Good list, thanks. 1) Real-life results and sample size are already in the data, so those filters are easy — adding them. 2) Upvote-only in-game feedback is the part I like most. It's exactly the layer I can't produce myself, since I don't test win rates. 3) Player instructions are on the list after the FM26 role audit, and taking them from the actual players in those roles is the right way to do it.
Not a tested finding by FM-Arena standards, one save and about ten matches, but it's specific enough that someone here might want to run it properly.
The usual advice is lower tempo to cut down long shots. In one save it was doing the opposite. Wide player cuts back, CM shoots from 20 yards, every match across three seasons and more than one team.
The explanation that fits: at low tempo the winger holds the ball a beat longer, which is exactly the time the defence needs to fill the box. The only free man left is the CM on the edge, and the engine passes to the free man.
One deliberately slow match: 47 crosses, 5 completed, 11 long shots. Tempo raised afterwards, long shots dropped, npxG per match went up.
If that holds, the old tip isn't wrong, it's answering a different situation. Long shots from build-up and long shots from the final third look the same in the stats but have opposite causes.
Credit to Petra in the official FM Discord, who found and tested it in her save.
You're right on all three, and the Porto one is the worst of them — I wrote Benfica from memory instead of checking, which is exactly what this whole thing is supposed to avoid. Farioli's Portugal season is Porto. Pulling the Benfica line and building it as Porto.
The Korean card names are a bug, not a translation I skipped — those names come from a separate field that never got switched over with the rest of the UI. Your screenshot is what told me where to look, so thanks.
Carrilero and Pressing Forward are older role names I carried over without rechecking them against FM26's list. I'm going through every role in the catalogue against the FM26 set and remapping the ones that moved or merged. If you spot any others that read as out of date, post them here — that's how the full-back / wing-back one got fixed.
Correction to my last post — I typed Palladino when I meant Farioli. Sorry about that.
What's actually live: Farioli's Nice 23-24 and Fàbregas' Como 24-25. Ajax 24-25 is still being built, and Benfica after it.
The catalogue also got a lot bigger in the same update — 1,174 cards across 410 managers now, so a lot more of each league is covered than when I first posted.
If you open a card and something looks wrong — a position that doesn't match FM26, a shape that isn't what that side actually played, an instruction that reads like a guess — post it here. The full-back / wing-back fix came from exactly that, and it was a real error I'd have missed on my own.
Honest answer: the style axes need per-90 possession and pressing data, and FBref only has that for the top 5 leagues from 2017-18 on. Before that I can get results, goals and basic shot numbers, but not the things that actually set pressing intensity, defensive line or directness — so a 2008-12 Barcelona card would be me filling in the famous parts from memory, which is exactly what I'm trying not to do.
What I can do is the honest version: build it from what the data does support and mark the instructions that are inference rather than measurement, so you can see which is which. If that's useful to you rather than annoying, say so and I'll put Pep's Barcelona in that way.
And the position map fix from @gagi1993's full-back / wing-back point is live across the catalogue, not just those two. Thanks again for that one, it was a real error and I'd have missed it.
Appreciated. The position map change came straight out of gagi1993's note about full-back vs wing-back, so that one's on the thread, not me. Farioli and Fàbregas are what I'm on now — I'll post here when they're actually live.
You're right, and that one's on me — I wrote "in" when I meant "next". Farioli isn't live yet. Ajax 24-25 and Nice 23-24 are what I'm building now, and Fàbregas at Como 24-25 goes in with them. Good call on him, that Como side is exactly the kind of thing this is for. I'll post here once they're actually up, not before.
Thanks — and that's the idea. The data side doesn't care which FM it is, so when FM27 lands the cards get rebuilt in its instructions rather than started over. Benfica is still next on my list.
Worth saying what came with it: the Süper Lig and the Brasileirão are both properly in now, not one-off entries. That's why Jorge Jesus ended up with two cards instead of one — the 2019 Flamengo double, and Fenerbahçe 22-23, runners-up with the highest-scoring side in the division. Same manager, two very different squads, which is the comparison I get the most out of. Benfica is still on the list.
Farioli's in — Ajax 24-25 first, and his Nice 23-24 alongside it so there's a before/after on the same idea. The Eredivisie and the Primeira Liga get their own sections at the same time, so Ajax, Benfica, Porto and Sporting stop sitting under "Other".
juwow said: I can see that its live. Thanks a lot!
Another interessting idea to add would be Francesco Farioli. Expand
Farioli's in — Ajax 24-25 is the obvious one, and I'll look at his Nice season too so there's a before/after on the same idea. Neither is a top-5 league problem, the match data's public either way. I'll post here when they're live.
Sorry about that — Jorge Jesus is added on my end but hasn't gone live on the page yet, should be up within a day or two. I'll reply here once it's live.
Jorge Jesus is in — I'll do both the Flamengo and Benfica runs, they're different enough in press intensity to be worth two separate cards. Mentality's already queued (told gagi1993 the same above), so that'll cover your question too once it lands.
All fair. Mentality is next on the list — same reasoning layer as the rest of the card, not a guess. On positions, you're right that the map still leans on the old grid in places (full-back vs wing-back is exactly the kind of gap I need to close). Player instructions are the bigger piece I held back for a v2. And "balance/neutral" on a lot of TIs is intentional where the data showed no real signal, not a placeholder — but I'll make that distinction clearer on the card itself.
Yes — this isn't a closed list. Turkish league data just got added as a first expansion. Any league with public match data works, so send me the managers/clubs/seasons you want and I'll add them.
Fair, that's on my phrasing — the diagrams, position map, instruction tables and attribute names are in English, but the menus and labels around them are still Korean, and that's most of what your screenshot shows. I'm working on the full English UI right now, should be up soon.
English is coming soon. The diagrams, position map and instruction tables already read fine without it — attribute names are in English. It's the manager-style descriptions that still need translating.
I built a page that converts real managers' seasons into FM26 grammar — shapes, team instructions, and the attributes each role needs. Free, no login, no ads.
- In-possession and out-of-possession shapes, as two diagrams - A position map showing where the same player moves when the phase changes - All 27 team instructions (18 in possession, 9 out), with the ones that actually come from the manager's style marked - Required and preferred attributes for all 11 slots, with a weighting on which ones matter most
WHERE THE NUMBERS COME FROM
FBref / Sports Reference, per manager-club-season. Each side is compared against its own league average for that season, and the deltas set the style axes — pressing intensity, defensive line, tempo, directness, width. Where a manager shows no clear signal on an instruction, the card uses the game's neutral value instead of inventing one.
BEFORE ANYONE ASKS: THIS IS NOT TESTED FOR WIN RATE
I know what this forum is for, and I'm making no performance claim. The match engine is its own system and I can't promise a real-world style translates into results. This is a starting point with a stated reason behind every setting, not a meta tactic. For win rates, the testing tables here are the right tool.
TWO THINGS YOU'D FIND OUT ANYWAY
143 cards, but around 105 unique managers. Pep, Tuchel, Emery, Gasperini and others appear for more than one season on purpose. Pep's City 23-24 next to 24-25 is the one I'd open first — the 23-24 card flags Rodri as the slot with no replacement, and that injury is what triggered the 24-25 change.
38 of the cards are relegation-survival sides sharing a common template. They're badged as such. They weren't researched individually and they will look alike, because those tactics are alike.
INTERFACE IS KOREAN RIGHT NOW
English is coming. The diagrams, the position map and the instruction tables read fine without it — attribute names are already in English.
Selection: top-5-league winners and runners-up, relegation survivors, and UCL/UEL semi-finalists from 2015-16 on. Current season isn't in yet.
If something looks wrong, or you want a manager added, say so here and I'll fix it.
The usual advice is lower tempo to cut down long shots. In one save it was doing the opposite. Wide player cuts back, CM shoots from 20 yards, every match across three seasons and more than one team.
The explanation that fits: at low tempo the winger holds the ball a beat longer, which is exactly the time the defence needs to fill the box. The only free man left is the CM on the edge, and the engine passes to the free man.
One deliberately slow match: 47 crosses, 5 completed, 11 long shots. Tempo raised afterwards, long shots dropped, npxG per match went up.
If that holds, the old tip isn't wrong, it's answering a different situation. Long shots from build-up and long shots from the final third look the same in the stats but have opposite causes.
Credit to Petra in the official FM Discord, who found and tested it in her save.
The Korean card names are a bug, not a translation I skipped — those names come from a separate field that never got switched over with the rest of the UI. Your screenshot is what told me where to look, so thanks.
Carrilero and Pressing Forward are older role names I carried over without rechecking them against FM26's list. I'm going through every role in the catalogue against the FM26 set and remapping the ones that moved or merged. If you spot any others that read as out of date, post them here — that's how the full-back / wing-back one got fixed.
What's actually live: Farioli's Nice 23-24 and Fàbregas' Como 24-25. Ajax 24-25 is still being built, and Benfica after it.
The catalogue also got a lot bigger in the same update — 1,174 cards across 410 managers now, so a lot more of each league is covered than when I first posted.
If you open a card and something looks wrong — a position that doesn't match FM26, a shape that isn't what that side actually played, an instruction that reads like a guess — post it here. The full-back / wing-back fix came from exactly that, and it was a real error I'd have missed on my own.
https://www.ffscout.net/fm-tactics/fm26
What I can do is the honest version: build it from what the data does support and mark the instructions that are inference rather than measurement, so you can see which is which. If that's useful to you rather than annoying, say so and I'll put Pep's Barcelona in that way.
And the position map fix from @gagi1993's full-back / wing-back point is live across the catalogue, not just those two. Thanks again for that one, it was a real error and I'd have missed it.
Worth saying what came with it: the Süper Lig and the Brasileirão are both properly in now, not one-off entries. That's why Jorge Jesus ended up with two cards instead of one — the 2019 Flamengo double, and Fenerbahçe 22-23, runners-up with the highest-scoring side in the division. Same manager, two very different squads, which is the comparison I get the most out of. Benfica is still on the list.
Farioli's in — Ajax 24-25 first, and his Nice 23-24 alongside it so there's a before/after on the same idea. The Eredivisie and the Primeira Liga get their own sections at the same time, so Ajax, Benfica, Porto and Sporting stop sitting under "Other".
Another interessting idea to add would be Francesco Farioli.
Farioli's in — Ajax 24-25 is the obvious one, and I'll look at his Nice season too so there's a before/after on the same idea. Neither is a top-5 league problem, the match data's public either way. I'll post here when they're live.
https://www.ffscout.net/fm-tactics/fm26
WHAT'S IN A CARD
- In-possession and out-of-possession shapes, as two diagrams
- A position map showing where the same player moves when the phase changes
- All 27 team instructions (18 in possession, 9 out), with the ones that actually come from the manager's style marked
- Required and preferred attributes for all 11 slots, with a weighting on which ones matter most
WHERE THE NUMBERS COME FROM
FBref / Sports Reference, per manager-club-season. Each side is compared against its own league average for that season, and the deltas set the style axes — pressing intensity, defensive line, tempo, directness, width. Where a manager shows no clear signal on an instruction, the card uses the game's neutral value instead of inventing one.
BEFORE ANYONE ASKS: THIS IS NOT TESTED FOR WIN RATE
I know what this forum is for, and I'm making no performance claim. The match engine is its own system and I can't promise a real-world style translates into results. This is a starting point with a stated reason behind every setting, not a meta tactic. For win rates, the testing tables here are the right tool.
TWO THINGS YOU'D FIND OUT ANYWAY
143 cards, but around 105 unique managers. Pep, Tuchel, Emery, Gasperini and others appear for more than one season on purpose. Pep's City 23-24 next to 24-25 is the one I'd open first — the 23-24 card flags Rodri as the slot with no replacement, and that injury is what triggered the 24-25 change.
38 of the cards are relegation-survival sides sharing a common template. They're badged as such. They weren't researched individually and they will look alike, because those tactics are alike.
INTERFACE IS KOREAN RIGHT NOW
English is coming. The diagrams, the position map and the instruction tables read fine without it — attribute names are already in English.
Selection: top-5-league winners and runners-up, relegation survivors, and UCL/UEL semi-finalists from 2015-16 on. Current season isn't in yet.
If something looks wrong, or you want a manager added, say so here and I'll fix it.