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Sounds incredibly simple, yes? Many tactics I’ve come across are so negative and defensive it’s untrue. I understand the need for a shut up shop at times, but you also need to attack teams at time. I am not saying you should make this your one and only tactic, and I am not saying this is some sort of cheat tactic, but what I am saying is you will score goals!!
The Formation & Team Instructions
As you can see, this is quite an attacking 4-2-2-2 formation utilising a solid, fairly rigid platform, but allows tonnes of attacking flair. Starting at the back, you can see a flat back 4 which is common place in football nowadays; a simple cover/stopper center back combo, with 2 regular fullbacks. Nothing exciting yet? This is where it gets fun; in central midfield you have an advanced playmaker and a ball winning midfielder, both are largely attacking which hypothetically could leave you very open to a counter attacking, but the ball winning midfielder does combat this very well.
The tactic does look to really take the game to your opponents. Pressing high, playing quite wide and generally trying to control the ball means your opponents will find it hard to deal with you. One area I've found an amazing amount of success is the last 20 minutes when fresh legs come on, the opponents appear to drop their performance 10% and more times than not, you'll get a goal. When you're 4-0 up this isn't that important, but when it's a tight even affair, a late goal is priceless and really does give you that boost over your title rivals.
Away from home I often drop the starting strategy from control to counter, at least for the first half of the game or so, and if you're either level/behind or finding yourself dominating anyway, I'd push up to either control or attacking to push that extra pressure and attempt to force a goal.
Philosophy: Balanced
Starting Strategy: Control
Passing Style: Shorter
Creative Freedom: More Disciplined
Closing Down: Press More
Tackling: More Cautious
Marking: Zonal Marking
Crossing: Drill Crosses
Roaming: Stick To Position
Defensive Line: Normal
Width: Wide
Tempo: Quick
Focus Passing: Mixed
Counter Attack: No
Play Offside: No
GK: Goalkeeper (Defend)
RB: Full Back (Auto)
LB: Wing Back (Auto)
RCB: Limited Defender (Stopper)
LCB: Central Defender (Cover)
MRC: Advanced Playmaker (Support)
MLC: Ball Winning Midfielder (Defend)
AMR: Winger (Attack)
AML: Inside Forward (Attack)
FRC: Poacher (Attack)
FLC: Deep Lying Forward (Support)
Individual Player Roles
Goalkeeper
- Role: Goalkeeper >>> Duty: Defend
As the defensive line is “normal” I feel no need to have a specialist sweeper keeper but you could always utilise this. If, for example, you sign someone such as Sergio Romero who’s probably the closest you can get to a sweeper keeper, you could edit your tactics to allow the team to play a higher defensive line and/or play the offside trap.
Fullbacks
- Role: Fullback >>> Duty: Automatic
Fullbacks in this tactic are required to be good all round players, but if I was to favour attack or defence I’d definitely favour defence. As you’ll see later on, the front 6 of this tactic are incredibly attacking so a solid back 4 is a must. On my latest game I’ve employed Sakho and Criscito as fullbacks which give you an idea about my mentality. Just as much, I’ve used players such as Darjo Srna and Cesar Azplicuelta in the roles who are much more offensive, but as they’re more than competent defensively the tactic didn’t fall apart and still showed very positive results.
Centerbacks
- Role: Limited Defender >>> Duty: Stopper
- Role: Central Defender >>> Duty: Cover
The limited defender who’s acting as the stopper will attack the ball in a no-nonsense approach. A real life example of this could be John Terry or Nemanja Vidic. They tend to be very aggresive, be very good headers and tacklers, and maybe lacking a bit in pace and acceleration. To compliment this, the second defender has to be set to cover. Now the two defenders already mentioned have great partners at club level who do this job, in Ricardo Carvalho and Rio Ferdinand. They act as a semi-sweeper in the fact they let the stopper (Terry or Vidic) attack the ball and drop that extra 5 yards deeper to sweep up any loose balls and then have the composure on the ball to start a counter attack.
As you can see, no. 4 is covering the defender (Kouassi) who's challenging the
opposition striker (Fernandez). Kouassi is acting as the stopper in this instance.
Central Midfielders
- Role: Advanced Playmaker >>> Duty: Support
- Role: Ball Winning Midfielder >>> Duty: Defend
Strangely this is one of my first tactics I’ve not utilised a holding midfielder in the form of an anchor man, and it’s probably been my most successful on FM10. The ball winning midfielder, although on defend duty, is still an offensive player. The 2 players who’ve played this role best for me are Abou Diaby and Marek Hamsik. Neither are really defensive midfielders, but once they win the ball they then have the confidence and skill to give the ball to their teammates, and then have the awareness to pick up a position at the edge of the oppositions penalty area and crack in a fair few goals per season.
The advanced playmaker is different, very different. This position could easily be played by a trequartista type player as there is next to no defensive duty for him. Again, my favoured player for this position was Marco Verratti, once he’d developed into a world star. Flair and creativity are key, he’ll often pop up in the hole between the defence and midfield, or even the channels between fullback and center back. He’ll see a lot of the ball and knock hundreds of short simples passes, often with a near perfect pass completion rate. I guess a real life comparison for these two roles would be at Chelsea with Essien as the ball winning midfielder, and Lampard as the advanced playmaker. Granted they don’t play with 2 in the middle, and would often have an anchor man behind them, which is why I find this tactic even more impressive.
Wingers
- Role: Winger >>> Duty: Attack
- Role: Inside Forward > >>Duty: Attack
Personally I feel there absolutely has to be a balance between a winger and an inside forward here, although which way you do it is entirely up to you. Personally, I’d play the inside winger on his “wrong” flank if that makes any sense. Having a right footed player cutting in from AML has been very beneficial for my Genoa team, with Alexis Sanchez averaging near 8.00 for a number of years now.
On the opposite flank, I’d have an out and out winger. Head down, run with the ball and knock it into the danger area. Again, a real life example I could give perhaps would be with Man Utd with Valencia on the right as an out-and-out winger, with Nani on the opposite flank in a more inside forward role. This probably isn’t the best example as again, this tends to be in a 4-3-3 formation rather than 4-2-2-2, but it works just as well on here. Also, relating back to the team tactics where I highlighted “drill crosses” means that both wingers (and fullbacks, should they get in that position) will always play it hard and low to the near post for your striker to attack. As you’ll see next, a deep lying forward / poacher combination suits this to a tee.
Here you can see how we press the ball high up allowing Hamsik (ball winning midfielder)
to win the ball and instantly find Sanchez who makes a run inside his fullback to slot home first time.
Strikers
- Role: Deep Lying Forward >>> Duty: Automatic
- Role: Poacher >>> Duty: Attack
Starting with the deep lying forward, he should be the link between midfield and attack in most tactics, but the 2 wingers and advanced playmaker really wipes out this need. In essence, this tactic can work as a very attacking 4-1-4-1 tactic with the deep lying forward dropping into an attacking midfield role, leaving just the poacher up front. It also allows the deep lying forward to drop off and let the 3 attacking midfielders to run in behind and exploit the space, as well as the poacher getting an extra half a yard on his marker as he’ll have his eye on covering his partner who’s been dragged out of position.
The poacher is incredibly important here. Going from my last point in the wingers section, drilled crosses put the ball into the near post area where the poacher should be. Alberto Paloschi and Romelu Lukaku were my 2 best examples here, Paloschi being just5’9 with 12 heading, but still scores double figures with his head thanks to this and this alone. Lukaku was obviously more potent in the air being the best part of 6’5, but I’m just trying to highlight that height doesn’t actually play a huge part for a poacher. Away from this, the poacher needs very little bar good positioning, finishing and composure.
The Results?
So far, I've tested this tactic fully with Genoa and Arsenal. With Genoa I've won Serie A twice and the Champions League once since employing these tactics, failing to score just once in 4 years (or well over 150 games!). Arsenal is a similar story, I'm only 20 games in but I've won18 of the 20 games, losing two 1-0 against the most over-rated team on the game, but I'll keep that subject quiet here!
You might think this is just an elitist tactic but I personally don't feel it is. I started with this tactic with Huddersfield in the lurky depths of League 1 through to my eventual promotions to the Championship and then the Premier League. I only used this tactic at home as I felt I was too open away from home, especially when I felt I was an underdog. I do think this tactic is best used when you're expected to win, if you're managing a relegation battler away at a top of the table then obviously I don't recommend it, but if your players suit the tactic then why not give it a go?
Another thing I'll say, always buy players for the tactic and don't attempt to mould the tactic around the players. The majority of times this doesn't work and can take a fair bit of time for you to get the players gelled into the tactic.
Download link: here.
*Please feel free to give any C&C on both the tactic and write up, it's been a while since I've wrote up about one of my tactics and taken a new approach which I'm not sure if I'm entirely happy with, but it's kept out a lot of woffle which I'm quite pleased with!*
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