retired_hope

Introduction
With FM2008 out soon now would be a great time for us in the tactical community to come up with our ideas for tactics and training in future incarnations of the game. Everyone is welcome to discuss ideas and add now one's, state what ideas are good and what are bad. Hopefully we will be able to get a general concensus on the direction we would like to see SI go with regard to tactics and training.

As this is the tactics and training forum could we focus generally around these areas.

Here's a few ideas to start. Apologies if they are too conceptual.

Split Tactics Into Philsophy, Preparation and In-Match Tactics.

I believe that every football manager follows a footballing philosophy, how they want their team to play. For me the skills and techniques developed in training should have a positive impact on the style of play you want you team to use in matches. Training for the senior squad should be more explicitly related to team performing your tactics during the game.

A sensible transfer policy should therefore revolve around bringing in players that match a footballing philosophy. The pieces of the puzzle.

This can been seen as the strategic side of football management.

The next level revolves around the prepartion before a game, this is if you like and advancement on the simple scout next opponent. In the days leading up before a game I would want to concentrate on the upcomming game, their strengths and weaknesses and any key players that need to be given special attention to. This would be where I am able to adapt my base tactic to maximise my strengths and minimise my weaknesses before that match.

The final part occurs within the match, it focuses mainly around substitions and things like opposition instructions.

So we have 3 levels of tactics

1: Philosopy (Impacts training)
2: Prep (Scouting the opposition, adjusting training regimes to improve match performance in a certain area.
3: In match (Terry stay on Saha, Beckham tuck in so Richards can overlap etc.)

Expand Relationships Between Managers and Coaches

A coach should share the philosopy of their manager. This leads to coaches learning from manager and vice versa. This also leads to coaches and managers developing good relationships that continue even after a coach leaves to take a new job as a manager. A coach that has a different philosophy from his manager will not be able to do his job to the best of his ability and might become disgruntled.

Coaching staff are usually quite loyal and it is quite common for a manager to take his old team with him when he takes a new job.

Could we also add coaching qualifications to the game.

retired_elpata

FM08 is slightly different from 07 especially on match day. Not sure I can really delve into it too much but its sort of along the lines you mentioned above. Its still not perfect but its a good start and makes it easier to adapt to the oppositions tactics if you choose to play that way.

I don't see what this would actually add to the game. Maybe you could expand on this for me please

Again on FM08 the coaches do give more info about the team, weaknesses, players etc. So this for me is going in the right directon,s till not at the level id like but I'm glad its getting there. The feedback system as been massivly improved in comparison to 07 for me, but still needs a lot of work. I guess we just have to be patient though as it will take some time to implement it all.

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What id like to see is a better training module so we can optimise it like you said above. At the minute the training isn't specific enough and we can't really focus it on our tactics we play. I need to have a think about this more and post some more specific ideas of how I want this to be implemented and the benefits and draws backs.

Id also like to see better development of players who you send on loan. Its very rare that they come back any better than when they left, in fact in most cases they come back a lot worse. I spend years training them in the attributes I think is really important for them to drop and not be improved on when they go onloan.

There are lots more ideas I have too, but I don't wanna be greedy and cover them all. Because I am interested in seeing what others want too.

retired_Balanchinegal

I'd like to see a massive improvement in team talks.
I think the choice of what to say is far too limited, in fact it's rare I can pick something to say which is exactly what I want to say to the players.
Of course, the team talk feature is in it's infancy and it's sure(?) to improve as time goes by.
Also - I'd like this feature removed from friendlies as it always ruins the start of a new game for me - By the time you get to the start of competitive action your players are already on "Didn't seem to be listening" and so you can't really gee them up for, say, the opening premiership fixture, which is a nuisance really.
I tried once not to say anything at all during the friendlies to see if I could keep the effect until the real stuff began but the players got so peeved off with me "not appreciating" them that morale was damaged almost beyond repair, this in turn ruined my new game so I started again.
So that's my thoughts anyway.

janisfit

I couldnt agree more! I've been reading a lot about team talk on the UK forum, I think its Diaby's thread, most of you will surely know it, 'cos I heard that team talk ccould play a major part. Anyway, spent a lot of time with it just to find out that players seem to listen a bit during friendlies but once the games get serious they just stop paying attention. Thats a major flaw in the game in my opinion!

retired_rayrhi

Training
First and foremost, I think the training module needs to be completely re-vamped. At the minute, it's illogical. Some examples:

— To make my GK more composed, I have to train him in finishing.
– To make my CB better at heading, I have to train his flair, dribbling, and first touch, etc.
— To make my ST have higher concentration, I need to tain him in tackling and marking.
— To have my wingers improve their crossing ability, I have to have them practice long throws, free kicks, and penalty taking, etc.

Apart from being illogical, it's also a waste of allocated coaching time having these 'contradictary' set ups. Perhaps there should be position specific training options. Perhaps the training should even be abolished? In it's current state, I simply load up my saved schedules, because I have to, and then I don't look at training EVER again. I find it a hindrance and I find it irrelevant. We all know that training is one of the most important aspects of football. I love leroy's idea. How about this:

You are Everton, and you're playing Man Utd away next week. You decide that you are going to employ a man marking system at the back (another manager may have a different approach and this could be reflected in your training drills like leroy said already). So, you have the back four doing 4 on 4 man marking drills all week (amongst all the other stuff they do). At the end of the week there could be a report:

Lescott: +2 marking
Hibbert +1 marking
Stubbs -1 marking

Every week, your players could gain, or lose, an attribute boost just for the stats you have focused on for the upcoming game. This would make training more interactive, relevant, and most importantly, fun. It could maybe have a detrimental effect on certain other stats depending on the quality of your schedules and coaches — kind of like a pros and cons training regime.

There's lots more ideas, but I don't want to clog the forum artery.

retired_nayelita

agree on loan thing.

computer teams train young superstars way to little

retired_Balanchinegal

I was reading up until this point, honestly Arteta, could you not have picked a better example???
I feel physically ill now... :thdn:

retired_janellewood86

Training
I agree with Arteta. USM98's training system (though very simplistic and far from perfect) gave you hourly slots every day of the week to do training. These could be things like team passing, 5-a-side, offside trap, tactics etc. etc., and the whole team would benefit.

You could also set aside an hour to "individual" training, which was controlled by a different system - you could dictate what each individual's training would be. As the game only basically had ratings for each player in one category (defenders were tacklers, midfielders were passers, strikers were finishers), the individual training focussed solely on that one schedule.

But what about if you could create a set of schedules which were "individual" - that is, fewer slider settings (maybe only 10 per category), but a similar system to now where you could have defender schedules, midfielder schedules, returning from injury etc. etc.

This would run paralel to the team training - have to whole team doing drills all week, but keep the "individual" training groups to hone stats (ideal for long-term player development).

In writing this, I found the following links. Be kind on the game, it's 10 years old...

http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/ultimate-soccer-m...s/gameShotId,218379/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/ultimate-soccer-m...s/gameShotId,218380/

If you look at the individual section, imagine that but based on our current slider system. Does this make sense?

Tactics
Goalkeepers - give us proper instructions we can actually use. Let us actually use defender collect or get them to change their distribution. I long for a save where I can get my GK above a 7.00 average rating for the season...

Team-wise, I don't think the system needs that big an overhaul. I'd perhaps like to see more info on the graphical pitch, and perhaps more positions. By that, I mean why do we have to be limited to the rigid blocks. I don't want a return to Wibble Wobble, but either giving us a little more freedom or allowing us to see what our instructions are doing to the shape of our team would help in tactical planning. So, if someone has often forward runs, let us see a coloured arrow going forward, or let us have a radar page which shows our player moving up and down the flank. If we give a player very high mentality, let us see him on this radar pitch further forward than normal.

Obviously, I don't want that on the normal "positions" tab on the tactics screen, but a separate "shape" tab would let us see the gaping holes in our formation or potential trouble spots.

That's all my ideas for now - it's late.

retired_janellewood86

Oooh! Oooh!

Sorry.

Average Positions. A brilliant piece of after match analysis. The Times have used this for a while now, and it shows the positions that players are in when the touch the ball and find the mean position they would be on the pitch - the "average" position they touch the ball.

You would imediately see the implications of your width, d-line, forward runs etc. etc. etc. and try and keep stray players more focussed or get certain players to move around more.

I'm done.

retired_pennyyoung

coach qualifications can be a interesting addition.

im thinking that it could be included as part of the tutorial. mainly for newcomers, but it would be incentive for seasoned players to go through the tutorial section, and hance be, well, enlightened of changes etc.

heh.. could be nice.