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If you’re a conference team and you’ve just drawn Chelsea away in the League, your first thoughts are usually the amount of money you are going to make from this fixture, and then you realise, damn, you’re out of the cup, well, it was a good run wasn’t it? But what if you could pull of the biggest win of your career? In this guide I will be showing you, in my opinion, the best way to play against the big guns when you’re the serious underdog.

Formation

A reasonably defensive formation needs to be used in this situation, such as 4-1-4-1, 5-4-1, you only need one up front as the AI will commit nearly all their team (including CB’s) into attacks and the striker will have enough time to hold up the ball and start a counter attack. The defensive formation is used because you want to outnumber the opposition when defending and it forces the opposition into rushing their shots, this will result in the AI becoming more and more frustrated and could even mean an opposition player getting sent off for violent conduct! (Has happened before)

Team instructions

If you’re playing Global Mentality then playing on a Defensive mentality would be suitable for this situation, it will ensure the team will look to keep the ball and not tire out due to constant defending, and if combined with passing focus down both flanks, the ball will stay away from potential dangerous interception positions and will also mean the opposition will tire out more due to constant closing down around the pitch.

Passing should be direct, no less, this is because most mistakes on FM are because of interceptions due to short passing between defenders, therefore, with direct passing, it will keep mistakes to a minimum. Creative Freedom should be at a minimum and tempo as slow as possible; this is to ensure the team don’t give the ball away unnecessarily and to conserve energy from the onslaught that you’ll receive.

I like to think of width as how tight your team will be at the back, therefore, narrowest possible is the hardest to break down, widest is easiest, however wide width gives you more space to work with when attacking, but you’re a conference side, you shouldn’t be focusing on attacking at all at the moment. So I think that taking all this in mind, the narrowest width is what you should be looking to use. Defensive Line is deep to make sure through balls don’t succeed and it sucks teams in, which helps your team to counter attack.

Time Wasting should be on 20, this allows the player to play to his best abilities and I would have tackling on normal, however, if a player gets booked I’d recommend putting him on easy tackling. Counter Attack should also be ticked.

Player Instructions

At least 5 players should be on FWD runs rarely, usually the Defenders and DM, but you can have more, which means more players will get behind the ball. Having players on long shots and cross ball often is optional, it depends on what their stats are like, and remember there will usually only be one player in the box to cross to so I would usually have both on mixed.

Set Pieces

Don’t overlook this! It’s your best chance of creating a goal.

Free Kicks

You should obviously be looking for your best free kick taker to take free kicks, however, in the tactics screen it gives you options as to whether you want your player to be taking free kicks from the left or right, right footed players find it easier to striker the ball from the left, left footers find it easier from the right, however if you don’t have two players left footed or right footed of roughly the same ability with free kicks, it is better to stick your best free kick taker for both sides.

The Main attribute that determines whether a player is good at free kicks is the free kick stat, however other stats should be taking into consideration such as Finishing, Long Shots and Crossing, the first two affect direct free kicks, the last affects the free kicks which are whipped into the box. Mental attributes that also may have an effect are decisions.

Corners

I think it’s commonly known that in-swinging corners are more dangerous than out-swinging corners, therefore, it is best to select right footed players to take corners from the left, and left footers from the right, but if you lack a certain footed corner taker, it’s best to stick with your best corner taker taking both corners

Attributes that determine whether a player is a good corner kick taker are Corners, Crossing, Anticipation and Decisions.

Loading up the Penalty Area

To give yourself the best possible opportunity to score from a corner, you must give yourself the most options to score from, this means setting players all around the penalty area, near post, far post and challenging the GK. Leave about 3 players back to avoid being counter attacked.

Following these instructions, you should be able to give yourself a reasonable chance of causing a massive upset, but remember, sometimes player quality comes through and no matter what you do, your players just aren’t good enough to keep out the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U....

Karan

good post mate, agree with most of your points

two things though

first, I dont thik its advisable to play completely narrow as you always end up getting overrun down the flanks. especially if you are playing 5 at the back, spaces between defenders are going to be hard to find. i like to keep a width setting of around 8 when playing the big teams

also dont think you should keep time wasting at max. time wasting has been tweaked in fm07 and now does exactly what it says on the box. the last thing you want is a long ball played in behind Terry and Carvalho and your pacy striker racing onto it, only to then proceed to the corner flag and win a throw in.

charker

I've always found that playing defensive just encourages a 5-6 nil thrashing

Crystale

Generally speaking, I prefer playing my usual tactics against much stronger opposition. In fact, my priciple is "let the opponent adjust tactics to my own". I don't change my formation, but I sometimes give some specific instructions. I've yet noticed that defensive mentality doesn't help too much.