FM21 | Next match only

Do you consider tactical changes for just one match when you know you’re underdogs? Or you just have some feeling it won’t be your day? I’m the same, especially after the promotion to the top tier in my current save with GAIS. It’s not about the complete tactics overhaul in my case. I like to make small changes. Did it pay off? Let’s talk about the Next Match Only feature in FM21.

It’s one of the traditional 1000+ new features of the new edition. You can’t see this button within a normal Tactics screen but it appears in the Tactics screen before you will enter the match.

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One of my favourite things within this save in Sweden is that our season is based by the calendar year. There is a long time between the seasons and I have a lot of time to think about several things.

And the transfer window is also a long one so you can count it as a positive thing too despite I like to have my movements early.

And there is also a domestic cup before the league campaign starts. Three more matches in the group stage which you can consider as other friendly matches to test your own things if you don’t have big ambitions to win the cup.

That was exactly our case.

We won our group after a draw with Elfsborg and wins against FC Linköping City and Helsingborgs IF (finally!). And we got AIK in the quarter-final. One of the big clubs in Sweden. Despite they are not the title candidates right now, I knew they can hammer us.

Meeting with the opponent

As I mentioned, I’m not the type of FM player who would change the formation completely. I like how my 3-5-2 is developing within this save. How the roles are working and how our players are performing.

That means I am happy to ignore one of the advice within the Tactical Meeting before the match. My assistant suggested switching from 3-5-2 to a 4-2-3-1. One of the reasons was to use newly signed Vladimir Rodić in a different role in a wide position specifically. But I signed him to play as our main pressing forward (more about it in a different post).

Another part of the advice usually is the opposition instructions but I’m using rarely too many as my assistant suggests.

It’s only about pressing intensity – always within their playmaker or the deeper central midfielder. But only if some of his attributes are not good enough and our pressing can cause him issues.

I took nothing from this screen. Not because of I would not trust to my assistant but mainly because I felt he is not right in this case and I will make my own changes (same as in 9 from 10 occasions, but that’s a different story).

But also because of the bug in the left bottom corner where the Expected Tactic widget appears and it always shows the 4-4-2 formation no matter of the opponent and their tactic.

Finding the main threats

When I check their schedule screen with my fixture view including the formation, the game suggests they used 4-4-2 Diamond Narrow formation in all previous matches in the Svenska Cupen.

It’s also the preferred formation of their manager – Willy Sagnol. Yes, that one.

I was sure about one thing when I checked some of their previous matches before our match against them and from seeing their tactics.

Both wide defenders will be high up the pitch and they will provide a lot of runs forward, many crosses and also a lot of support.

Eric Kahl (LB) is one of their best-rated players just behind Erik Ring. This young winger or striker scored 4 goals and made 2 assists in the Svenska Cupen group stage matches. All as the pressing forward. That means we need to take care of him properly.

AIK formation before the match

Let’s cover it

I’m not using many team instructions in my tactic. I like to use Higher Defensive Line and Higher Line Of Engagement. It worked perfectly with three central defenders while one of them is playing mostly with the Stopper duty.

But knowing we face attacking-minded wide defenders + two strikers + AM player + we are underdogs, I decided to make small tweaks for next match only.

Both defensive line and line of engagement switched back to Standard and we used Cover duty instead of the mentioned Stopper duty.

And both our WB players changed their duty to Defend instead of Support. The main reasons are (probably) obvious.

  • WB(S) is more attacking-minded with Get Further Forward

  • WB(D) is instructed to Hold Position and he doesn’t roam from his position too much

  • WB(D) is also instructed to Take Fewer Risks

I also switched our passing from standard to shorter and I hoped it will lead to shorter and safer passes between WB players, DLP(S) and CM(S) as both these central midfielders have also Hold Position instruction.

WB(S) vs. WB(D)

More patience, bigger stability

All the things above were done with one aim – make us less vulnerable and make us more compact and solid in the defensive line.

I didn’t want to allow our players too much freedom same as against weaker sides when I expect our own domination and the fact we will be the team who will dictate the tempo of the match.

If I would use the team fluidity in the game, it’s connected to what I wanted to do – to be more structured.

Main tactic (left) vs. tweaked tactic (right)

In-match changes

I did fewer changes during the match than I expected before the kick-off as I thought we will be absolutely no danger in the attacking phase but we were even too adventurous in my eyes.

I forgot to mention that I didn’t set some opposition instructions in the end. Not even again wing-backs or again Erik Ring at the top.

The simple change from the stopper duty to cover duty was enough. Same as the support/defend duty change for both wide players.

I made three tweaks during the second half and extra-time (spoiler klaxon!). I set our passing to Much Shorter and our tempo to Much Lower.

It was mainly because of the fact that most of our players were out of energy during the extra-time and I wanted to slow down the game and frustrate the opponent. With a frequent time-wasting in the extra-time 2nd half as well.

The last change was PF(A) to PF(S) mainly to help midfielders with pressing, tackling and winning the second balls in the later stage of the match.

Result?

It resulted in the 0-0 draw after the first 90 minutes and it remained goalless also after the extra-time. And the match went into penalties.

I was lucky that the best penalties takers (Rooney, Eriksson) were still on the pitch and the other players have a good combination of composure and penalties so we were lucky and we won 5-4 on penalties because one home player missed.

We were able to stop their best players, mainly their best striker Erik Ring who was almost invisible. And I like how many their crosses we were able to block.

The clean sheet is always a good sign as well.

I mentioned above why the hold position and shorter passes can help us with the passes between WB players and CM(S)/DLP(S). The passes graphics don’t work in FM21 as it doesn’t show properly but the numbers are in the analysis (not sure if they are 100% right as the stats don’t work properly).

If I wanted more passes between each other and more triangles, it went well. Blixt and Rooney on the right side & O’Rilley and Snib on the left side.

Comparison with previous matches

The main thing I was interested in even before the match was how the average positions of the team will look.

I was pleased the main aims worked well. Our players sat back patiently, our defensive line was much lower and we were able to stop all the attacking efforts of their offensive trio.

But mainly, our wide defenders were able to defend/block much more shots and crosses after their duty was changed.

Comparison of two cup matches. Left – against Linköping as favourites, right – against AIK as underdogs.

*Please ignore the bugs in this picture as there are the same teams twice and I had to select FC Linköpings City at the right side. It’s not my fault that there are some bugs for several consecutive years despite many people reported them. Btw. this picture is like a treasure, it took me only five attempts and the game restarts to make it work.

I also want to share one picture. It’s in the Team Report/Match Analysis where you can find the last 5 matches and some positives and negatives. I selected matches with Elfsborg (1-1), Helsingborgs IF (2-0) and AIK (0-0).

All these matches were against favourites and teams with a bigger reputation and better players. In all these matches I reduced the defensive line against two strikers and switched CD(St) to CD(Co).

You can see some nice positives here related to this – opposition touches to goals ratio, opposition goals from shots in the penalty area (0 goals from 29 shots inside our penalty area).

What’s the point of Next Match Only?

Despite I saved the more cautious tactic, I can use the Next Match Only in the future whenever I will want to change just one thing. The one specifically found and prepared against a specific opponent.

I know we could do the same even in the past without this feature/button but ask yourself how many times you forgot about that one thing you changed for that one match and you forgot to revert it back…

I didn’t forget now, it all reverted back to the original for the next match.

And that’s the time when it starts again.

FM20 | Utilising the Half Back role

The season 2024/2025 brought one important thing within my FM20 save in Mexico. My Celaya FC side started using the defensive midfielder role. After years with the flat 4-3-3, I decided I will try to create something including the Half Back role.

I started the 2024/2025 season with the latest version of my 4-3-3 with the flat midfield but I felt a big urge to change something during the Apertura.

The more I played, the more I wanted to change something. And I didn't want to use probably the most common role in defensive midfield slot - the deep lying playmaker.

I waited until October 2024 and the international break. It could be risky as there were only seven league matches before the play-off.

We secured our play-off spot despite the defeat against Santos Laguna as we finished 7th in the league. In the end, we won the play-off and the Apertura despite we finished 7th after the first 19 matches.

We have no "clear" Half Back in the squad right now, we have a lot of playmakers within central midfielders but you will see it can work.

Current players able to play as DM

The first thoughts

As the game description of the Half Back role says, the player in this role "drops deeper...and looks to offer an outlet for quickly recycling possession."

It was exactly what I wanted. I know it's something you can have also with the DLP (read THIS if you want more about the DLP within 4-1-4-1 @FMEadster & @FMPressure) but as I said, I wanted to use a different role.

Mainly because I used the DLP in the DM slot many times.

I'm using More Urgent pressing intensity within the team instructions but my Half Back has Close Down Less instruction. Why? Because I don't want to see him outside of his position.

My first thoughts were I have to select the right roles around the Half Back in terms of both CM roles.

I like to use CM(S) and CM(A) roles so it was almost 100% sure I will use one of these two.

The question was - how much static midfield I want?

Half Back + DLP(S)

The first version included two static players because despite I wrote I didn't want to use the DLP role in DM slot, this role is with the support duty is my favourite one within FM20.

I'm using the DLP(S) role within my 4-3-3 formation with the flat midfield and the right player could be a great addition to the whole set-up.

That's why I decided to try it also within this formation.

So, the central midfielders' roles against the Club León were Half Back, DLP(S) and CM(A). Lionel Laborda (10) played as CM(A), Salvador Garcia (24) as Half Back and Gilberto Erick Serrano (6) as DLP(S).

Garcia had 43 passes with CM(A), 31 passes with DLP(S), 31 & 26 passes with both central defenders.

Laborda as CM(A) had 34 passes with Serrano as DLP(S).

As both Half Back and DLP(S) roles have hold position instruction it was clear the players in these roles will be more reserved and more static.

In a combination with the CM(A) role, they remain much deeper and my team had less aggressivity around and in the penalty area after crosses.

When I played against Cruz Azul away, all these three players had the most passes between each other as I played Montano as Half Back, Serrano as DLP(S) and Pérez as CM(A).

The combination of HB and DLP(S) could be great for the matches against stronger sides. It can be useful even if you don't want to use shorter passing instruction.

The passing combinations will be more central-minded and you can also try to play through the middle option.

It can lead to some nice passes into space for Inside Forward.

Half Back + DLP(S) + CM(A)

Left or right-sided/footed, is it important?

I know many coaches and many managers in real-life pay attention to the fact if their players are left or right-footed and if they play on the left or the right side of the pitch.

It can be important within the central defenders when you try to build your play from the back.

Probably a lot of us is trying to have left-footed Inside Forward on the right side of the pitch.

But do you pay attention to it also within the central midfielders? Let me know in the comments if you want...

I didn't care about it too much in the past but since I had Venezuelan midfielder José Carlos Pinilla in the team last one and a half season, I started to think about it.

Pinilla has strong left foot and he was a great central midfielder but every time he played in the central or the right CM role, he was worse by 50%.

Every time I put him in the team as the central midfielder on the left side, he made assist or he scored. Just some food for thought...

Half Back + Roaming Playmaker

The picture below shows the last six games of the season when Emmanuel Cantú (click to the link open his profile) played once as Box To Box midfielder when I wanted to try it instead of CM(A).

But he played mainly as our Roaming Playmaker. His rating and performances were like from a different universe. Cantú was one of the reasons why we won the Clausura 2024/2025 play-off in the end.

This version including Half Back, Roaming Playmaker and CM(A) roles is much role versatile, more fluid and more interesting to watch. There is not as many short passes as with the DLP role.

The Roaming Playmaker is able to get the ball and he is able to make something by himself, not only to distribute the ball back to the Half Back or to the central defender.

But the football with the RPM is more straighforward in my eyes.

Distribute to central defenders + RPM + Advanced Forward

That was also the reason why I used RPM role more at the end of the 2024/2025 season.

Example? The last match of the season/play-off against Cruz Azul when we on 3-0 at home and I played three 18 years old newgens in the starting XI as the central defender, Half Back and CM(A).

Irvin Moreno (13) as the Half Back, Emmanuel Cantú (28) as RPM and David Escobedo (14) as CM(A).

There were 61 pasess between HB and RPM and 31 pasess between RPM and CM(A).

The biggest change between using DLP(S) and RPM in the CM role within this formation was that Half Back used both wide defenders much more when there was Roaming Playmaker.

In this last match, Irvin Moreno as the Half Back had 25 passes with the right defender (CWB) and 25 passes with the left defender as FB(A).

I like the fact we were not over 100 backward passes in the match against Cruz Azul. You can see it's the CWB with number 2 was heavily involved with the Half Back, RPM but also with Advanced Forward.

Half Back + FB(A) & CWB(S)

If I wrote I had to find the right roles around the Half Back, it didn't mean only the CM roles. It's also connected to defenders.

As the Half Back sits deep I settled to FB(A) and CWB(S) roles after some testing. And also after some frustrating and boring 1-0 wins after seeing too many wrong things.

There is also a perfect example of the passing difference between using two different roles on the sides.

I like to use Full Back with the attacking duty and I decided to use on the left side behind the Winger. There were a lot of short passes between Half Back and FB(A) player.

It usually happened after our defender won the ball in the tackle or after a long ball by the opponents. And it usually resulted in some build-up play between Half Back and DLP(S).

Half Back + FB(A)

On the other side, I'm using Complete Wing Back with the support duty. As you can see in the picture, it contains more long balls and more long passes to the right side of the pitch.

It's mainly because of the fact our CWB player offers more width than our full back who is not set to stay wider.

Half Back + CWB(S)

My Half Backs in the 2024/2025 season

Three players were used in the Half Back role during the time after we switched to this formation.

Diego Montano played 29(5) matches. Salvador Garcia 20(2) matches. And the youngest Irvin Moreno made 2(1) appearances.

The fun fact is that Moreno played in both play-off final matches in the starting XI because of Moreno and García were unavailable.

All of these players have their PROS & CONS. Montano played the most matches but he is on loan and it's not sure we will sign him.

Garcia needs to improve his Heading. Same as Montano. Moreno needs to work on more things but mainly on Marking, Tackling and Positioning.

But he played in both play-off finals and he had 206 passes completed from 209. His best advantage is he is our own newgen from the 2024 youth intake.

All three are set to train the Half Back role after we switched to this role. But the additional focus is different.

As I wrote, Moreno needs to improve his Marking or Positioning, that's why he has Defensive Positioning as the additional focus.

Garcia is quite poor in terms of overall passing so I gave him passing training for some time.

I think the midfielders are the best players for testing of training and the additional focus. (Training Intensity is missing among Garcia and Montano as they are currently on holiday at the end of the season but it's Double normally).

Decisions attribute

If you highlight the key and preferable attributes for the Half Back role, you can see the Decisions attribute is only among preferable.

I would change it but I can't. But it's the most important attribute at least in my head. For all midfielders who are reliable for the ball distribution.

And I like the fact all our Half Backs have 14 or higher value of this attribute. And they still have time to improve it.

Our squad is the best in terms of Decisions in comparison with the rest of midfielders in the league.

But there are, of course, areas we need to improve.

I have to say, Montano's goal was great to watch...

Tactics used vs tactics faced

We used this 4-3-3 with the defensive midfielder in 46 matches from the last 50.

And we kept 33 clean sheets in these matches. Incredible. I will share all the results and more info about the season itself in the next blog post.

We faced different formations during this time. The most common starting formation against us was the same as ours, 4-3-3 with DM or 4-1-4-1 DM Wide as it's named in the game.

You can also see the second most common formation was 4-1-4-1 DM (13%). It's also the main formation we struggle against in terms of created chances.

Do you know what I also like within this set-up?

The cooperation with the right selected Complete Wing Back and Central Midfielder with the attacking duty...

If you want to read something different including the Half Back role, head to the FMGrasshopper website and check his post about Gallardo's 4-1-3-2 tactics.

Do you know about some other recent blog posts about the Half Back role? Let me know, I will be happy to read them.

FM19: Development of 4-3-3 with CD Magallanes

I tried a lot of formations and tactical styles during my life so far. In real life football and in the virtual world as well. But every time I look back there are two formations I prefer the most.

It's 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-3 with the flat central midfield. The first one is great and it was a pleasure to use it in the previous versions of Football Manager but I used only very briefly during FM19 because I wanted to test myself and set the other one properly.

The idea to develop 4-3-3 formation with flat midfield came to me shortly after the start of the 2021 season.

I played with the 4-1-2-2-1 formation or 4-3-3DM, it depends how you prefer to call it, before and we won the first five matches of the season with 10 goals scored and 2 conceded including matches with bigger clubs like Colo Colo or Universidad de Chile.

We had the first Copa Libertadores group stage match ahead against Liga de Quito at home. I decided to remove the previous formation and created 4-3-3 with set pieces etc. The process was almost the same as with the set pieces.

4-3-3 v2021

The first idea was to use something similar as in FM18 with BFC Siófok when I used CM(S) - DLP(D) - CM(A) as central midfield trio. But I decided to use different roles this time.

As long shots goal were/are 'a little bit' overpowered I decided to use Mezzala with support duty because this role is an ideal choice (in my eyes) to take advantage of players who are capable to shoot from distance.

I used MEZ(S) on the left side of central midfield trio in combination with WB(S) and IF(A). These three players were able to create some very good situations on the left side and enjoyable to watch as well.

For example like this...

Another perfect example of the simplicity of this formation is this goal and usage of a short throw-in. Player in DLP(D) role is set to come short and his main aim is to decide what team will do next. In this example, he switched the ball with the Winger (number 9) and stayed in the right position to receive the ball back from Full back.

He then found our Box to Box midfielder (number 15) who made a long pass to open space for the Inside Forward and Complete Forward was at the end of the whole action with a precise volley.

As I mentioned Box to Box midfielder role, that was the biggest "?" during the first weeks with this version of a formation. I wanted to have DLP(D) in the middle of central trio so I didn't want to use a second playmaker and I also didn't want to use CM(A) this time because of a lack movement in the final third due to several reasons and the CM(A) would almost every time be in the penalty area in the wrong position.

I decided to try BBM and save the BWM role for the future, mainly because this version was less aggressive. The BBM is a demanding role and my main player almost every time had to be taken off the pitch before the end of the match as he was not physically best suited for it.

But...

The midfielder I chose to use in this role was one of these players who were able to score in BBM or Mezzala roles. That meant Tomás Aránguiz scored 20 goals this season as a midfielder and added also 13 assists.

This is the complete first version of my 4-3-3 with the flat central midfield. The Winger on the right side was a player with the most assist this season with 16 assists. He also scored 19 goals from this position.

Probably the most typical assist from winger to inside forward...

As I already mentioned, Aránguiz was our best goalscorer this season from his central midfield position. Our main striker who played as CF(S) scored 17 goals in 43 matches. It's not too many as you would maybe expect or you would want from striker but I liked it.

Same as I liked the number of short assists in the last 40 matches in combination with the rest of these stats.

If something went as I planned it was to create a patient play with the build-up play from the back and midfielders effectivity.

4-3-3 v2023

The year 2023 was the first time when we won the Copa Libertadores with this team. The formation was tweaked a little bit during the previous two years and it resulted in slightly different variation without winger as I switched AMR to IF(A) so we used inside forwards on both sides.

Complete Forward with the support duty remained but there were other changes. We used WB(A) on both sides, one central defender was changed to Ball Playing Defender. Most importantly, the central midfielders roles were changed.

I decided to try Advanced Playmaker with the support duty instead of BBM and that meant I wanted to get rid of Deep Lying Playmaker. Another position in the midfield was now BWM(S) and to have at least one player deeper I placed there Central Midfielder with the defend duty and Dribble Less instruction.

You can see the differences in overall average positions. The version with CM(D) from the 2023 season is on the left pitch, the older version is on the right.

I also tried to defend narrower and in a combination with BWM(S), I moved to Extremely Urgent pressing intensity.

I wanted good "wing style" but with IF(A) on both sides and players in WB(A) and IF(A) roles worked very well together.

And it resulted in this for example...

or this...

This change also resulted in some stats differences. Aránguiz was no more the best goalscorer but he still managed to score 9 goals from AP(S). Sebastian Romero was the best goalscorer with 15 goals from IF(A), Christián Ledezma scored 14 as CF(S) and Joaquín Verdugo 10 goals as another IF(A).

And meanwhile, there were 12 different players who scored at least one goal during the 2021 season, in this version it was by 17 players.

We won not only a domestic league and Libertadores but also the FIFA Club World Cup.

4-3-3 v2025

This was the last season of the save so far and the formation made some other changes again during the previous period. I decided to get rid of Complete Forward role as the only one suitable striker for this role (based on his attributes, not due to coaches rating) was no more our number one striker after I bought a new one.

Another reason to change something was Nicolás Lobos, the young midfielder who appeared in our Youth Intake last year and he was that good that I decided to place him straight to the starting XI.

I still remember the advice from FMGrasshopper during FM18 when he mentioned he likes to use DLP(D) in the left central midfield position alongside Wing back as the DLP(D) is able to cover the space when the wing back moves up.

I used it and Tony is right but I'm an idiot about the positions almost the whole my life.

The role like Deep Lying Playmaker with the defend duty is my favourite role not only in the game but I like to play in this role myself in a real life. I like to sit deeper, dictate tempo of the game, wait for the second balls etc.

That my idiocy about the flat midfield positions is like 🤨😐😊 in terms of the picture bellow. I don't like when the positions are like stairs. I like when they form something like a small "v" and that's the reason why I decided to go back DLP(D) in a combination with BWM(S) and CM(S).

The central midfield with the support duty player (mainly Lobos) has also Take More Risks, Dribble More and Stay Wider instructions so he can act little bit like a playmaker.

Inside Forward on the left side newly has Roam From Position, Sit Narrower and Tackle Harder instructions except the default instructions so mostly the same instructions as when I used WM/A within the 4-1-4-1 formation.

Winger with the support duty on the right side has also Tackle Harder instruction and I also try Cross Aim Near Post. And as I mentioned a new striker the role was changed to Advanced Forward.

The previous versions of this formation were not too much complicated in terms of Team Instructions but I made even more simple for this third version and mainly I get rid of shorter passing.

The new striker José Cortés scored 27 goals in this role and Ronaldo Vaca scored 20 goals from IF(A) role as I wrote in the seasonal summary.

This goal I shared to Twitter a couple of days ago as I really enjoyed it.

And there are some other very beautiful goals...

There is also comparison of the overall average positions from 2025 and 2023. If you spotted the difference within the right central midfield role, your eyes are perfect.

I started to use Stay wider instructions for this CM(S) role to try if it will have impact of his position in the midlle 'triangle' as this player was very often close to the centre of the pitch same as DLP(D) or BWM(S). I know he is still in the middle of the pitch in this picture but when I watched matches he was wider and he had better option to receive ball and he had more space around.

I'm not a tactical master and I will not make some professional tactical analysis with arrows, circles and lines. I'm only glad that something I wanted to try to create worked and works with the principles I like and I was able to create something around my favourite role(s) like Deep Lying Playmaker.

FM18 | Watch and learn

It’s not a secret my favourite formation in Football Manager is 4-1-4-1. As I wrote in one previous post I switched back to this formation in my main save with BFC Siófok. I decided to use the one I used in FM17. It’s a very simple formation with fewer team instructions and it was very effective. 

I spent a week in Liverpool recently due to working duties and because I wrongly copied the saved file of my Siófok save to a working laptop I played with Werder Bremen, the save from FM18 Beta.

This is not a tactical analysis or guide on how to do it, I just only made some notes during the matches and decided to put it together in the post.

1st Match

The first match in this post was a home league game against Augsburg. I started with these roles and team instructions were Play Out Of Defence, Mixed Passing, Prever Short GK Distribution. The mentality was Standard and we used Fluid Team Shape.

First issue – mixed passing. As we played with balanced width I saw many wrong passes. There was a lot of misplaced passes from DM/D or CM/S to sides as our players in WM/A and WP/A positions were too far from the central player(s) and the opponent’s players were able to steal the ball very easily.

We were 1-0 ahead thanks to a goal just before the half-time we conceded a goal in the 89th minute and the match ended with a 1-1 draw.

We conceded this goal after we won the ball back after the long ball from the opponent’s goalkeeper but our CM/S misplaced another very easy pass in the middle and Augsburg sent the ball behind our defensive line and Dong-Won scored with a precise strike.

2nd match

The second match was an away league game against Hertha. I made a couple of changes.

We started with DLF/S instead of CF/S, DM/S instead of DM/D with Hold position instruction and FB/A instead of WB/A (on the left side) and FB/S instead of WB/S (on the right side).

As I wrote about misplaced passes and a lot of interceptions I decided to change the width to fairly narrow and we used short passing. We also get rid of Play Out Of Defence instructions and Team Shape was changed to Flexible.

Hertha played this match with only 10 players from the 8th minute after the red card and they went to compact defensive shape. It resulted in many more intercepted passes from our side and we doubled the number of misplaced passes in this match.

The most passes combination was between CM/S and WP/A and between our FB/A and WP/A. We had 16 shots in this match and 9 of them were long shots. Six of these long shots were by our CM/S and CM/A.

It was a very ineffective performance by our side and it resulted in the winning goal in the 88th minute by Hertha after the set-piece.

3rd match

The third match of this short analysis of my thoughts was the last Europa League Group Stage match against Galatasaray. What did I change?

  • Sweeper Keeper/Defend

  • DM/S – Hold Position & Close Down Much Less

  • CM/A – Shoot Less Often instruction added

  • CM/S – Shoot Less Often, Close Down Less and Hold Position instructions added

  • WP/A changed to Inverted Winger/Attack

  • DLF/S changed to DLF/A during the first half of the match

  • Mentality remained Standard, Team Shape changed to Structured.

  • Team Instructions – Shorter Passing, Play Narrower, Use Tighter Marking and Prevent Short GK Distribution.

These changes resulted in a very comfortable 3-0 win over a strong Galatasaray side thanks to two goals by Deep Lying Forward Johannes Eggestein and one goal by Full Back Ludwig Augustinsson.

We had 18 fewer intercepted passes than in the previous match against Hertha. Five of them were by our CM/A and three of them by DM/S. When I changed Sáček to Llorente in the second half Llorente had also 3 intercepted passes during the last 17 minutes.

The second goal by Eggenstein was very nice as both full-backs, both wide midfielders and all three central midfielders participated in this play same as Eggeinstein as DLF/A was included in the pre-final phase at the opponents’ half.

During the next matches of this save I played some other matches and made some other changes and I ended with this set-up and it resulted in these results…

Both wide players have “Cross Aim Near Post” instructions. As you may saw in your own games there are many crosses by wide players aimed straight at the keeper or in the wrong direction.

I tried to reduce these wrong passes with this instruction and it seems it was better.

I removed narrow width as with short passes and standard mentality is it good enough to pass my expectations.

This is one of my favourite goal from the second season of this save. Despite it was scored before these changes I really like it so I wanted to share it…

FM16: In love with Wide Playmaker

There are many variations of 4-2-3-1 formation around the FM Community during FM16 time. I played with it too during the first seasons with Akademisk Boldklub but I changed it to 4-1-4-1 after ten years in charge of the club. 

It took some time when the team played as I want. Especially some roles did not work and I tested it for more than one year when I was happy with that. One of the most important roles is Wide Playmaker.

I never used a tactic where wide playmakers were included but I really like this role because they are very versatile and they could play more in the centre of the pitch but also as wingers.

What the game says:

“The Wide Playmaker will act as the team’s primary source of creativity, drifting inside to find space from which to play the killer ball and create chances. Coming in from the wing allows the Wide Playmaker to escape the hustle and bustle of central midfield and can result in him being unmarked by opposition players.

Defensively the Wide Playmaker will take up his position on the wing to provide cover for his full-back; however, his is not expected to make as many tackles but instead, he should take up good defensive positions and provide another body in the defensive line.”

This is our 4-1-4-1 formation with False Nine, Deep Lying Playmaker in DM position or Roaming Playmaker in central midfield.

There were some changes during the last seasons and it ended with Mentality and Team Shape change as we now play with Counter Mentality and High Structured Shape. Thanks to it we conceded a really low amount of goals as you can read there.

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But let's concentrate on the Wide Playmaker role.

What player instructions we use?

Get Further Forward, More Direct Passes, Close Down Much More, Roar From Position, Dribble More, Cut Inside With Ball, Shoot Less Often, Cross Less Often.

This role was probably the most problematic for us because we have many typical wingers or inside forwards but it was not a problem in the end.

One of the players who had to change his playing style was our regen Nichlas Meyer who is played mainly as a winger. But he played newly as Wide Playmaker and he had the best statistics from all our players.

I chose another midfielder - Martin Hansen - as an example for this post. He has decent attributes for this role but he does his job very good.

A typical movement

There is one of our most typical movement leading to scoring chance or goal.

Hansen has the ball in the middle and our Wide Playmaker is upfront and Full Back is on the right side.

Hansen passes the ball to Dupuy (BBM) and Full Back move forward. The Wide Playmaker has two options - he could go to the centre or to the side. If he goes to the right side he will wrongly fill the space and Full Back would have to go back with the ball.

Dupuy passed the ball to Full Back and Wide Playmaker stayed just around the penalty area. Full Back is attacked by two players and WP is free. There is one-two between them...

...and Full Back continued his move to the penalty area and he received a pass from WP who continued to the penalty area as well between defenders.

As you can see Full Back very quickly passed the ball to the WP who moved before the goal and then scored easily...

It's important to say that Full Back is very important as well in this scenario. Both players have set Attack duty.

My Full Backs have very often the most assists per season because they very often go forward and have key passes to the goals or chances because WP sits narrower and cuts inside with or without the ball.

Average positions

This is the Average positions and a Heat map of Martin Hansen in a Champions League match against Leverkusen...

...and comparison between domestic league match and Champions League match against Dortmund.

Our regen Nichlas Meyer plays at the left side as Wide Playmaker and this is a screen of his stats in the 2030/2031 season and comparison (heat map & passes) of a league match against FC Kobenhavn and Champions League match against Real Madrid.

Typical counterattack and goal by Meyer after assisting from Full Back...

I'm also very happy with how Wide Playmaker defends in the case of High Pressing mentality. He really good cooperates with central midfielders when we lose the ball and he is able to get the ball back very quickly thanks to his more central position.

As I wrote earlier I never used this role before this save with AB but I have to say it's great if it works rightly in cooperation with Full Back. If you have some question, just let me know there or on Twitter as any feedback is appreciated...