Total Football

[Silky]

I'm trying to replicate the 'Total Football' of the 70's played by among others Ajax and Holland.

Any help would be MUCH appreciated.

Formation

4-3-3 or 4-2-4 when chasing game (Neeskens went forward from midfield).

The full backs got forward when possible.

Don't know if a Libero or Sweeper was involved?

Not sure if the 3 midfielders were

3 MC's? or

MR, ML and MC? or

MC, MC and AMC?

The centre of the front 3 was Cruyff who had 'the free-est of free roles and think forward either side played wide so guess that would make them FL and FR?

Tactics

They played the offside trap with a high defensive line

to complement this they used a 'Sweeper-Keeper'

Im thinking the creative freedom should be maxed out, possibly free roles all round?

Width? No idea, have to experiment

Short passing and i think high tempo as they pinged the ball about pretty quickly?

High closing down and maybe hard tackling?

Mentality? Im thinking very attacking?

Cruyff Role? Free role, highest creative freedom, run with ball?

Sweeper-Keeper attributes? Rushing Out and...?

Attributes

The hidden attributes 'Intelligence and Versatility' i think are required along with Positioning, Decisions and Anticipation especially for Defenders. Passing and technique all round aswell, crossing for wide players?

Switching Positions

What total footballs best known for (apart from Michels and Cruyff) is the switching of positions (the quote at the bottom explains it far better than i ever could).

I know you can switch positions manually but they don't switch in a phase of play, only between. Any ideas how to implement this?

I've tried, unsuccesfully many times to re-create this classic tactic. I can dominate possession and get loads more clear cut chances for a few games but then quickly get found out.

It's the only thing keeping me playing this god damn game so any help would be sweet.

"Total Football was a solution to a physical problem. How can you play for 90 minutes and remain strong? If I as left back run 70 metres up the wing, it’s not good if I immediately have to run back 70 to my starting place. So if the left midfielder takes my place and the left winger takes the midfield position, then it shortens the distances. That was the philosophy"

— RUUD KROL

[Cleon]

Total football cannot be replicated on FM sadly, you'll not end up nowhere near what you want to achieve without getting hammered game in and game out. In fact total football irl nowdays wouldn't work either.

[Loversleaper]

I wouldn't say it is entirely impossible to make a 'total football' tactic to work. For sure if you use the tactic all the time you will suffer because situations change and one needs to adapt to given game circumstances, but one could make this type of tactic for those instances where you are huge home favorites. It requires mixed forward runs for the whole team (except centerbacks rarely) and passing (1) + creative freedom (19). Of course there are a few other requirements, but when one gets it right it offers visually the best football you can acheive on current ME...

[Cleon]

I wouldn't say it is entirely impossible to make a 'total football' tactic to work. For sure if you use the tactic all the time you will suffer because situations change and one needs to adapt to given game circumstances, but one could make this type of tactic for those instances where you are huge home favorites. It requires mixed forward runs for the whole team (except centerbacks rarely) and passing (1) + creative freedom (19). Of course there are a few other requirements, but when one gets it right it offers visually the best football you can acheive on current ME...

The thing is he want's to play it for the full 90 minutes and not just 10 minute patches. It's impossible to play it for the full 90 minutes, there isn't enough tactical options in the game currently for it to even start resembling proper total football. Hopefully though if more tactical options are added then we can recreate this more closely to how it should be played.