['Be more expressive' as a permanent team instruction]

I'm currently using BME - even in tough away games. 

It helps give me the style of football I'm looking for - which is lots of roaming from positions in my front 4 (two STs, WP, and WM) and breaks from deep when we counter attack. 

My tactics are to sit deep, absorb pressure and then counter with fluid attacks so I think I can get away with using it without losing shape. 

[Help recreating Lucian Favre's fluid counter 4-4-2 at Gladbach]

the tactic is now working a lot better with those tweaks. just beat frankfurt away 2-0 with both goals coming from rapid counter attacks. 

here's a screenshot: 

slight worry that we are more reliant on crossing and there are fewer through balls and runs from deep than a favre team. of course the next challenge is in away games against big teams

 

 

 

[Help recreating Lucian Favre's fluid counter 4-4-2 at Gladbach]

15 hours ago, Jean0987654321 said:

A few editions back, I made my own interpretation of that tactic

 

 

The tactical creator is a bit different nowadays but I begin with some ideas from that

Thanks your tactic was a big inspiration for my FM16 tactic. Although I struggled sometimes to get very fluid to work as well as flexible. 

[Help recreating Lucian Favre's fluid counter 4-4-2 at Gladbach]

4 hours ago, coach vahid said:

Hi...this is just a point of view. Not the solution.

You chose Counter Fluid...Why not. But why you change the mentality. Mentality affects everything. Try with the original mentality.

If you defend narrow + tighter marking, your players risk to loose their positionning no? And Favre like the zonal marking. 

It's logical. In real life too its difficult for the team which is press. And in Bundesliga almost every team press.

I will keep play out defense but leave the GK choose the better solution.

Try just the preset instructions. The Counter Fluid : - "looks to draw the opposition forward to leave them vulnerable on the break".

Lower LOE and lower DL means more space to attack.

Maybe i'm totally wrong.

Thanks for contributing.

I'm worried that lower LOE and lower DL means we don't put enough pressure on the opposition in our half, and can end up camped in front of our area. Then if we do win the ball back there is nowhere to go but to clear the ball. 

[Help recreating Lucian Favre's fluid counter 4-4-2 at Gladbach]

1 hour ago, Experienced Defender said:

 

I am not familiar with Favre's Gladbach, but based on how you described their style, I would start with something like this:

F9   PFat

WMat    CMde   DLPsu    IWsu

WBsu   BPDde  CDde    WBsu

SKsu

Mentality - Balanced

In possession - shorter passing, slightly higher tempo, run at defence, focus play down both flanks, be more expressive and hit early crosses

In transition - counter and distribute to flanks

Out of possession - lower LOE, get stuck in and defend narrower

Player instructions - both strikers and wide midfielders - close down more

That would be my starting tactic. Then I would watch matches carefully and make small gradual tweaks as I see fit until I get what I want.

Thanks this is really helpful.

Can I ask:

Why be more expressive? Is that to encourage roaming from positions and one twos? Favre's Gladbach were quite disciplined without the ball, holding to two banks of four. But in attack played with a lot of flair. 

How come no counter press? Gladbach did press, particularly when the ball went out wide, but only really in their own half.

Is there a risk that lower LOE invites too much pressure? Even with standard LOE I can end up camped in front of my box. 

[Help recreating Lucian Favre's fluid counter 4-4-2 at Gladbach]

Hello everyone,

I recently returned to FM after a long hiatus due to the lockdown.

I'm looking to re-create Lucian Favre's fast, fluid short passing counter attacking system in FM19. I understand it the tactics creators for FM19 and FM20 are similar so maybe you can still help me?

Lucian Favre took over Gladbach in Feb 2011 when they were bottom with only 16 points and 7 points adrift of safety. They struggled but were able to stay up by beating Bochum in the relegation playoffs. The year after in 2011-12, Favre led the Foals to fourth place, securing a Champions League spot. The year after after that, in 12-13, they didn't qualify for the Europa League, struggling after they sold their best players such as Reus and finishing 8th. in 13-14 they recovered slightly after signing Brazilian shadow striker Raffael, finishing 6th. In 14-15, after adding the likes of Yann Sommer, Thorgan Hazard and Max Kruse, they finished 3rd.

Onto the tactics...

I shall spare you all the long-winded analysis, but you can find it here: 

http://www.just-football.com/2015/03/how-borussia-moenchengladbach-became-the-bundesliga-surprise-package/

https://www.deeplyingpodcast.co.uk/tactics/deep-lying-gegenpressing-gladbach/

Let's start with a list of key propensities of their playing style.

Formation

• Favre's Gladbach typically lined up in a 4-4-2 with two banks of four, and two strikers
• Their full-backs were not typical modern-day adventurous players who gets to the byline to cross. Rather, they favoured getting involved in the build-up play instead and link up especially well with their corresponding wide midfielder
• They typically played with a double pivot in central midfield, one ball winner and one deeper lying playmaker with good passing (before he moved to Arsenal this was Xhaka)
• Their wide midfielders had a lot of pace, and got forward to support or make runs beyond the strikers. When they had a wide playmaker type player (like Juan Arango or Thorgan Hazard) one wide midfielder would be less adventurous, while the other would play higher up
• Both wide midfielders sat narrow and attacked the half spaces, pressing fullbacks but also tracking them back
• They played with two withdrawn strikers who would drop off and press the midfield, providing a compact shape to cut off the opposition's passing lanes and forcing them to go wide

Defending

• The Foals were a counter attacking side, with a moderate defensive line absorbing pressure
• Generally they preferred to sit narrow and concede space on the flanks, where their full backs often sat deep with their central defenders
• They had their defensive midfielders sit together as a tight-knit pair while the wide midfielders positioned themselves in the higher half space to either press the opposition defensive midfielder or the full back.
• Unlike the aggressive pressing of German teams like Schmidt's Leverkusen and Klopp and Tuchel's Dortmund, Gladbach deployed a deeper form of gegenpressing. They typically looked to frustrate the opposition by absorbing pressure with good defensive positioning that attempts to channel the play out wide to the touch-line.
• Favre preferred his players to form a compact system rather than create holes in the team’s shape. Therefore, the only players tasked in counter pressing were the strikers, the wide midfielders and the full-back if found in that zone.

Attacking

• They played a high tempo short passing game, with lots of one twos and and roaming from position
• They looked to draw the opposition out of position before playing a through ball into space
• They had lots of runners from deep, particularly during counter attacks
• After winning the ball in their half they tended to launch a fast-paced counter attack looking at exploiting the flanks with a swift ball into the centre, using the pace of their fast wingers like Patrick Herrmann

Here's how the typical formation looked:

And here are a couple of videos that demonstrate their playing style:

 

As you can see they counter attacked with fast, short passing, playing one-twos until they could create the space for a through ball. They had lots of runners from deep streaming forward to attack the box. 

Translating this into FM

I've managed to re-create the tactic in older FMs (FM14, FM15) by using Counter-Rigid and Counter-Balanced. Formation was usually SK/D, WB/S, CD/D, CD/D, FB/S, WM/A, CM/D, DLP/S, WM/S, DF/S, DLF/S. 

But I'm struggling to re-create this for FM19. Here's my attempt with Hertha Berlin. 

Based on the above descriptions:

• Balanced mentality seems to match the description of Favre's Gladbach
• No pass into space as Gladbach typically only did this on counter attacks
• Defend narrower, tighter marking, more urgent pressing to emulate the limited form of Gegenpressing
• Counter, counter press and distribute to flanks to re-create the fast counters
• Wide midfielders have sit narrower, roam from position and get further forward
• Full backs with stay wider to provide width
• Centre mids with hold position
• Often add in play out from defence and more direct passing
• Sometimes move the left sided ST into AM-strata as AM/A

In matches though:

• The defence is mostly solid overall but can end up camped on the edge of the area pinned in by the opposition
• Really struggling to play out from defence into midfield against high pressing teams - resulting in CBs or GK clearing the ball to the opposition to invite more waves of attack
• Not winning the ball back as much in midfield - teams can play around the press
• The inability to beat the press means we don't generate that many counter attacks
• The tempo when not counter attacking seems slow, with not many one-twos. However adding 'higher tempo' can result in the team giving the ball away too much
• Against more defensive teams the team ends up passing it on the edge of the area, ending up with either a blocked cross from a full back/winger or a long shot
• We score most of our goals from crosses from the wingers

Can anyone who has created a similar tactic help me with this emulation?

[Great players in FM that never made it irl]

James Flood, could be signed for 100k from Stockport reserves, scored stacks of goals and went on to play for England.