placed free man or just overwhelming speed and physical power once they lose the ball. The squad is full of wonderkids (like every other squad which makes them seem a lot less wondrous), a few of whom are playmaker types, so maybe we're getting to the point where we sell them for tens of millions and start assembling the very best man-markers, crossers, sprinters, jumpers and headers in the game to take the style to its extreme. I don't think you need more than 1 playmaker on the pitch for this, really. If any.

Edited January 18 by ceefax the cat

[ceefax the cat]

In theory it should be possible to put together a sort of modular approach for this, a bit like @Vince Lombardi did with his NFL-style playbook. The style of play is pretty much set, it's just a question of finding the best way of marking every possible opposing role/duty

[kopfan1977]

On 17/01/2024 at 19:37, ceefax the cat said:

Inspired by reading about Rehhagel's Bremen, Kaiserslautern and (especially) Greece sides, I decided to adopt an old-fashioned man-marking approach to FM, and it's proved to be a really satisfying way to play.

It's a bit time-consuming though. Rather than settling on one killer tactic and then hammering the space bar like a monkey, it demands a bespoke setup for each game and an immediate response to any changes the opposition make to their shape. It's almost like using some kind of 'football management' simulator.

The basic principles are:

• Whatever formation the opposition attack in, we man-mark them, mirroring their front line and midfield and adding a spare defender at the back (which leaves them with a spare defender too). So if they play 4-4-2, in theory we play 3-4-3, with a covering defender in between their strikers. In reality, what's important is the shape they arrive at once they get the ball, so things like liberos, segundo volantes and inverted wingbacks need to be taken into account. We need concentration, work rate, positioning, teamwork and, most of all, MARKING.
• When we get the ball, we attack as directly as we can, before they can get back into their defensive shape. The attacking focus is less on creativity and more on physical strength and athleticism - rapid attacks, early crosses, players capable of getting into the box and winning headers.
   

As far as instructions in FM go:

• Man mark their entire team except centre backs, and have a spare defender. Against really big sides, leave their centre backs alone and have an extra man in midfield too (still working on getting that right)
• Also vs big clubs: sometimes I'll leave an area of the pitch zonal, taking advantage of the extra man in midfield. For example, playing two tight marking DM's against a star AM who moves all over the place with a segundo volante arriving in the same zone.
• If they have a centre back who's dodgy on the ball, show his partner inside and leave the dodgy one alone.
• Against a lone striker, just use opposition instructions to specify that he should always be marked, and put two central defenders on him. One of them will always be free. It'd be great to be able to play a proper sweeper/stopper combo against a lone striker but the SW strata no longer exists so it doesn't really work.
• Almost always a high line of engagement (I want midfielders to follow their man into their half), but very sparing use of closing down, eg the whole back 4 and midfield will often be told to mark tighter but close down less. Just focus on man-marking. Attackers and wingbacks will sometimes have extra closing down duties.
• Standard defensive line unless they're clearly incapable of running behind (bit higher).
• Use 'Trap Outside' / 'Trap Inside' to match up with their attacking width and help your man-markers get closer. Still getting the hang of this.
• 'Step up' more if possible, to make sure everybody's marked tightly. If we're up against great off-the-ball movement and pace, we'll back off a little.
• If we're favourites, sometimes move one of the front 3 or 4 into space. Makes it harder for him to track his man but correspondingly harder for his man to get to him, which is worth it if we're dominating in most other areas.
• Since it's a reactive style: Always more disciplined, always playing for set pieces and pretty keen to waste time unless we're clear favourites.
• Always regroup, always counter unless trying to kill the game.
• Always more direct or very direct passing
• Mentality standard. Cautious if the game is too open. Positive if we're clearly better.
• Either fairly narrow + quicker tempo, or standard width + standard tempo. Tune it in each game so that you're attacking as quickly as possible while still connecting passes and finding space.

 

This approach can result in some slightly unusual formations. For example, Hannover played a 4-4-2 with an inverted fullback which meant I ended up with this:

I like to send at least one fullback forward to give them something to do think about, and the inverted fullback offered a good chance to do that. When they lose the ball, he's left with the choice of staying with the attacker who's been marking him and leaving a space to overlap into, or going back into position and leaving the no. 10 free.

Later, they turned him into a straight FB but I left the AM in place - he's capable of covering the distance and tracking back on the wing, and it still gives the fullback that dilemma.

 

 

 

 

 

Their Christmas Tree necessitates a narrow 4-2-3-1 / 4-2-2-2 type thing, with the wingbacks marking their opposite numbers. I took a risk leaving a space for their mezzala to run into, but it was worth it to get my wingback close to theirs, and give them a headache whenever Drosos got free with the mezzala nowhere to be seen. In general, especially against weaker sides, using man-marking to force players to track out of position can be quite a nice weapon. The AI probably won't do the same back, so your chap will be free in possession while theirs won't. Had Vitor Gabriel been a star player / not totally knackered by the time I made this change though, it could have backfired.

All in all, I highly recommend playing in this reactive way. It's more immersive and feels a lot more like actually managing games. When the marking clicks, it results in some incredibly low xG ratings for the opposition. I quite frequently get to 30 - 40 mins with them on 0.00 or something very close to it. On the other hand, if I make a mistake I'm quite likely to concede in the first 3 minutes thanks to an attacker being absolutely wide open, so it pays to watch the first few minutes extremely carefully.

 

I really like how those formations turned out. Whilst all the micro managing is not my thing, I do love formations that are not the norm. I shall be attempting to put my own little spin on both of these and seeing if they'll serve my current team well.

[ceefax the cat]

If you play like that in every game I'll be quite surprised if you don't periodically have your arse handed to you by whichever attacker you're leaving free...

I might be wrong. Maybe with the right players and instructions you can just impose yourself on the opposition no matter what. For example, use gegenpressing and it seems you can just automatically win the Champions League with Nantwich.

Edited January 19 by ceefax the cat