This is a tweak of Blue 3.0, with Wingers instead of Defensive Wingers. To work well, they inherited similar player instructions, including Close Down More to press against throw-ins. In my experiments, it gets more points per season than Blue 3.0, but also a smaller goal difference. Just like Blue 3.0, you can change the role of DLP to DM with similar results.
Mornon said: aaaaah so disappointing, for a moment I thought you managed to break the match engine even more
About IWs-WBs combo, seems like this year they're not so effective, probably because you lose the great deal of having IWBs turning into central midfielders giving more cover. And I think also that if you change the tactic to something like WB BPD BPD WB - DLP - CM CM - IW SS IW you still risk to overload the center because of the two CM with attacking attitude and move into channels instructions. Ju my thoughts thou Expand
I plan to use two DM, possibly as RPM like Afterlife tactic.
Mornon said: Amazing work with your tactic! I'm curious about that Blue 4.0 now... :P Expand
Haha, that was an empty space for the not done yet Blue 4.0. I just used it to put results from 3.0 with some favorable conditions, like retraining positions and asking assistant manager to use specific team during holiday mode. It's not valid for anything, I did it just for fun and forgot to rename.
P.S.: For anyone in doubt of preferred foot for wingers, these are my thoughts. Same foot as side favors crossing and cutting outside to reach the byline. Opposite foot as side favors shooting and cutting inside to reach the box. Usually, you want wingers with the same foot when you have two or more strikers (including shadow strikers), since the space inside the box is already occupied. When you use only one striker, then you would prefer wingers with opposite foot and wingbacks doing the task of reaching the byline, to give width and depth. This is just theory, obviously, and the match engine might not agree with me. I'll try a tactic with inverted wingers later to see how it goes, with one striker and marauding wingbacks.
CBond90 said: Is it just the case of copying the tactic as we see it in the screenshots or am I being stupid & there's a download link I'm missing? Thanks. Expand
Click "Tactic Source", then you will see the download in the first post. The tactics folder is "Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021\tactics".
MA91 said: Should we put, Left footed on Right or Left on left? Is it same for Pheonix too? and do you still do this? : "Against stronger teams, a good trick is to start the match with Cautious mentality, then change back to Positive or Very Attacking on the second half. It works because players from stronger teams crack down at half time when not winning, or get complacent when winning even by one goal. Then you can surprise them and snatch a win while their performance goes down. Against weaker teams, it's often better to just start with Very Attacking mentality. If you are also training Light Blue and Dark Blue, the change in mentality won't affect your tactical affinity." Expand
Wingers with the same foot as side. For inverted wing backs it makes no much difference. Yes, I still do that.
P.S.: I tested here wingers with close down more isntead of defensive wingers and it works very well. I will test wingers without close down more to see if the difference is the close down more, then I post it for anyone that wants to use normal wingers instead, since some people don't like defensive wingers.
P.S.2: The version using wingers with close down more, which I'm calling Blue 3.1, is getting more points here, but less goal difference. I'm still running tests without close down more to see if that is what makes the difference.
Egraam said: Should have probably expected that, because the only thing that changed between those two tactics from 21.3 testing table and the current one are throw-ins, and Pheonix then was #1 and ZaZ - Blue was #2 while right now is the other way around. Could be because of the number of tests run and ZaZ - Blue was better all way long, but it's probably a proof that the Pheonix throw-ins aren't that much better.
I'll still be experimenting with throw-ins because it's probably one of the only parts of the tactic that can be improved, everything else is most likely as optimised as it could get. Congrats on an amazing tactic Expand
Thanks for the compliment. I tried a lot of changes in throw-ins and other set pieces, but it's really hard to optimize it after some point because the gains become too small to notice. The higher the score of a tactic, the hardest it is to increase anything. Maybe I ignored lots of improvements just because it was too similar and I decided to keep the old version.
About the difference between ZaZ and Phoenix, it might be what you said, but it might also be that Defensive Wingers work well against the shorter throw-ins, since they are defaulted to close down more. Before, the throw-ins where always in the box, so it didn't make much difference. If I was @Magician, I would try adding close down more to the wingers and see how it goes. (P.S.: I'll test it here and tell the results.)
Egraam said: I've been playing around with the tactic a bit and I've found throw-ins to be a bit of weakness - I haven't really gotten any chances created from throw-ins. I've also used Pheonix for a bit and I quite like it's throw-in setup so I've plugged it here. Also I think tight marking is still good, just not on defenders (that's why tight marking TI is not that effective in my opinion). So I've changed wingers to defensive wingers, and added tight marking on all non-defenders, effectively combining Blue 3.0 with Pheonix. Here are some results of this tweak but it still needs more testing, not sure yet if it's better than original Blue. I'll play with it in my own save now, and hopefully be able to share some more results soon.
City 107 points, Sevilla 99 points all cups.
Expand
Finished testing here, but it didn't work for me. It doesn't mean it's not better, just that for my method of testing, it didn't improve. Different methodologies give different outcomes, with the difference from fm-arena and fm-base being a big example of that.
I tested the suggestions individually, as well as all together (the version you posted).
I am using this tactic and previous versions in this Fm 21, up to the current patch and always with great results.
My question or request for help, was to know what are the most important attributes for each position, I know you put the link behind but it will allways go to the tactics table, it will certainly be my stupidity, but how do I know what are the main attributes for each position?
And even if you end up not being able to answer, thank you very much for the incredible tactics.
Cheers from Portugal. Expand
For all line positions, most important attributes are pace and acceleration. Agility and dribbling (except for central defenders) come next, but not as important as the other two. All other attributes have very little impact in performance, specially finishing, tackling, team work, work rate and first touch, which have negligible effect even in the positions that should need them.
The table that I linked tests the same tactic with 3 points reduced in a single attribute for all players. For example, reduce 3 in acceleration from all positions and see how much it affects the results. If you look at that table, you will see that acceleration and pace are in the very bottom, with 5.6 (7.0 was the base line). You will also see that position rating is not so important, but keeping morale high is very important (keep complimenting players!).
crazyfmguy93 said: I think this tactic perform better than ZaZ in real world because winger does not good as a defensive winger in realistic attributes. Expand
7.2 and 7.1 is not much of a difference. You can probably win anything even with tactics with 6.6 score or lower. Just pick the one you like to see playing.
Egraam said: I've been playing around with the tactic a bit and I've found throw-ins to be a bit of weakness - I haven't really gotten any chances created from throw-ins. I've also used Pheonix for a bit and I quite like it's throw-in setup so I've plugged it here. Also I think tight marking is still good, just not on defenders (that's why tight marking TI is not that effective in my opinion). So I've changed wingers to defensive wingers, and added tight marking on all non-defenders, effectively combining Blue 3.0 with Pheonix. Here are some results of this tweak but it still needs more testing, not sure yet if it's better than original Blue. I'll play with it in my own save now, and hopefully be able to share some more results soon.
City 107 points, Sevilla 99 points all cups.
Expand
Thank you for the suggestions. I'll test it here and see how it compares to Blue 3.0.
P.S.: I'll test separated the throw-ins from Phoenix, mark tighter to non defenders and wingers instead of defensive wingers (it was only tested long time ago so it might have changed this patch). Then I will come back with results to tell what worked and what didn't.
Gpassosbh said: Or you just play with the same tactic all season without any tweak??? Expand
Sometimes I start with cautious mentality against stronger team. When those teams reach second half without winning, their players start to get nervous, meaning they play worse. Then I change back to positive in the second half, or even very attacking, and manage to win the match. I do that a lot and it works like a charm.
P.S: I just did that to win against Liverpool, with Leamington (a team that climbed from the lowest division). For reference, my entire team costs 1 million per year in wages, while a single player from Liverpool, like Alisson, costs 10 million euros per year. You can see a few of my players in the last page, to see how bad they are.
P.S.3: Just some screenshots of my current run. Spoiler First in wages is Manchester City, with 320M per year. First in sponsors is Manchester United, with 276M per year.
P.S.2: Added the following tips to the opening post: Spoiler
Against stronger teams, a good trick is to start the match with Cautious mentality, then change back to Positive or Very Attacking on the second half. It works because players from stronger teams crack down at half time when not winning, or get complacent when winning even by one goal. Then you can surprise them and snatch a win while their performance goes down. Against weaker teams, it's often better to just start with Very Attacking mentality. If you are also training Light Blue and Dark Blue, the change in mentality won't affect your tactical affinity.
infxamus said: can we change the DW to Wingers and then add the 'close down more' instruction? Expand
I tested with Winger without Close Down More and it was around the same thing. I'm not sure if Close Down More makes it better or worse, since it wasn't tested.
DeviAngel said: I finished 3rd with Benevento, no transfers. Its kinda leaky sometimes but great tactics ! Expand
When designing and testing the tactic, I tried to optimize goal difference by the end of season. I didn't look much to goals scored or goals conceded, but the difference between. That's why the set pieces sacrifice a bit of defense to get more counter attack opportunities, leaving some extra players advanced.
My advice is to switch to Cautious when you want to concede less and switch to Very Attacking when you want to score more.
Agüero alone scored 56 goals in official matches. For reference, Messi "only" scored more than that 3 times in his career (58, 60 and 69). Imagine this with Liverpool.
jayZ said: is there new set pieces in that upload? Expand
Set pieces from 3.0 are the same from 2.1. If you want to use it with another tactic, you can download 3.0, go to set pieces and choose the option to save all routines.
Thanks for the good job! If you allow me to give a suggestion, I would tell to remove the best and worst result from tests when calculating scores, to avoid outliers that could distort the averages. Those results could be marked with an X to indicate they are not considered for scoring. Statistically speaking, using the four middle runs would give more precision than using all the six.
For details, check the original version: https://fm-arena.com/thread/884-zaz-blue-2-0/
Tactic and results for holiday mode are presented below.
Let me know in the comments how it performed for you!
About IWs-WBs combo, seems like this year they're not so effective, probably because you lose the great deal of having IWBs turning into central midfielders giving more cover.
And I think also that if you change the tactic to something like WB BPD BPD WB - DLP - CM CM - IW SS IW you still risk to overload the center because of the two CM with attacking attitude and move into channels instructions.
Ju my thoughts thou
I plan to use two DM, possibly as RPM like Afterlife tactic.
I'm curious about that Blue 4.0 now... :P
Haha, that was an empty space for the not done yet Blue 4.0. I just used it to put results from 3.0 with some favorable conditions, like retraining positions and asking assistant manager to use specific team during holiday mode. It's not valid for anything, I did it just for fun and forgot to rename.
P.S.: For anyone in doubt of preferred foot for wingers, these are my thoughts. Same foot as side favors crossing and cutting outside to reach the byline. Opposite foot as side favors shooting and cutting inside to reach the box. Usually, you want wingers with the same foot when you have two or more strikers (including shadow strikers), since the space inside the box is already occupied. When you use only one striker, then you would prefer wingers with opposite foot and wingbacks doing the task of reaching the byline, to give width and depth. This is just theory, obviously, and the match engine might not agree with me. I'll try a tactic with inverted wingers later to see how it goes, with one striker and marauding wingbacks.
Thanks.
Click "Tactic Source", then you will see the download in the first post. The tactics folder is "Documents\Sports Interactive\Football Manager 2021\tactics".
Is it same for Pheonix too?
and do you still do this? :
"Against stronger teams, a good trick is to start the match with Cautious mentality, then change back to Positive or Very Attacking on the second half. It works because players from stronger teams crack down at half time when not winning, or get complacent when winning even by one goal. Then you can surprise them and snatch a win while their performance goes down. Against weaker teams, it's often better to just start with Very Attacking mentality. If you are also training Light Blue and Dark Blue, the change in mentality won't affect your tactical affinity."
Wingers with the same foot as side. For inverted wing backs it makes no much difference. Yes, I still do that.
P.S.: I tested here wingers with close down more isntead of defensive wingers and it works very well. I will test wingers without close down more to see if the difference is the close down more, then I post it for anyone that wants to use normal wingers instead, since some people don't like defensive wingers.
P.S.2: The version using wingers with close down more, which I'm calling Blue 3.1, is getting more points here, but less goal difference. I'm still running tests without close down more to see if that is what makes the difference.
There are a couple o tables and we were telling which set pieces are the best for each thing.
I'll still be experimenting with throw-ins because it's probably one of the only parts of the tactic that can be improved, everything else is most likely as optimised as it could get. Congrats on an amazing tactic
Thanks for the compliment. I tried a lot of changes in throw-ins and other set pieces, but it's really hard to optimize it after some point because the gains become too small to notice. The higher the score of a tactic, the hardest it is to increase anything. Maybe I ignored lots of improvements just because it was too similar and I decided to keep the old version.
About the difference between ZaZ and Phoenix, it might be what you said, but it might also be that Defensive Wingers work well against the shorter throw-ins, since they are defaulted to close down more. Before, the throw-ins where always in the box, so it didn't make much difference. If I was @Magician, I would try adding close down more to the wingers and see how it goes. (P.S.: I'll test it here and tell the results.)
City 107 points, Sevilla 99 points all cups.
Finished testing here, but it didn't work for me. It doesn't mean it's not better, just that for my method of testing, it didn't improve. Different methodologies give different outcomes, with the difference from fm-arena and fm-base being a big example of that.
I tested the suggestions individually, as well as all together (the version you posted).
Attacking corners from Blue 3.0 are from @Egraam, taken from his Motion tactic.
P.S.: There was a topic where @Mark and others (including me) tried to optimize set pieces, in case you are interested. I will link it below.
https://fm-arena.com/thread/967-set-pieces/page-1/#comments-anchor
I am using this tactic and previous versions in this Fm 21, up to the current patch and always with great results.
My question or request for help, was to know what are the most important attributes for each position, I know you put the link behind but it will allways go to the tactics table, it will certainly be my stupidity, but how do I know what are the main attributes for each position?
And even if you end up not being able to answer, thank you very much for the incredible tactics.
Cheers from Portugal.
For all line positions, most important attributes are pace and acceleration. Agility and dribbling (except for central defenders) come next, but not as important as the other two. All other attributes have very little impact in performance, specially finishing, tackling, team work, work rate and first touch, which have negligible effect even in the positions that should need them.
The table that I linked tests the same tactic with 3 points reduced in a single attribute for all players. For example, reduce 3 in acceleration from all positions and see how much it affects the results. If you look at that table, you will see that acceleration and pace are in the very bottom, with 5.6 (7.0 was the base line). You will also see that position rating is not so important, but keeping morale high is very important (keep complimenting players!).
7.2 and 7.1 is not much of a difference. You can probably win anything even with tactics with 6.6 score or lower. Just pick the one you like to see playing.
City 107 points, Sevilla 99 points all cups.
Thank you for the suggestions. I'll test it here and see how it compares to Blue 3.0.
P.S.: I'll test separated the throw-ins from Phoenix, mark tighter to non defenders and wingers instead of defensive wingers (it was only tested long time ago so it might have changed this patch). Then I will come back with results to tell what worked and what didn't.
Sometimes I start with cautious mentality against stronger team. When those teams reach second half without winning, their players start to get nervous, meaning they play worse. Then I change back to positive in the second half, or even very attacking, and manage to win the match. I do that a lot and it works like a charm.
P.S: I just did that to win against Liverpool, with Leamington (a team that climbed from the lowest division). For reference, my entire team costs 1 million per year in wages, while a single player from Liverpool, like Alisson, costs 10 million euros per year. You can see a few of my players in the last page, to see how bad they are.
P.S.3: Just some screenshots of my current run.
Spoiler
First in wages is Manchester City, with 320M per year. First in sponsors is Manchester United, with 276M per year.
P.S.2: Added the following tips to the opening post:
Spoiler Against stronger teams, a good trick is to start the match with Cautious mentality, then change back to Positive or Very Attacking on the second half. It works because players from stronger teams crack down at half time when not winning, or get complacent when winning even by one goal. Then you can surprise them and snatch a win while their performance goes down. Against weaker teams, it's often better to just start with Very Attacking mentality. If you are also training Light Blue and Dark Blue, the change in mentality won't affect your tactical affinity.
I tested with Winger without Close Down More and it was around the same thing. I'm not sure if Close Down More makes it better or worse, since it wasn't tested.
DeviAngel said: I finished 3rd with Benevento, no transfers. Its kinda leaky sometimes but great tactics !
When designing and testing the tactic, I tried to optimize goal difference by the end of season. I didn't look much to goals scored or goals conceded, but the difference between. That's why the set pieces sacrifice a bit of defense to get more counter attack opportunities, leaving some extra players advanced.
My advice is to switch to Cautious when you want to concede less and switch to Very Attacking when you want to score more.
I just did treble with Atletico Madrid.
I wonder what is the worst team that this tactic would manage to win a top league or even the UCL in the first year, without any transfer.
Agüero alone scored 56 goals in official matches. For reference, Messi "only" scored more than that 3 times in his career (58, 60 and 69). Imagine this with Liverpool.
The game mimics real life.
Set pieces from 3.0 are the same from 2.1. If you want to use it with another tactic, you can download 3.0, go to set pieces and choose the option to save all routines.