[Ability growth]

2 hours ago, a5864003 said:

Have you ever raised a player over 22 years old to make a significant change in ability? Like filling up a full pa. How old is the oldest player you've ever raised?

On a recent Leipzig save I made a good business model made out of this, the most notable being Luka Jovic who reached 166/170 before being sold on, from 142 or so when he signed. Signed at 23 and sold at 25.

I feel that the key to succeed is to have great facilities, a good training regimen, coaches with the right personalities and a lot of luck. You just have to avoid bad injuries. A good bonus is to have a tactic that works with the different types of players.

[Bayern and Flick changing they way I play]

51 minutes ago, thizaum said:

What's your take on this?

 

Your tactics looks nothing like Flick/Bayern at all, but that might be another discussion.

You play 'attacking' mentality with extremely high tempo against a side who plays a cautious approach. That's the answer. We've seen it in FM20 that cautious teams can rack some insane possession numbers against superior opposition.

[Could I get some assistance w/ Gegenpressing?]

I could be mistaken, but playing "wide" in possession will trigger overlaps anyways, so I would remove the overlap TI. 

You have two IFs in the winger strata giving your AM (Slattery) very little room to operate in.

Positive mentality should give a higher tempo, so I would go back to slightly higher tempo to prevent unnecessary loss of possession. 

I would be very tempted to try McSauce as a BWM(S) and Bellingham with a defensive duty. 

I don't like the front 4 to be fair, I would go with a pressing forward on attack and an attacking role for Slattery (AM should work fine) and then both wide players on support, where I would give one of them a straight winger role to try to give the AM some space. 

Just some food for thought.

[Total Football (Very Fluid)]

I will read the whole post later on, just here to say thank you @Ö-zil to the Arsenal! for all your contributions to the community. Take it easy.

[Tifo - Atalanta]

19 hours ago, Jack722 said:

I'm currently 5th after 14 games. 1 Point behind Juve. I'm also playing on FM19 where we are predicted to finish 9th

 

I really like your back 3's positioning there.

19 hours ago, scwiffy said:

Anyone watched Atalanta or have more input??

James Horncastle wrote an excellent piece for The Athletic yesterday:

Quote

 

Over a cappuccino in a village outside Modena, Sassuolo winger Jeremie Boga is in no doubt about the toughest opponent he’s played against in Serie A.

“Atalanta,” he tells The Athletic. “They press so high and play one-against-one everywhere. When they have the ball, everybody moves, so you don’t know how to press. One minute, the left centre-back is left wing-back. Sometimes, the No 10 comes deep. It’s really hard. Everybody moves.”

 

High risk, attacking, dynamic side (3rd highest scoring across the top 5 leagues, also 20 more than Juve this season). Conversely, concedes more than the top 4 in Serie A. Averages 20 shots per game (!).

Almost completely void of any central area play in buildups, they always use triangles or diamonds on the flanks to move the ball forward. This is extremely hard to replicate fully on FM. 

A central defender like Toloi, with 5 assists this season, is also very difficult to emulate, but with the right setup you can see him moving more forward and creating havoc.

The pre-match graphics often lie about the front 3, Gomez and Ilicic operate out wide and go inside. Duvan Zapata slightly offset towards Gomez on the left, as a pure striker.

I played through a season and completely shredded the Serie A, but some observations:

Ilicic, believe it or not, is not good enough on FM20. He is rated as the best player in the league this season, and was top 3 last season. He is not clinical enough in the game and his ability should be adjusted up a few notches. His overall mental stats are also too low. Gomez, on the other hand, is very true to his real self and will get assists left and right.

Below my default tactic after all the tinkering was done.

I had to abandon my plan of playing with wing-backs and instead go for defensive wingers. The reason being that WB does not press, like at all. Instead they drop down to the 3 CBs and form a 5 man defense out of possession. DW on support will press and hold the width. You also need to remember that Robin Gosens is more attacking minded than Hateboer (8 goals this season). So I gave him "take more risks" and that worked a treat in that regard.

Against Inter away:

(A random away game where the opposition is decent)

The right side of the team:

                                   Ilicic (F9)                                                                    Hateboer                                                                  Toloi

 

The left side of the team:

                               Papu Gomez                                                               Gosens                                                                      Palomino

As you can see, both Palomino and Toloi are far up the pitch, but what's interesting here is that Palomino is much more advanced than Toloi, who has more attacking PPMs. This is most likely due to a couple of factors;

• The team fluidity is very fluid.
• We use a Mez(s) on that side, plus an advanced playmaker in Gomez. We also have Gosens more advanced down the left, in the midfield strata.
• We use Toloi as the distributor from the back, forcing Toloi back to collect the ball.
• Inter was defensive their right side, using D'Ambrosio as a WB(d) and Brozovic as a DLP(s).

Don't be afraid to go with wide players in the midfield strata as opposed to wingbacks. The idea of Gasperini is that he using 3 at the back, which allows his midfield and attackers to press like it's going out of fashion while still maintaining some solidity. I used a Mez (Freuler/Pasalic/Malinovskyi) on the left CM and a BWM on the right, to have an aggressive role like de Roon has IRL. You shouldn't overthink shape either, as Gasperini doesn't really care much for that anyway. 

I never considered using man marking in the pressing phase, but that is definitely food for thought if I ever revisit this save.

Post match stuff:

                                                      Average positions                                                                                                                                                                                                Passing Network

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the passing network it's not exactly true to real life, but it works.

Sorry for the hijack of the thread, hope this helps in some inspiration. My goals were to create a tactic that would be able to score 7 goals against very defensive sides in the most tactical of all leagues, like Atalanta have done no less than 3 times this season alone. 

I almost got there:

[Will my team be able to pass their way to world domination?]

3 hours ago, Djuicer said:

My current passing network. Feel free to guess the formation 

 

Here it goes:

1 - SK (A)

4 - BPD (D)
5 - BPD (St)

2 - CWB (S) WB Strata
3 - CWB (S) WB Strata
6 - Volante (A)

8 - Enganche (S)
7 - SS (A)
10 - IW (S)
11 - IW (s)

9 - F9 (S)

?

[Will my team be able to pass their way to world domination?]

11 hours ago, Djuicer said:

Me as a swede would like a screen of Isak if he is any good in your save? 

Isak was very good, but it was impossible to teach or remove PPMs. 

Edit: As you can see from the Isak screenie, I was offered the United job after finally winning La Liga. We were in the lead for a long time against FCB, but Pogba equalized right at the end, however they lost away against Betis the following round and I one my last two. 

[Will my team be able to pass their way to world domination?]

3 minutes ago, Djuicer said:

I will cross my fingers that you take it home this time mate! What players are your key players?

Thanks!

Always on a tight budget, so I have to loan the top players. Depay, Isak, Merino, F Valverde, Wijndal, Onguene. Zirkzee is great as a sub also, but Isak is great as a TRQ and F9 in this.

[Will my team be able to pass their way to world domination?]

What's cool about FM is that you can literally play the game for years, you think you've done everything and tried it all, then a thread like this comes along and reinvigorate your interest in the game again. Great read @Djuicer

Season 2 with La Real, season 4 in-game. My second head-to-head with FCB, who has the sickest team. Last season we collapsed a few rounds before the end, this year it could maybe (?) work out.. We have Barca at home soon and have everything in our own hands...

[Is "Lower Defensive Line" a "Lose Now!" button?]

1 hour ago, OrientTillIDie said:

Would you go for a Balanced mentality when trying to implement a low block? Or Defensive? Or even Attacking, in the sense that you’re dropping your team deep but want them to break with directness and speed when they get in back? I’ve never really considered the low block before but I’m toying with the idea of trying it.

I played positive for ~75% of the games and the rest attacking. Anything lower than positive becomes counter productive.

I could probably write up a full thread on how I view defensive systems, but let's just say that the defensive (or solid) football should have a certain balance between willingness to score and keeping a clean sheet. If you think, and no one can fault you for that IMO, that a low block goes well with a cautious mentality, you are really just levelling yourself into a thought process that emphasizes too much on one thing while neglecting the other. 

The problem is that you need a really specific type of player and a foremost very good players to be able to get Mourinho-esque results from it, i.e. win trophies while not exactly dominate the opponents.

[Simple questions about editing and the editor - just ask in this thread]

Hi, I am updating my DB to include the impending Saudi takeover at Newcastle. I want to have it as real as possible, so I have added the names of the likely people involved and basically copied some stuff from the City side of things in terms of 'foreground' sugardaddy etc. I am guessing that even though they will have a long term ownership, they will likely start the spending this summer.

This is basically a guessing game at this point, but which reputation would you guys set for Newcastle if they start spending like PSG and City? They are currently at 6700.

[Is "Lower Defensive Line" a "Lose Now!" button?]

Mixture of standard block and low block depending on opposition and players available:

Don't go low block unless you really have to. Just keep it simple in terms of shouts and do not use a cautious mentality.