FM21 | Göteborgs Atlet- & Idrottssällskap

There were a lot of possibilities where I would spend the main part of the Football Manager 2021 cycle. I considered almost all continents and a lot of nations, leagues, and clubs during recent weeks. The final decision was made shortly after I wrote the post about Searching the right club in Football Manager. I decided to go back to Scandinavia and I chose Sweden. The time with Göteborgs Atlet- & Idrottssällskap in FM21 can start now.

I won't use the full name of the club as it's quite long and, to be honest, it would take me a lot of time to write every time.

GAIS. Or Gais. It depends if you want to be correct within the Swedish writing standards or not.

In the media, the name of the club is normally abbreviated "Gais", in accordance with Swedish writing standards that state that acronyms that are pronounced as a word, as opposed to letter by letter, should be spelt with the first letter in upper case and the remaining in lower case, thus "Gais". However, some fans of the club, as well as the club itself, prefer to use only uppercase, "GAIS", even though they also pronounce it as a word.

Source: Wiki/Footnotes

Why Sweden?

One of the reasons why I decided to go to Sweden was my short spell with FM16 back in October this year during the FM lull.

I installed the game again, I found the old save with AB Copenhagen and played several matches and roam around the save.

The FM16 itself was a very good edition and I remember I really enjoyed the save in Denmark. On the other hand, I played the game differently in some ways.

Mainly in terms of tactics. I don't think someone remembers it but I wrote about this save already on this website including the tactical post about the wide playmaker role and the 4-1-4-1 formation I used at that time. When I'm looking back at it, I can't imagine using this midfield combination.

WP(A) - RPM - BBM - WP(A)

DLP(D)

Insert :face with rolling eyes + :man facepalming

Four playmakers within the midfield + False 9 most of the time upfront. I'm not sure how it would work in the current edition, it worked in FM16, maybe it was because of the fact that 4-1-4-1 is usually a very solid defensively and I had a lot of very good players. At least for the domestic competitions.

But no, I can't imagine setting my team in the same way now. I'm not tactically as good as some other FM players (read FMPressure for example who is a master of the 4-1-4-1 formation) but I'm sure I learned a lot of things since FM16. And this midfield setup is not something I would put together now.

Sweden can offer the ideal conditions for the save I like:

The possibility to build the club as I like + the possibility to develop young players + the possibility to compete about trophies in the future + the possibility to create own scouting network within the sub-continent (read Scandinavia) + the possibility to fill the national team with some players.

Green-black/The Mackerels

I don't want to copy the history of the club from Wikipedia as everyone who is not lazy is able to find it by his own. One fact from the club history pleased me as it's not some newly established club or some merged club.

GAIS is a very old club as it was founded in March 1894. The club will celebrate 130 years anniversary during my save what can be a good occurrence to be already in the top division. At least in my eyes as we start in the second division named Superettan.

According to polls, GAIS are the second most supported club in Gothenburg. With 12% of the people in the city who follow a football claiming to have GAIS as their favourite side. Their supporters have traditionally been perceived as coming from the working-class districts of Gothenburg and having left-wing sympathies. Even though research on the subject couldn't conclude that this was more true than for other clubs. Their supporters are also perceived as being loyal, despite whatever hardships the club may face. The oldest and primary GAIS supporter group is called Makrillarna (The Mackerels) and was founded in 1961.

Göteborgs Atlet- & Idrottssällskap home/away/third kits

I decided to not make my own kits after some time. At least for the beginning of the save. I will use kits made by FMSlovakia as they cover many leagues around the world including the Swedish leagues. Visit their website to find more kits - FM Slovakia.

I think I will some of my own kits in the future when I will have more time. Some more clean kits without all the sponsors and logos. But it has time...

Superettan and the calendar year

As I mentioned, the club is currently in the second Swedish tier named Superettan. The 12th place in the final table of the 2019 season is nothing spectacular.

The aim should be to move higher in the table the next seasons after the squad will be overhauled. Superettan is played by 16 clubs from April to October usually if there are no postponements due to COVID-19...

The last two clubs are going down to the third tier, the top two clubs are promoted to the top tier. And the third-placed club is able to play the promotion play-off. Perfect for possible interesting moments in the save. Three from the last five promotion play-offs were won by the third club in the second tier.

League rules.png

League rules contain some changes between the first and next season in terms of subs available to use. The clubs on 13th and 14th places will also fight in the relegation play-off in the first season.

League rules contain some changes between the first and next season in terms of subs available to use. The clubs in 13th and 14th places will also fight in the relegation play-off in the first season.

I like the fact the season is not in a typical way from August to May (for example) but it's based on the calendar year. It can add another challenge if we will qualify for the European cup(s) in the future part of the save in terms of preparing for the matches in Europe while not playing domestically.

There is also a rule of "The match squad has at least 9 players trained by a club in Sweden". The ideal rule for my save.

I like the small connection with one Czech player who spent a significant part of his career in Sweden. The experienced midfielder Pavel Zavadil played for Mjällby, Östers, and Örgryte between 2005 to 2012. And he was the top assists of the 2008 season with 17 assists when he was in Örgryte IS. He is now 42 years old and he still plays the Czech top tier for SFC Opava...

He is a playmaker with great set pieces skills but also a hard-working midfielder who hates defeats. I would like to have these types of midfielders in my save.

Pavel Zavadil during his time with Örgryte IS

Pavel Zavadil during his time with Örgryte IS

Aims of the save

  • Develop & sell within Sweden or to other European countries

It sounds natural to do this, especially with starting with the club from the second tier. I'm not naive and I don't expect too much money here despite the big stadium. This always has two parts - I would be happy to keep the best players but I would be also happy to see them doing well in some bigger clubs (domestic or abroad).

  • Create the scouting network around Scandinavia nations

I like to build a domestic squad but I also like to find players in the nearest countries. Scandinavia is an absolutely perfect place to do this. I already have some idea of how to do this. It all depends on the possibilities straight in the game in terms of the number of scouts available.

And it also depends on the area I will be able to send our scouts. I would like to make it even to England in the future of the save if it will be possible but that's something for the separate post maybe...

  • Be tight financially as always

It's connected to the first point of this list about the developing & selling players. But it's a thing of the whole club, not only a thing of the transfers. I like to be very strict in terms of finances and I usually use only a small part of the wage budget. Sometimes, I use nothing from the transfer budget. Maybe it can help with the stadium, who knows...

It also fits with the Work within wage budget philosophy in the Club Culture/Vision. Another thing in the club culture is to Strive to make progress on and off the pitch.

  • Don't try to find new Zlatan

To find a new Zlatan Ibrahimović really is not the aim of the save. I will be happy if I will find or develop some of our own players without any connection to Zlatan just because he is from Sweden. This save has nothing with him despite him is a great footballer and a special person for sure.

  • Develop solid 3-5-2 formation

  • Enjoy the save :)

The GAIS Stadium

The club is currently playing matches at Gamla Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg. Same as IFK Göteborg, Örgryte IS, or Sweden women's national team. It has a capacity of 18,416.

One of the aims I wanted to share above within the list was to "move to own stadium". But as time went by, I decided to make my own stadium in the pre-game editor.

The average attendance during matches is below 4k. GAIS had the best average attendance at home matches in the 2019 season with just only 2,854 spectators. Almost about 500 less than in 2016.

Why did I do that?

  1. I don't think the club needs such a big stadium/capacity

  2. I'm not a fan of the fact other three teams use the same stadium and it can affect the pitch quality

  3. I like smaller stadiums

  4. As I shared, the average capacity is/was below 4k. If I will be able to increase the average attendance to 7k-8k, it will be a great success in the club development.

  5. There is always a chance the board will build the new/bigger stadium

I created The Gais Stadium with the capacity of 8,000 seats with the option to increase the capacity up to 12,000 seats. After a discussion with Chris/FM_BlackCrow, I decided to make 6,000 seats and the rest of the 8k capacity is for standing. The pitch type is grass despite as I don't like the synthetic.

Six from 16 Superettan clubs have grass as the surface, two clubs have the mix of grass and synthetic and eight clubs have synthetic (new type - soft). It's around the same in the top tier.

The Fanager

I'm not sure how much you know about me but one thing I like to follow is the marketing of football clubs in real life. Mainly because I worked in the past in marketing/PR/communication.

GAIS is the club that made famous themselves thanks to the campaign named "The Fanager" back in 2017/2018. It was during the time when the results and the mood around the club were not good and it resulted in the all-time low in season ticket sales.

The idea behind the campaign was to strengthen the relationship with the fans. And sell more season tickets of course.

The fans needed just to buy a season ticket and apply for the newly invented position of "Fanager" who got to coach the team, pick the team and be in charge of the squad for a league game against Halmstad.

At the heart of this is an idea based on the simple truth that every fan think they can do better than the coach and that football is a team sport where fans and players win or lose as one. The Fanager also became a link between fans and the team during the whole season when he posted thoughts and insights on the team and asking for advice on what to do during his few days as a coach on the GAIS' social media.

A truly bold move by a football club that was a success in terms of proving that the club is nothing without their fans and that football is a team sport where the team and fans win and lose as one.

The season ticket sales increased by 21,9 %...

It's nothing that we can replicate in FM but it's a nice bonus to me personally. And it gives me one more aim for the save to bring back the most possible fans to the stadium.

The Göteborgs Atlet- & Idrottssällskap save settings

I decided to start the save in May 2020 so I will play the whole 2020 season between 17/6/2020 to 5/12/2020. Yes, there is six months long break between seasons. There will be a lot of time to write.

But there is also Svenska Cupen. The first and second round during the autumn, group stage, quarter/semi-finals, and the final during the spring when there is no league football.

I loaded all the Scandinavian nations available in FM (no Faroe Islands) with all leagues. The database is the default except for the fact I created the stadium. And I loaded all the Scandinavian players within the custom database setup.

As the Iceland league will start in May 2021, which is more than 12 months after Sweden's start date, the Iceland leagues won't be playable for the first 12 months of the save according to FM. But that's not too important as I don't plan to move here...

Thanks for reading and, as always, enjoy your saves.

FM20: Celaya FC - ten years of club development

Everything has to end and I decided to end the main FM20 save at the end of the 2028/2029 season. The choice to play in Mexico was perfect and I enjoyed my time here despite it was not as long save as in the previous years. If you are interested, come with me: Celaya FC - ten years of club development.

The overall club development

When the save started, Celaya was not too common club around North America thanks to the recent successes. I'm sure 99% of the football fans know this club just because of the fact Emilio Butragueno played here.

And the save was dedicated to him mainly including the searching filter and view made in terms of the strongest attributes I thought Butragueno was best in.

There were a lot of players on loan in the squad at the beginnning. Media prediction for the first season was 5th place and average age of the squad was almost 25,9 with one of the key players was Franz Torres with 38 years.

A lot of changed during ten years. From the squad personality through the average age or the composition of the squad to club facilities.

One of my favourite kits I've ever made.

Finances

It's great I have the save file from each season so I can go back to check all these things I decided to write about.

And I have one from the beginning as well so we can see the finances from July 2019. We had €366,019 in our bank balance and we were about €4k per month over our wage budget. Transfer budget didn't exist.

If we move five years to June 2024, our financial situation was very different. We had €10,6M in the bank, transfer budget over €6,5 and wage budget was rising to one milion per month. We were able to have better coaches and we were able to keep some players with better wages.

But it's still was nothing in comparison with the end of the 10th season with the balance of €86,6M, transfer budge over €100M and wage budget over €3M per month (spending only around 50% of it).

I'm sure the club is in a great position financially now.

Facilities

Training & Youth facilities are usually one of the main things what we all want to improve within our saves (if you don't play with the club which already has the best facilities of course).

We started with the adequate training facilities and below average youth facilities. Aims of the club were to work within wage budget or sign Colombian players for example.

The club philosophy within the club vision changed one thing during the first 5 seasons. 'Do not sign players over the age of 30' replaced the 'Sign Colombian Players'. And we moved to good training and average facilities.

I expected the club board will want to improve the youth facilities to have the best possible own players but the board ignored my requests for some time as they wanted to sign young players ready for the 1st team.

It lasted for some time and they rejected me four times during two years. But in the end, some threats helped me and we now have both training and youth facilities at the excellent level with undergoing works for another upgrade. It will be done in October 2029.

Average attendance and ticket holders

There are several rules how to increase the stadium capacity or to get the new stadium in FM. One of them is the number of sold out matches during the season. It's clear from the table below we had a no chance to reach this.

But I think it was not needed within this save. The Estadio Miguel Alemán Valdés stadium was enough for us with the 23 300 capacity.

We had 1k season ticked holders and 6779 average attendance in the first season when we were in the 2nd tier. It raised both masivelly for the 2nd season after the promotion to the top tier but the progress in next 9 years was slower.

In the end, we had slightly over 20k average attendance in the 10th season and over 6,3k season ticket holders.

I would say it was quite natural progress. The number of sellouts ended at 6 in the last season. In overal, all the matches with the full house were in the league or the Champions League play-off.

The only surprising thing was only one sellout in the first season in the top tier.

Maybe if I would buy more famous players, the numbers of both would be higher but I didn't want to make it just because of this. I didn't think the new or expanded stadium was needed.

Age and team composition

As I mentioned earlier, the average age of the squad was almost twenty six at the end of the first season. All the data in the graph below are from the end of each season, usually from the end of May or start of July.

We were able to make it down to 22,4 at the end of the second season and the lowest average age of the squad was at the end of the 4th season when we hit 20,4.

The last two seasons were very similar with 21 and 20,98 as we kept the main core of the squad and just replaced the sold players with the new ones in the same age. The same with youngsters - when 17/18 years old left for some loan, we promoted others from the youth team.

As I mentioned in the first post about this save, the clubs in the 2nd tier were too reliable on loan players. We had 8 players on loan at the beginning of the save. The record was 22 loan players from 34 in the 1st team by Club Atlético Zacatepec

It took me three seasons to get rid of all loaned players in terms I have good enough own players.

For example, my affiliate team Tlaxcala has 7 loan players now. But one or two teams still have around 10 players on loan. But it's much better than at the beginning when 10 was almost the minimum.

We were also able to have mainly Mexican based squad instead of a lot of foreign players. There were only 4 foreign players in the last season, the rest was from Mexico.

Transfers

The transfers history of these ten years are very easy. There were only free or laon transfers in the first season.

I decided to invest €875k before the second season, our first in the top flight. It was mainly between 20k - 220k but I bought players like Erick Vargas, José Manuel Dojaquez, Sebastián Osorio and more players who were in the club for many years. Or they still are here.

The forward Dojaquez was a great example as we bought him for €70k when he was 17 years old and we sold him for €13.25M after five years to Shakhtar.

We were able to get more and more money for outgoing transfers as the save progressed. We also paid €13M in the last season what is the club record. Same as €66M we received during the last season when I sold players to FC Porto, Sevilla, Leverkusen or Shanghai.

I'm sure it would be even more next season if I would continue.

The favourite real players

The first one is Emiliano Ozuna 100%. This Argentinian winger was already a key player when the save started and he keeps his role for the whole of the time.

Emiliano was 23 years old in 2019 when we started our journey. He was able to play as the winger in ML or AML position but he moved also to WBL position when I decided to switch to 3-5-2/3-4-1-2 formation. Ozuna was also able to play as a striker so his variability was great.

Emiliano Ozuna made 445 appearances in all competitions, scored 137 goals and made 100 assists.

Emiliano Ozuna and Sebastián Osorio were the only two real players in the squad at the end of the last season.

Osorio, born in Colombia, came to our club before the 2nd season of the save. That means he spent 9 seasons with us. He played mainly as IF(A) or IF(S). When we switched to the formation with three at the back, he lost his place as he was not enough already for the AM or striker role.

He made 386 appearances, scored 116 goals and made 55 assists.

I wanted to pick third real player but I was not able to select someone. No other player stood out.

Three favourite newgens

To select three best newgens of this save was really easy for me. I will start with the goalkeeper Erick Vargas.

I signed him for €40k in the 2020/2021 season after our promotion. He played mainly for the youth team during the first three seasons but he was our number 1 since 2023/2024. He made 'only' 17 clean sheets in this season. In the last season it was 38 what was a new club record.

The second player is the central defender Josué Infante. He is our own newgen from the 2021/2022 season and I wrote about him several times during the save. Mainly in combination with some set pieces as he was great for free kicks and corners. He scored 16 goals from the set pieces in the 2025/2026 season what was his best.

He is still only 24 years old in 2029 so he has everything ahead of him including the potential success with the national team.

The last one. And probably the most favourite of all. Midfielder Gilberto Erick Serrano. He was part of the same youth intake as Infante and developed into great midfielder.

Serrano played mainly as CM(A) or CM(S). He improved his attributes of Marking by 6, Decisions by 7 or Agility by 6 since he appeared in the club.

He made 318 appearances, scored 44 goals and made 100 assists. The only player who made it between legends of the club. Even the Emiliano Butragueno is only within icons.

My favourite number 8.

Conclusion

Despite I was not 100% sure about the save in Mexico at the beginning, it was a great choice. Mainly because it was something different again and the typical save in Europe with already know players.

As I wrote before my FM19 save in Chile and Argentina, I needed some fresh air and some new beginning. I'm glad it continued also within the FM20 cycle.

I found some very good players who I would buy for sure if I would manage some European club as they would fit great here. Not only my own players but many other players I played against when I reached the Mexican top tier.

Thank you, Mexico, it was great. I'm sure Emilio Butragueno would be happy.

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.

FM20 Far Post Corner | Tweaking the good old trick

The fifth season of my Football Manager 2020 save in Mexico is well underway and I failed again. I mean, I wanted to add make the most from set pieces to the club culture/vision. But there was not option to do it between the seasons. So, I decided I will just keep it in my head and will try to tweak/edit/improve set pieces through the season.

It led to the fact I decided to try to recreate the good old trick with the far post corner kick routine.

It's simple. When you want to use a short routine, you place someone to offer short option role.

If you want to use near post routine you concentrate the best options in terms of your best-suited players around the near post. It's logical.

But I made the opposite this time

My idea was to use far post corner delivery but don't place all players to attack far post, lurk at far post etc.

I decided to put most of my players to the near post. Two players are set as attack near post & lurk at near post, two players are set as go forward and one player lurk outside area.

That means at least two, but better three players stay back. And the last one is set to attack far post.

This is my initial set-up as it's available to see in the picture above. The idea was to convince the opponent's defending players to go and defend mainly the area around the near post.

And the main and the most important task you have is to select the best possible player with the best possible tor the attack far post role as he will be here alone. Sometimes against two or three defensive players.

But sometimes only against one...

63a7eafb22b4f5d356531a5febd3a6ec.gif

This is how it ended in the picture above.

In this case, our young central defender Infante was set to attack far post. This our own newgen was (almost) unstoppable in the previous season for our U20s team in terms of set pieces.

He scored 9 goals in 15 matches and seven from them were from corners.

I found out it's easier to score from set-pieces for my first-team players when they play in the Under 20 league. But this defender was still 17 years old so I thought: wow, that could be great if he will be able to score at least a half of these goals also for the first team.

And he scored the winning goal in the "Campeones Cup" against Salt Lake. But it was not that easy as I thought.

The young Josué Infante. Orange highlighted attributes are the most important to me, the red highlighted attributes are important as well but not necessary. On the other hand, it's obvious he is not the best header or finisher.

I can say, the young Josué scored only twice during the first part of the season. It was clear he is not that good in the top tier matches as against the young and not that good players in the youth league.

And I started to test different players in the attack far post role. But one thing became like a tradition - strikers or defenders were the best here.

The current striker #1 and the key attributes for the attack far post role

I also made one change to the whole set-up during the season as I decided to add offer short option role as it means another defensive player will be dragged out of penalty area position.

Do you know that feeling when you made some change and it worked in the first match after you made that change?

It happened when we played Chivas away. I decided to test Daniel Cisneros in attack far post role.

And, as I mentioned, I added one player to offer a short option. Well, Cisneros opened the score in the 20th minute after the corner kick.

As you can see, 6 players were concentrated to defend near post area, 1 player went close down the corner and 1 is outside the penalty area. Only 1 player defended the far post.

Cisneros was able to beat his only one defender and opened the score with the perfect header.

The main idea behind this routine was complete. See gif.

b5f8fad231738aa5d2440f174be69886.gif

Sometimes, it can also lead to an own goal or the player set to attack near post can score. If the players around the near post are able to avoid offside position. For example like this one...

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As I already said, the main task is to select the best possible player for the attack far post role in terms of Off The Ball, Bravery, Decisions or Finishing attributes.

I was not able to sign some good players in terms of "SfS" strategy the same as last year as most players with the right attributes for set pieces are out of our financial possibilities.

But it's fun to test my current own players at least.

Dojaquez (ST), Infante (CD), Osorio (AMR), Cisneros (ST or AMR), Moreno (ST), Lecanda (CD).

The last gif shows two goals by Óscar Moreno, the 18 years old newgen striker, who scored twice in a single match for our U20s against Cruz Azul to seal 2-0 win.

f4f7d7e0c611fc74f8b959a47ede9fae.gif

Note: this is not intended to be routine what will assure you will score many many goals with it. This is mainly about the fact I had some idea what to do and how it ended with the limited options within the set pieces in Football Manager.

It's a different type of the FM20 Far Post Corner routine this time but I really enjoy it.

If the only thing what you want is the download link, read the post again 😉

Goodbye South America, goodbye FM19.

Firstly, I would like to say a big thank you to Vincent Guzman and his perfect guides about South America nations, before Football Manager 2019 was released. It was one of the main reasons why I decided to leave Europe and I wanted to try a different continent.

Now, after almost one year, the FM19 cycle is over. And it was a good decision to try different nations, different league system, different continental competitions and to discover different players.

The first part was in Chile with CD Magallanes and I thought it will be my only club for the whole FM19 time. But I was wrong. As I already wrote in the past, the success with the Chilean club was too fast.

Simple stats summary: Nine seasons, 466 matches played, 327 matches won, 870 goals scored, 27 trophies won, new stadium, most reputable South American club in the world…

…the club growth was perfect in all areas but as I had a lot of time to play, it was too fast and I ended this part of the journey at the end of February 2019 of real-life date.

When I wrote about this part of the save I included my three favourite players. They were real-life players, not newgens. I wrote about the central defender Rodrigo Echeverría and two midfielders Diego Aravena and Tomás Aránguiz. You can read it about them HERE.

I decided to share my favourite newgen from the time with Magallanes. Despite the fact, this young player was not wonderkid and he was not the best newgen from the youth intake, he was able to develop in the player who spent a big part of his career in Manchester City.

His name is Alfonso Reiman and he was part of the Youth Intake of our affiliate club Unión San Felipe in 2021. I bought him for €195k and he played mainly as CM(S).

We sold him for €10M four years later to Corinthians and it was a new club record for outgoing transfer. He spent three and a half years with Corinthians before Manchester City bought him for €21M.

To my big surprise, he was not just one of many players here. He became a very important member of the squad and his value was €90M in 2035 when he was 30 years old.

He moved to Bayern in 2037 and to PSG one year later where he is at the end of this save in his 35 years and with 137 caps for Chilean national team.

I didn't have him in my own squad for a long time before he moved elsewhere but it was great to follow his career.

Alfonso Reimann in 2022, 2025, 2030, 2035 and 2040.

The seasons in Chile are from January to December and I knew during the last season already I will leave. I started to look around other nations and leagues.

I wanted a new challenge. And I spotted Arsenal de Sarandí. The bottom team of the Argentinian second tier. The magic of the relegation rules in Argentina is that you can stay in the division even if you end the season at the last place in the table thanks to "Average Points Over 3 Years Table".

And that was also the case of my first half of the season with Sarandí. It was a risk as there was a possibility we will not gain enough points, the club will be relegated to the non-playable third tier and I will have to look for another team.

But we made it, finished 21st in the table but 17th in the Average Points Table.

Since the 2026/2027 survive, I started to build the club on my own and as I like the most - young players, selling the key players to have enough money for club facilities improvement and playing with many own newgens.

We won the promotion in my first full season with the club and we finished 7th in the first season in the Superliga. Sixth place in the 2029/2030 season was the start of the next three years with the first trophies after many years.

We won the Superliga, Superleague Cup, Copa Sudamericana and Recopa Sudamericana.

When I wrote about the 2038/2039 season, the title was "The season like no other" because of some records and perfect results. But the next season, the last one of the save, was even more successful. We won 7 trophies including all 4 domestic competitions and also Copa Libertadores, Recopa Sudamericana and FIFA Club World Cup.

The biggest difference between Magallanes and Arsenal de Sarandí board was the willingness to move the club forward.

Every time we earned some money thanks to transfers or via competitions with Magallanes, the board accepted my requests to improve facilities. That was the main reason why I spent only 9 years with Magallanes but 14 years with Sarandí.

Finances of Arsenal de Sarandí in 2027 vs. 2040

When we won the second league title with Sarandí in 2031/2032 and the first Copa Libertadores trophy, the club still had the bellow average training & youth facilities, average youth recruitment and the board was happy with the level of everything.

And they also rejected all my requests despite a lot of money in the bank and prematurely repaid loans.

But the situation has changed after elections in 2032 and the new board was willing to move the club to the highest level. That was the moment when I got new blood and new motivation to continue in the save. I said to myself I will improve all facilities to the top and the save will be over.

We are in June 2040 and all facilities are within the best possible level except the Youth Facilities as they are "only" Superb and the last upgrade will be done in November 2040.

I mentioned in the last post one of the reasons why I joined this club - the captain Agustin Chocobar. The central midfielder who was able to play in several roles including BWM but also DLP or classic CM. If you missed it, you can find it in the bottom part of THIS POST.

You can see there are several players included in the club details section as Icons or Favoured Personnel.

There are almost all my favourite players from the time with Sarandí including Santiago Ortiz, Lautaro Contreras, Franco Somoza, Damián Guevara, Marcelo Pérez, Darío González or Luciano Cambiasso. 

The last one is probably my most favourite newgen from the Sarandí Youth Intake in 2031. He played mainly as CM(S) or CM(A) and despite he didn't score too many goals, he usually broke the net when he scored from the long distance.

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Luciano Cambiasso in 2032, 2035 and 2040.

I used several tactics during this FM19 save. It all started with defensive-minded 4-1-2-3 but it continued with a more positive version of this formation and several variations of 4-1-4-1.

And (almost) as always it ended with many versions of 4-3-3 with the flat midfield trio - Development of 4-3-3 with Magallanes.

The 4-3-3 with the flat midfield trio was the main tactic for the time with Sarandí as well. You can find some versions and modifications in the previous posts.

The last part of the save, the last half of the season, I used 4-4-2 formation with very simple instructions and it resulted in stupid results (click to see the results).

The Football Manager 2019 save in South America is over. I mentioned it in the Football Manager 2019 (#FM19) - in retrospect I was able to contribute to thanks to FMGrasshopper that FM19 became predictable and I didn't enjoy it as much as previous versions of the game. 

On the other side, as I already mentioned at the start, it was great to discover something new outside Europe. 

If you would like to read the whole South America save from the beginning, just open this link.

Now, it's time to find some ideal challenge for the Football Manager 2020. 

Thank you, everyone, for following the save. 

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 Epilogue | BFC Siófok 2017 - 2045

The long journey has ended. It was one of the longest save I've ever had. And thanks to many reasons also unforgettable. BFC Siófok will always be in my memory as a club I enjoyed managing. Despite the (forced) sacking in the end...

I don't want to repeat myself and I don't want to write about the specific years and specific eras of the save. Not all of you like success and trophies 😜

One of the main key moments of the save was surely the promotion to the top tier but also the fact we won the first league title in our second season in the first division.

And we won it 24 times in a row. MTK Budapest was the runner-up for the most times.

The league titles meant Champions League football. And Champions League meant more and more money.

But it was not as easy as in the domestic league. We finished third and fourth in the group in our first Champions League participation but after some time we were better and better.

We won the first title in 2035 when we beat Tottenham and we beat the same team in the Final after five years to win it for the second time. This trophy was the first of five in a row.

As you can see in the picture below Manchester City was our bogey team but we also beat them three times in the Final.

It had to be City who beat us in the last season of this save as we lost 1-0 on aggregate in the Semi-Final.

Siófok changed from the very average second-tier club to the most dominant club in the country.

I'm sure if I would play it for the next six years I would win six other league titles and we would have 30 league titles same as Ferencvárosi, the most successful Hungarian club in terms of league titles.

But never mind, that was not my dream or my aim. I changed the recruitment policy several times during this save. It went from "Around The Lake" to the more international-based squad and back to the domestic-based squad in the end with 98% of our own players.

Same as we have dynamic rivalries in the game (we 'made' a rivalry with MTK Budapest and Puskás during this save) players and staff are always add to favourite personnel, icons and legends.

At the end of the save we have five people included between Legends - Gerardo Paolacci, György Benedek, Dominik Szoboszlai, Manos Pasas and Keysi Rensie.

Dominik Szoboszlai has a big part in my heart thanks to this save after he signed for BFC Siófok in 2025 and played for us until 2037 before he became a U19s coach and first-team assistant manager later.

Paolacci was my favourite foreign striker, Benedek was our long-serving master at right-wing and Manos Pasas was our record signing from PSG and he won five Champions League titles in five years.

There were a lot of other players I liked and I refused to sell them and waited until we will have enough funds to give them big contracts to keep them around.

We sold 173 players for €1.94B during this save and we bought 161 players for €393M during this save. Just only Manos Pasas was bought for €115M...on the other hand, our own newgen striker László Szalai was sold to Real Madrid in 2035 for €75M what was the club highest fee received.

If you want to know how much we paid to agents, it was €38.5M. Probably the cheap area...

One of my favourite thing within this save was to try to get the affiliate clubs from different nations.

I always had one domestic affiliate in the second tier, some of them were promoted to the top flight thanks to our players who were on-loan there until I made a link with Nyíregyháza Spartacus - an ideal average club in the second tier for 18 or 19 years old players to give them playing time.

But during the time I also arranged a link with clubs in Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Spain or the Czech Republic. And at the end of the save we also had Sydney FC, New England Revolutions, Henan Jianye and FC Hiroshima. Many foreign nations with many newgens who could appear in our own Youth Intake.

🤑🤑🤑

The club developed into an absolutely monstrous thing financially during the time. We had around €1.3B in the bank balance in 2042 and we had more than €1B on transfers and €26.5M on wages per month. 

Board decided to deposit €115M in 2043 and €250M in 2044 into a reserve investment fund. I never had this message before, this is how finances look in 2045.

And we are almost at the end of our journey because we can talk about the biggest pain of the second half of this save.

The club board decided to build a new stadium in 2022 and we moved there in 2024. The Siófok Stadium was great during the first years and the 12k capacity was absolutely fine but as we grew up we had 9k season ticket holders and I'm sure we would be able to have a bigger stadium. At least with 20k capacity...

When I asked about the possibility to have a new stadium again I found out it usually takes at least 20 or 25 years before the board will think about the new stadium again. 

Just in the half of the penultimate season of the save I realised I can finally ask about a new stadium.

The board rejected my request due to a small fan base.

If I take it from a selfish point of view, it's absolutely stupid. But it's probably right in terms of how the Football Manager is set up and 'coded'.

This is not an official statement of SI but I think the fan base in FM works within the specific area so as we are a small area near the Lake Balaton we are unable to attract the same amount of people as in Budapest for example. 

And that's probably the reason why they rejected my request four times due to the same reason. When it happened for the last time in June 2045 I decided to leak this into the press.

The board invited me to a meeting and I was sacked because I criticised the board publicly. And that's the end of Keysi Rensie's journey and relationship with BFC Siófok...

It took 10243 days, 1110 wins, 268 draws and 155 defeats. BFC Siófok scored 3460 goals and conceded 1166 goals. Keysi Rensie ended his Hungarian journey with a 72% win percentage, 24 league wins and 42 cup trophies.

Life Around The Lake after Keysi Rensie...

Keysi Rensie didn't leave the game immediately and he decided to follow BFC Siófok for next years. Mainly because of his sons Jiri and Robert...

Gary Monk took a charge of BFC in the summer of 2045 and he decided to change the whole squad. He spent €545M on new players during the first season in a charge and sold players for €39M.

What about the Rensie brothers? The younger one, Robert, was sent for a loan spell to Japan where he spent the season with FC Hiroshima. The older one, Jiri, was sent to the reserve squad.

After 24 years, BFC Siófok didn't win the Hungarian first division as MTK Budapest finally won the league title.

Jiri Rensie was released by BFC Siófok in summer 2047 and he ended his professional career later and became Director of Football when he was 33 years old. He became a DoF of Nyíregyháza Spartacus in 2049 and started his new chapter as a boss.

Later, in 2051, he moved to FC Vysočina Jihlava in the same role.

Siófok won the league between 2047-2050 four times and they are dominant again but without some European success.

Gary Monk was a manager of the club until 2050 and there were only five domestic players in the first-team squad after so many changes.

The first team squad included players from Australia, Brasil, Colombia, Netherland, Italia, Portugal, Serbia, Spain...

Meanwhile, the older son Jiri became Director of Football, Robert came back from Hiroshima and he then went for loan spells with Mezökövesdi SE, Nyíregyháza Spartacus and Duna Aszfalt TVSE and he signed for the last mentioned club as a free player in summer 2048.

He is playing the third Hungarian tier and during the 2049/2050 season, he played 30 league matches, scored 4 goals and made 19 assists. In 2050/2051 he played 27 games, scored 4 goals, made 20 assists and helped the club to win promotion to the second division.

In the 2051/2052 season, he played 36 league goals, scored 2 goals and made 21 assists. It looks like he found the right club...

The journey and FM18 adventure of Keysi Rensie end there.

The board of BFC Siófok decided to build Keysi Rensie Stadium with a capacity of 56,102 in 2050 and the club moved there in July 2052. 

The weird and very high Keysi Rensie Stadium during the Hungarian Super Cup between Siófok and Videoton. Keysi Rensie was there but only in the stands, not in the dugout...

Thank you, everyone, for following this Rensie's journey...

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…