Hello, this post allows me to break away from my usual Football Manager writing and explore tactical concepts around the World in the attempt to translate them into Football Manager. The aim would be to write about teams that are not at the forefront for most European readers, so there’s likely to be no English Premier League or German Bundesliga analysis here! Disclaimer: interpreting real world tactics and applying them into Football Manager is easier said than done. Often a team will have several systems that are deployed throughout the match based on in-game scenarios and events, making it very hard to translate this into Football Manager. So I’ve taken what I think are the key elements of their systems and player roles, based on observing key moments of real-life matches.

Previous posts in this series:

1. Eduardo Coudet’s 4-1-3-2 at Racing Club 🇦🇷

2. Matías Almeyda’s 4-2-3-1 at San Jose Earthquakes 🇺🇸

3. Marcelo Gallardo’s 4-1-3-2 at River Plate 🇦🇷

For my fourth instalment of this series, I return to Major League Soccer in order to take a look at Bob Bradley’s Los Angeles FC…who have become an interesting team to watch in their short existence.

Intro

62-year-old Bob Bradley has had a long and mixed managerial career, from starting off in MLS to achieving USMNT fame with a 2007 Gold Cup win; before the blemish of Swansea City who he left with a disastrous 18% win record after just 11 games in the Winter of 2016.

Back now in his homeland, he’s pulled together a diverse Los Angeles squad of 13 different nationalities and has got them playing some of the best football in MLS with an exciting 4-3-3. This is the formation I am basing my replication on, and more specifically from the 6-2 win Vs cross-city rivals LA Galaxy in July 2020 for what is nicknamed: El Tráfico.

Team Philosophy & Formation

I have teased out LAFC’s style of play from watching them via highlights of the traditional 2020 MLS campaign and watching their performances in the new ‘MLS is Back Tournament’, which has run through the Summer of the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar to the teams I have looked at before in this series, Bob Bradley’s team counter-press from the front. So, let’s break down the formation from the top...

There’s a thought-provoking chat between Bob Bradley and Jesse Marsch (Red Bull Salzburg’s Manager and former pupil to Bob Bradley) over on the LAFC YouTube channel from June 2020 (see above); where Bradley goes into detail of how he wants his teams to approach pressing. One quote from Bradley in Part 2 of 2 in particular stands out for me:

“Your best pressing players have to be your attacking players, because that’s the way you’re rewarded by pressing up the field.”

Pressing from the front and placing that defensive mindset into their attacking players is a cornerstone in LAFC’s approach, and bears similarities to Klopp’s all conquering Liverpool side. LAFC’s wide 4-3-3 formation helps with this, especially the hardworking Uruguayan wide players of Diego Rossi and Brian Rodríguez pressing both Full Backs and Centre Backs alike.

Another aspect is Bradley’s desire to introduce, what he calls, ‘Double Actions’ into LAFC’s style of play. As one guy moves inside, another guy moves outside.

“The understanding of double actions, is the way you create space and advantages”.

This is a reasoning for the attack minded Diego Palacios at FB-A advancing into space vacated by the cross cutting Diego Rossi at AML. Bradley takes this a step further too with his fluid attacking trio upfront, who often switching roles and duties between games...but also within games themselves. This can partially be replicated in Football Manager 2020 below, where the two wider players switch positions and roles during various dead ball situations in the Match Engine.

Navigate via: Tactics / Player / Click on Position / Swap Positions With

Once set up, you will see above that we have Brian Rodríguez set up to play Winger - Attack via the default role for the Position at AMR...but in the same role via a Personalised role for AML (because this is defaulted to Diego Rossi as an Inside Forward on Support). Likewise, the situation occurs for Rossi’s swapped position...where he will be personalised to the Inside Forward role at AMR.

Using a Swap Position adds an unpredictable quality to your attack, in both real-life and Football Manager. Any marking strategies that the opposition have is often blown out of the window with a switch up. Where Rodríguez runs down the right, Rossi will cut inside and vice versa; and this will test the opposition’s defence and further probe for weaknesses over the course of a 90 minute match. The impact of a simple swap can really alter your tactic, and it’s something to be aware of when it occurs. For example, the new overload of W-A + FB-A on the left can be as much of a weakness as a strength depending on the game situation and opposition.

In midfield, another aspect of LAFC’s play is the occupation of the two more advanced central midfielders in the ‘Half-Space’: the sweet spot where a player can still play wide, forward to an attacker or even switch play to the other wing. On the right side, I went with Latif Blessing as a Mezzala on Attack and the industrious role of Box-to-Box Midfielder for Mark-Anthony Kaye on Support duty. Behind them I went with Eduard Atuesta as our mobile playmaker: a Regista, who will look to orchestrate play and give us technical security by keeping the ball (more on him, and this role, later).

Lastly the Defence and Goalkeeper are straightforward and not overly exotic. Bradley’s 4-3-3 does not try to do anything complicated here...other than the Full Backs alternating in terms of who advances. Another noticeable trait in certain games was the RB inverting to push up alongside DM, but I didn’t try to replicate this...as I didn’t see enough of it. In Football Manager 2020, I translate 2020 LAFC’s tactic as:

Specific Player Roles

After the opening two months of MLS games in Football Manager 2020, I discuss two roles that are shining brightly in the 4-3-3: The Regista at DM (who has a 7.51 Average Rating) and the Trequartista at ST (7.91 Average Rating).

The Regista

Despite his young age, Eduard Atuesta is the club’s Vice Captain of the squad and took the armband in place of Carlos Vela in the latest El Tráfico. In my view he needs a little boost for any future edition of Football Manager, because he is already a classy playmaker and is growing in stature in MLS.

His real-life performances are challenging to profile into an FM role, he is the deeper pivot of the three for sure but is often mobile enough to have an influence in the attacking play also. Due to us playing a pressing system and us wanting to suffocate the opposition a bit more, I therefore chose the Regista role. Personally the FM20 version of Eduard Atuesta needs to work on his Agility, Composure & Stamina to be an elite Regista*, nevertheless he took to the task really well. Think of him as a conductor, somebody who orchestrates the ball so that it is continually moving and probing the opposition.

*Stop and start, stop and start…being agile and having a great engine are vitally important in my opinion (despite only Composure being recommended for the Regista role out of those three attributes).

Despite being in the DM strata on the Tactics screen, he will receive the ball in offensive areas (and pretty much everywhere else). His game Vs Houston Dynamo in MLS was particularly pleasing...playing 76 minutes, Atuesta had 239 touches, received the ball 119 times, made 10 key passes and gained possession 17 times (and only losing it 3 times). These statistics better any other player who played that day.

The Trequartista

MLS is notorious for having that one marquee player on the squad who is paid a ridiculous amount of money above anybody else. Somebody who usually plays as the silky attacker; who can unlock the opposition defence with a flamboyant assist or majestic solo run. For LAFC, that man is Carlos Vela and the role I have decided to use him as is the Trequartista. It’s perhaps contradictory to the Bob Bradley approach of pressing from the front, and it’s a questionable divergence from real-life (but it’s partly to force this fluid front 3, which can’t quite be replicated as-it-stands). But there is a certain allowance centrally for the LAFC attacker to roam about and do his thing in real-life, whether that’s new signing Bradley Wright Phillips dropping deep in July’s El Tráfico or Adama ‘Dio’mande pushing further forward.

Using the Trequartista has been fun. We see nice interchanges with the Inside Forward and Winger either side of him, and some lovely dribbles where Vela glides past MLS defenders with ease. The Trequartista has an FM reputation of being a lazy role, partly due to the role description saying that “the team need to carry him when defending”...however the role description does go on to say that the team will use him as “a main outlet in attack”. I didn’t really notice much in the way of him being on the periphery of things. He runs around 2km less on average per 90 (11km per 90) than the Wingers either side of him (who average 13km), but his stats still stand up well with the rest of the squad. He also averages around 4 successful dribbles per match, which is the highest in the squad and also the most devastating…seeing that these dribbles are made in advanced areas. His player trait may well be influencing this somewhat too, as Vela prefers to run through the centre with the ball.

Replicating Real Life

The game I am mainly basing my replication from is the July 2020 El Tráfico: a 6-2 LAFC win over LA Galaxy in the Disneyland Florida resort. Going into Half-Time 2-2, LAFC’s 2nd half intensity and crisp high energy transitions steamrolled LA Galaxy…with Diego Rossi scoring 4 goals on the night.

Pressing

As mentioned earlier, Bradley has his teams push the opponent’s backline through pressing. Defending from the front, led by the likes of No.9 Diego Rossi (below)…force the opposition into mistakes before LAFC quickly turnover the play with short passing.

In Football Manager 2020, the attackers when engaged and on the hunt do like to get in on the act…including the Trequartista (!):

Penetrative Passing

Due to the Player Roles/Duties and Team Mentality I have four Very Attacking mentalities in the side: Mezzala in midfield and then the front three attackers.  It means LAFC bomb forward, and although it’s hard to find a goal like-for-like between FM and reality...the desire to get forward from those four guys is the replication I am after.  Especially the goals between the three attackers who spread their output around nicely in terms of goals and assists.

Half-Space

I really miss the crowd noise in post-pandemic matches, but one good thing is that we now clearly hear what the coaches say to their players. A particularly interesting audible during El Tráfico was Bradley’s constant reminders for Latif Blessing to move into the Half-Space, on several occasions you can hear him shout “LATIF HALF-SPACE”. In July’s El Tráfico, Latif Blessing was perhaps too deep and central at times from where Bradley wanted him to be (hence the shouts)...as the Ghanaian is currently in a state of transition from Full Back/Winger to the central areas. In FM I played Latif as the Mezzala on Attack duty and we probably get closer to Bradley’s possible vision with Latif’s future role in the side. Certainly turning a Winger into a Mezzala is the fashionable thing, and something I wrote about when looking at how Matías Zaracho was used at Racing Club in 2018/19.

I played 8 MLS matches and won all of them using this 4-3-3...albeit they were all games I would have expected to win (with greater tests like LA Galaxy still to come). The combination of Rossi-Vela-Rodríguez featured in all games, they were electric as we romped to a goal difference of +17. However, there are weaknesses…with only three clean sheets; the LAFC soft centre can be got at. If possession is lost, or the opposition can escape the press…there is nobody sitting in front of that defence to act as a screen (all three midfielders are roamers, as in real life). Nevertheless, the Board were happy:

With a bit more tweaking I think Bradley’s LAFC 4-3-3 can be replicated even further in order to further align with WhoScored’s “Style of Play”. My recreation only marginally dominates possession (with the highest being 60% vs New York Red Bull’s 40%) and I did nothing with set pieces. But overall I am happy:

If you can’t be bothered to set up the tactic as detailed above, I have also published it to the Steam Workshop. Left click on the image below and download into Football Manager 2020…

As always, thanks in advance for any shares on this piece. Please let me know if you try this system with either LAFC, or any other team. It would be interesting to see how you get on.

FM Grasshopper