retired_hope

Chapter 1: Mentality and Defensive Line

The mentality slider has two main affects on the way that your team will play.

Positional
Your players will position themselves relative to where the ball is on the pitch. If you use an attacking mentality then your players will position themselves further up the pitch relative to the ball and a defensive mentality will see them play deeper relative to the ball.

The advantages of playing with an attacking mentality is that you will have players in positions to create more chances for your team. The disadvantages are that the space behind your defence will have got bigger, increasing the opportunity of a quick break by the other team. By playing defensively you reduce the space behind your defence, but your players will be unable to create opportunities in attack without first moving the ball up field.

Actions
Mentality also has an effect on the choices that your team will make when passing the ball or attempting to score. An attacking mentality will see your team look for forward passing options, they will generally look to shoot if the opportunity has even a chance of making it into the opponent’s net. Playing defensive will mean that you team will still look to pass the ball forward, but with more patience and only when they consider it to have a high chance of success, if not then they will look to pass side ways or back to a team mate, maintaining possession and allowing the attack to start again.

The defensive line slider allows you to change the positional aspect of your defensive line.

As stated above when playing with an attacking mentality your team will play further up the field relative to the position of the ball. A quick break by the opposition is made even more dangerous if the opposing forwards have good acceleration or pace or your defensive line lacks it.

You can use the defensive line slider to play you back line deeper reducing the space behind the defence for the other team to run into. Your defenders will still act with an attacking mentality and still take up their normal position based on their mentality when your team is in possession of the ball., but will drop deeper in a better position to intercept any attack when possession is lost. Increasing the depth of your line will increase the space between you defence and midfield. This gets worse as your mentality get higher and it will present a problem if the opposition has a creative midfield or strikers who like to dribble the ball from deep as they will be afforded more time on the ball to compose themselves and make a good pass or dribble past a unsupported defensive line. This is where using a player in the defensive midfielder position helps as it fills this gap. If you like to play with a flat midfield as I do then just reduce the individual mentality of either one or both your central midfielders so that they play deeper relative to the ball and fill the space.

If you play short passing then also consider pushing up your defensive line to support your team. You should do this if you consider your defenders to be faster than the opposing team. Pushing up increases the chances of your back line wining the ball back after losing possession . It does however increase the space behind the defenders. Use of the offside trap is an option here as it will stop the break dead in it’s tracks, if not then your back line should still be fast enough to recover in time.

The more direct you play the less useful it is to push up as your passing is longer and so playing either a normal line or a deep line when against pace is preferable. Long ball teams will always benefit from playing a deep line because if you don’t win the header up front expect the ball to be heading back your way over the top.

retired_e_fores

Nice, though perhaps you could discuss the relationship between global and indiv mentality at some point (the great debate as such).

Defensive line use needed some clearing up in my head (it's all a mishmash in there from all the different theories and ideas on wht it does - if anything). Reading that has helped a lot.

You've been posting lots of good stuff recently IIRC.

retired_hope

Thanks moggydave,

The above post relates mainly to a team mentality, but it is basically the same principle for individual.

Their are situations where you want individuals to have different mentalities to the rest of the team. A more defensively minded midfielder in the center of the park to fill a hole, a poor winger who isn't having success getting past his marker, so either sub him use him to help the fullback etc.

One of the best is when playing the counter where you have one player with an attacking mentality(probably the fastest) who is going to break, whilst the rest of the team are defensive.

You will have great success using just team mentality the right way. You only need to set a one or two individual mentalities in my view, an always because you need them to do something different.

retired_hope

Chapter 2: Passing Style and Tempo

The Passing Style slider affects who the player will try to look for when deciding who to pass to.

Think of it as passing range. Your player will prefer to hit their pass to any players in their range. If no one is, or they are marked, the player with the ball will scan for the next best option. This will continue until the player makes his decision and passes the ball or the player is closed down by an opponent. Mentality has an effect on the players passing. Players set to an attacking mentality will not worry as much about hitting a risky ball forward to his team-mates. Players with a defensive mentality will be much more choosy about playing the ball forward, only if they think there is a good opportunity for the pass to be completed. If not then they will pass the ball sideways or back to a team-mate and the process will start again.

When choosing a passing style for your team you need to consider a number of things. To play a shorter passing style you will need players with high passing attributes, they will need a good work ethic (Work Rate), be able to make the right choice of who to pass to (Decisions) and a little composure to be able to control the ball under pressure. You also need to ensure that you have the other players in your team positioned so that the they have appropriate passing options.

Playing direct style passing reduces the requirement for high passing stats as direct balls do not need to be as accurate as shorter passing. However as players will tend to receive the ball higher up the body as passing style increases you will need players on the end of the pass who are capable of winning aerial challenges.

The tempo slider has an effect on how quickly your players will move the ball forward. When selecting a tempo for your team you must consider your passing style and also how heavily the opposition are pressing you.

When playing short passing your players will require more time on the ball to make the right pass. The higher your player decisions attribute the quicker your tempo can be as they need less time to make a good choice of pass. Playing more directly allows you to play at a higher tempo as the passing is less accurate.

When playing short passing, the amount of pressing the other team is doing needs to be considered. You will need to set the tempo low enough to allow you to pass the ball accurately but high enough so that your players do not get caught with the ball. This is a balancing act. Teams in England are more likely to press the ball because the they will not tire as quickly in the cooler climate. In Italy or Spain teams will conserve their energy more in the heat so you can lower the tempo more than in England.

Never play direct football without quickening the tempo as you are allowing the opposition time to get into a better defensive posture. Playing quickly and directly attempts to catch them out of position and on the back foot.

retired_lachina

Are u sure mentality has an effect to positional?

Have you tested it yourself? Any evidence to show?

I have tried playing the entire left side on defensive(1 click) and the right side on attacking(20 clicks), and I dun see any difference in their position at all.

retired_hope

If you choose not to accept what I have said then that is fine, it's your perrogative.

If you don't believe mentality has an effect of positon then thats fine, you will take account of this in your tactics.

I have tested it and am posting what I believe is to be the case.

retired_hope

Okay, maybe that wa a little harsh and not very constructive. Sorry lyw_85.

I just repeated the test again. I played a 4-4-2 and placed the left half of the team on menality 1 and the right side on mentality 20 as you did.

I set everyone on mixed forward runs and set closing down to 1 to allow me to observe the positional effects.

What I believe causes the positonal effect on mentality is that the attacking mentality players will make more forward runs than the defensive players. This is even though they are all set to forward runs on mixed.

I am not suggesting that players standing still at a kick-off for example will position themselves at offset from one another due to the mentality. They will line up in your formation.

Just that a team playing a higher mentality will make more forward runs as a percentage, so in effect be playing higher up the pitch relative to the ball.

Hope this improves the original explaination of mentality.

retired_rjw13838

May I suggest you collecting all your guides together for easier reading and put them all in one document or upload it to a website or something. I think it makes more sense if all your articles are together, since they are written by the same person.

retired_hope

Thanks for the suggestion. Each of the topics I have written about are on different aspect of the game.

When I posted stuff like the counter attacking guide and the stuff on oppositon instructions I posted them seperately because wanted them to be more focused in scope.

People with specific questions could post them in the appropiate thread and it would not get convoluted.

Also I had hoped that if they were considered worthy enough then they my have been added to the unofficial bible as a way to read them more easily.

If people didn't post to one of the guides then it would eventually slip away of the rader until some used the search facility.

My main thread is the pure tactics thread. Once things like tactical sliders 101 and attributes are finished then I they will slip down the forum allowing people to view them as an historical resource.

retired_hope

Chapter 3: Pressing (Closing Down) and Time-wasting

The closing down slider instructs your players how aggressively to close down the other team when they have the ball. Increasing closing down puts pressure on the opposition reducing their time on the ball and the accuracy of their passing, but also causes your team to tire more quickly. Reducing closing down allows your players to conserve energy and keep position better, but allows the other team's players more time to make a good pass.

When playing teams who like to play the ball short, closing them down more often something to consider. Against more direct teams closing down is probably less important then keeping your players in position.

Again consideration of the climate, weather and pitch condition are important things to look at when setting your level of closing down. Too much and you team will decrease in condition two quickly and you will become less effective overall.

The time-wasting slider instructs your team how much use tactics that will delay the game. Moderately high levels will see your team take there time over goal kicks and set pieces as well as spending more time on the ball before making there passes. Maximum levels will see your team take even more time as well as move to the opponents corner flag rather than making a cross.

Time-wasting can be used to frustrate a high pressing opponent out of position. This is done by setting up a quick tempo and more direct passing together with time-wasting. The player on the ball will make his decision of who to pass to quickly, but then delay making the it to draw out the other team. This will cause opponents to continue to press and move out of position at the same time allowing the pass receiver the time to try and loose their marker. This is very much a gamble as if you set time wasting to high you will be caught in possession as you left it too late. Don’t time waste with a slow tempo until the end of the game or you risk losing the ball.

Chapter 4: Width and Creative Freedom

The width slider defines how spread out your players are positioned on the pitch. To play with wide you need to have players who on the wing who are good at crossing the ball. If their ability to take the ball past players is limited then you can still use them to put in deeper quality crosses (a la Beckham).

The wider you play, the bigger the gaps in your formation. This leaves more space for fast players to run through after though balls to hit you on the break. Narrowing the formation reduces the risk of the through ball, but opens up your flanks.

Mixed/Direct teams benefit from using the width of the pitch as their passes go longer. Short passing teams can play just as good narrow or wide, the narrower the width the shorter the short passing needs to be. Long ball passing is better in narrow formations as the ball is likely to go out of play if hit to the flanks.

Narrow opponents will force you to play wider as you are less likely to turn the defence with a through ball. You can do the same thing when up against a stronger side. However don’t go crazy with the width as they will hit you with a though ball of their own, through the middle of the park.

You can reduce the gaps between your players by adding an extra player to the line. Changing formation is not a good thing to do often, but in certain situations it may be your only option. Consider 4-5-1 or variants of it when playing a much superior team to really close them out. Also 3-5-2 is a great attacking formation allowing you to increase width with the extra player in midfield making the gaps smaller reducing the risk of a break. 4-4-2 is the most flexible, so for even games this could be your best bet.

The creative freedom slider allows you change how far from players natural position on the pitch they can move into allowing them to better received the ball. It will also give them an indication of the level of flair you want them to use when they are in on goal or trying dribble past a marker.

A conservative approach to creative freedom is recommenced for defensive teams or when playing more direct as positioning is more important in these cases. When playing shorter passing then creative freedom will allow players to take up better positions to receive the ball than if they were more restricted. Even in this case high creative freedom is not recommend across the whole team as they will lose their shape. When you lose the ball the players stop trying to use creative freedom and will return to their normal positions, but they may have ventured too far to get back into position in time.