retired_ankemom

Title says it all.

I'm managing lower league where, by definition, the quality of players is lower. To take advantage of this I'm trying to press the opposition in to making mistakes:

- A team of good athletes (dodgy techniques) with at least 14 workrate
- A high defensive line, with offside trap enabled
- Closing down set to high
- Tackling set to Hard

All that seems to happen is that my players stand off the opposition while they knock it around.

My high defensive line is also laughable as the back four almost never get up to the halfway line, and certainly don't push out of defence with any urgency.

If anyone has any ideas on how to actually make your players close the opposition down and how to make your defense defend high up the pitch then I'd really appreciate it!

JohnSWA

It could be the mentality of your defenders, if they are too defensive they will sit back more.

Also hard tackling can lead to your players being bypassed if they fail to make the tackle. Condsider carefully which players to use this with. There is not point in letting people with poor tackling attribute doing this.

retired_ankemom

Thanks faeron - I'll check what mentality my defenders are set at (guessing default, so probably quite defensive).

All of my first choice defs and mids have tackling of 10+ but they do miss a fair few challenges, which I assume is down to me telling them to dive in all the time I'll try knocking that down a bit!

retired_janay731

Take a look at my thread...

http://community.sigames.com/eve/for...7/m/1612085172

It´s about how to manage individual mentality slider with d-Line, closing down and marking in a global strategy theorem.

I wrote it for Werder Bremen but you can retire useful ideas for your team. In my last post i include individual tackling settings.

Hope you like it GL

retired_fiztrainer

Hmmm....I've big troubles with my Leeds but I made a tactic that worked out fine. Playing very offensive with pressure and short passing. Try it out. 442 Leeds

retired_monica90

I'd advise you to avoid high closing down for central defenders and central midfielders (try about 12ish), and put it up to 14/15 for full-backs and possibly strikers. Give that a go.

pat555

As others have said, let your CDs make the tackles (they'll be the best at it) and let your DL/R or DMC's do the pressing.

Remember also, anyone that is Tight Marking/Closing down lots will have less space to recieve the ball when you win it, so there should always be a balance with several players ready to be an attacking outlet for you (even at lower levels)

retired_ankemom

I've pretty much tweaked every small detail as to what I would think (and what has been said on here) would see my team playing a high pressing game.

In my first few games the same problem is cropping up whereby my team just seem to want to sit deep. Could it be a problem with the players just simply not being good enough (and being forced back) or is it that the players are taking time to adjust to the higher game?

Also, does creative freedom have any impact on things like pressing? Would reducing this make my players more willing to (blindly) follow the team instructions?

Thanks all!