Maddux

You want the keeper to distribute the ball short to the centrebacks and then press them to win the ball near the box. Prevent short distribution tells your attackers to man-mark the defenders so the keeper can't distribute the ball short but has to hit the ball long. Both strategies have their advantages. You can win the ball easier in your own half when you force the keeper to hit the ball long but then have to play forward through the whole opposing team. Allowing short distribution combined with good pressing gives you the chance to win the ball back higher up the pitch against a defense that has pushed up high. But if your pressing fails the opponent can be in front of your box against your rest defence pretty quick.

Early subs, rotation, training intensity, not playing a fast attacking style with extreme pressing for 90 minutes. I don't have more issues than in all the years before.

I don't start players that can't play for at least 60 minutes but the hearts are a bad indicator for that. Hearts just indicate the general general conditions and don't take the players stamina and the positions he plays into consideration. Valentin Carboni for example has just 13 stamina but i can start him even if he has just a yellow heart, is tired and has a heavy match load. Just because he dosn't need to run and sprint a lot in the tactics. Oscar Gloukh has 16 stamina and i would never start him if he has a yellow heart because i would have to sub him out at minute 60 or earlier. There are positions in the tactics where i have to sub players out before minute 75 if i want to start them 3 days later while other players can play 3 full english weeks in a row. Then you have to plan ahead and think about which players you want to start in which game, if none of them got injured. Or you can try to start your best players at 3 games within 7 days but have to use early subs. It's impossible to give general advice because it's not just match load and hearts.

I don't think that i'm the one you want to ask about that because i'm just doing it by feels. There are many people that know way more about training and stuff than i do. It's a shot in the dark but i bet that Zealand made at least one good video about it that is backed with data from his testing group. RDF is releasing training schedules every year and he probably had released guides about it too. I know a lot about tactics but there are parts of the game of which i don't know more than the average user. And training is one of these parts.

Exactly. You'll need advanced players that roam from their positions and pull opponents out of the defensive positions. An advancing player like CM/MEZ-At can then exploit these spaces. Or a IF/Raumdeuter that cuts in from the right when you pulled the defence to the left. These "pullings" that create spaces are an important factor for me when i create my tactics.

That's exactly what i did in FM 22. Asymmetrical 433 with the DLF shifted to the central left position and a slow buildup and passes into space. Buildup was focused on the left side where the DLF drifted to and the centrebacks followed him, leaving gaps in the central defence. The CM-At then rushed into these gaps and received killer balls from midfielders or the left side. I havend't tried it in FM 24 but it already lost effectiveness in FM 23 do to changes in the match engine and how the AI defends against killer balls. I doubt that it will be good in FM 24 because the AI defends even better against killer balls but i'm up for someone posting a tactics that makes it work again.

If you want to press the centrebacks and win the ball there, distributing the ball short is exactly what you want. But if you want the keeper to distribute long or have to hit the ball long after he distributed the ball to the centrebacks, you want to prevent short distribution. But in both cases it depends on your formation and individual marking and pressing instructions how well it works. It was possible with the right individual instructions to exploit it in FM 23 when the opponent had a back-3 formation, resulting in 2+ goals per game in these situations. I tried it in FM 24 too to see if the bug is still there but it seems like that they fixed it. On purpose or by accident with the advanced match engine.

Not the best connections between players all over the pitch. - sold Ansgar Knauff for 51m to Dortmund and his replacement Rico Lewis is injured. That's why backup Eric Dina Ebimbe has to play - Facundo Torres went to Porto for 73m and his replacement Mikey Moore is on rotation with Joao Rego - Hugo Larsson is injured and had to be replaced with Fares Chaibi, who is normally the backup for Oscar Gloukh

The first 2 plus the current third season in my savegame with Eintracht Frankfurt.

Inside forward and inverted winger are 95% the same role. The inside forward just likes it a bit more to look for goal-scoring opportunities for himself while the inverted winger can be customized better and be instructed to cross more often and from deep. A winger with the PI will start closer to the sideline and his ability to cut inside right is much more dependent on his attributes in vision, off the ball etc and the general flexibility of your tactics. these attributes are important for IF and IW too but you can see a bigger difference on a winger because of the hardcoded stuff in each role.

3 striker formations are often used in exploit tactics but it dosn't necessarily have to be an exploit and asymmetrical formations are often used in real football too. My recreation of Eintracht Frankfurt under Hütter and Glsner is asymmetrical and far away from being an exploit. One good way to identify an exploit is by looking for sitter + runner pairings. The concept of sitter and runner says that you'll need pairings between a covering player (sitter) and a player that is attacking the ball or spaces (runner) all over the pitch. Like a fullback on support behind a winger on attack, cover and stopper duty on the centrebacks, a defensive midfielder or holding DLP-De in combination with a vertical player like Segundo Volante, CM-A, BBM etc. Try to identify the sitters and runners in the formation. If you don't have 5 of each then it's, more or less extensive, an exploit. 2 centrebacks on defend duty in a back-4 count as sitter + runner and not as 2 sitter just in case that someone wants to bring that arguement. Exploit tactics often have 7 - 8 runner and just 2 - 3 sitter like the usuall "i won the league with Brentford"-tactics that has both wingbacks/fullbacks on attack, the DM is a Regista at best, and everyone else except for the centrebacks have vertical roles and duties too. Don't think that i judge people for using such tactics. FM is a singleplayer game and everyone can play it how he or she wants. But tactics like that have nothing to do with realistic football.

Sorry about that. I got that wrong and probably mixed it up with something from another thread. About your question. It depends One way to reduce crosses and create more chances in front of the box can be to focus playing down the flanks and work ball into box. Your attackers should pull the opposing defence in the box and away from the middle, which leaves your advancing CM open in front of the box. Another way can be focusing to play through the middle with a quick short passing game. 442 diamond narrow and 4-3-3 with a deep dropping DLF/F9 are formations that usually work will with this kind of approach.

This isn't true. You can force the ball outside AND block crosses there. This will most likely increase the number of corners against you but dosn't have to lead to more passes back to the CMs that advanced in the aread in front of the box.

@Carrick16 Current form and the familarity, both with the tactics and between the players, are important. That's why i try to rotate as little as possible and manage the player fitness with proper training intensity and early subs. You can edit your squad in a way that you have 2 of the same players for each position. The first team players will become familiar with each other and once you swap to many of them with to many "backups" your team will start playing worse. Even the "backups" are identical to the first team players. And in the end it's still football. I very low scoring game in which little details can decide between winning or losing. In basketball the better team will win in 95 out of 100 matches. In football just in 80% of the matches or even less. We call it "getting FMed" but the truth is that we're just getting footballed And sometimes it's just bad match analysis. I always watch the game at least on extended and often on comprehensive highlights or full match. Especially when struggling to score you should watch the full match or on comprehensive highlights. The AI in FM 24 can be pretty decent in directing your players into spaces where they're less dangerous. Something you can see often is that the AI is blocking the middle and forcing the ball outside when the AI thinks that her defenders are superior in arial duels. Then you can try different things. Just floating the box with crosses, forcing the ball through the middle, run at defence... It's impossible to give a general advice because every opponent is different and your players are different too. What to do when i really need a goal? Hit early crosses, switch to attacking mentality, push line of engagement and/or defensive line higher up to put more pressure on the opponents. And sometimes use more attacking roles. The tactics is build to very balanced and having good space coverage in offense and defence. But we all know from real football that you sometimes need to get more players in the final third and sacrifice defensive cover in return. Changing the right fullback to attack too, changing the BBM to CM-At and/or the CM-Su to BBM/CM-A, giving the DM-De a more offensive role like Regista or BWM-De/Su... That i dislike these "just swarm the final third with 8 players"-tactics dosn't mean that there arend't times were you have to do it. As the underdog i mostly switch to balanced mentality and sometimes defend a bit deeper with passes into space. It can help but won't guarantee you a win because we're still talking about football. The team with the better players will still win most of the time and you have to accept that even the best tactics won't give you an auto-win against PSG when managing Clermont. @loisvale I use the 4231 against all kind of formations but almost all the time when facing a back-3 and the reason for that is simple. The lone striker and the 2 IF will be marked by the back-3 when playing the 433, the fullbacks will be covered by the wingbacks and the 2 CM will be covered by your opponents CMs/DMs. You'll need to find and create numerical advantages somewhere and to easiest way to do it is by getting one more player forward. The back-3 plus wingbacks can't cover the striker, 2 IF, the AM and both fullbacks if the opponent isn't using a 3-5-2 with DM + 2 CM. There will be a numerical advantage somewhere and you can exploit this advantage.

So you agree that it can be done when you set it up right.

Don't feel sorry about asking questions. I wouldn't put so much work in this and my other guides but just post something short with download links somewhere else if i'm not interested in answering questions and help other users to understand tactics in FM The answer to your first 6 questions is Yes. But i remove counter press when i have a good lead and want my players to just slowly play it out. Then i'm also do a couple more changes like press less often, slower tempo, time wasting etc. The change in mentality is something i forgot but will add soon. I switch between balanced, positive and attacking depending on my teams strength relative to my opponent, the match state and if playing at home or away. My personal rule of thumb is underdog = balanced, equal = positive, favourite = attacking but it still depends. Starting with balanced mentality when playing an away game against an equal opponent is often better than positive. And of course you can't stick with balanced mentality when you need a goal. I almost always use the 4231 when playing against a back-4 formation to have 4 players against the 3 centrebacks. Either i have an advantage inside because my opponents wingbacks are bound outside by my fullbacks or the wingbacks help inside and leave my fullbacks open. And i'm using it when i need a goal. The AM is starting from a higher position and is in the box earlier than the BBM, which can help scoring. When pushing for a goal i mainly switch to attacking mentality, use early crosses and sometimes play faster. But also try to identify a weakness that i can exploit in my opponents defence. I don't have that many problems soaking up pressure with the base tactics and i'm leading the league in xGA, FTPA, clean sheets etc in most of my saves. my opponents often have the ball in their own half with a high PPDA but struggle to find space in my half of the pitch. Of course you can mirror the tactics when your right fullback is better than your left fullback and you should do that. Another thing that i forgot to mention but will add to the OP soon. If being down to 10 i switch to a 4-3-2 with a flat midfield that looks like this Just ignore the RMD and he is the 11th player. Effectively you're defending in a 442 flat because the fullback on the ball-near side will push forward and support the CM on his side, which can be forced more with individual marking instructions. The other 3 defenders then drift a bit to the ball-near side. This hasn't any negative effect on the coverage on the ball-far side because the fullback on that side is a dead player anyway and the whole defence can just drift back if the opponent is switching flanks. Offensive wise you have good coverage on most parts of the pitch. The marauding left fullback will get support in the half-space by the BBM and there is a short link to play over on the right side with the deeper dropping DLF and the MEZ-At. It dosn't always work but it works more often than not and you can hit an attacking opponent pretty bad with counter attacks. You'll need to play without counter press and maybe take the defence line and line of engagement back a bit to defend a bit deeper and tighter.

Of course it's super effective to just put 8 players forward and swarm the box because the match engine can't deal with that. But is has nothing to do with halfway realistic football and i can just play EA FM if this would be the kind of football i want to see from my players.

"Get stuck in" is meta for years because it worked for someone years ago without having to many negative effects. But it dosn't mean that it's generaly good or or you can't play without it. I don't use it and i'm rock bottom in most defensive metrics in the league for 3 seasons in a row. Fouls made, tackles won, blocks, possession won, clearances and interceptions, OPPDA. Bottom 3 in all of these metrics. But there are other metrics in which i'm top 3 for 3 seasons in a row. Goals conceded, xGA, clean sheets, tackles won ratio, shots against, FTPA... You'll need to defend smart at the right time and in the right spaces. Not pressing and tackling hard all over the pitch.

It's 100% possible, in FM and real football, but harder to set up in FM. Pele for example played as a CAM behind a striker for long parts of his career.

The player roles look solid except for the MEZ-Su because he likes to drift outside and support the winger, which leaves the right offinsive half-space uncovered to often. I would try a more vertical role like BBM, CM-Su/At or vertical playmaker. But when using the vertical playmaker you should change the Ap-Su to a non-playmaker role. Shorter passing and working the ball in the box might be a bit to much slow playing to pull opponents out of their positions and create spaces that you can attack. Try without work ball into box and see if it helps. That you have problems defending and soaking up pressure is probably because of your high line of engagement. Your first line is pressing high but the rest of your team is sitting deeper and your opponents has a lot of space between the lines once he got past your first pressind line. Othe approaches can work too but the general rule of thumb ist that the height of the defensive line should always be on the same height or a bit higher than the line of engagement to minimize the space between the lines.

It depends on your tactics if he can perform well as a Trequartista. Would it make sense to add a hitch to your car? For sure if you're driving a Ford F 150 and have to tow stuff on a regular basis. But a hitch on a Isetta? Not very functional but at least a hitch would look like funny.

Just ignore these mails unless a player wants to talk with you about his individual training. Which never happens.

You could also ask which of your shirts would be the best match for your outfit without telling us what the rest of your outfit looks like. It depends on the rest of your tactics which role is best for the DM position.

He does but more often if you play him with his strong foot outside. I would go with inverted winger and the PIs to cross more often and from deep when you want more crosses from the player. Both roles act and move very similar but the inside forward looks more for shooting opportunities for himself.