Wrap God

Mr. Fr0ufrou above summed up how I feel about the state of the game perfectly, but I'll add some feedback anyway to (hopefully) try to get the point across to SI. This is the first time in years that I've decided to not staight-up buy the game and instead try it out through Game Pass and I'm really disappointed to say that I have already uninstalled it. ME: Yes, it is an upgrade. Bravo, you actually managed to significantly improve one aspect of the game that has been begging for a major update for years, while seeing only incremental improvements previously. However, the positioning and behaviour of players, mainly in defensive transitions is mind boggling. Moon walking, standing still and ball watching, you name it. Year after year I was impatiently waiting for a significant improvement to the tactical aspect of the game. Playing pragmatic, designing specific in-game strategies, instructing the players to move and behave in a certain way relative to their teammates. Not long ago I made a post on the tactics forum asking if it's possible to tell one FB to stay inside while the other overlaps and vice-versa, but I've given up since it's very binary: either you tell them to overlap or stay inside, you can't tell them "do the opposite of what the player on the other wing is doing". This is but a single example. Playing pragmatic or defensive football is just giving yourself a handicap. Why would I purposefully use a sub-optimal strategy in a sports game where the entire purpose is to win. Catenaccio tactical style is "you lose" button, that's it. Should have no place in the game if it straight up does not work. It is really, really deflating when you spend dozens of hours crafting a tactic that (you think) perfectly suits your team and your personal tactical style, watching hours of youtube content and for 78th time reading the tactical forums here, only for it to be completely outperformed by a default gegenpress tactic over the course of the season. And yeah, I tested it. Took a low league team, spent more than 4 hours coming up with a tactic then simulated the season. As a 'control group' test I simulated the same team with a default gegenpress. Guess which one was better? Of course it was the gegenpress. And it's not like I'm bad at the game, yeah I'm no BTN or RDF, but I'm not an incompetent imbecile either, I have actual coaching badges for ****'s sake. All those fancy approaches of compressing space, trying to bait the teams into press, playing a mid-block, is nothing more than placebo that sometimes works, sometimes it doesn't. Even the 'OP gegenpress' is suffering from poor implementation of the pressing system, as someone earlier in the thread pointed out. I'm still not sure how to actually get the team to press as a unit, no real way to set up zonal pressing. Like how do I tell my team to compress the space the opposition plays in instead of individually running at opposition players? How do I tell them which specific passing lanes to block? All in all, yeah it's only a game, not an accurate representation of real life football. But is it really the best SI can do after 20 years of iterations? I work in the game industry myself and one my favourite takes from a game designer was: "Iteration without innovation is just a waste of resources". And I firmly believe that's what we have here with FM: small iterations without real innovation. The MVP - minimum viable product.

Hello! I've been observing an interesting behaviour of fullbacks in some real-life teams recently (it might not be new, but I've just noticed it). I was watching the last Man United games in the Premier League (let's put the quality of performance aside) this season and something about how Erik ten Hag sets up his fullbacks caught my eye. [Sorry I don't have any visual examples] When in early build-up phase, with ball being in the possession of the GK or defenders, fullbacks tend to stay narrow, but not fully inverted into midfield When the ball progresses into the middle third of the pitch and further, one of the fullbacks inverts into the midfield, while the other one makes a forward run. Usually that run is overlapping in nature, as the winger comes narrow close to the penalty box. However, there have been some underlapping runs hapenning as well, with Antony staying wider and AWB making a run into the box. This happens alternatively. What I mean by that, is that when one full back goes forward, the other tucks in to the midfield to form a slightly tilted double pivot with Casemiro. Putting the effectiveness of this behaviour aside, I really want to recreate this coordinated movement in FM23. The question is: is it doable? When using FB, even with the 'Stay narrow' PI they are not coming into midfield as I would want them to. The same goes for WB who are just more eager to dribble with the ball and their initial positioning is more advanced than that of a FB. When using IWB (Su or De, didn't try At) on either side they tend to always stay narrow and tuck into the midfield next to the DM. They do sometimes, overlap if the team is instructed to do so, but most of the time in possession they both sit in midfield. I know from watching some tactic experts like Bust the Net, that Complete Wingbacks will do both overlapping and underlapping runs, as they roam from position. However, this role has the 'Stay wider' instruction selected as default and they never come narrow into midfield. So, is there a way to instruct my fullbacks to alternate in behaviour as I initially described? I will try to capture some examples from FM23 later today. Thank you in advance!

It wasn't bad, but not great either. I got promoted from 2 Bundesliga and have become a punching bag destined for relegation. Really hard to say how the tactic performs this way, especially that I dropped to mid/low block depending on opposition. I know that even before promotion I had games where I couldn't create any chances, producing only 3-5 shots the entire game (!). I'm frustrated because I don't know what the game expects me to do. Only from reading the forums I was able to deduce that in some formations the midfield pivot should be in the DM strata. The game doesn't explain where to position the midfield and doesn't provide any valuable feedback. My team of analysts can just produce charts, there is no one in the club that can come to me and say: "Hey boss, have you seen this gap between midfield and attack? Maybe you should adapt roles to close it, or switch from DMs to CMs". Even this thread here. No one has provided a clear answer, only "just try", while I'm looking at the game going "what the hell am I supposed to do?". I don't want to waste ~30h playing through a season trying to tell where my midfield should be positioned. I've put this save on pause for some time. I don't know but I have real issues diagnosing problems with my tactics this year. Players just behave erratically in general on the pitch, I can win a game 5-0 only to get 10 shots combined from the next three games.

This got me thinking - would switching the DLP to Defend while keeping him in the DM slot open up the possibility of switching right WCB to Support? I've never used other duties than Defend on WCB so not sure if it would work.

I appreciate the feedback! I'm rather keen on keeping both Wingbacks on Attacks since it's kind of the cornerstone of my tactical approach - get those wingbacks high and wide to stretch the play, pulling opposition players to open gaps in midfield, while having the Wide Center Backs provideing occasional crosses from deep halfspaces. I'll keep the pivot in the DM strata for now and change Volante to DM(Su). I will also switch SS to AM(At) as I'm not happy with how SS behaves in the ME.

I want to set up for quick attacks, but not just boot it up the field, hence only slightly higher tempo. So yes, counter attacks should be one of the weapons in my arsenal, but I've added the 'Play out of the defence' instruction as my defenders were often booting it up the field despite having passing options open in front of them. I was initially worried about the SS as well, but from pass maps and watching the game, he often drops deep and weirdly is not involved that much. I have decent players in this position, with no traits. Here SS is hidden behind RCM.

Hello! I have a problem settling on a double pivot setup in a back three system. I've been playing since the latest version since the Beta, and was following tactical discussions since it released - it looks like SI has changed the way the midfield pivot should (or is) setup in the match engine. For example the classic, default 4-2-3-1 now has central midfielders in the DM strata - this has been explained as better representing how teams play in real life. My question now is: how does it apply to back three systems? I have a rather successful system in my save with St. Pauli, but I'm too tactically inept to determine whether my midfielders should play in the CM or DM strata. This is my main tactic: (disregard the tactic name, it evolved :)) I've hit a slump in form and couldn't create more than 3-4 chances per game in 5 games in a row, which of course got me tinkering with tactics. Very first game after pushing midfielders to CM slots got me winning 7-0, thinking I cracked the secret, only to go on to fail to score in next 3 consecutive games. So which one is the "better" setup? I'm too tactically 'dumb' to analyze and draw conclusions..