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Azulones Tactic
This tactic is an attempt to emulate the apparent shift in world football to a formation with one striker who is then backed up by 3 attacking midfielders (or ‘forwards’). These forwards/AM’s take up a mixture of wide and central positions making them very difficult to mark effectively. The 4 attacking players are given their attacking freedom through the discipline of two holding midfield players, who take up deeper positions, receiving balls from the back four, then spreading the play to the three AM’s. The back four is relatively conventional and there is room for attacking minded or defensive fullbacks.
I think that Man Utd are a good example – although they play with rooney and tevez – usually one of them drops deeper to form an AM/ST partnership (which alternates). They then are supported from the wings by players like ronaldo, nani / giggs who love to drift in field.
I also believe arsenal have started to play like this more recently with adebayor up top on his own who is then supported by hleb in the AM position. They then have roskicy and eboue offering width – and as we know rosicky loves to drift in field.
My supported club – Everton – have also employed similar tactics. Their brilliant recent run has seen them play yakubu up front on his own, supported by the play of arteta, pienaar and cahill, who constantly change positions and drift in field.
Another example would be man city (elano, petrov, and Ireland) – There is also speculation that Fabio Capello will employ a similar system with England using Rooney,Cole and Gerrard in the AM positions
The Tactic:
4 – 2 – 3 – 1
The tactic is built by creating one set global instructions which will be used by the 5 most attacking players in the team. The centre backs will then be given individual instructions and the full backs and most defensive DM will be given neutral instructions.
GK: pretty standard here
FB’s: currently the tactic uses attacking full backs who make forward runs often and close down often – but this could be changed depending on personal preference
CB’s: The CB on the right is slightly more aggressive i.e. closes down sooner and meets most high balls – the left CB should be slightly quicker and better at 1 v 1 defending
DM’s: these are MC’s with barrows - the DM on the left is a destroyer – he should be the most disciplined making no forward runs – the DM on the right is a bit more of a play maker – he is on team mentality and mixed forward runs
AM(left) – has a side arrow to the left AML position – this creates the ‘drifting in and out effect’ – by putting a Sarrow on a player he will take up a position somewhere in between his starting position and the point of the arrow – he has the instructions for a typical winger
AM(centre) – this is the player who links most of the play from the DM to the ST and outside AM’s – he gets a lot of assists by supplying through balls to the ST
AM(right) – same as AM(left)
ST – this man is the finisher – I have used tall strikers here and quick strikers – I think the quick ones work more effectively but they should have some strength as they should hold up the ball.
Player Suggestions:
ST – I think asamoah gyan (udinese) was made for this position – Uche (getafe) was also very effective
AM’s – Andrey Arshavin was amazing in any of the AM positions
DM’s – Banega was made for they creative DM role – Kehl did very well as the destroyer
Success:
I mainly like playing with midtable teams in the top division of their country – I developed the tactic with Getafe after struggling for multiple seasons with other formations. We were predicted to finish seventh but managed to win the league – I did not have amazing players because they have no money and no one wants to join!
Also won the league in my third season with Dortmund – (only started using the tactic half way through second season as I was trying to get a diamond working)
I also used a slight variant and finished 3rd with Palermo in first season (used 3mcs and 2 am’s with sarrows)
European Disclaimer:
I would say in europe the tactic has underachieved – however I have noted improvements if you go more direct and quick tempo
Tweaks:
Didn’t really have to tweak it to much – however I did find it useful to have a variant – 433 and 451 which were used in tough games – the 451 worked against real Madrid everytime we played them!
also when using the 4231 if i needed a goal badly i would switch the AMcentre to right sided striker (thus having two up front - creates a brazil style box midfield)
Great tactic cool.gif Using it with my Everton team and its purring like a rolls royce, playing some great footballl and scoring lots of goals
away from home though i tend to have the full backs foward runs on mixed/ rarely and 2nd cm mixed.
have bought Arshavin playing him as the right AM,Arteta Left and Cahill in the Center supporting the CF with high attacking mentality fernandes as the more denfensive CM with mixed passing and Osman foward runs often with short passing.
4-2-3-1 tactic 
Linear Mode
