13th Man

The big reveal As fascinating as the prologue was, it probably left you with no idea what this save is going to be about. To make a long story short, this one is going to be all about tactics. Yes, some narrative too, that’s just how I am, but my work is currently very demanding mentally and I don’t have the energy to do the “production values” of The Ballad of Benjani right now. Plus, I mostly just want to dig into tactics, so this save will be focused there. It'll likely be a less month-to-month, and more about tactical evolution and long term narrative. So now, it's time to choose your own adventure. Will you go with the short version, read a few paragraphs and get on with it, or will you read the long version and get into the meat of what made me decide to do this save? Or, will you read the short version, start on the the long version for a bit before getting tired of it and skipping it? So many choices. Short version This will be my first journeyman save where I have to start in a backwater nation (United States) and use my tactical acumen to slowly gain a reputation and climb up the footballing ladder - without control of transfers, youth set up, or even scouting. It'll be all about how well I manage the first team players that are given to me. It’ll make for tactical challenges as I won’t be able to build a team to my vision, but will have to build my tactic around the team. I’ll also have my nationality against me here, though that will likely have to be a self imposed rule as the game doesn’t seem to see it as an issue. What does the above have to do with the Prologue? Why the US? [For those answers you have to read the long version] Long Version I started the The Ballad of Benjani with a thinly disguised auto-biographical story, and repeated that trick here. Now I’m going to refer back to my Livorno thread which started with a confession. A confession that will lead to what this save is all about…eventually. Dear reader, it is with a most profound shame that I must confess that I am…an American. *Gasp!!!* The horror! An American!!! I bet he calls football “soccer”!!! I am so very ashamed to admit that I do. When I say “football” in my everyday life, I usually mean the sport where extremely large men spend minutes at a time standing around before engaging in 5-10 seconds of brutal and meticulously choreographed violence before standing around again. That does not even include the constant commercial breaks. (For the record, I do love American football.) Now, what you were probably actually thinking when I ‘confessed’ was either “who cares?” Or maybe ‘isn’t this just peak American to think anyone cares?” If you’re especially woke, you might even be thinking that it’s imperialist of me to call myself American when there are 35 countries in the Americas (North and South). All true, but unfortunately, United Statesian isn’t a thing, and I haven’t personally heard an alternative. I promise, though, that my United Statesian-ness is key to the set up for this save. I’m not actually ashamed of where I come from even if I’ll freely admit that the USA has many problems both at home and abroad. It’s also likely that I’ve already outed myself. While I try to use correct terms for football, I’m sure I’ve fallen back on my Yank vocabulary on occasion. Soccer! Sideline! Tie (for draw)! PK! GOALIE! Field!!! Ok, got ‘em out now. Yes, yes, you think, we’ve already established that we don’t care, get to the point! Fine. Though I am not ashamed of where I come from, what I am ashamed of is American ‘soccer’. It’s not because the men’s national team is kind of **** (which it is), it’s way deeper than that. It’s just garbage (rubbish) from the ground up. See What Happens ‘Soccer’ The football (back to world football) that we play makes Route One look enlightened and progressive. In Route One you have a solid, disciplined defensive block and a target man with runners making anticipatory runs. In the US, we have a strange combination of headless chicken pressing and booting it to the fast ones on the wings or up front. Then we see what happens. The ‘see what happens’ is a key thing here - we don’t really have a style or understanding of the game. Speed is all that matters. Are you fast? Can you do a few tricky dribbling moves? If you said yes to either of those questions we’ll stick you on the wings or up front and kick the ball up to you and see what happens. That’s basically the average level of American football tactics. Kick it, dribble, and see what happens. Is this a massive generalization? An opinion stated as an objective fact? Absolutely, but this is the internet. Still, it’s what I’ve noticed in my own experience, from talking to various people from across the country, and from suffering through watching MLS or our national team every once in a while. I’ll get into my ideas as to why I think we’re so terrible at football in a future post, but for now let’s get on with it. Point 1 - it’s my dislike of American ‘soccer’ that inspired this save. Now, at least, we can return to the opening story. When I broke my leg at 21, I went from a full class load, training in the afternoon and rehearsals at night (musician) to…nothing. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t drive, and being vertical for any length of time was both challenging logistically and uncomfortable. I was basically stuck on the couch as a pre-warmed piece of furniture for my uncles’ cats. But there was football. So much football, more than I’d ever realized. My college teammates, many of them from Europe, had already mostly educated me on the workings of the European game. -Relegation and promotion? You mean terrible clubs aren’t rewarded by getting the best prospects? -Games can just end in ties? Wait, they’re called draws? Ties are just games? You even earn points for those draws? And those points from draws and wins are separate from goals? And it’s three for a win and one for a draw? -You just buy players? (It’s all about trades in the US). You can loan players out and get them back later? Now this is football Now, lying on the couch watching live football as much as five days a week - and catching plenty of replays as well - I found there was so much more to the game than the man marking, kicking and running and the 90 minutes of running up and down the wing that I’d been taught. I’d watched the World Cup every four years, it was a big deal in my house, and I’d always thought it was the pinnacle of world football. It made me familiar with a lot of the big names, and watching a lot of the ‘06 World Cup while in France has given me a regrettable case of Les Bleus [Treatments include - often petulant players, reality show level bickering, and a sex scandal or two, but a cure has not yet been found.]. Turns out that the World Cup can’t be beat for spectacle or drama [*cough* or corruption or human rights abuses *cough*] but the actual football on display generally can’t match top club football. In America, the Premier League is by far the easiest to watch. I entered knowing only that I hated Manchester United - I think because they were the English club that everyone bandwagoned onto at the time. I also thought Beckham was a bit of a fancy pants who was more into fashion than anything else and I loathed the Spice Girls growing up. I’d already tried out a few clubs, but that year I ended up falling in love with the way Arsenal played. This was in 2007/2008, several years past the Invincibles and the first post Henry season for Arsenal. I actually had started watching them because of Henry - one of the French players I’d enjoyed watching in several World Cups. I didn’t know it then, but that year was the best it’d get for the club - until maybe this season. But then, as I lay on a couch day after day I was mesmerized by the quick passing and fluid movement. It was unlike anything I’d seen and I liked the quicker pace that they went at compared to, say Barcelona. This was before Tiki-Taka truly went brutally dull and conservative, and Arsenal felt faster. Probably the thing that got me connected with the club most, however, was when the Croatian striker Eduardo went down with a horrific leg break just as Arsenal looked set to take hold of the title. He’d been my favorite player at the club (a mantle that would soon be taken up by oddly, Barckary Sagna), the calm, silky way he’d move around was just unreal to me - who was mostly a blunt instrument of a player at the time. To see him lying there with his leg all messed up just as I was starting to walk again created a bond with the club that I would regret and try, unsuccessfully, to break. [Good god was Emery’s Arsenal dull]. That’s not quite how fandom works though, and this year has been pretty nice. Cosmopolitan Back in 2008 I didn’t yet know all about the ins and outs of the formations, but my intensive introduction to the real game played by top players turned me into an entirely different player when I returned to the pitch that summer. I saw so many more angles and shapes on the pitch. I graduated college and played in a very cosmopolitan league in New York City (literally called the Cosmopolitan Soccer League) on a team that was 60% non-Americans (mostly English, but several Scots, Frenchmen, and an Argentinian), and it was wonderful. We sometimes changed formation and tactics based on the opposition! Though we usually played a 4-4-2 our manager, a 5 foot tall woman who ran a small empire of small sided leagues along with a few club sides after she’d been aged out of the theater world (not making this up), would occasionally send us out in other shapes when the opposition required it. More importantly, she gave us actual instructions and feedback, and picked balanced sides with a good mix of free roles, runners, target men, and playmakers. (She was also completely insane, but that’s another story). Though right footed, I played on the left as one of the team's runners, and she instructed me to play as what I would now call an inverted winger on support duty. I was to keep the width until I got the ball, and my most effective partnership was with a deep lying forward with whom I would often link up, swap positions, or play one-twos to get each other in behind - we created a lot of chances for each other. Other options included playing in the playmaking center mid, sending inswinging through balls/crosses for our poacher - or, yes, running to the byline to put in crosses with my decent left foot if it was on. Being over 6ft and solidly built, we had me as a bit of a wide target man too, with the keeper often distributing it my way for knockdowns to the players around me. Since moving away from NYC, I have played on a handful of teams and every one has been a disappointment after that. The common thread - all the teams were filled with Americans and we played against teams filled with Americans. Most Americans are taught to react, to follow a pattern (it’s how most of our sports work) so we don’t anticipate the way I’d learned during my recovery from my broken leg. Off the ball movement is non-existent, anticipation is rare, and positional awareness is brutally poor. Some of that is likely due to a lower level of play in general, but a lot of these players have great skill and control - often better than my own - but lack the mental/tactical understanding of the game. Are we ever getting to the point? So, you ask (getting tired of my ranting rambling and wanting me to get to the point), am you going to do a career where you reform “soccer” in the USA and bring it up to the level of the international game? Ha, nope!! I don’t have the patience for that. Or not that kind of patience. I know some people do the national team and pick a club team, but I don’t think I’m up for that whole thing - tactics are my thing and that’s what I want to get back to. Instead, I will have to start in North America and make a name for myself. USA, or possibly Canada or Mexico. Ideally, I’d start off in one of America’s lower leagues, but they aren’t in the game so it is what it is. Some Americans might have a chance elsewhere right off the bat, but I do find it unrealistic that an English club would reach out to a random American like they did in my test save, so I'm only going to make North America playable until I’ve earned a name for myself. Like me in real life, though, the manager will want to get out of the Americas. [For me, I never literally wanted to leave the US, just not to play with Americans.] So, dear reader, this shall be my first ever Journeyman Save! Well, I’ve actually tried the journeyman route a few times but never quite got into it. Having a specific challenge, however, I think might help me. So, finally, here’s what this save will be about - Born to Run: A journeyman’s escape from America. I thought about going the real life manager route, but didn’t find a suitable candidate. With this all being pretty autobiographical, I’ll create a fictional avatar instead of a real life player. I think I’ll make the thread a kind of journal style notebook of the manager’s tactical thoughts and key events. And now, finally, I tell you about the save rules/goals/etc! The save rules - - Start out in North America and look to build a reputation enough to move across the Atlantic. BUT… - Don’t apply for/take jobs that wouldn’t realistically be offered. I need to build a reputation first. Americans have a bad reputation, especially as managers, so I need to do enough to overcome that so that a European club would be willing to take a chance. I may need some audience participation to decide whether I am worthy. I’ll need to win or challenge several times for a major trophy, develop some players that make big money transfers to Europe (so get scouts watching my games), or massively overachieve with limited resources. Or, I guess, hold my nose and get in woth Red Bull or City Group with one of the two New York teams, to get those juicy international connections. - Complete tactical flexibility. My avatar will be out to break the mold of many American managers who aren’t tactically astute. Despite my recent adventures with 3atb, I think I’ll gravitate towards a 4-3-3, but if the club would do best with a 5-3-2-1 WBs, or a 4-1-3-2 with a packed central midfield, than that’s what I’ll run. I’ll be out to adapt based on the club, the league, the board expectations. I’ll set up my tactics, shape and system based on a combination of board expectations and squad analysis. The save spice - If there’s a DOF/GM at the club, I’ll have to let them do their job. No finding gems and doing contract magic - my focus will be on the tactical side. If I steer the club in the right direction and earn trust, I’ll take over those duties, but I have to earn it. Flexible goals - - Look to start out in a lesser European nation first - possibly Scandinavia? Never managed there before. Lower leagues in major nations are fine too. Thinking of other American managers, though, it seems like you have to cut your teeth in places like - Ideally, I’ll manage in France as it's the European nation I actually spent a fair amount of time in and my French was pretty good at one point. - While it is a journeyman save, I may end up with a reasonably top club to stay with for a while - maybe one that needs a little push to get to the top of the game. With my affinity if Arsenal comes calling… Onwards! So here we go. I started unemployed, with a Continental C license and a Professional (Regional) reputation. I went in for the man manager, adaptability, and determination side of things. Honestly made me a fairly **** coach, but hopefully I will improve over time. I tried to go a little lower in licenses and reputation, and force myself to start in the Canadian league or something, but no one would hire me. Problem with starting in North America is that the database just doesn’t go low enough for me to truly start at the bottom, so we’ll pretend I did real well at the NCAA [aka College/University] level before making the jump. My second attempt bore fruit however. In June of 2022, about three months into the MLS season, I bagged a job that an up and coming coach just might be able to get ...

It'll likely be very different from yours, and I don't know about 'better' write up. I just like me some waffling...

Fair point to my fair point. There are definitely ways that the engine will funnel your play into if you want to be effective. All the same my last thread (apart from being a ridiculous imagined sports film franchise) was a a tactical evolution towards creating something like Total Football in the FM match engine. I was actually surprised at how well it worked, especially as I have no clue as to what happens 'under the hood'. There was very fluid position switching and if, yes, there were certainly certain patterns that were repeated, the variety was quite surprising. I do think I went pretty far outside the norm without actually doing a crazy formation, so that might be some of it, but it's doable...just maybe not worth the trouble? Or rather, it would be nice if it wasn't so easy to be successful with the 4-3-3 and prepackaged roles/duties/styes?

Funny story - your thread is parallel in many ways to the one I’m going to be doing, but it looks like you’ll be going about it very differently. Looking forward to seeing how it goes! Love the idea of those extreme overload. Might not work but the movement will certainly be interesting!

Love the ideas here, and we’ll written as always. I wanted to (a bit late) jump into the tactics bit - I’m still in the learning part for stats and all that. The 4-3-3 is hard to beat for flexibility and is used by so many top sides because it suits modern players so well. With that in mind, I’m not so sure it’s an FM thing so much as a current player thing. We have dynamic midfielders, wingers that cut in, fullbacks that bomb forward, and forwards that press and focus on off the ball movement - at least at the top of the game. I get wanting to branch out though - that’s why I’ve been running 3atb systems the past two editions. It took a lot of tweaking and adjustments to make sure spaces were attacked and defended as I wanted but it’s all doable with the right personnel. I was a bit lucky that there were either enough CBs (Livorno) or some good FB/CB hybrids (Portsmouth) for me right at the beginning, but my current save has only four CBs which would make things tricky to run 3atb to start…

I’ve always vaguely liked the 4-2-2-2 and Villarreal, but never actually sunk my teeth into either - so I’ll continue to just generally get a taste with your thread! Nice idea and I like the simple, realistic, and not overly restrictive goals! Seems to be you’ve had a sometimes disappointing but pretty solid start to the save in that first run of games. A few tweaks, some more tactical familiarity and you’ll be on your way.

From the creator of such "hits" as Finding Myself in Tuscany and The Ballad of Benjani comes a new save thread for FM 23 - Born to Run. Will it feature tactics? Oh yes it will. Will it feature way too much waffle? You bet. Will it be a fully realized, fully produced film to one up The Ballad of Benjani? Absolutely not. This will be a bit of a return to an extreme focus on tactics, but, yes, a good thread (for me) is all about a narrative so there will definitely be that too. So...without further ado... Prologue [For reasons that may become clear in later posts, I recommend listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run while reading this introduction.] Imagine with me for a moment. Imagine that you’ve just received the ball on the flank. A defender is coming to close you down. You see the angle he’s taking - he’s been too aggressive and underestimated your pace. Again. But you wait. You make him think that this time he has you. You wait until he has fully committed. Only then do you change your line just a bit and switch into that extra gear you’ve been saving. You see in his body language that he knows. He knows you’re about to leave him for dead…for the third time that evening. Just as the other two times he desperately goes to ground. You push the ball out and around him with two flicks of your right foot. One out, past where he’ll be able to reach, then a light side foot into the space behind him, a little pass to yourself. You leave him no chance. You see the open green in front of you. You look up, seeing if your teammates are making runs… Then you feel studs on the side of your right leg, a bit below the knee, just as you were pushing off to continue into that beautiful open space. Actually, you don’t feel much other than the sudden loss of momentum. You hit the ground hard. You’re used to that. You’re a speedy winger, and you are fouled at full sprint constantly. That leg hurts though. Not in the way that any of your constant injuries have hurt. This is different. It's like a bruise but…deeper. You look at it, right at the top of your sock - he's left a mark. But you get up. You can’t let that defender know he hurt you. That’s asking for more abuse. He is, of course, shown a yellow card. Your manager calls for a red, but it falls upon deaf ears (honestly should have been). You hurl a few choice words in his direction as he trudges off, switched to the opposite flank by his manager. 3rd time’s a charm. That leg hurts. But you are 21 and you’ve played through pain before. Your side is in a playoff push and a season long injury crisis. At any given time, it seems as if there’s been 5-6 starters out. You’ve managed to play through two sprained ankles and a strained hip flexor, even if it feels like you’re held together by athletic tape. But your side is still in the hunt. Your manager asks you if you’re okay at the half, his eyes not fully trusting when you answer that you’re fine. A combination of adrenaline, determination, and youthful ignorance gets you through the rest of that match. You even get an assist - your opposite winger crashing the far post, beating the player who fouled you - your side wins and stays in the playoff hunt. But that leg hurts. It hurts as you hobble home that night, as you walk around Sunday, as you walk through training on Monday. But there’s no time for hurting. There’s another match on Tuesday. One of three left in the season. We probably need to win all of them to make the playoff. Your manager again asks if you’re okay to play. You don’t really feel confident when you say that you are. He really doesn’t seem to believe it either. But there’s not much choice. You’ve been slowed down, but you pass the fitness tests. Not with flying colors, but you pass. We’re struggling to make the numbers to play the match… But that leg hurts. You’ve played through pain before. You take it as easy as you can during the match. You don’t make any unnecessary runs. No chasing lost causes today. You keep things simple on the ball. Take a touch, make a simple pass. Read the game. But then one time you cut out a pass in a muddy, squelchy, sticky part of the pitch. As you get to the ball, just a bit ahead of your opponent, you look up. You plant your right leg - the hurt one - to complete a simple side foot with your left. Your foot sticks in the mud. Suddenly, a horrible cracking sound rings out. It seems exceptionally loud. Something is horribly wrong. You fall to the ground, your voice hitting high notes like that would not be out of place in Bohemian Rhapsody. You can’t think. All you know is that something is horribly, horribly wrong with your leg. It is moving in ways it shouldn’t…things that are supposed to stay still are moving inside you. It doesn’t hurt, not really. It just feels wrong. Deeply, profoundly wrong. A few hours later, the x-rays come back. You've broken your tibia and fibula. You’re lucky it’s a clean break, it won’t need surgery, but it will be 6+ weeks before you can put any weight on it. A 4-6 month recovery before you’re fully fit again. You’re alone in the back of the bus on the ride home with the team. The painkillers and the way you feel every bump in the road inside your leg leave you unable to talk with your teammates. There’s also the disappointment - we lost. No more hope for the playoffs, not that you’d be able to play in them… That’s when the logistics problems hit. You won’t be able to drive for months. This is a problem because you live alone in a semi-rural area that requires a car. You won’t be able to get to and from class, to get food, to cook for yourself. Even getting up the narrow, steep stairs to your place will be a challenge! You end up at your uncle’s house a few days later. You’ve pulled out of classes until you're back on your feet. You've gone from having no time to having all the time in the world. A full class load to an empty schedule. Daily training and often two games a week to laying on a couch all day. What do you do now? You study the game.

Thanks! Agreed on the midfield duo. Bayliss has got some key attributes which make him perfect for the role. Levitt? He's a good passer but I can't explain his effectiveness! On the CL - the news is hot off the presses...

Going for Glory! 27 May 2028 Old Trafford Arsenal v Portsmouth Champions League Final Old Trafford would be the site for an all English Champions League final. Arsenal had defeated Italian champions Inter Milan, Athletico Bilbao and Manchester City in route to the final, arguably a far easier journey than Portsmouth’s - though getting Feyenoord in the first knockout round had been a favorable draw for Portsmouth. The same could not be said about two European powerhouses in Real Madrid and PSG, of course. Over the previous two seasons, Portsmouth had managed to get the slightest of edges over Arsenal - earning three draws and one win in their past four meetings. The south coast side had tended to play better than their London opponents, but little errors or moments of individual brilliance had allowed Arsenal to keep in all the matches. But this was a Champions League final. Anything could happen. Benjani decides to play his big game tactic - a narrow shape with the CWBs in a slightly less attacking role [CWBs], and with Portsmouth looking for opportunities to counter. Arsenal AMC Yusuf Demir had caused Portsmouth problems in their previous matches, and so Benjani instructed DLPd Caqueret to man mark him specifically. Wanting both of Arsenal’s IFs to be under pressure, he kept both WCBs on support duty, knowing that Enrique would drop into midfield to help out as well.

So much drama! Funny how the results looked pretty decent overall (until the dreaded ____ unbeaten shows up) but sometimes even when things are decent it takes work to keep it going. Tough to lose against title rivals, but you still got a bit of a cushion. By the way, busy seems the theme amongst a lot of regulars here right now. I'm in the same boat...work is a bit crazy. Got to do what you got to do.

Love the gameplans and fantastic start to the season. Riding your luck a bit, but also seem to be getting the results from the tactical tweaks. Good to see your shapes working out well for you. I was never comfortable with that gap between the WCB and the LWB that you described - so I've tended to opt more and more for WCBs instead of WCB(d) - but if it's working it makes sense. Also as a team looking to be solid at the back it's wise to stick with the defend duty I guess. Seem to be making your chances count at the other end too.