Hola a todos!
The #FM24EarlyAccess is here, and the excitement ahead of the full release is now at fever pitch. But before I go an embark on my SuperClub Diaries save, I thought I would try out some sweet tactical goodness in Mexico, with CF Monterrey. Firstly, why Mexico? Well, it’s a fairly short Opening/Closing league system with the addition of the newly re-formatted Leagues Cup containing Major League Soccer franchises. There are also no relegations + promotions right now, so it makes sense to manage in this nation for a relatively short period…rather than a long-term save. Secondly, why CF Monterrey?
Squad review
It has been a four-year spell without a trophy for CF Monterrey in real-life, yet there is potential to challenge for honours from the beginning of this save due to some great players being present in the Day 1 squad:
Esteban Andrada - a former Miami Galáctico in an alternate FM Universe. Not sure why, but I love this Goalkeeper. Tall, dependable with old school ‘keeping attributes.
Héctor Moreno - Mexico seems to generate many players with 100+ international caps. Moreno is 6th on the most capped list, with 132 appearances for El Tricolor…he is a classy left-footed Centre-Back who can bring the ball out of defence and pick a good pass.
Sergio Canales, Jesús Corona (‘Tecatito’) and Maximiliano Meza - Three technically gifted players here to build around, all three need to be in the First XI. All three have a decent mix of Flair, Technique and Vision.
There are a number of other players I have grown to like during this short play-through, but the five mentioned above are what drew me towards Monterrey. Here they are in FM24, (please do not mock the lack of club logos/facepacks…I’ve made no efforts to download them so far):
Building the tactic
So, the ideas of fitting the previously mentioned five players all went onto my tactical whiteboard. Here is the first concept of a tactic I had in mind for CF Monterrey:
My whiteboard.
The arrows crudely drawn by oneself hint at the kind of movement I was looking for, so you can probably guess some of the roles I intend to use. Maybe have a go at guessing before you read on?
4141 to 3241, with Positional Play
Positional Play, in my view at least, is not a new concept. I grew up with people telling me to pass as triangles on the football pitch, overloading a certain part of the pitch when in possession of the ball. Whilst I appreciate Pep Guardiola gets the modern day plaudits for Positional Play, in a lot of ways…it was already in grassroots football years/decades ago OR maybe it has always been in football? In Football Manager 2024 we now see players have a greater awareness of one another, so for the early-access content I wanted to use a few roles that trigger these transitional movements. Based on the previous screenshot I decided to try the below roles:
Libero (Defend) - moving CB to DM
Inverted Full Back (Defend) - moving FB to CB
Mezzala (Attack) - moving CM to AM
You can see clearly how the first couple of transitions work, the Inverted Full Back will slot in to the space vacated by the Libero (who forms a double pivot with my Deep Lying Playmaker). The final transition of the left sided Mezzala movement is not a new one, however the way Football Manager sees the players around him react to that movement has been tweaked. So, that means any wide player stays that little bit wider (to allow the Mezzala full occupancy of the half-space) and the Attacking Midfielder moving to the right slightly. Remember: FM24’s Positional Play is as much about the shifting of a role (e.g. an Attacking Midfielder) around a transitional role (e.g. Mezzala), than it is of the latter moving into certain spaces. I think it is important to bold this particular point, because I have seen a bit of confusion around the content creator community thinking Positional Play is the movement of certain roles themselves, which have largely always been there (think: Deep Lying Forward and Central Midfielder on Attack for example), nor is it the Enganche moving out wide under all conditions for example, rather it is the Positional Play from other roles forcing it to happen as a rotation.
Because Football Manager 2024’s user interface does not show you a general in possession shape, I made one myself (see below). In the far left image I have a stripped back 2D Classic view of the pitch in the various zones, which FMers on the forums from yesteryear sometime like to call strata. The middle is out of possession, i.e. the tactic that you see on FM24 and the far right is the general spaces the roles like to move into. I appreciate I have not yet shown you the actual roles in their entirety, nor the Team Instructions…that comes next:
There is a part of me that doesn’t sit well with showing an ‘in possession’ graphic, as there are so many subtleties that dictate the precise location of a player on the pitch at any one time. But that’s their general locations from the general patterns of play I see from an Opening Stage play-through with CF Monterrey. Below is how the wider tactic looks in FM24. Note - I’m not usually one for asymmetrical tactics as I feel the AI doesn’t cope to well against them, but the DLP-S is there for the progressive balls to Winger but also a nice cross-field switch is on for the attacking Mezzala. Anyway, all tactics are asymmetrical once we’re in possession…so I’m cool with it. Here’s how we set up:
CF Monterrey tactic.
As always, I’ve evolved the tactic…accepting that I never get it exactly how I want it right from the start.
Mentality - I’ve either been on Balanced or Positive in this save. Balanced is when I want to show slightly less urgency, usually when in control of the game already.
In Possession - I’ve always made sure CF Monterrey have been a team that play out of the back. It suits the skillset of the Centre-Backs and Inverted Full-Backs that are also capable of playing centrally. There were times I changed our approach play though, removing Work Ball Into Box when switching Deep Lying Forward to Advanced Forward. During this switch, I would also usually remove the lower tempo…increasing the chance of the Advanced Forward getting a forward ball sooner. Low crosses is also something I added to the tactic too, and for obvious reasons: we’re not overly tall or physical upfront, but rather quick and nimble.
In Transition - I think I also kept these the same across all games. But I did ask the Goalkeeper to slow down distribution during some gut wrenching Opening Stage Finals (more on this later).
Out Of Possession - The only change here is when I noticed long kicks from opposition goalkeepers reaching my Centre-Backs and beyond. One goal is the line in the sand for me to switch and drop lines deeper towards my own goal.
Player Role changes - the eagle eyed readers may have noticed that Jesús Corona was very advanced in my tactical whiteboard drawing in the Attacking Midfielder zone. I moved him down to the Central Midfield zone part-way through the season and he was on the ball a lot more as a result, which is what you want for somebody with Dribbling 18, Flair 18, Technique 17 and Vision 16! The move was justified, as he has topped our Dribbles statistic with 5.33 per 90 over the course of this Opening Stage campaign.
Now I should probably show you some goal highlights, and to do that I will do it in Loom - a video capture software that also allows me to to talk to you…
As for other bits:
I used default set pieces, except tweaked Defensive corner routines to help with counters - whereby two players are left upfield to break forward if given the chance. Surprisingly, I was amazed my Assistant Manager routine had everybody back, which kind of invited the pressure!
No Opposition Instructions used. Not against them, I just feel I did not need to mico-manage this.
Only two Player Instructions used: Defensive Winger set to run wide with the ball (stretch the play) and attacking Winger told to cut inside with the ball (overload central areas).
Magic in Monterrey
If you got this far into the blog, I’m guessing you want to know how it all went in the Opening Stage with CF Monterrey? Today is your lucky day…
Leagues Cup
The revamped Leagues Cup now contains all clubs from MLS and Liga MX and it offers a unique experience in FM by seeing two leagues go up against one another - dare I say it’s relatively unknown to FMers right now? It starts with 15 groups of three clubs, before 1st and 2nd places are then placed into four regions (Central, East, South and West) where it becomes a knockout tournament with Quarter, Semi and Final games. The four winners of these regional finals then enter the ‘Semi Final play-offs’. Here’s how we did:
Stay in your lane MLS…
Seeing that the Board only ever wanted us to be competitive, we surpassed expectations by making it to the regional final…losing on penalties to Tigres at home. Pretty devastated with that, but the main focus was on the Opening Stage domestically…
Opening Stage
One thing I struggled to do in the early access save was manage the fitness of certain players as we played every 3 days with Leagues Cup overlapping into the Opening Stage. Simply put, I probably needed an extra player or two during this run but I turned off the opening Transfer Window (damn). Once we only had the Opening Stage to focus on, the run was strong: 12 games unbeaten to finish the season in 3rd.
You can see that some little tactical tweaks from concept to finished tactic worked with the unbeaten run.
Opening Stage Finals
The Opening Stage Finals were a good reminder of the ‘h’ in FM-exico to grant the higher seed passage in the event of a draw. We made good use of that as Santos Laguna gave us a really good two ties.
Massive.
Seeing as Pachuca were our first defeat of the save in the Liga MX tie, I was keen to dial in a bit more and make some pragmatic changes. I decide to use the Focus Play Towards The Left vs Pachuca, because I suspected that they would play with IWB and an advanced Winger at AMR (based from Scout Report). With Canales returning from injury, it could be a good area of the pitch for us to exploit. So it proved too, with a healthy 5-2 aggregate score to take us into the final.
So, the Opening Stage Final: 3rd meets 8th. It’s classic Latin American goodness that I have come to love, whereby the league finish is really just a footnote. Bring your A Game when it matters, and you will do well my son. This is what Monterrey, and much to my surprise, actually did. With a depleted and tired squad, we had to show our mettle against a difficult Atlas side who had hit form when it mattered. Despite having five Moneterrey players in the match day squad needing a rest for the 2nd leg, we went to Atlas and won 2-0 (after drawing our home leg 1-1). It is time to celebrate the first trophy of FM24…
WE DID IT™
Too boring/long/short; did not read? I used three tactical roles that trigger Positional Play rotations: Inverted Full Back, Libero and Mezzala. We transitioned from a lop-sided 4141 of sorts to a 3241 in possession. Whilst we did not win the Leagues Cup, we managed to finish 3rd in the Liga MX and won the thing outright by progressing to the Opening Stage Final: beating Atlas 3-1 on aggregate. Gracias por todo, CF Monterrey.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy the FM24 Early Access.
Tony / FM Grasshopper