It has been a tremendous season for the newly promoted Shimizu S-Pulse in Japan. By playing a clean slate 4231 tactic we have ended the season with silverware. Today’s blog post focuses on this tactic and provides an update on the events of my first season at the club. This post will be broken down into the following sections:
Tactical Roles
Shapes, Instructions + Rotations (4141 to 4231)
Season 1
Squad Overhaul
Tactical Roles
In Possession
I start my tactic creations with how I want my teams to be in possession of the ball: particularly thinking about how I want my players to create chances and score goals. Each time I do this I am faced with the same dilemma: build a tactic that suits the players I currently have OR place the players in a tactic that I want them to play. For Season 1 at Shimizu I have done the former, and something I usually end up doing: we build around two main players:
Takashi Inui - a creative presence at attacking midfield, who I will play as a No.10.
Capixaba - a pacey winger, who looks best deployed out wide.
With those two positions filled, I wanted to give the Advanced Playmaker more options in attack. My thinking is that the Wide Forward will create width right up into the ball entering the final third and stretch the opponent’s backline. This, in turn, also creates space for the Advanced Playmaker to exploit. This is where the final attacking role comes into play: the Centre Forward. It is no surprise that this role will be the more central threat, whilst it will sometimes channel run…its primary job is to stay central (hence the name, duh).
I would like one more goal threat in the side, and this is where the Box to Box Midfielder comes in. This role moves up to attacking midfield position when in the final third, becoming a threat from outside the box and helps pen the opposition in. It offers a different way to attack than the previously mentioned advanced roles, who all look to get into the box. It also has a nice knock on effect for our Advanced Playmaker’s positioning which I will detail further on in this post. With a Box to Box Midfielder selected, this means I should field appropriate cover in this area. I have gone with an adjacent Defensive Midfielder.
My defensive choices are rudimental: a back four. The Full Backs are chosen on the basis that my wide attacking roles will hold their width until the attack is in an advanced stage. My Full Backs can simply offer width, and security, from a deeper position and support the progression of our play forwards. My Goalkeeper is a more traditional shot stopper and not somebody who is necessarily great with his feet. I have therefore selected ‘no nonsense’ as a result.
Out of Possession
It is going to be very difficult for me to use anything other than two banks of four out of possession in FM26. Two rows of four is an effective shape to provide cover to the routes into our defensive ‘house’ (the penalty box). Stop the crosses? I think we can. Play through us centrally? Good luck. I have also placed a screening DM in here too for good measure, which is the more conservative Defensive Midfielder. Here are the defensive movements, you can see that I am not asking too much of the players to switch from 4231 to 4141:
Centre Forward stays forward and becomes our Outlet.
Both Winger and Wide Forward drop down to become Wide Midfielders.
Advance Playmaker and Box to Box Midfielder drop down to central midfield.
Shapes, Instructions + Rotations (4141 to 4231)
Here are the two shapes alongside one another:
Below are the Team Instructions I used. You will see that I have used Regroup when out of possession, and then to counter attack once the possession is regained. I chose these two instructions because we are a newly promoted team, and therefore expect teams to be more aggressive against us. This means we need to be defensively solid, but also attack the spaces that the opposition gives up. To make the counter attack effective, I’ve chosen to do this at a higher tempo and to be more direct. Once in the final third I have encouraged dribbling due to the tricky ball players I have upfront. Despite the urgency with getting the ball forward, I have gone with more patience to get the ball into the box, as opposed to shooting for low % chances. I am happy to have fewer shots, but with those shots having higher Expected Goals (xG). You will also see that I am encouraging the players to pass to feet, to support the forward advances into the opposition’s penalty area. The pass to feet instruction also complements our build up from the goal, where I ask players to play out from the back and play through the press.
The 4231 tactic has only one Positional Play rotation: the Box to Box Midfielder pushing up to the AMC spot has a knock-on for the Advanced Playmaker who will shift slightly over to the left hand size of the pitch. This is proven to be helpful to the attack, as the playmaker is positioned nicely to thread some line breaking balls into the left sided Wide Forward role and other roles around him. Note - to find out more about the Box to Box Midfielder role, I recommend watching The Deep Lying Playmaker’s FM26 video (released on the day I am writing this). It says exactly what I wanted to write right now, especially with pairing the Box to Box Midfielder with a playmaker role in a more advanced area. That partnership is shown below from a 2-0 win away against Frontale Kawasaki in my save, where the Box to Box Midfielder (Chinen) will drive forward centrally. You can see he makes a one-two with the Winger (Capixaba) before using the Advanced Playmaker (Inui), who has undergone that Positional Play rotation. The technical approach is eventually rewarded with a ball onto the onrushing Wide Forward (Fessin) to score.
It is also worth noting that there would be an additional rotation if I had the AMR inverting (I do not). For example, if you placed an Inverting Winger/Inside Forward then their starting positions would be moved further wide to accommodate the Box to Box Midfielder. The Tactical Evaluation tool in the creator would likely prompt you to address this anyway, which is a nice/under the radar FM26 feature. Anyway, Capixaba in the WInger role will instead stay wide and only drift in until the final third moments. Again, this has worked really well with Capixaba being predominantly left footed. It is very similar to Bukayo Saka’s behaviour in Arsenal’s real-life 433.
Season 1
So, how well did the tactic work? Well, the header image to this blog was a big spoiler…as the guard of honour from Tokyo Verdy on the penultimate weekend of the season was recognition for our immense efforts. Newly promoted Shimizu S-Pulse are 2025 J1 League winners. Here are some top level stats, which from a basic level show how good we were this season:
To further the point, here are a few more statistics from the season:
1st place in Expected Goals For (xGF) with 68.44.
1st place in Goals From Corners with 11 goals.
1st place in Chances Created with 175.
I am finding so much of FM26 hard to capture for a blog post, especially the Fixtures for the season played and Data Hub. Please make do with the final league table and the competitions recap screen (below).
What is most pleasing, and contrary to my Stade Brestois 29 Advanced Access beta ™ save which relied solely on one man, is how well we distributed the goals around the squad. Club Captain Koya Kitagawa (Centre Forward) leads the way with 17 goals + 9 assists, closely followed by Takashi Inui with 14 goals and 15 assists and Capixaba with 10 goals and 13 assists. With another sixteen players registering goals this campaign.
Squad Overhaul
Usually I am not this good, this quickly, in Football Manager saves. It all feels very CM4, not just in how I approach the game this year…but also the instant success I have experienced (see a recent Monaco save). Whilst I could continue with the 4231/4141 tactic, I am going to revise formation for Season 2. Whilst many aspects of our game may remain similar, I will look to recruit around a few different player roles. Also, my conviction to do this was set in stone after club MVPs (and the guys I introduced at the start of this post) Takashi Inui and Capixaba refused to sign new deals with Shimizu S-Pulse. They now leave on Free Transfers 🕯️
With the relaxed squad registration and foreign player rules coming into effect from 2026, we may just have to go heavy on Brazilians.
To find out what I do, perhaps come back and visit the blog in a little while? Thank you for reading/sharing and caring.
Tony / FM Grasshopper
Editor’s note: Special thanks to Ed Wilson and Mike According for sponsoring this latest blog post.