My FM21 Tactic: 3-3-2-1-1

I recently read Wings of Change, a book from Karan Tejwani in which he goes in-depth on how Red Bull has infiltrated the footballing world. Julian Nagelsmann previously transformed Hoffenheim from 17th place in the Bundesliga when he took over to them becoming “one of Germany’s most exciting teams”, according to the book. His work there attracted the attention of Red Bull and he eventually joined Leipzig.

As soon as I read the the sentence “the German mostly worked around a 3-1-4-2” and the next page on how their overloads and pressing operated, I immediately had a tactic in mind that I knew I wanted to try out on Football Manager. This isn't a tactical recreation, I'm not into that. It's my interpretation, based on literally a few sentences from the book.

So here's the tactic I've called my 3-3-2-1-1.

The 3-3-2-1-1

Style

Sometimes it feels like there aren’t many FM tactics out there that aren’t Gegenpressing in style, so here's another one based on it to throw into the mix.

I find it difficult to create a tactic without it being high tempo, without the players relentlessly pressing and without clicking counter-pressing and countering on. I think that's the way I like my football teams to play. I want the ball hunted down and I want us to break forward at speed. I've only recently taken higher tempo off as a team instruction because I was watching us be too quick going forward and snatching at our opportunities. Of course, with our Positive mentality, our tempo is still slightly higher.

Could it be even more dominating? Potentially if I moved to an Attacking or Very Attacking mentality. For now though I'm happy with Positive.

The biggest thing for me is the coverage across all areas of the pitch. The three central defenders give us that defensive stability. The two central midfielders, with the Regista behind them, enable us to control the middle of the pitch. Our Wing Backs provide width and can push high up the pitch when we've got the ball and the two players in forward positions provide varying options in attack and the chance to build play through the middle, or hit a target from out wide. I'll provide some examples of these situations later on.

While the "Pendeleffekt" isn't easily possible to recreate on FM, I've definitely seen aspects of it. It's essentially a defensive overload to one side of the pitch to limit the opposing players options. For example, if the opposition left back has the ball, my RWB, RCM and Shadow Striker might all have attempts at closing him down and winning possession from him. If any of them are then found out of position, the structure behind them is still very secure.

I think this is definitely one of the most fun-to-watch tactics I've ever created on any version of the game. I've enjoyed all my previous attempts, but I don't think the variety of this one and the output I've been getting has been rivalled.

Key Roles

There's a few roles in the team that are vital and I've outlined them below.

Advanced Forward

We need goals, this role scores them.

Albert Braut Tjåland scored 46 goals in 46 appearances last season as our main Advanced Forward. We have, on average, around 50% more shots than our closest competitor in the league and I think the game actually sometimes punishes us with poor finishing because we create so many chances. Our conversion rate is one of the poorest in the league at just 10%, although obviously with the sheer number of shots we have we're still high goalscorers over the seasons.

Tjåland has had to share the load up top a little bit more this season but he still has 23 goals in 25 starts. His back up, Oskar Siira Sivertsen, has 21 goals in just 12 starts.

You don't need me to tell you what's key for the Advanced Forward role. For me, it's all about the movement, pace and ability to score goals. They're there to do one thing, and one thing only, and that's scoring past goalkeepers.

Regista

Yes, FM21 has some issues with data and what counts as what. That makes it tricky to determine sometimes whether the game is propping up how good a certain player is if you're only looking at things like key passes or average ratings. However, watching the matches, what I see from my Regista is just lovely.

Regular followers of my FMing will know that I'm not usually one for the more unique player roles. When putting tactics together before I've never thought up something that I thought a Regista could fit into from what I wanted overall. This tactic is different. It suits it perfectly and I've been completely won over by the role.

Some will remember my Deep Lying Destroyer from FM18, it's not exactly that type of player I'm looking for in this Regista role, but it's a similar thought process. Its defensive position being in the DM slot, it'd be desirable to have some of the vital defensive attributes, such as Positioning or Anticipation, so the player could have that Kanté-like ability to be everywhere.

Offensive playmaker attributes are obviously so important though because of how much more forward the role operates when we have the ball. It might just be me being bias, but I think the Regista attracts the ball in forward positions much more than a DLP or an AP.

Left Wing Back

I recently sold Tobias Christensen to Bournemouth, a dangerous wide forward that I'd converted into a Left Wing Back when I switched to this tactical approach. He had a great time down that left hand side and while he was, attributes-wise, a terrible defender, it didn't matter too much because it was his forward play that was the reason he was in the side.

With Christensen gone and me turning to his back up, homegrown player Oskar Opsahl, and the difference in the output of the role has been stark. Christensen got 15 assists in his final full season for us. Opsahl is fine, he's got 8 so far this season but he doesn't have that bit of special quality to drive the side forward on the left. I'm really excited to see how Tarjei Loen develops, as he's in a similar mould to Christensen. At 16, he's got a few years developing to do to get to his peak capabilities.

Attacking Movement

The central attacking four are the dangers for us going forward. One tweak I've consistently debated is what to do with those two central midfield roles. Sometimes it's difficult for people to stray away from the shinier roles for the perceived more boring CM roles. They're basically Jack of all trades. They provide stability, they can drift wide if they want to, they can go forward if they want to, they can get into the box if they want to and they can score goals if they want to. Would any of the other central midfield roles do this? Perhaps, but I haven't tried it out yet.

Here's just a few example snippets of us going forward.

As soon as Holm, playing CM(A), sprays the ball out left to Opsahl, Sahraoui, playing Shadow Striker, is on his bike looking for that ball in behind the defence. He pretty much joins Tjåland as a front two occupying the Partizan defenders. You can see Holm sprinting forward too, reaching the edge of the box as the ball hits the back of the net.

Movement is absolutely key, but anticipating mistakes are often as important.

FRJ, more often than not playing in the Regista role, will always keep the ball moving. The metronome of the side operates in that little pocket just behind the midfield two. That more aggressive playmaker side of the role will appear if you've got the player to try it. Siira Sivertson's Off the Ball movement and speed pulls him clear of the defenders here as neither can deal with FRJ's ball that splits them. A composed finish as well.

The counter attacking quality of the side appeared in extra time of Champions League qualifying against Sparta Prague, as we cleared a wide free kick. Holm picked up the ball on the edge of our area and it was instantly five on two.

Holm eventually found Siira Sivertson who rounded the keeper superbly to score.

Defensive Positioning

The base of the team is solid, but it can also be quite prone to conceding goals from the chances we do concede. I think this is something that naturally happens when you get to a certain point with the team you're managing, especially so in a league where you're almost completely dominant. Individual mistakes can cost you.

Look at Daouda Bamba completely outpacing Tobias Sagstuen Andersen, playing in that CD(C) role in the centre of the defensive trio. He gets to the ball first, shrugs him off, and finishes superbly to score his second in a shock 3-1 home defeat.

The ideal scenario would be to upgrade the Wing Backs, especially on that left hand side like I already mentioned. They're required to do an extreme amount of work both going forward and defending. If the opposition overload the wide areas then we can be susceptible to that. There's definitely evidence of that when we come unstuck against the more reputable sides once we reach the Champions League group stages.

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My Approach to Recruitment on FM21

I'm putting a huge focus behind developing young players on FM21.

I've spoken before about improving the abilities of young players, playing them in my first team and selling them on. While that could be taken as me doing a solely homegrown save, where I'm only allowed to play my own youth products without signing any new players, I've never once said that. It probably is the overall aim for the save, one day it might well be the case.

One thing I did say in my introductory blog post was that I was looking to make Oslo, and Vålerenga, the destination for promising young players to come and hone their skills. This means I've been recruiting and developing some of Norway's most promising talent. We've been acting like the big team that we should have been, and now are. Here's the approach I've taken to doing that.

Domestic recruitment

We're three-in-a-row Eliteserien champions now and Champions League group stage regulars. Players across Norway want to join us ahead of taking that next step to even bigger things.

One player that as soon as I saw I knew had to be mine was Filip Rønningen Jørgensen. FRJ plays for Odds and is a highly talented teenager. Probably one of the most naturally talented players in the Eliteserien.

At the end of my first season, after we'd been crowned Champions and had a little bit more money in the bank, I set out on my quest to make him a Vålerenga player. Odds were quoting me £10m+, obviously trying to put me off from being interested. It's at this point I went on a season-long charm offensive.

The first step was sending my Chief Scout on a four-match mission to watch him. This wasn't the only time this happened across the season. I also decided to go and watch Odds a few times myself, as painful as it is to sit there through matches you aren't playing in. I don't really take how players play in other systems for other clubs into consideration in my recruitment decision making, so other than a few flashes of brilliance, FRJ didn't really stand out much when I watched him. It shows him you're keen though.

Coupled with that, I told the press he was our top target. He was, it wasn't a lie. I don't take this approach for every player I'm trying to sign, only for a select few potential stars. A few back and forwards of derisory bids and making rejected enquiries added to the case in FRJ's mind that we were keen. The player was keen too, but Odds stood relatively firm. Armed with another influx of prize money from domestic and continental competition at the end of season two, it was time to swoop. Is a £6m fee too much for him? I don't think so.

Now 20, he had a brilliant first season which was curtailed slightly early due to a nasty injury. He's bounced back ahead of the new season and has that Regista role in my tactic sewn up. He's made the breakthrough into the Norwegian national team setup now too and attracted a fair few bids in the latest transfer window. It could almost be time to cash in before it goes the same way as the next player.

The chase to sign Max Normann Williamsen was far simpler and he's about to become one of the first to move on from the club as part of our strategy. I'm selling him for more than I bought him for (£2m), but it's a lesson for the future. His contract expires at the end of next season and he had zero interest in signing a new one, I'd waited too long to tie him into a new deal. Maybe with time he might have changed his mind but I decided to sell him now to cash in.

He becomes our record sale at £7m, joining Standard Liege in the summer transfer window, but it could have been much, much more, especially now he's a regular in Norwegian national team squads. One to learn from going forward and I'm now adding in at least one-year extensions clauses as standard to most new deals I'm negotiating.

There's been a fair few other domestic incomings so far, including some young players I've poached to get them into the Vålerenga system as soon as possible. I could just flood this post full of even more screenshots of the likes of Sivert Mannsverk, Syver Aas, Tobias Christensen and more, but they'll maybe appear in other posts. Our strikeforce going into my fourth season is something I wanted to shout about though, it's the perfect example of me snapping up the best Norwegian domestic talent.

I don't think it would be right for me to write a blog at the moment and not talk about Albert Braut Tjåland. He arrived from Molde for just £800k ahead of my second season. Across that season he had to contend with being a back-up behind Kjartansson, who'd played well in my first season. Despite that, he still scored 13 goals in 20 (12) appearances. The decision was made for him to be the main man last season and he showed it was the correct decision by hitting 46 goals in 45 (1) appearances. An unreal season from him. Now worth £2.2m and continually wanted by bigger European clubs, it might soon be time for him to leave.

I've already signed Tjåland's replacement. The big new arrival ahead of season four is Oskar Siira Sivertsen. I've been tracking him for three seasons while he's scored 41 goals alongside perennial Eliteserien top goalscorer, Amahl Pellegrino, for our closest league rivals, Kristiansund.

With a £30m transfer budget burning a hole in my pocket, and last season's veteran back-up striker leaving for the Middle East, I thought I'd go for it. A potential £4.8m deal was agreed for the 19-year-old, after a little bit of haggling and watching him in a few pre-season friendlies.

Spoiler alert, he's already got 10 goals in 2 (8) appearances so far in season four, including this delicious dink. I'm excited.

Domestic bargain of the century has to go to this man though, Tobias Sagstuen Andersen. What a find from my scouts, Raufoss should've acted like Odds and put up much more of a fight to keep this man. We snatched him away for just £325. That's not a typo. He was a Perfectionist, although that's dropped to Fairly Determined now. He's come on leaps and bounds and was a permanent fixture in the middle of our three central defenders last season, hitting double figures for goals too as we continue to make set pieces count. It pays to scout the lower leagues in the country you're playing in with him now being worth £1m and tipped for a national team call up by the media.

Regional recruitment

Our reputation is increasing across the continent too. I definitely see us on the same perch as Danish clubs FC Midtjylland and FC Nordsjælland when it comes to the different approaches they take compared to the form. I also see us along similar lines to FC København and previous perennial Eliteserien champions, Rosenborg, in terms of the size of club we are now. Players in the Nordic region want to join us to better themselves.

Naatan Skyttä is one of those players. He was a player I'd spotted playing for the Finnish u21 side and snapped him up for £230k. So far he's struggled for a place in the first team and could probably benefit from a loan out or for some other players to be moved on. I really like him though. He's a young, diminutive, flair player that could be very fun to watch. Plus, he's currently highly rated IRL and has one of those YouTube insane flicks and tricks videos, so I'm keeping him.

Andreas Schjelderup is Norwegian but starts the game at FC Nordsjælland, one of those aforementioned clubs. He's very highly rated IRL and I just missed out on signing him from them previously, as he chose to join Hobro in Denmark once his contract had expired.

Undeterred, I kept tabs on him and had my scouts keep watching him. The holy grail is when players become unhappy and want to leave clubs and I jumped at the chance to sign him for £650k. Not a bad profit for Hobro but a relatively low fee for us these days considering our transfer budget.

He's got some improving to do but at just 18-years-old, he's got time to do it and he's now at the right club to kick him onto the next level.

I'm always keeping an eye out for players across the region, and Filip Bundgaard is one I've been tracking for a couple of seasons now. He's got a minimum fee release clause of £3.8m for foreign clubs, which of course we are. It's a constant battle whether I should just pull the trigger or not. Should I?

Continental recruitment

My recruitment across the continent has so far been geared towards bringing back talented Norwegians to the country. They're players who left when they were younger and haven't quite been able to make the breakthrough yet at their clubs. Vålerenga can be their platform to get minutes on the pitch, continue their development and put them on the path to make that similar move abroad again.

Dawid Bugaj is Molde-born, half-Polish and had been a player I'd had my eye on since I joined the club, with the expectation that Christian Borchgrevink would eventually move on in the Right Back position. Yes he's still young but he had yet to make a break into SPAL's first team in Serie B. Once Borchgrevink's move to Spurs was finalised, I made the move. Perhaps a potential £4.7m deal was a little bit of an outlay but I think over time it'll be worth it. He'll either make us that back and then some, or he'll be my RWB for the remainder of my time at the club.

Ex-Stabaek and current Sporting central defender, August Frobenius, returned to Norway to join us last season when his contract in Portugal expired. At just 19 he's got some developing to do too, but he should be a solid option for us at the back.

There's a whole host of additional players I want to bring to Oslo. Håkon Evjen is interested but I think we'd be priced out of a move on wage demands. I'm constantly keeping tabs on Chelsea's Bryan Fiabema, who keeps going out on loan. Now 20, he's still got a couple of years left on his current deal. Isak Hansen-Aarøen is another Premier League loanee regular, currently at NYRB from Manchester United, who looks an incredible prospect. Both Fiabema and Hansen-Aarøen are ex-Tromsø. I think our platform could propel them to the next level, or at least help the club out financially when they're sold on.

International recruitment

There's only been one incoming transfer from beyond Europe so far and that was when I was randomly presented with the scout report of Lamar Walker from Portmore United in Jamaica. He joined for the measly sum of £1.5k and made less than 20 appearances for the first team. He spent the second year of his deal on loan, and impressing, at Haugesund, before he refused a new deal and left on a free transfer.

I'm kicking myself now. He joined Heerenveen and is now worth £5.5m. More proof that I should insert those contract extension clauses into negotiations.

Internal recruitment

After all of that, I shouldn't really be recruiting anyone outwith our club. Our youth system is churning out some very talented young players. Sometimes the lure of signing certain players is too much, as you've seen from some of the players above. They'll eventually move on as planned, and I'll look internally for their replacements.

Tarjei Loen is currently the pick of the bunch, already playing for our 2nd team in the Norwegian third tier at just 16. He should slot perfectly into my current system at LWB.

You probably didn't learn too much from this post. I mainly just wanted to show off some of the players at my disposal currently. The squad we've got is really exciting. My fourth season has begun and I'm looking for us to retain the Eliteserien title in style.

United to Prevent Suicide

It's time to shine a light on United to Prevent Suicide. It’s a campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

My Approach to Youth Development on FM21

A news article appeared online over the festive period that outlined FC Midtjylland's aim of developing a Ballon d'Or winning talent by 2030. FCM aren't strangers of setting out lofty aims for themselves but this one certainly caught the attention of many.

Firstly, I don't think it's something that's ever been set out as a public aim for a club before. Secondly, it was just a sensationalist headline (it was the Daily Mail after all). The real aim here was to create something that could rival La Masia or De Toekomst in the future.

The name of FCM's new school also stood out for me, Goldmine. Midtjylland chairman, and Brentford Director of Football, Rasmus Ankersen, is the author of the book, The Gold Mine Effect.

Ankersen travelled the world visiting various "gold mines", areas which produce a disproportionate amount of talent. Think Jamaica and sprinters. Ethiopia and distance runners. Kenya and marathon runners. I love the book and would recommend you read it if you haven't already. This is exactly what FCM are trying to emulate. Ankersen is using his experience and trying to put it all into creating an environment that will enable the development of footballing stars of tomorrow, one that encourages footballers to be the best they can be.

It's exactly what I want to do at Vålerenga on FM21. While I can't ensure that my young players are all participating in a multi-sport programme up until a certain age to broaden their skillset, for example, there are some things I can try and control. This is how I approach it on the game.

Facilities

The facilities on offer at Vålerenga before I joined the club were a big factor in me picking them for my save. I bypassed a few stages ever-so-slightly there. The club has Excellent Youth Facilities, and in a couple of months time this will move up to the next level after a board request was accepted.

The quality of your Youth Facilities will impact how good your newgens are when they appear in your intake. Get your Youth Facilities to State of the Art and there's a good chance that your newgens will have better Current and Potential Ability than they would have if you had Basic Youth Facilities. It's still a chance at the end of the day.

I said in my introductory post to the save that I wanted to consistently bring through generation after generation of Oslo youngsters who're good enough for the first team and beyond. Alongside Youth Facilities, the other starting points of that is in our Junior Coaching and Youth Recruitment. I've been able to raise both at Vålerenga, they are now classed as Exceptional.

Although I've said I want a focus on young players from Oslo, we've won the Eliteserien twice in a row now and are one of the most reputable sides in the country. The net can be cast further afield too. With our Exceptional Youth Recruitment I like to think we're scouring the entire nation for young talent to bring them into our academy. Maybe even beyond Norway, with Yohana Redie being born in Eritrea but being half-Norwegian.

Our Exceptional Junior Coaching means we'll have a good number of Junior Coaches who are working with our academy players (before they appear as newgens) to make them even better (in terms of their Current and Potential Ability).

Like I said before, it's still chance at the end of the day. Even your pre-save decisions come into it. If you've picked a country which has a higher Youth Rating than another, you're increasing your potential of good intakes. I feel like Norway's Youth Rating must be quite high these days, there's a lot of talented young players being produced. One of the big reasons why I picked the country for my save this year! Jackpot.

Coaching Staff

One of the areas where I've tended to fall down in this development process in the past is in the coaching staff that work with my youth players. I really should focus on it more because it can massively help. Obviously the Junior Coaches have improved the pre-newgen players as much as they can, but once they graduate into your u19 team, they're your responsibility now.

Here's a look at my current set up and areas I could improve.

Head of Youth Development

First off it's a look at my current Head of Youth Development, Thomas Hafstad. He was already in place when I joined and so far I haven't felt the need to let him go and look for a replacement. His Loyal personality isn't necessarily one of the most positive but it's not a negative one by any stretch. It'd be great to bring through some loyal youngsters who didn't want to leave for one of the bigger clubs across the world at the earliest opportunity.

He favours a 4-4-2 formation, meaning he's likely to bring through positions that relate to how I currently set up tactically, which is great. The two intakes we've had so far there's been a host of different types of players that have come through, which again points towards it being such a random lottery of what he can influence. His Tactical Style of Control Possession and Playing Style of Direct supposedly might affect aspects of the young players that come through your intake, but I really don't put too much value behind those.

I've been relatively happy with my intakes so far so Hafstad will likely stay in place at least until the end of his current deal in December 2023. That means he's got at least one more intake to bring through so we'll see how that looks when it happens.

Finally, your Head of Youth Development also acts as a youth coach as well. While Hafstad's Determination and Discipline are great, he lacks in Motivating and also in any of the coaching attributes really. If you're in a position to hire an incredible Head of Youth Development I would definitely keep that in mind too.

u19 Coaching Staff

Everyone wants their coaching categories to be maxed out with five stars across the board. Two seasons into a save in Norway is a bit too soon to be getting to that stage though.

My approach is usually about trying to find areas where I can level things up while also keeping the workload balanced across the board. There's absolutely no question though that the quality of our u19 coaches could be levelled up. You can see that my manager in-game is spread thinly across five of those categories in the top screenshot. That's not an ideal situation despite me being excellent on the training pitch.

So far I've prioritised just getting coaches into the club and ensuring we're filling out the numbers sanctioned by the board. Going forward in the save it'll be about improving the quality of those coaches and then asking the board whether we can have more of them.

Training

I love training on FM, it's no secret. I've written about my approaches to training on FM19 and FM20 so far and am planning to do something similar soon for FM21 as well.

Those pieces look at my approach to first team training though. On those versions of the game I didn't look into youth team training much at all, it wasn't my priority.

It is for FM21 though. I want to develop my young players into potential first team options.

Team

Is it overkill to take charge of training for the youth team as well as the first team (and reserve team)? Maybe, but it'll be much more rewarding when you see those green arrows of positive development. Now that I'm two youth intakes into my FM21 save, I've decided that it's time for me to take the reins and put together a schedule for my youth team to follow.

There's two ways I could approach it. I could go more general and be slightly hands-off or I could take inspiration from my FM19 Tactical Periodisation approach and have two different sets of schedules for attacking and defensive "phases".

I've decided to go for the former, initially anyway.

I think this schedule gives a good breadth of attribute training, tactical cohesion and balance in terms of intensity. Their matchdays are on a Wednesday afternoon and it would just be harsh not to give them a recovery day along with a session with the analyst reviewing the match.

Then it's back to work with a Physical session. The general Physical module should be enough as opposed to selecting one of the more focused Physical sessions like Endurance or Resistance, especially so with a lot of my u19 players working on Quickness as an individual focus (mentioned further down).

That's my thought process for the vast majority of the schedule. The general sessions should be enough for the young players rather than going so specific into the other available categories.

That's until we get to Saturday and Sunday where I've added the two Shadow Play sessions that follow on from Tactical sessions on both days. The doubling up of Tactical sessions alongside these additional ones is to work on vital Mental attributes like Composure, Decisions, Off the Ball and Teamwork. From my experience young players do lack in the mental side of their game and this will hopefully stand them in good stead going forward in their careers.

Mentoring

Since the shift away from the old mentoring model, I don't think I've quite got my approach to it nailed yet.

If a young player has made their way into my thinking for the first team and if they don't have what I deem to be a positive personality, I'll look to get them into a mentoring group with some of my more senior players with positive personalities. For example, a Balanced 19-year-old could be in a mentoring group with a Resolute 26-year-old and a Professional 30-year-old. That tends to be my approach to them so far.

We had a discussion on FMSlack recently about youth mentoring, and the fact that groups can be set up containing youth players. However, I've decided to continue my approach of not putting any young players in mentoring groups. I'm not sure it'll make a massive amount of difference to their development. I could be wrong and am missing out on huge gains and I'm willing to be proven wrong here by anyone. For now though, that's how I'll proceed.

Individual

My approach to individual training is three-fold. Firstly, the player gets assigned a role to train. This could be a role relative to their position, it could be a role that's broader in attribute coverage (Roaming Playmaker or Complete Forward) or it could be one that's more focused on a few attributes (Ball Winning Midfielder or Poacher). It could also be a completely different role to their position if their skillset looks to not suit that position or role and I'll try and shift them away to a more suitable one.

Secondly, the player gets an additional focus thrust upon them. Physical attributes do tend to improve as they get older, but I do like to try and speed that up with an additional Quickness focus. Final Third is also a favourite of mine, why wouldn't you want your players to have better Composure and Decision making? That will now just layer on to the extra focus on Mental attributes as part of the team training.

Thirdly, always set the intensity to double. Always. The players can handle it and if they moan just ignore them.

Here's a few case studies of what I've seen so far in my couple of seasons in Norway on FM21.

A Look At - Oskar Opsahl

When I joined the club, Opsahl was in the reserve team. The first team only had one Left Back and I'd switched the first window off so wasn't able to bring in any new recruits. I'm not saying Opsahl is a world beater by any stretch but he's been a dependable member of the first team squad who has filled in for Sam Adekugbe, my Canadian first choice, when he had far too many international commitments in the 2021 season for my liking.

His additional role training has been Full Back on Attack duty with an additional focus of Defensive Positioning. Add that to my list of focuses I love to get defenders working on. It sees them working to improve their Marking, Decisions and Positioning and you can see that Opsahl has been working hard to improve his over the two seasons so far.

He's still just 20-years-old, he's tiny (5'6"), his personality could improve (he's in the first team so he is actually in a mentoring group with two senior players), I could look for an upgrade, but I'm not going to. He's Oslo through and through.

A Look At - Aaron Andersen

Andersen was part of the first youth intake and was highlighted as the most promising player from the group. He had some standout attributes that went against what I previously said about young players and their Mental attributes.

One thing I'm noticing much more on FM21 is that my young players want to be sent out on loan earlier than I usually like to send them out on loan. That saw Andersen heading to affiliate club, Baerum, for the last few months of the 2021 season, the same season in which he appeared in our intake. That's far too early in my development plan for him but he did do quite well, scoring five times in eight appearances in the 4th tier. He'll spend this season playing for Vålerenga 2 (my reserves) who play in the 3rd tier. That shows off the current pathway in place to our first team.

I'm not quite sure what he is yet. I know he needs to be something though. For now he's on a Shadow Striker role focus as I'm looking to improve some of those key Technical attributes like Finishing, Passing and Dribbling. He could be a tasty number 10. His additional focus has been Quickness and he's shown great progress in his Acceleration so far.

A Look At - Christian Jensen

The 2022 intake was a successful one that brought five three and a half star potential players or above through to the u19 squad. Not a bad haul at all. Jensen is similar to Andersen in that he's come through with some very high Mental attributes, although I'm not sure how much I value Aggression of 15 on an Attacking Midfielder.

Look at his personality though, just look at it! A 15-year-old Model Citizen. He's going to approach training which such a good attitude that I'm confident he'll develop. Let's face reality, he does need to at the current time. His Technical ability is quite poor along with a few key Mentals. To start off I've got him on an Attacking Midfield (A) role training with an additional Final Third focus. Let's get that Composure and Decision making up.

The issue with both Andersen and Jensen is that I don't currently play with a player in the AM slot. If they did progress to such a level that they're knocking down my door for a start, I'd certainly consider a change of formation to slot promising players in.

Winning isn't the priority when it comes to development, but it's certainly nice. In season one my u19 squad won the Oslo u19 Championship and in season two they won the National u19 Championship at the first time of asking. Not bad at all.

Developing players on Football Manager can sometimes feel like a lottery, I believe it is one. You can only do so much, you're at the mercy of the game. That's why I try and do everything I possibly can do to try and develop players as much as I can. If they develop and turn into a first team player, excellent! If they don't and they move on without a trace, that's fine. That's football. Enjoy the ride.

United to Prevent Suicide

Across FM21 I’ll be shining a light on United to Prevent Suicide. It’s a campaign aimed at breaking down the perceived barriers of talking about suicide, as a means of preventing it. Talking saves lives, and we should be comfortable talking about suicide to ensure we can do our upmost to prevent it. You can find out more information on the below website.

United to Prevent Suicide

My FM20 Tactic: 4-1-2-3

I initially planned a post focusing on my 3-5-2/5-3-2 tactic which had been part of our Furia identity for four and a half seasons. The key word there being "had". After a difficult first half of the season I came to the decision to move away from my trusted tactic.

It served me well and had troubled our LaLiga competitors but it was time for a change. Things had gotten a bit stale, I wanted to see us do something different going forward, to introduce a bit of variation in our attacking play. Enter a classic 4-1-2-3.

Shift to 4-1-2-3

If I was an actual Football Manager and not a virtual one, 4-1-2-3 would be the tactic I impose on my side. I think it's pretty perfect. You've got a solid defensive base, a midfielder screening that defence too to give the full-backs some license to go forward. There's a central midfield two that you can instruct to do anything you want them to and up top there's a range of options. Is it two wingers crossing for a big man? Does the striker drop in to lure opposing defenders out to create space for runners coming inside from wide? On Football Manager the opportunities aren't exactly endless, it's a game and we have to live within the confines of it, but there's still plenty of interpretations for you to put together.

Here's how my 4-1-2-3 currently looks after a few rounds of tinkering across the second half of the season.

A lot of my thinking when putting a new tactic together is about positioning. I think about the differences in positioning of the roles we can pick from and our expectations of what those roles should do on the pitch. How does the positioning of a Complete Forward on Support differ to that of an Advanced Forward? What about the movement that you can get from the midfield two, if the AP was on Attack would he support the forwards enough in comparison to a Central Midfielder on Attack?

This is how I see the movement and positions changing.

I'll walk through more of my thinking behind it and some of that tinkering in the sections below.

The Forward Line

Our topsy-turvy first half of the season led me to the tactical change and a big part of that was due to my strikers. Thomas Amang had scored seven goals while big money signing, Eddie Nketiah, had scored just one. We were still creating chances but it was all samey. I mentioned before I wanted to change things up and that involved moving away from two up front. It saddened me but going from two to one up front doesn't need to make us less effective going forward, as much as the football da's believe that and shout at their manager to put two up top.

It's only one but it's effectively three. Supporting the man leading the line I've gone for two Inside Forwards. This is for three main reasons:

• I'd usually try and vary the wide roles but I don't actually have any natural wingers

• Thinking ahead to the future, I've got a group of promising young forwards who could successfully play out wide cutting in

• Linking it back to thinking about the positioning of the players, getting the three close together.

Here's our average positions from our 2-0 win over Valencia in the last month of the season. You can clearly see the 4-1-2-3 structure with that three actually almost being three up top as opposed to one.

Width

In my previous formation, all the width came from the Wing-Backs. Looking at the formation here, we've also got two additional players out wide in the forward line, however taking their roles into account they vacate the wide areas for the Full-Backs to bomb on and support the attack.

With FMPressure's excellent posts on modern Full-Backs in mind, I tried out a couple of different roles and settled on FB(S) and FB(A) for now. I settled for those roles over others as with the change from five to four at the back we're losing a bit of defensive stability. Full-Back's primary function is to defend but also to provide that width and support going forward. I see that as important, especially with them being our only width but it's something I also see me continuing to try out and test as time with the tactic goes on.

One day I hope to see far less examples of this and more of them actually crossing the ball. Look at how much time and space Porro has to cross it here but he chooses to dally and lose the ball. So many examples of this every single match.

I do love that tiny delay from my three forward players when he receives the ball though. Like "oh, will we go into the box or not? Yup, let's go in." Does Porro really have anyone to aim at? No, he doesn't. Just get it fired across there though, I keep saying to the lads that anything can happen.

Midfield Mix

As part of my three-man midfield in the previous tactic I'd taken to playing two playmakers. This is maybe something you see often in tactics which claim to win all the things and have every single team instruction selected, but it's not something I see us FM bloggers incorporating into our tactics that often.

I've been a big fan of the DLP(D) role since FM18 where it featured in my Stirling 4-4-2 and was christened the Deep-Lying Destroyer. I've had that in my head since then and to this day continue to play a more defensively minded player in this role to screen the defence, assist in breaking opposition attacks down and then moving the ball forward to the our attacking players.

With the addition of a second playmaker, the AP(S), I often see the DLP(D) moving the ball on to him and in turn he'll then dictate the play further up the pitch. He makes things happen with our front three and the supporting midfielder alongside him, the CM(A). Just a classic role. Simple and occasionally effective. With the right player in there you've got yourself a goal threat from midfield. I'm not quite sure I've got the right player to be that yet but he gets in the right positions and that's reassuring.

Match Footage

I changed to the new tactic at the end of January. Two 2-0 wins were followed up by a 1-0 defeat away against Levante, who were languishing down in the lower end of the table. That result could've been the the trigger to throw in the towel for others and shift back to the trusted previous tactic. Signs were promising though, we created a lot of good chances and on another day would've clearly won it. I've seen Amang burst the net before from this kind of chance, though he maybe just reaches this cracking through ball from Burnic, playing AP(S), a little too late.

I'm yet to be sold on my Inside Forwards. They get into some great positions but seem to more often than not make the wrong decision. That could just be the players I have in these roles but it's blocked shots when patience was the preferred option or running into trouble when a simple pass would've sufficed.

Hiroki Abe ended the season with eight goals, but also with less than half of the shots he takes being on target. He runs with the ball often and cuts inside from the left, but as you can see above also just occasionally decides to take a shot at the legs of opposing defenders when he's in a great position one-on-one with them.

I'm also still undecided on the role for my forward. I want him on the end of our chances, but I felt he'd be cutting a lonely figure if I picked an Advanced Forward or Poacher. Complete Forward feels like it should be the role. Getting on the end of chances and being involved in aspects of the build up play too. Support duty feels like it should be the setting too, with him dropping in a little bit more to create the space for the IFs to move forward but I'm not seeing it as much as I'd like to be. Maybe I'm just being restless though as the return across the second half of the season from my forwards was much better in comparison to the first half of the season.

The aspects of Furia are still there in our team instructions and when it pays off and rewards us, it's beautiful.

Our aggressive pressing high up the pitch sees Luis win the ball from Rojas as Girona try and play out from the back. He plays a lovely pass, at the perfect time, to Amang for an easy finish.

There’s still work to do to perfect it, but early indications are it’s a positive tweak to our approach.

My FM20 Training Approach

“How do I want my team to play?”

It’s probably the most important question us Football Managers will ask ourselves. Some find it difficult to answer. We want to set out to win matches obviously but it’s getting to that point that is often tricky. Tactics are obviously vital, the quality of the players slotting in to each of those roles in the tactic are equally as important. What about the work on the training pitch?

The change to the way that training works on Football Manager was a welcome one for me and it was also often talked about and requested by so many other players of the game. Why then, into its second iteration on the game, do we still see so many not taking control of it themselves? I really think it could give you that additional percentage of performance that could lead to your side earning the win come matchday. That’s why I’ve decided to go through the reasons why I’ve set up training the way I have, to gear the sessions towards the type of players I want at the club and how we set up on the pitch come matchday.

Style of Play

I’ve dubbed my playing style on Football Manager 2020 “La Furia”. It’s a bold, brash and direct style of football that’s all about being aggressively in our opponent’s faces. We’re playing a high defensive line and a high line of engagement too, we press hard and we press high. When we lose the ball we try and win it back as quickly as possible and when we win it back we attack the opposition. I’m looking for aggressive, hard working players who’ll fight for the cause and give their all.

That’s how I want us to play. How does that go into the training schedule I’ve set up for my side?

Training to Win

Training is about players working hard to better themselves and preparing for that upcoming match. The beginning of our Monday to Sunday training plan is about recovery. La Liga matches are played out over Friday to Monday, but for the purpose of building my base plan, I’ve chosen Sunday as matchday so our Monday is about a recovery session and a match review session.

Recovery sessions are vital at the best of times but greatly reducing our injury risk, fatigue and improving the conditioning of our players after the effort they put into every match is hugely important. I’d like to hope everyone else does this already, but if you don’t, I would definitely recommend filling up the available spaces in your medical team with the best physios and sports scientists you can find. It’s bound to have a positive effect on your players.

As the seasons have gone on and more midweek European matches have come into play, the time between matches gets shorter and shorter. I’m not shy in scheduling double recovery sessions on a Friday after a Europa League Thursday night match to get the players in a good position and ready to go again for our league match on the Sunday.

You would like to think that all teams now review their previous match and discuss what was good and what wasn’t. I’ve only recently started scheduling in the match review session the day after a match. It’s dedicated to analytically reviewing the previous match (presumably with the data analysts employed at the club?) and it increases our team cohesion, which I’m a big believer in, while also working on our tactical familiarity going forward. It’s a great post-match session that still works on what you want to achieve going forward. It’s so important to get your players all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Once they’re rested and recuperated, the hard work starts all over again. I chose to start off with an overall session. I envisage this as the players coming together and just getting their week of training off to a good start, getting them moving. The description states that it’s a session “where the players put a small amount of work into every area of their game”. It’s good to get each unit together and have them generally working a little bit on each attribute area. It also increases our tactical familiarity, team cohesion and makes the players happier, while slightly increasing their risk of injury and fatigue. It’s a good warm up for them because the second session of the day is physical.

I could have the players doing one of the more specific physical sessions, such as endurance or resistance, but I opt for the general physical session as it works that range of attributes, a few of which are absolutely vital to the Furia style of play and my own personal favourite attributes. Stamina and work rate are so important to the system as I expect my players to be able to last the 90+ minutes in each match. We press hard and pressure the opposition into making mistakes. Players already capable of that are high up on my recruitment list, of course, but it needs to be worked on in training too to collectively make us even better at it.

Do you use that extra session available to you? I do, daily from Tuesday to Friday. I think our players can take it. Even with their intensity levels being set to double alongside their individual roles and additional focuses added on top of our daily sessions, their workloads are still only medium. The only day when our intensity goes into orange levels is on Tuesday’s with that previously mentioned physical session. The last session on that day is a ball distribution one. Would you believe me if I said the ball retention session doesn’t train passing? We aren’t known as a slick, short passing side, but the passing attribute covers all ranges of passing. While the defensive unit are defending against the attacking one and working on key attributes for that, the goalkeepers are also working on their distribution too, including their passing and kicking.

The next few days are dedicated to the four game situations that are a key component of Tactical Periodisation, the approach to training that I’ve written about previously. These are offensive and defensive organisation and the transition from defence to attack and vice versa. We aren’t a patient attacking side so we don’t train it nor do we play with any wingers so we don’t train overlaps. We do rely on our wing backs for width though so we train attacking down the wing and we’re unapologetically direct so we of course train that. Alongside training key aspects of our play such as off the ball movement, that (direct) passing again, crossing and finishing it also improves the familiarity with our creative freedom and passing style, plus improving our team cohesion and player happiness. Happy players working as a team is what I aim for.

Chance creation and conversion speak for themselves. We want to create chances and score goals so my players need to improve all attribute areas related to those two actions. Then it’s onto our transitions. Pressing is an absolutely vital part of our game, one of the main aims in our style of play is to be in the faces of our opponents. It works on our aggression, tackling, anticipation, teamwork and work rate, all key components of the press. Then we practice restricting the space our opponents can play in when we lose the ball by working on our concentration, marking and positioning, amongst other attributes.

The final aspect of our four game situations is defending. We aren’t the strongest team in the league so I put a bit more of a focus on defending in comparison to our attacking training, meaning there’s three defensive training sessions on Friday’s. Defending from the front is so important in football today and it’s no different in my side. The priority of that session is the forwards working on their tackling, marking, concentration and positioning however it also works on the team’s overall pressing intensity and marking in terms of tactical familiarity.

There’s five defensively focused sessions to choose from from the remainder of the options and there are two final sessions I’ve allocated for our week putting in hard work on the training ground. Firstly, I choose defending engaged over defending disengaged. It works the players in getting more aggressive, one of the key attributes for my style of play. Then I go for wide defending as opposed to ground or aerial defending. The formation we play is a 3-5-2 meaning that there’s only one line of defence out wide. My thought is we need to really put a focus on being strong at defending the opposition’s attacks from out wide, plus, again, it also sees us working on that all important tactical familiarity, team cohesion and happiness.

Preparing to Win

The eve of a match is all about those final preparations. Depending on whether we’re at home or away, there’s a slight difference in the amount of preparation we’re able to do. My priority is always a teamwork session. This stems from previous versions of the game and the previous way you could set up training. As you’ve seen throughout, I’m a big advocate of the team gelling and the teamwork match preparation session greatly improves our team cohesion.

Similar to our post-match session reviewing the match, we work with the analysts to preview the match. This increases our team cohesion, slightly increases our sharpness, works on our tactical familiarity and, in my head, enables our analysts to get the players completely up to speed with our opponents and how they play, devising ways for us to defeat them.

Then, depending on the time of the season and our upcoming opponents, I’ll choose between match tactics, attacking movement or defensive shape. These sessions give us a slight boost ahead of the upcoming match, alongside some additional benefits with tactical familiarity, team cohesion and certain attributes being worked on as well.

That’s how we prepare at our training ground to win our next match, to win three points every week, in order to finish as high up the table as we possibly can. Everyone is entitled to play Football Manager in any way they want, you might completely hand control of training to your coaching staff and still be doing incredibly well. I find I get a much more rewarding experience while I’m playing the game when I’m putting together my training session strategy. If you haven’t done it before, why not give it a try too?

My FM19 Tactic: The 3-5-2 Returns

It's very difficult to put the heartache of losing out on winning the league title on the last day of the season followed up by losing a cup final a week later to one side but a new season rolling around goes a long way in helping to forget what had come before.

We ended season six trophyless after a very successful couple of years prior. The aim for season seven is obviously to wrestle at least one of those trophies back into our cabinet. We'll be looking to do it with a new tactical approach.

The 3-5-2 returns

Loyal readers will remember way back to the 4th of November 2018 when I joined Vitória and outlined the tactic I was looking to play. The key aspects of it were the three central defenders, wing-backs that were expected to defend and attack in equal measure and the forward three, who were either two up front and one behind or two behind and one up front. It got us where we needed to be in that first season, a third place finish.

That was back when the game was first released though and there was a few issues with movement up front. In season two I switched to the very successful 4-1-2-3 and the trophies started arriving in Guimarães. I always spoke about moving back to the 3-5-2 though and after writing this piece for the Football Manager site I made the switch ahead of season seven.

One of the big reasons why I wanted to go back to it was to play two up front and pair Dejan Joveljic and Pedro Ferreria together. I always had a tough choice picking between them for the lone striker role in the previous tactic. I reckoned they'd be a danger for any opposition defence and that's been the case so far as they've scored 21 goals between them across the first half of the season. It hasn't all been easy though in terms of the switch back to 3-5-2. It's taken a lot of tweaking to get to the point where the tactic looks like the below.

Despite a positive start to the season I'd spotted a few issues with how I'd initially set this up. Issue one was the attacking midfield role. I'd selected a Shadow Striker, as I'd done in the tactic I'd outlined for the 3-5-2 article on the FM site. This is a role I'd used extensively back on FM17 and had great success with but looking at how it plays out on FM19 it's not quite the same.

My perception from the previous game was that it was all action and moved very fluidly across the front line, making excellent penetrating runs and getting into great positions in and around the box. What I was seeing on FM19 was nothing like this. There was flashes, like Lovro Majer's lovely finish on the break against Estoril or his 90th minute screamer against Academica to snatch the win in the Taca da Liga, but on the whole it was ineffectual.

The below screenshot is an example from the 0-0 against bottom of the table Tondela. Majer was getting on the ball but just continually playing it out wide, presumably to our wing backs who were constantly in space. Crosses are a big aspect of our play and I don't mind us attempting a lot of them but there was very little central danger.

I've shifted the role to being an Advanced Playmaker on Attack. Ensuring he attracts the ball, plays a little bit deeper but is constantly looking for options ahead of him has seen his influence on matches increase. Passes, key passes and chances created are all up versus the previous role. When analysing the AM role it also led me to look into issue two, the forward roles.

I really struggled to settle on the roles for the strike duo. Complete Forward on Attack did so well as the lone striker in the previous formation that I wondered whether I should incorporate it into the new duo? I knew I wanted one being the out ball and one linking with the midfield. A Poacher doesn't move into channels so I stuck with that for a good portion of the season but there would be matches that would just pass him by. A Deep Lying Forward on Support would certainly drop in and contribute to our approach play but would it encroach into the space the AM is operating in?

Eventually I settled on the Attack version of the DLF partnered with an Advanced Forward. The DLF is still linking well with the rest of the side but finds himself getting on the end of chances too due to his position higher up the pitch. The AF does move into channels which goes against one of my ideas for the tactic but paired with a DLF who does the same, more often than not one will make that move and the other will stay central, and vice versa.

Issue three was the balance in central midfield. I knew I wanted to keep a Mezzala after how well the role had performed previously but partnered with what other role? With the back three providing more than enough defensive cover, my initial thought with the second CM role was a ball winner. I've eventually settled on the Carrilero, similarly to my initial 3-5-2 attempt. He'll provide support for the LWB bombing forward and link well. I tried out a Ball Winning Midfielder and just a standard Central Midfielder, both on Support, too, but I'm finding the balance of the side overall much better with the Carrilero there. Plus it means I'm playing a Carrilero and a Mezzala together. I'm so hipster.

Results

Has our new style led to positive results?

Things have been really positive on the whole. We started the season excellently as new formation bounce took hold before new formation fatigue set in at the beginning of October. A couple of poor results, including our only domestic defeat of the season so far, saw me tweak a few roles and instructions. It wasn't until the 1-1 draw with Gil Vicente followed by the drab 0-0 with Tondela though that I took the time to properly analyse how we were set up and looked into tweaking how we would look going forward.

The best time for reflection is when you're on top.

With me going through those issues previously you might have been thinking we were languishing low down in the table. We're top at the half way point, albeit Benfica have games in hand that will take them level with us if they win them. Defences win titles and ours have been rock solid so far. Absolutely no issues at the back at all in the new tactic. As is customary, we've also made it through to the Taca da Liga semi final and Taca de Portugal 6th round.

We were drawn against Real Madrid, Lyon and Mainz in the Champions League group stage. Would you look at these results and think we would qualify for the knockout round?

Because we did. Somehow.

Despite Mainz being Germany's new powerhouse after consecutive top four Bundesliga finishes I hoped we could take at least four points from them, we only got one. We took four points from Lyon in last season's group stage and none this season as they topped the group. Despite Real battering us for 180 minutes home and away, we managed to steal six points from them and finish 2nd on the head-to-head record. I don't see us doing the same to Man City in the first knockout round.

After around six seasons playing the same way I'd slipped into an FM comfort zone. Stepping out of that by changing the tactic has woken me up and, at a time when it looks as though interest in FM19 is waning for so many other people, kept me keen to keep coming back to Vitória. Bring on the second half of the season.

The Mezzala on FM - Mez Que Un Role

Football Manager 2018 saw the Mezzala role introduced to the game. It had gained some traction in the non-FM world due to the performances of Ángel di María for Real Madrid in what was dubbed as the central winger role but when researching I found that it's been part of the Italian football vernacular for years.

When the role appeared alongside the Carrilero and Segundo Volante I vowed never to use them. Never heard of them. Far too hipster for me. FM doesn't really need them. Fast forward to FM19 and I've now crossed two of them off the list. The Carrilero appeared in my first tactical attempt and now the Mezzala is key to how we play. So important that it's merited it's own blog post analysing the role in my system.

Why the Mezzala?

When I initially changed to the 4-1-2-3 setup I went with my trusted roles of a CM(A) and a CM(S). I've had some great success with the standard CM role over the past few editions of the game, to the point where it's probably been my favourite role. It's so customisable that it can play a variety of different ways in similar tactical setups.

However in the set up above I was finding that they were slightly too static and perhaps I was being slightly too cautious, especially so with that CM(S). I was looking for something a little more dynamic. A role that would play on the front foot and drag the side further up the pitch. Enter the Mez.

The description for the Mezzala role makes reference to the central winger like I mentioned in the introduction and also says they operate in the half-spaces. Control the half-space and you'll have quite a good handle on controlling the match. I didn't just change the CM(S) to a Mez(S) though. I went the whole hog and double Mezzed it. We're controlling the whole of the half-space now.

The Mez(S) does his fair share of defensive work in addition to attempting to influence play going forward whereas the Mez(A) is deemed much more of an offensive threat and leaves the defending to teammates. However, defending from the front is just as vital and one of the tweaks I've made to both roles is asking them to close down more. I want them harassing opposition midfielders into making mistakes and winning the ball back for us higher up the pitch.

I tend not to like handing out instructions to the entire team. I'm much more likely to make a tweak or two to certain individuals and another of those on both Mezzalas is asking them be more direct in their passing. I see this as giving them a bit more licence to attempt to unlock opposition defences. If they don't manage to do that and they make a mistake or lose the ball, there's plenty behind them to win it back.

Along that same line of thinking I've also added take more risks onto the Mez(S). Here's how those tweaks look to both roles. Proof that I'm all but playing two Mez(A)s aside from the hardcoded behaviours under the match engine hood.

Combination Play

Here's the current entire setup and how the Mezzalas fit into it all.

I find that it's important to think about the combinations of the roles you're picking and then how it fits into the overall team setup. Here's some examples of the combos within my setup:

• The two central defenders and the DLP provide stability for the rest of the side to create and play

• The Mezzalas receive the ball short from the DLP

• They spray it out left to the rampaging oncoming full back, usually in acres of space

• They play a short pass forward for the IF(A), who's asked to sit narrower

• The W(S) has room to run into on the right and is often found by the Mezzalas

• A direct pass in behind the defence for the striker to run onto, especially with passes into space being encouraged

• When play progresses, the Mezzalas quick to get up and support attacks

• They're often open in space on the edge of the box for a long shot too, if the opportunity for one is there they should take it

• Coupled with our counter press, with the Mezzalas being asked to close down more they work hard and often chase to win the ball back in midfield

That, in a nutshell, is how we play. Here's some images and GIFs of that in action.

Examples

Supporting Attacks

In the below example, we've just won the ball back from a corner. Joveljic has received it and is holding it up. As the Mez(A), Grønli is absolutely busting a gut to get up there and support the attack.

When he eventually receives the ball just inside the penalty area before he fires it home, our winger, inside forward and support Mezzala are all up there too.

Defensive Work

Tyler Boyd has picked up the ball in his own half. You can see Reisinho, number 25, quite close by in that first image. Boyd decides to dribble with the ball and heads for the right wing.

In the second image, Boyd still has the ball but he's in our half now. Reisinho is still tracking him and has been joined by Pedro Ferreira, playing DLP, to chase him down. The centre of midfield has been vacated and left largely open by these two pulling out of position to win the ball back, but if they do win it back, that's fine. In the third image, Mez(S) Reisinho tackles Boyd and the ball goes out for a throw.

Diagonal Balls

This won't just be a Mezzala role only thing, but I love the cross field diagonal balls they play to the wings.

We've won the ball back from a long goal kick. A few short passes later, my DLP keeps the ball moving on to the Mez(S) then bang, straight away we're on the front foot again. Mário Ferreira bombs down the wing to put a cross in and create a chance at the back post for Majer our IF(A).

It's not all beautiful 50-yarders. They keep the ball moving and the pass into space instruction for the entire team helps that too.

Grønli in the Mez(A) role here picks up a loose ball after a throw in and gets the ball moving out over to the oncoming full back on the left. A few quick passes recyling possession and Ferreira's got a tap in at the back post.

Incisive Assists

The positioning and movement of both Mezzalas sees them being in the right place at the right time more often than not to carve out openings and create chances for us to score.

Picking up the second ball again here, Grønli, playing in the Mez(S) role in this match, isn't closed down well enough giving him time and space to thread the ball in behind for Joveljic to slot past the keeper. I'd say this is us controlling the half space pretty well.

Long Shot Klaxons

Like I said, if the opportunity is open to shoot, why wouldn't you?

Shoooooooot. Similarly to the assist above, Reisinho has acres of space and plenty of time to take a touch and pick his spot to score. He chose a lovely finish into the bottom left by the way.

Where to improve?

Right now, I'm not actually sure. Some of the football we're playing is glorious. We're dangerous going forward, expansive in our passing and defend well from the front. I haven't seen any weaknesses from either Mezzala, or indeed any aspect of our play, that I really want to change.

Have you got any suggestions? If so, let me know! What's your experience of the Mezzala role too? I'd love to hear about it.

My FM19 Training Approach

FM19 being released was accompanied by massive changes to training. It had been often suggested, hugely debated and highly anticipated. Gone was the handful of options available for us to pick that we'd have to have on for at least three months for them to make an impact on player development but that we'd do once and just leave for the entirety of our saves. In their place came a whole host of options to pick and the ability to slot them into three sessions per day, rather than for the entire week as before.

Fast forward to now and a lot of what I'm seeing on Twitter and Slack is people saying they're leaving it to their assistant, either completely, or tweaking from the suggestions made to them. Everyone is entitled to play the game however the hell they want to of course, but I wonder why, after all that expectation, that it's not being utilised as much.

I don't know the answer to that at all, mainly because I'm absolutely loving it. It's one of my most visited screens in my save so far. As with everything else on the game, I don't claim to know the ins and outs of how it works or how it's supposed to work. All I can do is outline how I've been approaching it so far and the shift in my approach in my third season at Vitória.

For the first two seasons of my time at the club I was tweaking it almost on a weekly basis, depending on how I wanted to approach the upcoming match plus the general aspects I wanted to train the players in. This covered the majority of all of the new options available to us to pick from, but without much thought behind it. From this season, season three, I've started to adopt some of the principles of tactical periodisation in my approach.

Tactical Periodisation

The concept was developed at the University of Porto by the mind of lecturer, Vítor Frade. The simple explanation of the methodology is that everything in training should be related to in-game scenarios. These can be explained under defensive and offensive organisation, and the transition from defence to attack and vice versa. If you want to play a certain way in game situations, these must be done first on the training field.

The periodisation aspect stems from its repetition. Training follows a cyclical plan and each day of training is designed to follow those four in-game scenarios mentioned above. Football is unpredictable, but the repeated training of these actions is creating habits and eventually predictability is created.

I mentioned the methodology in my introductory post for the save. Two of its most well known adopters are José Mourinho and André Villas-Boas, and although both have suffered a bit of damage to their reputations in recent years, they have both successfully implemented its workings at various clubs across their careers. Brendan Rodgers and England rugby coach, Eddie Jones, are also known to adhere to the concept. How have I implemented it on FM19 though?

On Football Manager 2019

I felt it'd be good to try and base my training schedule on the game around tactical periodisation because it starts with the question of "how do you want your team to play?" It's the million dollar question really. Who doesn't want their side to be strong in defence, dangerous going forward and transitioning seamlessly between the two?

My attempt at Tactical Periodisation involves introducing a lot of the new module options that are available for us to pick now. I've tried to narrow in on ones I think are relevant to not just now I want us to play the game, but that will also aid player development. It's important to keep in mind what each module does by checking out its description. Below is a typical example of a Tactical Periodisation training cycle.

And here's how mine stacks up on the game in comparison. Instead of repeating the same cycle week after week, I've gone for a two week cycle that repeats throughout the season.

The "attacking" cycle

The "defensive" cycle

You'll see straight away that there's one difference in that there's no days off for my players, however the post-match recovery days and pre-match "activation" days are less strenuous than the rest. The other thing to note is that with our participation in continental competition along with, at the time of writing, still being in both domestic cup competitions, this cycle is the ideal one. Very rarely does it actually play out like this week-on-week.

I did say I was just basing it around Tactical Periodisation rather than completely replicating because you can see the cycles both start off with sessions that aren't based on a specific game moment. The overall session is almost a continuation of our recovery, just getting the players in, moving around and putting a little bit of work into every aspect of their games. Session two is a physical one, as that fits in to my overall managerial approach. I love players who have strong physical attributes.

Tuesday to Thursday is all about working on the key aspects of our game. Of course, in FM terms (looking at the descriptions of the modules) very few of these sessions have any impact at all on the upcoming match. However in non-FM terms I think it makes sense. I want us to be good at attacking down the wings, directly and to be patient when attacking, so I focus on those areas throughout the week. Similarly to defending. We need to be solid in defending wide areas and when our opponents have the ball on the deck. Both the offensive and defensive schedules train pressing, while we're working on creating and taking chances one week, and restricting the oppositions chances in the other.

Looking through both the attacking and defensive cycles, I think, I've got all key aspects covered in terms of the breadth and focus on players training attributes. This is obviously key if we want our players to be working on improving and being the best they can be, in conjunction with the quality of our coaching staff and training facilities.

Going against the principles again, our pre-match prep isn't the same in each cycle. I'll vary this depending on our opponent and what I want to be working on. If it's a tough away match coming up I'll focus on our defensive shape while if it's a home match we should be winning against a side who'll sit in I want us to have a bit more of an attacking impetus.

Set pieces are a vital part of football nowadays. I don't think it'll be long before SI bring in set piece specific coaches like a few clubs have on their books now. When you have someone in your squad with the ability to deliver a set piece like we do, it would be stupid not to focus specific sessions on it. These sessions provide a potential boost for your upcoming match as well as generally training players on taking, and attributes related to being in the box. One oversight is that I'm not currently focusing on free kicks, only corners. That will change going forward.

The impact

The beauty of Football Manager means I'm not entirely sure! I've set up this way because I was interested in the Tactical Periodisation methodology after reading about it in the European Game and wanted to see how could be applied on the game. I'm hoping it'll work well for us. Someone else playing the game might be setting up training in a completely different way and be finding much more success than me. I said at the beginning that some aren't even paying attention to training and are still very successful.

As with anything, you get out what you put in. I'm absolutely loving the changes to how it's set up this year, it's probably one of my favourite parts of the game now. I spend a lot of time on the screens ensuring that everything is set up correctly for the month ahead. If you haven't given it a shot yet, have a bash. You might enjoy it too.

Further reading

If you want to know more about Tactical Periodisation then here's some links off to more content to read. There's much more to it than I've outlined in the piece.

Tactical Periodisation: MOURINHO’S BEST-KEPT SECRET?

Training Ground Guru

NY Times' piece on Vítor Frade

The Porto chapter of the European Game book.

My FM19 Tactic: 4-1-2-3

The start to competitive football in season two hasn't been positive. We've struggled for consistency and really struggled to create meaningful goalscoring chances. At the time of starting to write this post, at the end of October 2019 in-game, we're languishing in the bottom half of the league on nine points from eight matches. 

In season one, the vast majority of our play came down the flanks. Our wing backs seemed to always be open and had all the time in the world to pick their spot in the penalty area, despite our cross completion not being amongst the best in the league. So far this season we seem to have been "found out". We're too one dimensional. With us attempting 80 crosses in a recent defeat away to Midtjylland in the Europa League a prime example. It's time to take a look at what was wrong, and try to stop the rot.

Then

After the last tactical tweak, when I moved an extra man up front, this is how it looked. I couldn't settle on any of the roles for that midfield trio at all and so much of our play was geared down mainly the left hand side. That Midtjylland match is the one I'll be looking at when outlining why we needed a change.

Over-reliance on crosses

FCM also set up in a formation with wing backs, but theirs only attempted a grand total of 11 crosses. That's even with what looked like two inside forwards cutting inside and creating the space out wide for them to bomb on. Both Soares and García attempted 34 crosses each of our overall 80. Don't get me wrong, I love a cross. As I always say when I get asked in press conferences, if we keep getting the ball into the box there's a good chance we'll connect with at least one of them. But this just looks a little bit ridiculous, doesn't it?

Despite moving to two up front to give our crossers more options to aim at in the centre, quite often it was still just that AF waiting in the middle. The DLF(S) and AM(A) couldn't get into the area to support quick enough, especially with crosses from the left hand side, as you can see by the screenshot below.

We're chasing the game in this screenshot, 3-1 down in the 90th minute, but it illustrates probably an error on my part. #19 has just sprayed a long ball out to Soares in the WB(A) role. He's got acres of space to run into and gets into a great position to cross the ball, getting ahead of FCM's right back. All he's got to aim at is our AF. #9 is our DLF(S), who the play just seems to have totally passed by. #19 and #22 are our AM(S) and BBM, while #2 is the RWB(S). FCM easily deal with the cross and it's cleared. This happened time and time again, not just throughout this match.

Centrally impotent

Maybe I'm expecting too much here. Maybe I've just completely got it wrong tactically, but I would expect a lot more of our play to come through the centre.

Here's our touches and heat map, again from that FCM match. So much of the play was skewed down that left hand side with the LWB combining with our DLP in the defensive third and then likely with the DLF/AM in the attacking third. Our central midfield pairing played a combined 141 passes between them, only three of these were key, and only one of them was into the box. The players playing in the AM role during the match played 48 passes, with none of these going into the box. Our strikers only received the ball to their feet in the FCM box a handful of times throughout the match.

I feel disappointed that I've already strayed away from my initial tactical idea, but it just wasn't working. Did I give up too quickly? Maybe, but I felt the change needed to happen. It's still there to potentially move back to and work on some more, but here's how it looks now. It's a brand new approach.

Now

I'd never been a fan of a three man central defence until the previous tactic, always preferring a more familiar to me four at the back. This is a return to that. Rafa Soares on the left hand side still gets up to support attacks but his influence on our overall attacking play is taken down a couple of notches. Wakaso in that DLP(D) role actually does drop in to form a three centrally quite often, but mainly to show for the ball from the keeper or the two CBs. The right sided full back is on a support duty to provide more defensive solidity, but with that DLP dropping in, there is occasionally licence to switch that role to a wing back and/or duty to attacking.

The current central midfield pairing is just that, two central midfielders. The right hand side is on attack, with the left on support. The CM(A) was one of my favourite roles on FM18 as part of my 4-4-2, so I'm keen to see how well it gets up to support our attacking players. The CM(S) is in there to provide balance to the side and support at either end of the pitch. The roles aren't set in stone yet, but early indications are okay.

The attacking trio is an IF(A), W(S) and CF(A). The inside forward has been an important part of the turnaround so far, which I'll go into in a second, while those latter two roles are still up for debate. The winger on support has a few subtle differences to the winger on attack, the starting position being one of them. While I feel we do have the players behind the role to be able to cover it being on an attack duty, it starting on support sees the link up being much easier with the players supporting the role, mainly the CM(A) and FB(S) behind him. I do love a winger bombing on and crossing it from the byline but I want to leave it up to the player to make the right decision on what's needed in the moment.

Right now I'm still a bit unconvinced by my CF but looking at the role description it's exactly what I want so I'm sticking with it. I want him to link play like a DLF, I want him to be our spearhead like a poacher and I want him to hold it up like a target man. Too often in season one in the previous tactic our main striker just seemed to be a decoy to occupy opposition defenders. Maybe I'm being greedy that I also want my striker to be doing that too alongside all those other qualities.

Inside forward key

The use of wide players further up the pitch now stretches the backline of our opposition, whereas before they seemed willing to concede the wide areas to our wing backs bombing on. It was originally on support duty, but as pointed out by FMPressure on my channel on FMSlack, who would be well positioned to get up to support the lone striker if the IF wasn't on attack? The switch has been a key one so far. Despite losing 4-2 against them earlier on this season, from a winning position no less, across November we managed to beat Maritimo twice, scoring eight and conceding two.

When Luiz Phellype wins and brings down a long kick out from our keeper, drawing out one of Maritimo's CBs in the process, there's only one thing on Arabidze's mind as our IF on attack. He doesn't stay out wide, he drives into that open space in behind his opposing full back. This draws the second CB over and Davidson, our winger on support, has an easy tap in at the back post to round off a 5-2 Taca de Portugal 4th round win.

Defensive solidity

We'd only kept two clean sheets between August and October. We kept three in November alone, including two excellent 1-0 victories in the Europa League against PAOK and the return match against Midtjylland. From conceding three goals against them in Denmark to only allowing them four shots on goal in total just a few weeks later. Here's how.

Counter-pressing was part of our previous tactic too, but teams found it easier to attack us with no players immediately engaging their oncoming full backs. The introduction of our advanced wide men stops that now, and FCM's wing backs and central midfield pairing struggled to get into the match. Their wing backs, specifically, had pass completion percentages of 55% and 52% as we pressured them into making rushed passes or long clearances which were easily dealt with.

Another bit of a difference can be seen below.

Before, our wing backs were pushed much higher up, so we basically only had a defensive base of the back three. Now I'd say we've got a defensive base of five. Mabil has made what the game classes as a "dribble", running from well inside his own half with the ball at his feet. He's evaded the attempted tackle from our DLP #8 who'd been tracking him, and it looks as though it's just a simple cross into the box for their #19 to score. Luckily, my RB #2 is covering and manages to block the cross. We drastically outnumber FCM, with six back there up against their three most advanced players.

Change of player

André André has arguably been our talisman so far this season. Prior to the tactical switch my captain had scored six goals, albeit three of those were penalties and another was a rebound from a missed penalty. However from switching things up a bit in the hunt for results, Sigurd Grønli has emerged as a contender for the CM(A) slot. The 19-year-old Norwegian scored the below equaliser against Boavista and is a set piece magician too which just adds an extra threat for us.

Previously I'd been shoehorning natural wide players into roles behind or as strikers. Mário Ferreira is another who's going to benefit from the tactical switch, moving out to the left hand side and being unleashed in his natural inside forward role. He scored the winning goal in that 1-0 win over Midtjylland with some classic inside forward play.

I'm trying to be much more fluid tactically on FM19, but I didn't expect to be shifting my entire system around this early on in my save. Results are certainly much more positive since the change though. Things are looking up for the rest of my second season with Vitória. If you've got any other pointers you want to share about my tactic or if you fancy giving it a shot yourself then just let me know in the comments or on Twitter. Thanks for reading, as ever.

Sempre Vitória!

My FM19 Tactic: 3-5-2

My time as Vitória manager on Football Manager 2019 has begun. It's my first day in the job. Before I even click continue I'm going to go through a series of steps to evaluate the essential aspects of the club. This post will go through how I'm aiming to set us up on the pitch and how I arrived at the thinking behind it.

Jumping straight in to talk tactics might be slightly unconventional, but if I'm going to judge the quality of the players already at the club (which will be the next post), I need to know how well they'll fit in to my preferred system. 

I'm quite a tactically stubborn manager. When I find something that suits my players and gets results on the pitch, I don't tend to stray from it. When the RBLeipzig narrow 4-2-3-1 got going it was beautiful and the Stirling 4-4-2 took the club to the next level. I didn't actually play those ways for the entirety of my time with either club, but they were the tactical setups that stuck for numerous seasons. I don't want to take that approach with Vitória, I want to be more tactically fluid. Shift the system about, change roles, be more adventurous or pragmatic when the time calls for it. I do have a way of setting the team up in mind to start off with though.

Tactics aren't really what I find most interesting in football or in Football Manager, but they're so important, of course. My FM inspiration usually comes from reading stories about clubs, their communities, their players, the way they approach things off the pitch, it came from somewhere a little bit different for this. I've watched the amateur team I used to play for a couple of times this season and the way they're setting up led me to wanting to see if it would translate well onto the game. This isn't a tactical recreation of Brazil 1970 or Arsenal's Invincibles. This is me recreating the tactic of a team that barely anyone watches play in the lower rungs of the Lothian and Edinburgh Amateur Football Association.

The Tactic

The thinking behind it

They had three central defenders forming a solid base for the rest of the side. The wide support was provided by wing backs. They were expected to be prepared to bomb on and provide support going forward at any opportunity, while also remaining aware of their defensive duties. On the game, it sets itself up fairly simply.

The midfield has been slightly trickier for me to set up in-game. The midfield roles are quite hard to determine when watching the side. When one drove forward, the other sat and covered and vice versa. Both were expected to be capable in covering in front of the defence but also getting forward to give the attack a bit of additional support. I've gone for a DLP on support to give us a playmaker in there, able to link the defence and attack, competent in the tackle but able to create chances too. On the left hand side, I've chosen a carrilero. A role I haven't used at all since it was introduced last year, and one I didn't really ever have any intention of using, until it slotted nicely into this tactic. That left wing back bombs forward and vacates a fair bit of space in behind. The carrilero will just shuttle across to cover in and in an attacking sense, is just expected to provide a bit of support to link the units on the pitch.

The attacking options have also been tricky for me to set roles for. The three are usually quite interchangeable, almost having free roles to just cause panic, confusion and chaos. Of course, that's only slightly transferable onto the game with the ability to only swap players in two positions, rather than being able to set them to continually switch around. The treq just does his own thing, expected to dribble, take risks and roam around. It's probably quite a good role for what's expected. I used the shadow striker role to incredible effect at RBLeipzig and I think it should work quite well here too. Again, it's about encouraging movement but with the player expected to get on the end of goalscoring chances as well as creating them. I've instructed both the treq and SS to run wide with the ball to see whether it disrupts the opposition any further, with the SS also being set to roam from position too.

The forward role is the one I'm most unsure of right now. During my time on the beta I tried it out the DLF on support before settling on starting here with it on attack. I've loved that base role on the last two games and in theory it should work well again here. Dropping deep and linking play, but also getting into the box and on the end of crosses or through balls. To add to the hopeful chaos, I've set the DLF up with a PI of roam from position.

Alternative front three

How would those two behind the striker work coming inside from the wings? Just something else I'll be trying out during pre-season and one to keep in mind when looking through the squad. Wingers won't be forced out, they'll very much have a role to play whether it's the treq/SS or this alternative. I said on the recent One More Game podcast episode that I'm very much about fitting the players into roles I want them to play, rather than shaping my tactic around their preferred roles.

This isn't a tactical post...

So I'm not going to go through the additional team instructions just yet. I haven't even played a match yet. It's just me showcasing how we'll be lining up so I can judge the quality of my new players up against it. I'll be analysing the tactic and how it plays eventually though, so keep an eye out for that coming once the season is underway.

Sempre Vitória!

Morale Manager

Over the last couple of editions of Football Manager there's been talk across the FM Twittersphere of the game becoming more like Morale Manager. In my opinion, SI have got this pretty spot on. FM reflects the IRL football world with players not getting on with you or each other, complaining about training or about not playing enough, requesting a transfer and more.

I'm going to take you through some of my ways of managing morale across my players in this piece. These are ways I've found work for me, they might work for you too or you might have completely different ways of approaching it and still get results and win trophies galore. That is the beauty of this game we all know and love.

Manager profile

The first thing is to think about how you set up your manager profile and the attributes you give yourself. If you've set yourself as an former non-league footballer and you decide to take over a top six English club, you've got an uphill struggle on your hands to win the respect of those players. Starting at a club with lower expectations or lower down the leagues, and setting your reputation to be the standard for that level gives you a good chance at fostering a good relationship early on. If you want to take a bit of an easier road, stick your reputation up a notch for the level you choose to start your save in.

When I'm doing my own attributes before my save starts, the one I'm looking to put higher than the rest is my motivating attribute, "the mental ability of a staff member to motivate their players."

You can see I've made some serious gainz across the board in my save so far, but that when I started out in my first season, my motivating attribute was at 18, my highest attribute. This was in the hope that I'd be able to get the players behind me and invest in me as a manager before, during and after matches, building a positive relationship and team spirit.

Team spirit

Relationships

I'm a big believer in players having positive relationships with their manager and their teammates will lead to positive performances on the pitch. Out of my 28 man first team squad (I like rotating), 23 of them have me in their favoured personnel. These lads will run through brick walls for me.

Significantly fewer of them have one of their current teammates in their favoured personnel, but that doesn't mean they don't like them. I pointed it out before in my 4-4-2 tactical piece but I'm a fan of the new "relationships" feature on your tactic. Having the players connected on the pitch fosters a cohesive team, one that knows each other inside out.

Spine of the team

Every player has their price in my team, but I like to keep a good chunk of my players together from season to season, especially the spine of my team. Keeper, Birk Kleven, is entering into his fourth season at the club now, with 55 clean sheets to show for it across 107 matches so far. Captain, leader, legend, Ryan Porteous, has now played under me for 308 matches and is in his ninth season at the club. Edvin Horvat appears in most summary posts as one of the standout stars each season and this is his sixth season at the club now. These players know the club inside out and ensure the rest of the squad is moving in the same direction.

There's been a fair bit of change around this spine over the last few seasons, none more so than upfront. Where we had the dynamic duo of #Rog and Ryan Hardie together up top for five seasons, the front line has been much less settled since they fell out of favour and ultimately left the club. You saw the Pharaoh and Radovanovic leaving last season, Keaton Lockett has followed them out of the club this summer. If Sambu has a similar full season to the form he showed in his initial half season of first choice striker, he won't be with us for very long either. This makes it much more difficult to get a positive relationship between my front two, #Rog and Hardie had each other in their favoured personnel, they knew each other inside out.

Personalities

My approach to personalities on the game is taken from the All Blacks, after having read Legacy by James Kerr, "no dickheads". In FM terms, this means no negative personalities. Stirling players are determined to succeed (we have the highest average determination attribute in the league and our collective squad personality is determined) and just like the All Blacks they need to put the team before themselves. Having players with similar personalities only enhances the potential of them all getting along and reduces the risk of fallouts. If you can't change the player, change the player. Every player has a price, remember.

Dynamics

This FM18 addition should be something I look at much more than I do when it comes to this kind of topic. A quick glance at it for the purpose of writing this piece shows me that Porteous, Kleven and Horvat are my team leaders, that makes sense given that they form the spine of the team, and that our dressing room atmosphere is excellent.

Apparently it can be said that we've got too many team leaders though, I don't see this as a negative. All players at the club should custodians of the Stirling culture. Right now, having morale as a column on my squad view makes me feel like I don't need to visit the dynamics tab. I wonder if or how SI will switch it up for future games and surface it a bit more than those summary emails we occasionally get, maybe it doesn't need to be?

Communication

Teamtalks and press conferences

This is certainly an area where I know I play the game differently to others. I do every single teamtalk and every single press conference because I believe they can have a really positive effect on creating a positive relationship with the players. My approach is just to be honest with the players. If I think we can win, I tell them that. If I think that we're maybe going to struggle up against a better team in Europe, I don't put any pressure on them to come out with a result, I won't be annoyed if we don't win. A bit of the hairdryer treatment isn't off limits, but that's mainly used at half time to stick a few rockets up their arses if I don't see them performing well enough. The objective, as I'm sure it is for most others, is greens across the board. Getting the players delighted and/or motivated.

The players are listening, so when the opportunity arises in a press conference to praise the team or an individual player, and of course it makes sense to do so, I do it. This will only strengthen the relationship they have with me.

Praising performances

This isn't something I dish out on a regular basis, but it's another tool that can be used to reinforce positive relationships with players.

Chang-Min scored a double from right wing in our last match against Ross County. He's a new addition to the club having joined in the summer, and is also an 18-year-old Korean, so is just a young lad in a completely new country and culture. A little bit of praise for his last performance is just like throwing a metaphorical arm over him and letting him know he's doing well. It could really go a long way to him keeping that form up.

He's also just picked up both the player and young player of the month awards for October, congratulating him on those wins will only further help.

Contracts and transfers

I would say that contracts and transfers come into managing player morale too. When you're signing a new player, it's important to not just promise them that they'll be an integral member of your squad if you know they'll struggle to break in to your current first team. It might be an obvious one to some, but it'll save that player coming to you a few months down the line to moan about a lack of first team football, which in turn might also save some of his teammates coming out in support of him and that positive atmosphere in the dressing room going down.

Like I said already, everyone has a price. If a player comes to me asking to leave I'm very unlikely to stand in their way, as long as we get fairly compensated. There's no use keeping an unhappy player around the squad, potentially risking the happiness of the rest of my squad. It's often possible to try and win the unhappy player round, continue playing him in matches to see if he'll change his mind, but this isn't something I'd recommend to do all the time. Think realistically about it, taking the club you are into account. If your reputation isn't quite up there with the best yet, then it's probably worthwhile cashing in and allowing the player angling for a move to a bigger club to leave.

Matches

Playing time

I've called this out a few times before but one of the first things I do on the new game is pull minutes played into my default squad screen views. This helps me monitor how much game time my players are getting, and feeds in to how much I rotate (which is often with my 28 man first team squad!). It also feeds in to ensuring that certain players don't become unhappy. If players with a back up or rotational status aren't seeing those promises be met, or key players or first teamers aren't playing regularly, then it might be time to either start them or stick them on the bench for some potential first team minutes.

It also helps if your team is playing well when a player raises a concern about their lack of playing time. The option to tell them that player X in their position is playing well and it'd be a struggle to drop him right now usually works quite well in seeing them drop their issue.

Pre-match training

Not a big one to finish off, but I have my match preparation training set to teamwork permanently and do this for a day and a half before a matchday. These are known to give a little boost to whatever you pick pre-match, whether it's attacking movement or defending set pieces. Teamwork focuses on improving team familiarity and understanding.

For me, this just adds to the players feeling as one and knowing where to be and how to work together on the pitch. Ultimately, this leads to us winning matches which leads to happy players. Simple.

Obviously there are a lot of factors that go into keeping your players happy. I said at the beginning that there's FMers out there that won't do any of these things and they're still able to find success. I feel like the things I've outlined work well for me, that's not to say that they actually do all factor in to how morale works in the back end of the game.

If you feel like you've picked up something you're going to take into your own save from reading this let me know! Plus, if you do any of these things differently, or have completely different techniques altogether then let me know too! I'd be happy to hear about them.

If you've liked this post you might also fancy having a read of how I monitor and manage my players fitness over the course of the season. Spoiler alert, it wasn't through the medical centre.

My FM17 Tactic: 4-2-3-1

This tactic was initially adopted by RBL during season 3, but I've also been using it to great effect with RBS since I took over there too. Of course, both teams playing the same way will only help us to develop players who can easily slot into both of the clubs.

Let me introduce you to "Between Two Shadows".

Formation, Roles and Player Instructions

View fullsize

The formation is a variation of a 4-2-3-1. Where the majority of this kind of set up has wide men as part of the attacking midfield trio, I've gone for a central trio. Why? Read on and find out!

The previous tactical attempt played on the brilliantness of the targetman/shadow striker combo, seeing that work so well led me to this. Why not add another one into the mix?! The striker role did originally start out as a targetman too, but with the big man, Yussef Poulsen, leaving the club, I decided on a move away from the role that has served me so well in my FM17 life so far.

In that previous tactic, we ceded possession quite a lot. I set us up as the underdogs. Sitting back, soaking up pressure and then making it count when we did go forward. The switch to packing the middle of the pitch is with the aim to control our matches a bit more. It's crowded, but there's a lot of movement, especially from the two shadows. They're who we look upon to create and get things going.

Going through the player instructions I have set then. Starting from the back, we want to control matches, meaning keeping the ball, meaning my keeper is set to play it out from the back to my full backs. No changes to the base roles of either central defender, although you'll notice that the LCB is on cover, with the RCB on the standard defend. My thinking here is being a bit cautious. The left back is our more attacking of the full backs, so a little bit of cover on that side for him when he does decide to advance.

Thinking back to the my tactical set up again, the full back roles were very conservative, so any shift here would have been ground-breaking! Our left back is now a wing back on support! With the right back being a full back on support. They're who we rely on to provide width, and they're a key part of the entire set up, both offensively and defensively. The only tweak to their roles is that they're encouraged to cross the ball more. I'm also in the process of testing out whether instructing them to stay wider gives us some more width and options going forward.

The two central midfielders are just that, central midfielders. One on support on the right hand side, with the left sided one being on defend. He's our defensive cover in the middle, winning tackles, recycling possession and providing the base for which the remaining 4 midfielders have the freedom to go forward and create. He's instructed to shoot less often and pass it shorter. While his midfield partner is instructed to be more direct and shoot less often. He's more direct, to get the ball moving forward more quickly and take some risks when doing so. Shoot less often is a recurring theme for my 6 midfield and attacking players, I want them to be more patient and seek out the right opportunities rather than shooting from god knows where (although that still happens anyway!).

The central attacking midfielder was originally an advanced playmaker on support when I first put this tactic together, but he's recently been shifted to just a standard attacking midfielder on support. The reason behind this? I felt by having a playmaker in the side it wasn't actually helping us, we were trying to find him too often. I know that sounds silly, because that's the whole idea behind a playmaker, but it makes sense in my head! Teams often play with one or even two defensive midfielders, and when they were, our playmaker wouldn't get to create. The attacking midfielder role also gives you more freedom over player instructions, I've gone for shoot less often as I mentioned already, and also telling him to roam from position. Giving him all the potential to act like a playmaker, without the requirement for my players to constantly look for him with the ball.

On to the two shadows then! I've already mentioned that they're who we rely on. For their movement, creativity and their goals too. The shadow striker role in-game already has a few instructions pre-set like moving into channels, making more risky passes, dribbling more and getting further forward. They certainly do all of these things, and of course, I've got them set to shoot less often. I've never written this term out before, but it's quite apt to use in this situation, but they definitely adopt the half spaces. They're movement between the lines is a joy to watch at times. They'll go wide, they'll come inside, they'll string passes together, they'll be on the end of those passes and of crosses. I can't recommend this role highly enough on FM17. I've loved it so far.

As I mentioned, the striker role initially started life as a targetman, but a shift away from Yussef Poulsen saw me adopt a complete forward role on attack, with of course, the only extra instruction being to shoot less often. Shoot less often, for a striker? Yes, I want him to make better decisions when it comes to taking his shots. Roles for my strikers is something I constantly battle with, and it was the same for me on FM16 too. I can never quite nail down one I think is doing well for us, and I'm having this same dilemma right now.

Team Instructions

Again, following on from my previous set up, there's very minimal team instructions set. The mentality is standard and the shape is flexible. The roles I've set and the couple of player instructions I've chosen really set the tone for how we play. The only instruction given to the team is to play it out from the back. Again, this is to really maximise us trying to control matches. If we've got the ball, the opposition don't!

So How Does It Play?

Here's some examples of in-game situations from our domestic cup final victories in season 4. RBL impressively beat Dortmund 3-1 to secure the DFB-Pokal.

Going Forward

Here's our opening goal against Dortmund.

You can roughly see our defensive shape following a long kick from Dortmund's keeper. Aside from our RCB coming over to challenge both our RB and Vietto for the ball, we look good. Our CM(D) has dropped in to provide some extra cover, and our CM(S) and AM(S) are occupying more advanced slots to link the defence, midfield and attack. Both shadows are in promising positions should the ball break, especially our number 10, Timo Werner. Dadachov, the CF(A) looks slightly isolated in this scenario. Dortmund win the second ball, but a poor attempted pass is cut out by one of our hard working shadows.

The break is on and we pounce. Dadachov picks up the ball from Timo's great interception and releases Oli Burke down the right, our other shadow striker. He makes the right decision to move into a wide area, hits the byline and fires a brilliant ball into the danger zone for Mihalcea, our AM(S) to finish. At the end of the move, we've got four players streaming into the box to get on the end of it. Great movement, great goal.

Defensively

At times, we can be caught out when facing opposition playing with out and out wingers or inside forwards cutting in. Especially so from advancing full backs bombing on.

Here's a Dortmund attack above illustrating that. Dembele's received the ball and has moved inside. You can see Passlack behind him with acres of space to run into, but Dembele chooses to hit a cross field ball to Guerreiro, who's also wide open on the left. Dembele is occupying out left back, Jannes Horn, while Schurrle has Klostermann tracking him as he advances. Guerreiro eventually finds Schurrle in the box, but he can't in turn find a man, and the move comes to nothing. The shadows do work hard to close down and win the ball back, but with them being set up as AMCR and AMCL in the line up, and with no width in midfield to support the defence, we do struggle defensively out wide at times. Quite a few of our goals conceded are from wide.

At other times, there's also an issue when facing teams playing their own traditional versions of 4-2-3-1, complete with wingers (as above) but with the added issue of an opposition player in the AMC slot. Because of our lack of defensive midfielder in the DM slots, they often find quite a fair bit of space to operate. It's always a tricky match when we face Hoffenheim and Nadeem Amiri. I knew I should have signed him...

Dortmund's consolation in the match comes from their player in the AMC slot, Mario Gotze.

Dortmund have a thrown in on the left. For some reason, Oli Burke (#19) is marking Gotze, and is in a deeper defensive position that Klostermann (#2) from the throw. Anyway, Gotze receives the ball, and runs inside. Naby Keita (#8), our CM(D) on the day is already occupied by facing up to one of Dortmund's CMs, Kagawa. This means it's left to Oli Burke, one of our shadows, to track Gotze. Not ideal. Keita stays in no mans land as Gotze makes space and fires a long range effort into the top corner, albeit it looked like Vanja in goals should have saved it. A consolation on the day, but a warning shot that AMCs can find space against us.

Issues

Width. Despite throwing a tad more caution to the wind with my choice of role for my full backs, I still think it's stifling us going forward. Yes, it's worked fine so far, but there's still some improvements that can be made with this. It's by no means perfect. I'm still choosing a bit of defensively solidity as opposed to increased options going forward. This leads very nicely onto the next issue.

Long shots. If you've stumbled across a way of playing that means you don't take loads of long shots, then fair play to you! They are particularly an issue for me right now in Austria, where Salzburg are one of the more reputable teams in the league, and teams just sit back when they play against us. It really harms our creativity and I haven't been able to come up with a proper solution that works for it yet.

On the surface while long shots may look to be an issue, are they really though? You could be looking at the stats for one of your matches and have completely dominated shots-wise, but look down and see that a huge percentage of them are classed as long. You might also be only watching the matches on key highlights. I watch mine on comprehensive, and the number of the long shots that are counted that end up to just be those free kicks you see being casually floated over the bar is quite outrageous. Keep this in mind, it's something I don't always do. Are these set pieces hiding an issue with your ability to create chances from open play?

Of course, if you're trying out this tactic, I'm 100% not guaranteeing success. Yes I might have played 92 times with it over the course of two seasons and only lost 11 times, plus secured my first Bundesliga title win, but it's not perfect. If you do try it out though, I'd love to see and hear how you get on.

Finding the next Naby

He hasn't quite reached Timo Werner levels in terms of getting all my love and affection, but when Bayern started touting for Naby's signature I knew we had to start succession planning. Today's post is all about that. Finding our replacement for Naby Keita.

The Man Himself

Now worth £17m, it’ll take much more than that from Bayern to make me part with him.

Naby is our roaming playmaker in the DM slots, which sees him pretty much pop up all over the pitch. Tackling and intercepting at the back, winning the ball back in midfield, creating chances and very occasionally, scoring goals.

What I’m Looking For

Stating the obvious here, but ideally I'd like a player with a very similar skillset to Naby. He is what he's described as, a tireless midfielder with great stamina, work rate and teamwork. He's got decent passing, dribbling and vision. He's aggressive, can tackle well and is fairly pacy. He's got technique and he's excellent off the ball, too. Always available for a pass, and has the ability to play good ones when he gets it.

So you're basically looking for a midfielder that can pretty much do everything?

Yes, yes I am. Well pointed out.

The Candidates

Internal

There are a few candidates internally at the club that could potentially succeed Naby. Let's have a look at them.

Abouchabaka

Abouchabaka has now made the step up to the RBL 1st team, making 7 sub appearances across season 2. I called him out then as a potential successor to Naby, and I think over time, he still could be. He's developing relatively well, and should continue that with some more game time in season 3. He's naturally fit, has got pace, he can pass, tackle. Will he be the eventual successor to Naby? That I'm not entirely sure of yet.

Aziz

A new arrival at the club. Our scouts liked him, our coaches like him. Me? I don't think I'm quite there yet. He's got potential, for sure. He's naturally fit, and can pass a ball. He's got a lot of work to do in order to play his way into contention for a 1st team spot. Let's see how he progresses.

External

The internal candidates don't look like they'll be ready made to step into Naby's shoes. Armed with £70m in my fizzy energy drink funded warchest, I've got my eye on a few transfer targets that could replace him.

Remember this? Probably not, but it appeared in the introductory post to the RBL save. I've written about the approaches I'm taking to scouting and training/development, but other than that I've outlined I'll only be signing players that are 24 years old or younger and telling you who I've signed in both seasons, I haven't gone any more into the approach I'm taking to recruiting players. In all honesty, I don't think anyone I've bought over the two seasons so far has been good enough to step straight into my thinking for the 1st XI. They've all been projects. To replace Naby, I think it's going to have to be someone ready-made for 1st team football. Going through the external candidates below should give you an insight into how I'm approaching the scenario of replacing one of our star players.

Sensi

Stefano Sensi of Sassuolo is a similar age to Naby and available for £17m according to my scout report. His physical attributes are slightly worse, with an average of 11 compared to Naby's 13. Agility being the attribute with the most difference there, Sensi has 13 compared to Naby's 18, which I feel is personally one of his best qualities.

Sensi is more of a playmaker compared to Naby's dynamic all-rounder in my opinion. Sensi's attributes of 16 for passing, 16 for flair and 16 for vision are all better than Naby's, plus he's got the great dictates tempo trait, something that Naby doesn't have but I feel he does anyway. He runs with ball rarely, would he play like Naby? I don't think he would. Would that put me off buying him? I don't think it would.

Donsah

The thing that instantly stands out about Godfred Donsah is the physical aspect of his player profile. His average of 15 is superior to Naby's 13, and he's much stronger than Naby. The scouts say he's available for anywhere in the region of £14-19m, and he's a year younger than Naby. The average of his technical and mental attributes is exactly the same as Naby's, 11 and 13, respectively. However, where Naby excels in technique, off the ball, teamwork and work rate, Donsah is more of a solid 12-14 across the board kind of guy.

He's Ghanaian, so he'd be off to the African Cup of Nations when the time comes around too. He doesn't have any traits but does have a professional personality which would be favourable.

I like Donsah, he's a physical specimen. He won't be my first choice though when it comes to replacing Naby.

Diawara

Another player currently plying their trade in Italy, Amadou Diawara is at Napoli and our scouts reckon they're currently unwilling to sell him. Diawara is similar to Donsah in that his physical profile is superior to Naby's. He's taller than Naby, at 6'0", with better jumping reach and heading attributes, 14 and 11, compared to Naby's 7s.

He's best suited to a role as a ball winning midfielder, but I think his passing attribute of 15 and vision of 14 mean he could work as a playmaker too. His technique of 12 isn't great, especially comparing against Naby's 16.

He's ambitious which fits quite well with the players we've currently got at the club, and he's actually Naby's midfield partner in the Guinean national team. He's still just 21, so I think he could still improve on a few individual attributes. I really like the look of him.

Goretzka

Still only 23 in-game, it feels as though Leon Goretzka has been around for ages. We'll have to fork out I think £40m at least if we want to sign him, but is he worth it to replace Naby? I think so.

Goretzka is superior or equal to Naby in 26 of the 36 attributes outlined across technical, mental and physical. He's 6'2", so he's got a physical presence Naby doesn't. He can pass, he's hard working (a tireless midfielder, same as Naby), his technique is great, he's determined, composed and aggressive. Plus, he's resolute and dictates the tempo. Two big plus points.

Also, he's German. So far, I've only brought two German players to the club. Yes, the vast majority, if not all, of my regens are German so we'll be fine in future. But it'd be good to have a German at the heart of our team.

A bit more gameplay, and further investigation has spotted that Goretzka is injury prone, and has in fact, just been ruled out for 3 months!

Tielemans

Another name you'll recognise and ask yourself, how is he still only that young? Youri Tielemans is a player that I'm fairly positive a lot of us have managed in the game over the last couple of years. Arriving at his profile screen, I don't actually get too overwhelmed. He isn't/hasn't progressed as well as I always thought he did. The time is right for him to move on from Anderlecht, but will his destination be Leipzig? I don't think it will be.

Brilliant technique, good first touch, passing and flair. He's got agility in abundance too. If I did sign him, I don't think he'd be a bad option at all. He's suit a playmaking role very well, but is he the kind of player I'm looking for to replace Naby? He isn't near good enough in terms of teamwork and work rate. At £22m, it's a lot too. I'd much rather spend upwards of £40m on Goretzka to be honest.

Summary

As I write this, Naby is still at the club and isn't currently interesting any other clubs, so the need to replace him isn't as great. This doesn't mean to say that I'm not going to go out and secure the signature of one of the players I've outlined though. I really like Diawara, but with him not looking likely to be easily purchased, I'd love to bring Goretzka to Leipzig.

However, following on from the reveal that Goretzka is injury prone, and is out for 3 months, and also that Napoli don't look like budging at all for Diawara, it's down to the other 3. Will it be Sensi, Tielemans or Donsah?

Who would you sign out of the players I've outlined?

My FM17 Training Approach

As I pointed out in my intro post, alongside scouting, development is to be one of the key pillars of my time at RBL. Translating this onto FM, this means training.

My under 24 years of age signing policy means that the vast majority of players I have on the RBL books will be promising ones that can still be developed and nurtured. Here's my thoughts on how I'll be interpreting things in-game.

Team Training

For the first half of the season, I had our team training set to team cohesion. It's defined in-game as 'focusing on improving overall team cohesion and understanding.' It's generally recommended to focus on team cohesion at the start of the season, as new signings can drop the level of cohesion or it's just dropped naturally from the summer (or winter) break. Focusing on team cohesion will give new players the chance to bond with the rest of the squad, and also just generally ensure that morale is high amongst the squad.

My main reason behind focusing on team cohesion was to get the squad gelling. I wanted our players to be at one with another on the pitch, and have complete understanding. I think judging by some of the results in the first half of the season, and in particular, some of our general play, it's really paid off. It was a joy to behold at times!

Moving into the second half of the season, I've kept team cohesion active for a couple of weeks after the winter break, just to give the team a chance to blow away some of the cobwebs. Spoiler alert, but there wasn't much January transfer window activity, so there wasn't a necessity to bed any new signings in. For the remainder of the season, I've switched to balanced team training. While the other options for team training upweight the focus onto certain attributes, balanced doesn't. It's more of a general focus, a little bit of everything.

With no European football in my first season in charge, I currently have the below set up in terms of general versus match training. As far as I'm aware, match training gives you a bit of a boost in the upcoming match depending on what you select. For the most part of the first half of the season, my match training has been on match tactics or teamwork. My default is always to give the players a rest after the match. If there's a period where we've got a tough run of fixtures in a short space of time, or if we're in Europe in the future, having more rest days becomes more prevalent for me.

Individual Training

Now on to my choices for individual training. I'm a big fan of putting players on what I'm calling more 'generic' role routines. The roles I class under this are the ones that train a wide variety of attributes, such as complete forward, roaming playmaker, wide midfielder or complete wing back.

This isn't to say all players get put onto these generic role routines, it's my preference to pick and choose who does. It's more likely to be players that I believe have a lot more potential to improve further than others, i.e. Oliver Burke, Timo Werner or Naby Keita definitely fall into this category.

I assessed each individual player at the beginning of the season to determine whether I'd be putting them onto a generic role routine. Once we returned from the winter break, every player on a generic role routine was then assessed again to determine whether they'd remain on that routine, whether they'd combine their routine with working closely on an individual attribute, or whether they'd solely work on improving an individual attribute.

Players who weren't put onto a generic role routine at the beginning of the season were assessed on whether they needed extra work on an individual attribute, or whether I'd choose to not to have them focus on any additional training at that point. This was also reassessed after the winter break. To summarise...

Game Time

For me, game time is the most important aspect in my plan. Something I've carried over from FM16 is the appearance of minutes played in my default team view.

This allows me to easily see how many minutes of action my players are getting at a glance. Who deserves more game time? Who needs more time on the pitch to develop? Is more rotation needed? Are we potentially lacking in a decent fringe option to come in and play a certain position? Gaining the balance between winning, finding my best starting 11, giving fringe players minutes to stop them becoming unhappy and finding the opportunity to give promising youngsters a chance is the constant battle we face in-game.

All of these choices and factors come down to this.

It's not major, but it's just a sneak peek at Oli Burke's improvement so far this season. He's been on the wide midfielder role routine, and has got a fair bit of game time under his belt. Any changes or shifts, no matter how small, will improve us as a team. Whether that's primarily due to improved individual performances on the pitch, or whether it's secondarily by us making a significant sum of money down the line from selling players on.

One thing I haven't mentioned is tutoring. I know quite a few other FMers swear by it, and fully recommend it. Due to my desire of only bringing in players 24 years old or younger, and my aim to develop them, give them game time, and most probably, sell them on, tutoring won't be coming into my thinking.

I'm hoping to give you an insight into players individual development a bit closer to the end of the season. Thanks for reading!

My Approach to Scouting - FM17

Scouting is one of the three main aspects that I’ll be focusing on in my RBLeipzig save that I called out in my initial plan for FM17. Since the appearance of Moneyball style saves on Football Manager, scouring the globe for talent has become even more important than before. My RBLeipzig save isn’t a traditional Moneyball one, however I will be imposing their non-FM world restriction on aiming to bring in players under 24 years of age and looking to develop, and sell on talent within reason. The final two points there are things I’ll address in another post, but for today, here’s my approach to scouting on FM17 with RBLeipzig.

Scouting and Transfers Team

Since the emergence of the director of football role within FM, we’ve been graced with a scouting and transfers team. This year, they’re of course joined by our data analysts.

If you’re aware of the RBL story to date or indeed his work from previous clubs, you’ll be aware of the man at top of the screenshot there. Our director of football.

I kind of wish he was part of my coaching team with those attributes, and I could get him to take charge of signing players for us, but I want complete control over incoming transfers. So what is he getting paid just over £40k a week to do? In reality, not a lot. I’m treating him like a glorified scout at the moment, except he isn’t actually capable of going on scouting assignments. His role is to perform the adhoc scouting reports I need, whether that’s players I’ve spotted myself, or whether I need a second opinion on anyone my scouting team has spotted. Pretty pricey to say the least, but it’s all part of the Rasenballsport experience.

Anyway, back to my scouting and transfers team. Alongside Rangnick in the almost useless stakes is my chief scout, Johannes Spors. He isn’t in charge of sending our scouts on assignments (I’m in control here) but he does have 17/15 for JP/JA, so I’m very much just treating him like a regular scout. Our board currently only allows us to have 1 chief scout and 6 scouts, so it’s actually quite handy to have a chief scout for that additional scout to get on the staff. Ayala (13/17), Schuiteman (19/19), Almqvist (15/14) and Rajkovic (16/16) were all brought in to bolster the scouting team to the rafters.

It should be no surprise that the scouts that were brought in during the summer were of differing nationalities. This gave us a huge boost in our worldwide knowledge, and enabled us to specialise in each of their respective nations. However, I’d like to note that I’ve got absolutely no issue at all with sending a German scout with no knowledge of a country, to that country. Of course, if you can get a scout from every country under the sun into your staff, then I recommend you do that.

Assignment Setup

The scouting team is place, now it’s time to think about who we actually want them to be watching.

I’ve mentioned this already but I’ll only be signing players aged 24 and under for RBLeipzig. That makes that section of the assignment options easy.

I’m currently not putting any required attributes into the mix, and I don’t plan to either.

I normally do gravitate towards signing players on the younger end of that spectrum anyway, so I’m leaving the current ability star rating as is, and setting the potential star rating at 3 stars. This means that my scouts will only report back on players with that star rating or higher.

Like I said, if you manage to hire a scout from every nation you want to send them to, then who you send on the assignment is important. However, I’m pretty comfortable with sending any of my scouts to any nation. There are some obvious choices though, Ayala, Schuiteman, Almqvist and Rajkovic are all new arrivals to the team and will be sent to scout their respective nations, regions or area. This leaves my German nationals to battle it out for where they’ll be sent.

Again, it’s obvious but the depth of report you get back, in terms of number of players scouted, will be better the longer you send your scout on the assignment for. The duration of assignments I’ll be sending my scouts on will all depend on where they’re being sent to. For example, if I want a quick report on Germany, or an updated report on the country where one of our scouts is from, I may only send them for a month or two, at the most. If I’m sending them off to a region, it’ll be a minimum of 6 months. It’ll be 6 months minimum as well for ‘high potential’ nations too.

Once the scouts have started to send some reports my way, I like to have either Rangnick or my head of youth development, Thomas Albeck, to go and watch players who I really like the look of, but perhaps want a second opinion on. However, I’m in control here so the final decision on making a bid and offering players contracts comes down to me. How does that decision get made? I’ll take into account if there’s any position we need some strengthening in, but in all honesty, it comes down to instinct. If I like the look of a player, my FM intuition kicks in and I’ll put a bid in.

Where Will I Be Scouting?

We’ve got the who, and what type of player they’ll be scouting, now it’s time to discuss where they’ll be heading to.

Schuiteman’s arrival was a necessity in my opinion. I always like to have a Dutchman on my scouting team, as there is an almost constant conveyor belt of talent being produced across the country. That reason, combined with the fact that the talent produced is often more than happy to leave to further their careers, makes it a no brainer to scout. When he’s not scouting the Netherlands, Schuiteman will be heading across the border to Belgium.

Almqvist is on the obligatory trip to the Scandinavian region. If the initial results aren’t great, due to time being spent in Iceland and Finland, I may decide to send him to solely focus on Denmark, Norway and Sweden individually.

Rajkovic is currently in his home nation of Serbia, but will be making his way to Croatia, Romania and probably Turkey as well. Think of him as our South-Eastern European scout. Croatia and Romania are two of my favourite countries to sign players from in-game, you can always find a quality young player or two. Turks have a long standing historical connection with Germany, so it’d be good if I could find one or two gems from there.

I wasn’t planning on venturing into scouting South America so early on in the save, but Mainz poached one of my scouts and I chose Ayala as his replacement. He’s currently scouring his home nation, and I’ll definitely be sending him over to Brazil as well. Once I’m allowed some more scouts, I’ll start expanding into other South American countries too. The same can be said for Africa too, I’d really like to spot talent in a couple of nations there too but just don’t have the staff numbers available yet to do so. I need to be finding the next Naby Keita before anyone else does!

That leaves us with my German scouts. Barth and Geiger will be tasked with scouting our nearby or neighbouring countries, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and perhaps even Slovenia/Slovakia. It goes without saying that if they don’t find the next Lewandowski or Alaba, then I’ll not be happy! And finally, what will our head scout, Spors, be up to? Well his job will be to go to those bigger European nations and find us some cheap deals on young players. France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and even the UK at a push.

How do you set your scouting assignments? Do you think there’s any lucrative talent creating nations I’m missing out on? Let me know either in the comments or on Twitter @FM_Samo. Thanks for reading!