Intro

For the first time in this series I’m not basing a tactical replication on one Manager’s particular tactic or philosophy.  Instead, I am partly focussing on a player role: The Trequartista - and the cultural phenomenon that has been built around such an iconic role on the pitch.

The side I have chosen to use hosts an ageing Trequartista, who perhaps never hit the heights as some of his Italian predecessors (and successors): Western United’s 38-year-old designated player, Alessandro Diamanti. 

Australia’s A-League is the next destination for this tactical series.  A one season save with the aim of getting the best out of Diamanti as the Trequartista, whilst also hoping to turn West Melbourne’s fortunes around after they finished the 2020/21 A-League season losing eight straight league games.  Let’s begin...

Team Philosophy & Formation

I have gone into this save, and this subsequent post, knowing that I wanted to use a Trequartista - and perhaps more importantly, make him the MVP of the side.  Alessandro Diamanti ticks all the boxes. He’s the sole ‘Designated Player’ at Western United and is the key man from set plays.  We’re only going to do well if I get Alessandro Diamanti dancing to the tune of the Italian Fantasistas of old.

But what does this mean?  How would I get the best out of a 38-year-old maverick such as Alessandro Diamanti?  Well, I turn to history...and to the systems that have employed a Trequartista, usually in front threes, in the era I know quite well: 00s Italy.

Puntas & Fantasistas

The famous front threes of Italia follow a similar pattern of playing a prima punta (first striker), a seconda punta (second striker) and a fantasista (Trequartista).  But how do they differ?

Prima Punta

This is your physically strongest striker of the three.  A guy that holds off defenders, but still mobile enough to displace them with good movement and also score goals.  Gianluca Vialli is a good example of this kind of striker, but a more recent example is Luca Toni.  I’d say they are limited as Target Forwards and were probably more akin to Deep Lying Forwards.  Personally, it was an easy choice to place Western United’s Aleksandar Prijović into this role too.  He’s strong, but clearly a technically good player for Australian A-League standards.

Seconda Punta

The secondary striker is one who relies more on Acceleration and Pace to get the goals.  He’ll obviously benefit from the space opened up by the movement of the Prima Punta (DLF-S) but he can also create goals too.  It’s for the latter reason that I chose Advanced Forward over Poacher.  At Western United Dylan Wenzel-Halls is clearly my pacier striker, and the guy I would expect to get goals like the Batistutas and Shevchenkos of old.

Fantasista 

Now to the aforementioned Fantasista.  The guy operating behind those two strikers, between the lines of the opposition’s defence and midfield.  There can never be too much Flair and Technique for this role, he’ll look to score and create...the Trequartista is the obvious choice of player role here.  Some of the iconic Italian sides adopted the Trequartista: Juve’s Roberto Baggio, Roma’s Francesco Totti and Milan’s Kaká.  Now I hope Western United’s Alessandro Diamanti can be the next Italian icon, at least in Australia...

Real World Calcio

Below are some real-life Calcio three-striker systems that I enjoyed watching in the 2000s. These all follow the similar structure of Puntas and Fantasistas, and I have noted the front three’s goal returns:

• 2001 Roma. Vincenzo Montella (Prima Punta), Gabriel Batistuta (Seconda Punta) and Francesco Totti (Fantasista).  Capello’s Roma 5-2-1-2 / 3-4-1-2. 55 goal return.

• 2005 Milan. Hernan Crespo (Prima Punta), Andriy Shevchenko (Seconda Punta) and Kaká (Fantasista). Ancelotti’s 4-3-1-2. 51 goal return.

• 2009 Chelsea. Didier Drogba {Prima Punta), Nicolas Anelka (Seconda Punta) and Frank Lampard (Fantasista) - Ancelotti’s 4-3-1-2. 78 goal return.

The 4-3-1-2

The three attackers fit into a 4-3-1-2, as shown below. It’s shape is in part replicating Ancelotti’s approach over the last two decades, with 2005 AC Milan and 2009 Chelsea as good examples. Three attackers with three industrious midfielders behind them, and a back four. I’ve made a focus on set pieces (which I will come on to shortly), but largely kept it very simple in-and-out of possession. We will distribute long to Aleksandar Prijović (via Distribute to Specific Team-Mate function), who will drop deep with his back to goal who should have quick passing options either beyond or behind him. His strength will allow us to build attacks from, whilst also getting the ball up field and away from our goal.

I’ve enjoyed seeing the left sided Full Back (on Attack) move upfield and join in attacks. His licence to advance forward is supported by both the Central Midfielder (on Support) and defensive Ball Winning Midfielder holding position. On the other side of midfield, the supportive Mezzala offers a sprinkle of width on the right hand side. The chosen player is Sebastian Pasquali who has been educated at Ajax’s academy, and it shows! Pasquali has the technical attributes to be a threat in advanced areas, and he often links up well with all three attackers. He ended up being the side’s 2nd best assister in this save, behind you know who…

Set pieces

Good Trequartistas will naturally be effective from dead ball situations, because there is a correlation of good Technical and Mental attributes that help when striking/delivering the ball. Diamanti should be special from set plays with 17 Technique, 17 Free Kicks, 14 Vision and the ‘Curls Ball’ player trait.

So, the supply looks good. But the demand from set pieces should also be outstanding. “The Giants of West Melbourne” were another compelling reason for me wanting to play as Western United. Just look at their set piece attributes, incl. their size/weight:

I already knew Léo Lacroix from my FM16 save in Switzerland, he’s perfectly suited as the target for our set pieces at 197cm tall. Alongside him, we have Captain Nikolai Topor-Stanley who is similar in makeup to Lacroix. The two centre-backs can alternate their roles in the position, or fill in for one another when one is absent, which unfortunately they had to do with overlapping big injuries. I only played my first choice CB pairing towards the final 1/3 of the season.

I have the Prima Punta (DLF-S) lurking in routines in-and-around the 6-yard box, another guy in the 190cms. As mentioned previously, not only is Aleksandar Prijović strong and up for the fight, he reads the game well with a solid 13 Off The Ball score. Lurking means he will be ready to pounce on flick-ons or mistakes. Lastly, we have a deep runner (Rene Krhin) who will run from outside the box and attack the ball. Krhin is strong mentally and will launch himself into the set piece battleground with the other big boys.

You will also see I have instructed a player to come short. This is my Seconda Punta (Advanced Forward) who is relatively weak from set pieces, in my view he does not offer much in the box. My reasoning for moving him short is that the Opposition will weaken their penalty area by moving a player out to track him (and chances are that this could be a decent defender seeing as I’ve sacrificed a Striker on this occasion). This gives more space in the penalty box, which I hope our four big guys can exploit.

All routines are obviously delivered by the Trequartista (when he is on the pitch), he will hit the Near Post or Far Post targets more often than not 🎯…

Trequartista in the 4-3-1-2

I often wonder whether it’s the player or the role that has more sway on the behaviour in Football Manager. I know the answer is a bit of both, and the complex sandbox that is Football Manager will never provide a definite answer. Maybe it does not really matter, maybe Alessandro Diamanti’s God-like performances are just a blend of player, role, formation and tactics all coming together perfectly?

As the Trequartista, Diamanti is constantly dropping in the hole and making good use of the ball. Most of his attacking outputs came from effortlessly releasing the Advanced Forward (see just two examples below). But player traits also meant he wasn’t afraid to switch the ball and go long.

One worry I did have was a potential clash with the supporting Deep Lying Forward dropping into the same areas as the Trequartista in order to get a hold of the ball. At times they would enter similar pockets of space, but the Trequartista was always more absorbed/obsessed by the ball; moving horizontally around the pitch wherever the ball went…in contrast the Deep Lying Forward moved more laterally. In fact, the DLF would more often than not enter the left channel - I think this is helped by having no advanced wide players. Ultimately, DLF-Treq clashing was no issue for me, but perhaps it’s something to keep an eye on if you use this tactic.

Alessandro Diamanti finished the season as a 39-year-old, but out of all of his 22 professional seasons, this was one of his most productive years: 7 goals and 13 assists in 27 matches. He finished with an average rating of 7.40 and as a result signed a two year deal keeping him at Western United until 2024…when he would be 41-years-old. Diamanti proves it’s never too late to become the next Italian icon (in Australia, at least)!

4-3-1-2 Dream Goal - a breakdown

A great team goal, which I wanted to explain for a few minutes, is shown below. It involved every outfield player, with two special cameos from our Fantasista Diamanti. I have used Loom experimentally to explain why this goal is so pleasing to me; and how it encapsulates the 4-3-1-2. If you feel this is a good method, please let me know and I will consider placing more into blogs in the future…

A Season Down Under

A-League (Regular Season)

The fact that I am finishing up this one season save with the job security of ‘untouchable’ should be enough to tell you that my time with Western United has been a huge success. We had the aim of a top half finish, but instead we completely surpassed all expectations (including my own). No signings were made, the first transfer window was disabled and in the subsequent window I had very little wriggle room in the budget to get anybody in. My approach was to trust in the 4-3-1-2 and enjoy the new game, which I played most of the season alongside my podcasting partner Dan Gear on a bed in Thurso, Scotland.

We were top on Game Week 5 and stayed there the whole season, with only back-to-back defeats in the January Melbourne derbies giving me fear that we would burnout and slide down the league. Alas, that was not to be. We actually went on a 3 month unbeaten run and ended up with a 10 point gap over City rivals Melbourne Victory.

A-League (Finals)
For those unfamiliar, like I was, the Australian A-League breaks away into single legged finals. Places 3-6 will face off first, before the winners meet the top two. It all culminated in an eventual match-up between the two Melbourne clubs who’d won the league in the first place. United Vs Victory.

Annoyingly I had a pre-match crisis on my hands, with three players requiring injections: our Goalkeeper, Left Back and Central Midfielder. Injections did not stop us taking the lead with a near post Lacroix header from a Diamanti corner in the 1st half. However, it was sadly another Italian that stole the headlines with a goal and assist: Sebastian Giovinco. It was a step too far for us, and although I am disappointed to crash in the Grand Final hurdle, our 4-3-1-2 had already surpassed expectations. Western United 1-3 Melbourne Victory.

Assist & Goal Types
You can see that I am not over reliant on set pieces, or crosses, like what FM Twitter would have you believe. In fact, a huge amount of our goals (60%) are assisted from through balls. The most common assist is Trequartista releasing the Advanced Forward to run in behind and score, Diamanti ends with 13 assists. As a team, we end up with the most amount of goals in the league (56), with our Advanced Forward ending up as the league top goal scorer with 20 goals:

2021 Western United. Aleksandar Prijović (Prima Punta), Dylan Wenzel-Halls* (Seconda Punta) and Alessandro Diamanti (Fantasista) - Grasshopper’s 4-3-1-2. 45 goal return*.

*Despite topping the goal scoring charts with 20 goals in 26 starts. Dylan Wenzel-Halls was injured for a couple of months and his replacement, 18-year-old Ayom Majok, banged in 7 goals.

Conclusion and Download

This 4-3-1-2 is obviously tailored with instructions to suit the squad I had at Western United. But I found the 2000s Calcio three-striker system really easy to implement. All you need is three good (but varied) central attackers, follow the principles of Puntas & Fantasistas and you can’t really go too wrong. The interchange and balance between all three strikers is nice to see, and you just need to make sure you have a structure in place behind them. If that balance is in place, then the Trequartista can really flourish…even one as old as 38!

I’ve uploaded the tactic to the Stream Workshop if you can’t be bothered to set up the tactic as detailed above, or play in another language. As always, if you use it I would love to know how you get on.

Thanks for reading,

Tony / FM Grasshopper