Maddux

You can use cover/stopper when you know what you're doing There were years in FM when cover/stopper was awful and caused many problems but it's working good now, at least most of the time. The issue with cover/stopper, at least in a back-4, is that's more micro management depending on your opponent and you'll need the right kind of players. A stopper dosn't has to be fast but agile and need good attributes in aggression and bravery because his main job is to step forward and challenge usually technical more gifted DLFs or offensive midfielders. The CB that is on cover duty on the other hand can be a Niklas Süle kind of player. A body like a fridge that lets him turn like one but also a strong roadblock that is fast and hard to beat in a sprinting duel. To get the best out of this combination and don't get into trouble you have to micromanage individual pressing and marking instructions for your opponents strikers and even then it isn't working great all the time. Just playing both CB on defend duty requires less micro management and is better suited for beginners. A back-3 is different and heavily depends on how you want the rest of your team to move around the pitch. Let's say you're playing with a back-3 that has a WCB-At on the right side and a WB-At on the left side. playing the left CB on stopper duty should be better because he will cover the back of the WB-At better. the middle CB then depends on your DMs role. A HB will drop deep and can do the cover job of the CB and you can play the middle CB on stopper to to cover the space behind the WCB. If your DM is a Anchor Man or similar it would be better to play the middle CB on defend or cover duty.

But there you have it. Bochum is a small club with players that arend't that gifted but have high aggression and are overall good in all the relevant defensive attributes. The squad is made for pressing, dosn't matter if high gegenpressing or a deeper midfield press. And you're playing in the Bundesliga. Have you ever watched any reallife Bundesliga matches? It's actually the worst football in europes top leagues because it's all just Gegenpressing and counterattacks. Literally everyone switched to gegenpress after Klopp showed at Dortmund that even small clubs have some success with it and are better off with gegenpress than with just parking the bus. Ralf Rangnik had a huge influence too. And it's not just that everyone is using gegenpress, also every club, except for a few top clubs like Leverkusen, is building the squad to get the most out of gegenpress and counter attacks. Literally everyone is playing with a back-3, 2 fast wingbacks that have 0 skills but being fast and hitting crosses, 2 or 3 hard working midfielders that are good at winning the ball plus 2 Usain Bolt-like strikers. Creative midfielders that can dictate the play and find solutions against compact defenses? You won't find any outside of the top-4 even when using a microscope. 7 out of 9 matches every weekend are just 2 teams sitting deep and try to win with counter attacks after a successful gegenpress. It's horrible football and also a self-fullfilling prophecy. If your opponents don't have midfielders with good enough technical abilities to escape the gegenpress then it's obviously easier to win the ball back against them using pressing. And that#s what your friend experienced with Bochum. He used high pressing with a squad where even the goalie is a ball-winning midfielder vs opponents that don't have the ability to play their way out of the press. Edit Bochum to La Liga or the Premier League and try the same thing there. Or with a small club in the first belgian or dutch league. You won't be even nearly as successful because most of your opponents technical attributes are good enough compared to your squad to escape the press and overrun your high rest defence.

EVERY major and many smaller content creators publish their tactics on FMScout. It's probably THE site for downloading tactics and you can find every "meta" tactics there that was uploaded to youtube. The people that publish tactics on FMScout basicly created the "meta". And now you're telling me that you can rarely find any "meta" tactics there? These TIs are just "meta" because they have fewer or less severe negative effects and [insert random big content creator] was successful with it. And now everyone joins the hype train and is telling all kind of excuses whenever their "lot of success treble winning with Burnley meta Gegenpress"-tactics isn't working at all. Most of my own creations use very few TIs with a mid block because i personally prefer the midfield pressing. No "meta" TIs, highly customizable depending on your squad and your opponent but still very successful. And at this point i wonder if you even know what the term "meta" means and/or when to use it correctly. Talking about the "meta" in FM is like talking about your "meta" when playing Magic: the Gathering with your friends at the kitchen table. There just isn't one.

The last time i've uploaded a tactics on FMScout the admin had the urge to add "JUST 10 TIs" to the thumbnail and highlight it

Yes. Different schedules for preseason, season weeks with 1 or 2 matches, international breaks etc. You need team building, tactical familiarity and condition during preseason, individual development during weeks with 1 match and in weeks with 2 matches a lot of rest.

RDF recreated one that seems to work and looked reasonable in the video. But i havend't tried it out myself.

And there is the problem. You can't play like you want, at least not always, but have to play the football your players can play. Here is a guide about how to build tactics from scratch with any team. https://theffm.co.uk/t-for-tactics

But often it is. What you're experiencing currently is the "second season bug". You overachived, your reputation grew and now your opponents start to defend deeper, mark toghter and play more cautious in general. At first you dominated most of your opponents just because your tactics was better than what the AI brings to the table but now you have less space to play in and less time to do something with the ball. And lack the players that can create chances in tighter spaces. You can stretch your formation, play faster and more direct, maybe try defensive counter football yourself. But in the end it won't change that much if your players are worse than your reputation.

I'm playing with Dresden too and won the league in the first season with 95 points and also 95 goals scored. I still do ok in second Bundesliga now and are close to a promotion spot but i'm nowhere near as dominant like the season before. But that's just normal. Dresden has a squad that is way to good for div 3 and still good for div 2. But the players, especially the attackers arend't good enough compared to most defenses in div 2, which leads to many close matches where small things decide between scoring or not. Meißner is a decnt DLF but you need better offensive wingers and maybe some fullbacks that can support your offense. Batista Meier looks like a good prospect but he lacks the, especially mental, skills for a first team player you want to win matches for you.

You're not the only one with this problem. But, like for everyone else with this problem, the game isn't at fault but the user.

What can and often will help a lot is giving your players individual marking instructions. It looks like your fullbacks are always playing 1v2 and of course it's very hard for them to stop crosses then. What you should try is to instruct your fullbacks to mark your opponents wingers and tell your 2 central midfielders to mark your opponents fullbacks. This will stretch your midfield in defense but you can fix that by placing your DM one position further forward between your 2 CM with a defensive role like CM-De or DLP-De for example. Another reason for the 30 crosses per game are your team instructions. With these TIs every single one of your matches looks like the Champions League finals between Chelsea and Bayern Munich. And no, you're not playing like Bayern. You're Chelsea, parking the bus in the 6-yard-box and wonder why the unmarked and undefended attackers can have 40 shots per 90 minutes.

Both roles are identical in their positioning and movement. The main differences are that the IF sees himself more as a goal threat and ignores other attackers more often in the box. He is more the oldschool version of inverted players. The IW is the more modern version of the IF now that many coaches preach a less 1-on-1 and more pass and team oriented style of play. You can see that when comparing the hardcoded PIs of each role. Both are identical except for the crossing PIs where you can instruct the IW to cross more often and from deep while the IF is hardcoded hitting less crosses.

So good that i wrote a thread about it

I know that and i've seen it in my asymmetrical 3-4-1-2 with an offset shadow striker. The shadow strikers positioning and movement are great in midfield but in the box he is standing right in the central AF. Even with PIs that tell him to stay wide and that's the reason why u went for the Trequartista instead. I hoped that they fix it in FM 24 but they didn't. At least they got it right with other positions and spaces on the field. Maybe they will fix it in the new match engine for FM 25.

You also have to think about WHEN they in these spaces. Playing a 4-3-3 with a BBM and a IF-At on the right side is fine and a MEZ-Su should work to because the midfielder should arrive in the half-space when the IF is about to advance further forward into the box. But a CM/MEZ-At would probably be in the half space at the same time with the IF-A. A IF-Su would make it even worse. But isn't as bad as in older FMs anymore where players really were standing on each others feet.Now the player that is in the space first seems to get some kind of priority and the second player will stay away until the first player leaves. You can utilize that by using a CM-At that occupies the space early and pushes the IF more outside. The IF then should run in the box diagonally later than usual and in a different angle, playing more like a winger that is deeper cutting into the box. Getting players closer to each other is also good to create overloads and/or playing one-twos. So it isn't always bad to have 2 players attack the same space at the same time but it depends on your tactical approach if it's good or bad.

61% average possession and 95 goals in my first season with Dynamo Dresden. And i wasn't even trying to have high possession or to press high. https://i.postimg.cc/FK59p6vh/drepos.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/TwTTMWhS/dretab.jpg

As i wrote, i havend't tried the formation in FM 24 myself and can just judge it by what i see from the AI. There is one team max per league that uses the formation compared to the 2 - 4 per league in FM 22 and 23. And in FM 24 it needs just 2 TIs to shut the formation down.

Wingbacks are winger that start from a deeper position But the 4-4-2 diamond narrow comes to mind when talking about wingerless formation. You need some width in offense to stretch the defence but the width can be provided by the central midfielders in this formation. The 4-4-2 diamond narrow was strong in FM 23, maybe a bit to strong with thr right TIs, but it's pretty bad in FM 24 because it's now to easy to close the mid of the pitch and force the play to the flanks. At least when the AI plays it and i'm able to keep them under 5 shots, most of them from outside the box. I havend't tried it in FM 24 but there are a couple approaches that could work: - 2x MEZ-At plus fullbacks with support roles/duties. rest of the formation with basic roles and duties - 1 MEZ-At plus supporting fullback on his side, 1 MEZ-Su plus CWB-At on his side. rest of the formation basic - same as above but with the DM in CM between the MEZ. This should be better the close the mid and support the fullbacks when your opponent has the ball. Start with standard TIs and focus play through the middle. Maybe shorter and faster passing.

I've just seen that the striker in the 4-3-3 dosn't have the "roam from position" PI. Allowing the striker to roam and find spaces is crucial and that the PI was missing could've been a reason why some users sometimes had problems with scoring goals. I added the right tactics to the starting post for everyone new in this thread. Everyone just has to add the PI and nothing else has changed at the 4-3-3. The striker in the 4-2-3-1 already has the PI.

Do they miss to many shots or can't get into scoring position? There are a coupls things you can do if creating chances is the problem: - hit early crosses - higher tempo - a bit wider formation to create more space between defenders - changing the IF to IW with cross more often and cross from deep for more risky but possibly more rewarding play in the final third There isn't much you can do when your strikers just miss their chances. I have hot streaks where my strikers hit almost impossible first-time shots and cold streaks where they would miss an elephant in a hallway.

@mikcheck It depends™ 2 advanced forwards are some kind of exploit while a DLF-At + AF/CF-At dosn't necessarily have to be an exploit. But it is an exploit if you combine it with a shadow striker because then you have the classic 3 striker on attack exploit. Just with 2 of them strting from a 5 meters deeper position. 3 striker dosn't have to be an exploit if you set it up right. I'm developing an asymmetrical 3-5-2 for a couple years that recreates Eintracht Frankfurt under Adi Hütter and Oliver Glasner with a combination of advanced forward, DLF-Su and shadow striker/trequartista. It creates a lot of counter movement and the 3 advanced players behave like the front-3 in a classic 442 diamond narrow formation. It's a 343/3412 formation in defence and a 442 diamond narrow in possession.

Frankfurt did in the 5:1 win against Bayern and often plays a fake 4-4-2 building out of a 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 formation. most of the time it's the right CB in the back-3 that does the job of the fullback but against bayern it was the left CB.

The sitter/runner concept is something you'll need to keep in mind if you want to create a balanced tactics with good coverage of offensive and defensive spaces. Or covering defensive spaces in transition after losing the ball the be exact. Of course in the real world you sometimes have to ignore this balance and take some risks because you really need a goal. Or the balance falls apart naturally when pushing up. In the 433 i've posted everyone except for the 2 centrebacks will be in or around the opposition third if you keep the ball long enough. But that's ok because the opponents are pushed back and are bound with man-marking duties with just one or two strikers staying forward. This is the case for the 3-1-6 shape too. You take the risk that come with having just 4 sitter in your tactics because the advantages in offense outweight the defensive risks for you and you think that your defenders are good enough to clear the defensive situations. You also bind some off your opponents attackers in defense to prevent you from having numerical advantages. But even then we're talking just about a 4/6 sitter/runner ratio. Most exploit tactics have a 3/7 or 2/8 ratio and this makes it a good indicator. Not the only indicator but one of them.

That's exactly what i said. The behaviour of inside forwards in FM 24 was a step back to the old times and they again shoot with the outside foot when coming at the goal from an angle instead of using the inside foot. And if the outside foot is the weak foot they will miss more shots. So it makes sense to play them with the strong foot outside and inthis also results in more low crosses in the six yard box from the inside forwards. Otherwise they will stop, turn and play a pass in the back of the box around the penalty point when playing with their strong foot inside.

High press with short distribution won't do anything if you don't have the right formation to press. How do you want to press a back-4 when playing a 433? You have to use the right opposition instructions plus the right individual instructions for your own players. You can set it up to man-mark 3 players in the back 4 plus "man-mark never" and "press always" on the weekest member of the back-4. This will force the short distribution to the technical weak defender you then can press. Forcing the ball to a fullback and attack him on his weak foot can be effective too. You either win the ball or force him to pass with his weak foot to another defender and then you can try to intercept the pass. It has an effect and there was a huge exploit in FM 23. But all that requires a lot of clicks and to analyze the opposing players attributes to do it right. Many users just let the assistant manager handle opp instructions because they just want to play.