It's been a long time since I've been on the boards but i've been busy tweaking these tactic sets to the point where I feel that I'm completely ready to share these with other managers. First of all it goes without saying that this entire tactical approach to the game is heavily indebted to wwfan for the RoO framework and possibly to a greater extent to a chap named Kristianohr who devised this approach, (more of which later... ).
Why would you want to adopt these tactics, even if you've been very successful with your current ones? Well I've had unparalleled success with this approach, almost to the point where I look back at the earlier part of my career game (thumping the ball up to my big centre forward at Banik Ostrava and hoping for the best... ) and wonder quite how I stuck it out. I've gone unbeaten in over eighty league games, won two champions league titles and two world club championships with a modest enough Feyenoord side. When I say modest I mean a respectable team, some first teamers with CAs in the high 150s and even one or two in the high 160s to 170s with good cover in most positions. Not world class I'm sure you'll agree but it's about countering the AIs tactic and maintaing an edge throughout the match.
Some of you may have built tactic sets based on the RoO framework so you may ask what's different about these? I had some success initially with wwfans approach but not enough to leave me completely satisfied. Studying the game in the 2d match engine screen I always felt that my defense was porous, with defenders closing down haphazardly and leaving me with little faith in my back four. People had varying ideas about the pressing game, some maintaining that high closing down for full backs was good, others saying that low pressing was better. I began to think about it - my midfielders always looked effective winning the ball back and their closing down was linked to the defensive line - why not relate my back four's closing down to my midfield and apply it to my other thirteen tactic sets, just as you would stagger passing style and tempo according to the mentality range? Initially I set my fullbacks closing down to three behind my midfielders', since their mentality was three behind his. Similarily my centre backs closed down to four behind the attacking midfielder. The full backs looke good but not the Centre Backs, still I felt I was on the right track. Experimenting further I reduced the centre halves' closing down to five behind my midfielder's. The results were really impressive. Once I was playing the right tactic set to counter the opposition my whole team closed down relentlessly, allowing the opposition very little breathing space while still keeping shape and giving little away defensively. As an added bonus it meant my team was able to counter attack more efficiently and I began to score more and more goals on the counter attack. My experiments didn't end there though, coming up against different tactics in europe required tweaking to maintain the effectiveness of my pressing game, reducing the fullbacks closing down when necessary or adopting a man-marking system against certain formations. Anyway, I digress, onto the tactics.
Just a warning, I'm not going to write out each and every tactic for you. I'll type out the first one and since they're all related it's just simple maths to produce the others.
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Googen's 4-4-2:
take a standard 4-4-2 shape from the tactic menu and drag short f-arrows from your full backs and wingers. Short f-arrow your right sided central midfielder to the AMC position and short b-arrow your left sided MC to the DMC position. This is your basic shape.
Player mentality: Set your players' mentality individually as follows - Strikers(20), MCatt. (19), Wingers (18), MCdef. (17), Full Backs (16), Centre Backs (15), Goalkeeper (14)
This is the Rule of One tactics range, now simply create thirteen more tactics like this, each one starting progressively lower on the mentality ladder, e.g. your next tactic's mentality range will run from 19 to 13. Finally you will end up at 1 to 7.
N.B. if your unsure how the numbers relate to the sliders just understand that 1 is the lowest point on any slider and 20 is the highest.
Defensive line and Closing Down: Two vital areas. Find the mid-point of your mentality range, e.g. in the tactic above that would be 17, so we set our defensive line at 17 and our team's closing down to 17. We're pushed very high up the pitch and playing an aggressive pressing game to dominate posession, just like any big club would at their home ground. In the 13 - 19 tactic our defensive line would be at 16, again just find the mid-point.
Passing style, tempo, width and time-wasting: These are all linked. Simply mirror them to your defensive line. If our defensive line is at 17 then our tempo will be at 3, (simply count back the clicks from 20 on your slider then mirror this to find the number you need). Since width and tempo are linked they are also set to 3. I've taken to linking time-wasting to tempo. It makes sense and seems to make my team's play flow better, with little time wasting in home games against weak teams and just the opposite in games with a fast tempo and direct passing. I still bump up time-wasting to often in the dying minutes of a one-nil lead though.
Individual Closing Down: In our 14-20 tactic the individual settings are as follows - FC 20, Wingers 19, MCd 18, MCa 17, FB 14, DC12, GK 4.
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Googen's Rules for Pressing: To apply these to your other mentality ranges follow these simple rules -
Strikers always close down to their mentality but never below 15. This keeps them high up the pitch at all times without having 'forward runs' set to often, meaning less offsides but lots of excellent counter-attacking opportunities.
Your attacking midfielder (the one with the forward arrow) always closes down to the team setting. He sets the tone for the rest of the team. So don't tick the individual instruction box for this lad, you can use him as your starting point for setting out everyone else's instructions.
Your defensive midfielder always closes down to one higher than your attacking midfielder, this is to prevent him sitting back and getting sucked into your back four.
Your wingers always close down to two higher than your MCatt. This just seems to be the magic number.
Your full-backs always close down to 3 behind your MCatt.
Your Centre Backs always close down to 5 behind your MCatt.
Your Goalie will close down to 4, however I never have my keeper closing down higher that my DCs, which means eventually you will have your keeper closing down to 1. (This is still a grey area for me and I'm not sure how much a keeper's eccentricity impacts on his ability to come off his line. I used to play with higher CD, using a sweeper-keeper but found that this was a little too risky. By all means experiment and let me know what you think!)
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Home and Away set-ups: You can either set these up manually before each game or do what I did and simply set up your 5 most attacking tactics as being 'home' and the rest as being 'away', which is easier in the long run.
Tackling: Away my MCd and both FBs are set to Hard Tackling, everyone else is on mixed, excluding the strikers who are always set to easy. At Home everyone is on mixed tackling.
Hold-Up Ball: Tick this box for your two full backs and your def midfielder.
Forward Runs: At home your FBs, Wingers and MCa will be set to often. DCs, MCd and GK will be set to rarely. Every one else mixed. Away, restrict your fullbacks to rarely and wingers to mixed.
Run with Ball: Depends on the player ultimately but typically it's - Wingers and Strikers often, Centre Backs and Defensive Mids rarely, everyone else on mixed. If you have an Ashley Cole style FB you set him to often at home. If your Centre Forward is good in the air but useless with the ball at his feet, then set it to mixed. Common Sense!
Try Through Balls: MCa often, GKs and DCs rarely, everyone else on mixed. In away games you can set your GK to mixed, helps on the counter.
Cross Ball: Wingers often at home. Away full backs can cross often, especially if you have a target man.
Marking: Everyone on zonal, more on this later.
Tight Marking: Just the back four at home. Away from home, all outfield players excluding the strikers on tight marking.
Cross From: Wingers cross from the by-line at home, full backs cross from deep away.
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Using a Target Man: I've only had success with two target man types, the big Toshack style centre forward and the Bergkamp-like player who drops deep and wants the ball played into his feet.
Aerial Target Man: Set supply 'To Head'. Set forward runs to mixed. Tick hold-up ball.
Deep-Lying Striker: Set supply 'to Feet'. Set forward runs to rarely. Set through balls to often. If he's a ronaldinho style wizard then set RWB to often. (your looking for a player with excellent first touch here, good flair and vision and possibly dribbling skills too).
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Choosing your Tactic: Knowing what tactic to go with is the most crucial part of match day set-up. Some people advise having a scout to report back on teams you'll face. Forget about it, scout reports are useless. Instead learn to keep an eye on your opponents formation screen and be ready to react to any changes he makes.
I've come to the conclusion the the mentality setting your opponent chooses depends on a combination of their team's reputation and your team's. How to find a teamss reputation? I would strongly recommend downloading FMM. It's the only accurate way of reading a team's reputation and since teams' reps fluctuate depending on the success, (or lack of), that they've enjoyed you'll need this to guage your tactical repsonse.
Find Your Base Tactics: In any league the majority of teams will have the same reputations so one home tactic and one away tactic will do the business against them. Just find your home tactic through trial and error. Save and restart if you have to until your sure that you've found your 'Base Tactics'. If your a prestigeous club like Chelsea or Barca you'll find that your home tactic will typically be the 14-20 range. If you're a biggish club in a small league (as I was when managing Banik Ostrava), you'll find that your home tactic could be the 9-15 range. You'll know by the results. Indicators to look out for in game as to whether or not you've found your base tactic are typically shots on target and passing percentage. You could include tackle percentage in there as well.
Watching the match engine your tactic's tempo should mean that your players are passing the ball just before they're being closed down in the final third, stretching the opposition and creating goal-scoring chances. Also your pressing game should be constantly putting the opposition under pressure creating good counter-attacking opportunities.
However the only way to know for sure that you've found your base tactic is consistently good results. And you will get these with the right mentality range.
Your Away 'Base Tactic' is easier to find. It will always be four below your Home 'Base Tactic'!. Just count down four from your drop down menu. So if you're Chelsea your Away tactic would be the 10-16 range.
Scoring Goals: As soon as you go ahead the AI will go more attacking. You counter this by dropping down to your next more defensive tactic. If the AI have chosen a counter-attacking variant (see below... ) drop down two tactics and adjust. Keep dropping down tactics as you score goals. It the AI equalise go back to the tactic you started with. If you find yourself a goal down then do the opposite and go one more attacking. If the AI moves to a counter attacking variant stay as you are and don't change. I watch all my games in key highlights and simply keep my eye on the formation screen, adjusting when necessary. As a general rule of thumb as soon as a goal is score hit 'detailed tactics' before the replay comes up.
Cup Competitions and Away Goals: Away goals only kick in during the second leg. If the scores are level on aggregate yet you're ahead on an away goal you have to choose a tactic as if you were a goal up, going one more defensive. This only comes into play in the second leg when the aggregate score is level. If it isn't level forget about it and choose tactics as normal.
Neutral Venues: So, you know your base tactic and your away tactic but what do you do at a neutral venue, say a cup final? Simply find the mid-point. If you're home tactic is 13-19 and your away tactic is 9-15 and you find yourself in wembley, drop down two tactics to 11-17. This should give you the edge.
Adjusting against Bigger Clubs: Every league has a few big fish so they will come at you slightly more attacking than the other clubs. This means starting at your base tactic and dropping down one or two tactics to a more defensive tactic when you go to face them. When I started at Feyenoord I was using the 12-18 tactic range as my base tactic at home. When it came to playing Ajax or PSV, however I chose the 11-17 range at home and the 7-13 range away. This same principle applies especially in Europe where you'll be up against clubs of varying reputations. Of course the same principle applies in reverse. If Feyenoord were playing some recently promoted cannon-fodder such as VVV, I upped to the 12-18 range at home.
Reputations Change!: Bear this in mind, if you go on a successful run in Europe your reputation will improve drastically, meaning that other teams will set up more defensively against you. I'm in 2012 at the moment and after two league titles and two European Cups I now use the 14-20 range as my base home tactic nearly all the time. PSV fell on hard times recently, losing big players, failing to qualify for Europe and going through a slew of unlucky managers. I no longer treat them as a big club. Heerenveen by contrast signed an ageing Mark Van Bommel and Maxi Lopez. Both of whom improved the club's reputation. They also went on a brilliant Uefa Cup run. I would now put them in the same bracket as Ajax when it came to choosing a tactic to face them.
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All of this advice should serve you well against the typical 4-4-2 Normal, arguably the most common tactic you'll face in your career. However these are not super tactics, rather they are an approach and you will have to tweak a little when facing other tactics. I'll outline a few examples for you.
4-4-2 Attacking: This one has long forward arrows on the wingers. Simply have your full backs mark their opposite winger but set them to loose marking, otherwise they'll get sucked into midfield too often. Try setting your DCs to man-marking, don't specify any names. Focus passing to mixed or down both flanks. Set your FBs fwd runs to mixed at the most.
4-4-2 Counter Attacking: This one has no f-arrows at all. It is a counter attacking variant, there are a couple that the AI uses so don't play into their hands. Choose a tactic that is actually one more defensive than you would against their typical 4-4-2 Normal and have your DCs man mark their strikers.
4-4-2 Diamond Normal: This one has no f-arrows. Have your DCs tight man mark the two strikers. Again don't specify the strikers' names.
4-5-1 Normal: Five in midfield with an isolated lone striker. Go into opp. instructions on your tactics menu and click on their FC. Set closing down to always. Focus passing down both flanks.
4-3-3 Normal: This one has no AMC and two f-arrowed wingers. Instruct your fullbacks to tight man mark the wingers. Drop their closing down by one click! Set their fwd runs to rarely. Opp. Instructions, always close down their lone striker and focus passing down both flanks. Tackling to mixed.
4-3-3 Counter Attacking: This one has no f-arrows on the wingers. Again go with a tactic one more defensive than you would normally choose. Follow the steps above but you can set your FBs fwd runs to mixed. Tackling to mixed.
4-2-4: The AI will throw this at you late in the game if you're up by a goal. Set your DCs to manmarking. Drop your FBs closing down by two clicks and have them man mark their opposite numbers. Make sure their fwd runs are set to rarely. Bump up time-wasting and focus passing down both flanks. Tackling to mixed.
4-2-3-1: Possibly the best tactic in the game. If any of you could create a RoO variation of this you'd be laughing all the way to managerial infamy. Have your FBs man-mark their wingers, drop their closing down by one and set fwd runs to mixed at most. Have your MCd man mark their AMC, drop his closing down by one. Set tackling to mixed. Focus passing down both flanks.
4-2-2-2 Defensive: Real Madrid use this in my career game. Two DMs sit in front of the back four, two wingers, no f-arrows. Have your DCs manmark their strikers, focus passing down both flanks.
4-2-2-2 Attacking: Two MCs and wingers pushed up to the AMC position. Same as above but have your FBs man-mark their wingers. Drop their closing down by one, set their tackling and fwd runs to mixed.
5-4-1: This is a wing-backs formation with a lone striker. The wing-backs are f-arrowed. It seems to cause problems for a lot of people due to it's heavily defensive set-up. Not any more. Side arrow your strikers and instruct them to cross the ball often. Make sure your DCs closing down is 10 at the least, and your FBs closing down is at least 14. Have your MCd man mark their AMC, don't drop his closing down. Focus passing down both flanks. You won't have too many clear cut chances but you will bombard their goal with set-pieces so make sure you've take the time to set them up properly.
5-4-1 Counter Attacking: This one has wingbacks with no f-arrows. Again go one more defensive. Other than that it's the same as above.
I haven't encountered any other tactics in the game yet although I can guess that the 3-5-2 is probably fairly ubiquitous in Brazil so you'll have to create your own tweaks for any missing tactics. Still, find your Base Tactics and follow the above intstructions to the letter and you should see your career head into the stratosphere. Maybe I'm exaggerating because after all these aren't super tactics, I've still lost games because of dodgy penalties being awarded and keepers having a mare... but then again that's football innit'? Enjoy
Rule of One Tactic Sets - and how to implement them to perfection! 
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