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As wwfan has recently described in this forum (though conveniently ignored at virtually every juncture), football managers don't use one catch-all tactic. Sir Alex may play 4-4-2 week-in, week-out, but does he use the same 4-4-2? Indeed, is it not true that in the closing stages of a game, Manchester United play a very slow possession game when in the lead to grind out the final minutes?
We know that Football Manager (and its ancestor, Championship Manager) allowed a manager to come up with a balanced system to gain success, and then we could bring in the world's best players to our club and go on to win amazing things. I would argue this is still possible to an extent, only it takes a longer amount of time and slightly more attention to detail.
I honestly believe however you can win with one approach. Notice the word approach. I have been playing recently with a new method. Basically, one tactic, only changed slightly for different situations. Tactics+...
Game situations
As I mentioned earlier, wwfan outlined five key ways that most teams play their football. Since he writes a lot better than I do, I shall quote him directly:
Quote:
wwfan (A Parting Plea to SI, p. 2, 11-5-2007):
Let's get rid of all the rubbish suggesting you need 10 plus tactics, multiple tweaks, massive differences between minor slider positions, lack of consistency in tactics. It's not rocket science.
Basic strategies:
Defend: I will keep everyone back to prevent a goal Counter: I will mainly defend but try to score on the break Possession: I will balance defence and attack Attack: I will mainly attack but maintain some defensive solidity Chase: I'll throw everybody forward in a last ditch effort to get something out of the game
I challenge anyone to deny that these are not realistic footballing strategies that ALL managers cycle through during the course of a season. They are not hard to design. They work. That's five (5) tactics, all logical, all realistic, all effective. All you have to do is work out when and how to use them.
To this, I will add only the following. You may not choose to call your tactics by these names, nor necessarily will they fully do what thos descriptions suggest. However, if you have three "normal" tactics (as named above, counter, possession and attack) and two "extreme" tactics (kill and chase) you can gain a lot of success from just watching the extended match highlights and flicking between the tactics as needed.
My approach
I'm currently playing in the Conference North having just narrowly missed out on promotion with the team predicted to come last, Vauxhall Motors. I had neither a good squad, nor a great tactic, but by flicking between just four tactics I managed to nearly win the league.
The approach is by no means new. The next Diaby's RoOmbus and Creativo sets, and GarryWHUFC's 4-3-3 RoO sets all have different situational tacitcs. Normally, Home, Away, Away Attack, Home Attack, and perhaps a kill-game or gung-ho vatiant. The idea of playing defensive away and attacking at home is also something that a lot of managers do, and most of the tactics available for download from these forums will have a "home" and "away" version.
What I did
I set up a tactic designed to be defensively solid and not ask the players to think too much - they're on an average of £60 with no professionals in the squad what-so-ever. They have a little pace, so I've decided to train them primarily in strength and aerobic to excentuate this, and I've gone for a bog, standard, no arrowed 4-4-2. It's narrow, low creative freedom, low mentality and counter attacking. Since I know most sides will be favourites to beat me, this should suffice. For now. This was called Tight, since its job was to keep a clean sheet and search for goals if needed. Most akin to "away" tactics or wwfan's "counter".
From this base tactic, I went on to create three other tactics that I could encorporate into my Tactics+ set. First, I raised the width slightly made my team more attacking, added a few more forward runs and a little more defensive line. I kept counter attack and all my other options, since I want this to be the same tactic, just more open. This one is designed for games where the opposition aren't coming at me, and I need to take the game more to them. I called it Open. I then created my two extreme tactics - a 4-1-4-1 based on the Tight variant, with higher closing down in the midfield to stop the opposition stringing any passes together called Kill and a 4-2-4 with very wide, all-out-attack settings called Chase. That was it - 4 tactics which had taken full shape about 10 games into the season, and only failed on me in the final five because a) my morale plummeted and b) I didn't create an attacking tactic which I needed by this point since I was favourites for pretty much every game. Still, 4th is better than the predicted 22nd, so I consider it a success.
How this works
Basically, if one doesn't work, use the other. I always started with tight, unless favourites in which case I went open from the start. Once in the lead, I would switch to tight to account for the attacking opposition, and then to kill in the last 20-30 minutes to avoid the 4-2-4. I rarely gave up leads using this variant.
Conclusion
You don't need 100 tactics, or 100 tweaks. You need one tactic - you just need to vary it slightly. Turn it into a Tactic+, and you should be able to deal with most situations, just by bringing down the drop down menu and clicking a different name. Next season, I will need perhaps one more variant, an attacking one, and then I will have the full set of 5.
It won't be a supertactic - but it shouldn't require hours of micro-management and attention to the minutest detail - just the patience to change when things aren't working, or you need to dictate the pace of the game. Just like real life, eh?
I also go no-arrows most of the time, seems my players finds better positions by going with this aproach.
in your 4-2-4 do you have AML/R or FL/R? The chasing tactic is the one I'm struggling with at the moment, all the other ones are near perfect, but I can't seem to get my players stop the hoofing and the running when going ultra attack...
Although I agree with 95% of it, I will throw a spanner in the works reasonably soon.
At lower levels and with a lower reputation I agree with everything you say. At high levels, with a higher reputation, you need one more trick up your sleeve.
perhaps the most important point, and what separates your post from a lot of the other great posts about tactics, is the emphasis on concept that the variants are just that--situational adjustments to the tactical approach, not 'hundreds of new tactics.' one saves them as 'tactic files' merely as a way of adjusting many sliders with one click.
a big up for showing how simple it can be. a double big up for focusing on principles rather than merely uploading tactics.
hopefully some of the many FM players lost in darkness without lamps will experience that "aha" moment when the relationship between FM tactics and real football starts to make sense (for me, "aha" happened reading wwfan's rule-of-one).
i'm hoping you follow through with this thread, Millie, until your lowly Vauxhall Motors become mighty; 'the big time' is a whole different world from conference north/south (new thrills, new dangers)--but the core principles are the same.
also eager to see what spanner the maestro (wwfan) has in store...
Although I agree with 95% of it, I will throw a spanner in the works reasonably soon.
At lower levels and with a lower reputation I agree with everything you say. At high levels, with a higher reputation, you need one more trick up your sleeve.
You always need to cause problems, don't you?
No, I accept that this is a very basic approach for now - like I said, I have 4 tactics at the moment, and I am more than aware that this will not be enough once I become established. I'm predicted mid-table this year, so I will need more. At the moment, I'm guessing that will be a more attacking variant and probably another "possession" type variant.
Thank you for the kind words all. Hopefully this thread can show that one tactical approach can win things, it just needs to be adapted to each situation.
I also go no-arrows most of the time, seems my players finds better positions by going with this aproach.
in your 4-2-4 do you have AML/R or FL/R? The chasing tactic is the one I'm struggling with at the moment, all the other ones are near perfect, but I can't seem to get my players stop the hoofing and the running when going ultra attack...
It's a flat four, two MCs and another "flat four". My passing is the same as normal, I just go all-out-attack on the team instructions.
To start with I had hardly any luck with it, but as the season progressed it started saving me more and more points. It concedes a fair few too, but then my "kill" version bags goals against the AI 4-2-4, so I call that a fair exchange.
Although I agree with 95% of it, I will throw a spanner in the works reasonably soon.
At lower levels and with a lower reputation I agree with everything you say. At high levels, with a higher reputation, you need one more trick up your sleeve.
At high levels I find you need a player different to the rest of your team. Someone who can turn a game on its head or conjure something from nothing. Thats normally my trick
Millie- a bit extreme but this is an amazingly amazing thread. BIG thumbs up to you, you've knocked a lot of sense into me. After reading so many theories my brain has this weird idea that i cant do this cant do that, but really anything can work if you do it properly. I will try this approach and it will probably work for me.
Originally posted by Leroy1883:
One tactic, tweaked slightly. Re-ranking whats that?
You've hit the nail on the head, there, Leroy. Re-ranking is only very slight, and if you have a set of different approaches the only way you even notice it is when you realise that you're favouring one tactic over another for a number of games.
I'll say it before, and I'll say it again - re-ranking is not the reason you lose loads of games in the second half of the season.
I've also made a new tactic, now, called Press, for those games where I'm favoured to win. I'm currently doing a lot better than last season because of it, though I'm two positions lower. Telford and Southport never seem to lose.
Still, I have a set of 5 which I rotate. I don't always get it right, but at least I don't have to "tweak" endlessly to get any sort of result.
Tactics+ - A new approach for a new game 
Linear Mode
