In my last post, I outlined the formation I will be using and the reasoning behind it. This post will cover the team instructions I will be using at FC Pripyat. As mentioned last time, I have been watching games managed by Valeriy Lobanovskiy on this website. The two main games I analysed were;
In addition to these games, I have paid particular attention to this article from Spielverlagerung.de and have referenced their article throughout this post.
I'm not really one for tactical replications and was unsure where to start. Thankfully the FM tactics module has been updated in recent years making this sort of thing easier to do by breaking up each element of the tactic into three constituent parts, in possession, in transition, and out of possession. So, when I was watching footage of an old match I simply paid attention to what happened in that phase of the game and made some notes as I went along.
Lobanovskiy was famous for only playing in one half of the pitch. Either the opposition's half, when he was looking to take the game to them or his own half, drawing the opposition in, before launching swift and deadly counter-attacks. I have attempted to recreate both systems based on what I watched.
My number one tactic I have called Lobanovskiy Press - as the name suggests we will be pressing the opposition in their half of the pitch; it will be the focus of this post. I decided to use the Gegenpress pre-set, with a positive mentality, as a starting point. I feel the presets are, perhaps, undervalued. I used them in my Russian save in FM19 and I found them fairly good. I have, however, made small adjustments to refine the style a little better to try match what Lobanovskiy's sides would have done.
In possession
Selected by default: Fairly narrow; Pass Into Space; Play Out Of Defence; Extremely High Tempo
Taking attacking width first,
Lobanovskyi was a strong believer of the idea that the best way to overcome rivals is to manipulate the size of the playing area, making the field larger when in possession and smaller when defending. In order to do that, full-backs and wingers usually provided width by moving upfield.
For this reason, I have set this to fairly wide, which is one notch to the right. I will keep this under review, as playing wide with four midfielders may not be necessary.
One thing that is clear from watching Kyiv games from the 1980s is that they passed into space. Very often the centre-backs would pass the ball between them before playing a long cross-field ball into space. For this reason, I have kept both Pass Into Space and Play Out of Defence selected. I will monitor the Play Out of defence selection, as this means something very different to how Lobanovskiy used it 35 years ago. In early games, I have already hidden behind the sofa a number of times as my centre-backs receive the ball in our area from a goal-kick. I'm also uncomfortable using extremely high tempo. I believe, at the time, Kyiv's play would've been described as extremely high tempo, but in comparison to today's football, it really wasn't. I have moved this one notch to the left, high tempo.
The Soviet defenders often enjoyed some degree of freedom in the initial build-up, and they exploited that well by accurately hitting long-range passes over the opposing back line. The long balls were accurate to move the ball forward and to throw Protasov and Belanov into the final third of the pitch.
I have also added Run at Defence after reading Inverting the Pyramid in which Johnathan Wilson suggested Lobanovskiy expected his advanced payers to carry out around 50 dribbles per game.
Changes: Fairly Wide; High Tempo; Run At Defence
In Transition
Selected by default: Counter-Press; Counter; Distribute to Centre-Backs; Take Short Kicks
Counter-Press and Counter will be retained. Both represent the very essence of Lobanovskiy's football philosophy.
Always emphasising on the fitness of his players, Lobanovskyi enabled his sides to produce intense pressing over the course of 90 minutes.
One of the basic USSR’s attacking approaches was built upon quick counterattacking combinations between both forwards Igor Belanov and Oleh Protasov.
The following two images are stills, roughly two seconds apart, from the USSR versus the Republic of Ireland in Euro '88. In the first image, Ray Houghton (green) has just won the ball for Ireland. He is immediately counter pressed by Soviet midfielders. He loses the ball, and in one movement the three Soviet midfielders counter and are goalside of their opposite number. I particularly like the Irish fullback throwing his arms in the air in despair.
Personally, I don't agree with the goalkeeper instructions being here but they are. From watching Kyiv v Atlético in 1986, it is clear that the Kyiv 'keeper was instructed to distribute it quickly to the full-backs. This is a common way to get around the sides of the opposition, moving up the pitch rapidly. I have adjusted the presets to reflect this.
Changes: Distribute to Full-Backs; Distribute Quickly.
Out of possession
Selected by default: Much Higher Line of Engagement; Higher Defensive Line; Extremely Urgent Pressing Intensity; Prevent Short GK Distribution.
I decided to lower the line of engagement to 'Higher Line of Engagement' which is one notch down. From the games I watched, while Kyiv pressed high, they rarely pressed all the way into the opposition box. The defensive line was certainly higher, but one centre-back was always covering behind the other and I have also reduced the pressing to urgent. From discussions on Slack, I decided that counter-pressing, positive mentality, and extremely urgent pressing would disorganise the side more than Lobanovskiy would have ever allowed.
Changes: Higher Line Of Engagement; Urgent Pressing Intensity
Final Tactics
First of all, this isn't in any way a plug and win tactic. It is merely my first attempt at replicating something from over 30 years ago. It may fail miserably, or it may do well, that is the point of this journey, I have no idea how it will go.
If you have made it this far thanks very much for reading. If you haven’t a clue what is going on you can read earlier posts here.
You can find me on twitter here and I will also be providing sporadic updates about the save and various other things on my slack channel #fmeadster.
Over and out
FMEadster!