Han106 said: Hello @ZaZ again. I've moved from Vanarama North to what I believe is Spain's 4th division with Cacereño and the board has given me another 2 extra training slots. So now I have 6 training slots instead of 4. What would you recommend me to use the extra 2 slots on? Expand
Day A - Attacking Movement + Match Practice Day B - Defensive Shape + Match Practice Day C - Teamwork + Quickness
That covers match bonuses, happiness, cohesion and the most important attributes (speed).
Machismo said: Thanks for your patience with us asking questions.
What is the 'DEFAULT' mentality for Zazz blue when going on vacation & leaving the Ass Man in charge? Expand
The default mentality is Positive. You can change to Cautious when you want to hold a score or to Very Attacking when trying to grab goals, but to have the best win rate overall, it's Positive.
Robbo said: I made a remix of Phoenix, it is loads of fun. The attacking CM is the key player and should have good mobility, if possible. **Full credit to @Magician ** I wanted to try something different within Magician's tactical genius. Expand
cryptoly said: Looking good! Im gonna try it out. What are the best players to use as DW's? you move wingbacks up like Arnold Alba Cuadrado or more for wingers like Bailey or sancho? Expand
I doubt any team would fall short for having Sancho instead of Arnold or vice-versa. Only better if you can use both.
Machismo said: I've asked this before and I'm back to raise it again. Zazz Blue - DM - recommended I think is DLP defend.
Been playing an Anchor Man for cautious/defensive mode & a BWM (DM) in Positive mode.
And it appears to me to be not much different. Anchorman seems top stuff down in defensive. But I've only played those roles in a dozen games.
What say you guys? Expand
Changing the role of one position won't usually achieve the desired effect. Football is about synergy, meaning each role should allow the others to play better. If you look only at a role individually, maybe you will increase it's impact in the game, but that might cost you less impact of all others, leading to a worse tactic overall.
That being said, I would rather stick to tactics that were already tested as a whole instead of changing one small detail here or there. You can always test it yourself or post it for testing to see if your changes work, but more often than not, those small changes end up disrupting the tactic instead.
If you want a defensive tactic, you can always go to the table and sort it by "fewest goals conceded", then pick one with a good score as a secondary tactic.
Kathos said: True you’re right winning is what matters in the end, but I only have to look back to the last 7 years, took me 4 years to get through playoffs and win promotion to vanarama national and 2 years of coming 6th or so to winning the league this time. Another question I had is the throw ins, the players seem to throw it directly to the enemy team at times and considering there are only the wingbacks defending at the halfway line, I’ve conceded many goals on the counter attack like this. I don’t remember this happening in my leipzig save(I used blue there as well) where I won 2 ucl and 4 league titles in 4 years so maybe it’s just the players but can you think of anything that would fix this? And also can you talk more about how to stop them from being complacent? Because you’re right - my team seems to lose more to lower table teams than bigger ones. Thanks a bunch for the help really appreciate it. Expand
About throw-ins, I can only imagine you might have slow defenders in the back. Try to get defenders with high acceleration and pace.
For complacency, you need to use pep talk to challenge your players before matches and complain when they underachieve. For example, if they are winning by only one goal a match were you are expected to dominate, don't be afraid to tell you are unhappy with their performance.
Kathos said: Hey ZaZ, amazing work on the tactic. Can you talk about how you may look to adapt the tactic when we are in lower leagues (vanarama national), for example, is a bpd still a good idea with generally bad defenders? Etc. Also, with my shitty 21st predicted team I did win the title but I seem to be leaking a lot of goals on the latter end of the game, minutes 70+ that cost me a lot of wins - blue on cautious or light blue doesn’t seem to do the job. Is there a more park the bus kind of a tactic you would recommend to close tight games out? Thanks in advance <3 Expand
If you won the league, that's what matters in the end. I think the problem of your team is emotional. When a team is overachieving, it can get nervous in important matches (those deciding the title) or complacent in less important matches, specially when you are winning too many in a row. You need to use shouts and team talk to counter that.
Just remember that you are the weak team of the league. That means your players are worse, making more mistakes than the opponents. Maybe you feel like the BPD or another role costed you a victory here or there, but you need to also consider how many times they made you win against all odds.
Machismo said: Thanks. So the IWBs default is set to 'sup' (Zazz Blue). If I switch to Cautious or Defend should I manually change their roles to 'defend' when I change Mentality during a match? Expand
Like Egraam said, it's not needed to change player mentality individually. Just change the team mentality and that will automatically make them take less risks. If you change the player mentality directly, he will completely change the way he behaves, leading to lower win rate.
Mark said: I was hoping to analyze the top 100 tactics and look at averages rather than best, but have only got through the top 50. You will see in the tactics section I have tested a tactic using formation, roles and mentality that I thought came out best. It has tested very well for me. I used formation rather than position as I think this means more. Split formation into 5 rows, DC DLR then WBLR DM then MLR MC then AMLR AMC then ST.
I haven't got to the instructions yet and it might be a bridge too far
TactocTestor said: More dribbling = good. So should i teach my defenders to play out of trouble and bring balls out of defence? Expand
To be honest, I checked the data of my team and defenders do very close to zero dribbles per match, so I'm not sure if bringing the ball out of defense would make much of a difference. I'm not sure why it still works better with "dribble more" than without.
thepunisher23 said: hello , how do you determine if your team is stronger or weaker than the opponent? Expand
A stronger team is one that you don't expect to win in normal circunstances. For example, when a newly promoted team in Premier League faces the likes of Liverpool. In that case, I often use the strategy to stall in the first half, to get opponents nervous or complacent, then I change mentality in the second half to snatch a winning goal when they start performing worse.
Han106 said: Hello, I'm playing the typical journeyman save. In Boston Utd, a semi-professional team. What would you use the 4 training slots on? Expand
Usually Teamwork, Attacking Movement, Defense Positioning and Team Bonding. Those give bonus for the next match, hapiness and cohesion, as well as resting your players enough to be used every single match of the season (since you probably have a small squad).
Since the players are usually awful and your training grounds are also bad, it's kinda pointless to focus on atribute gain.
TactocTestor said: Hi should i teach my anyone in my team the ppm like to switch balls to other flanks. Most of the highlights come from through balls/ set piece so im not sure how effective switching balls to other flanks would be. Expand
I usually only learn player traits that overlap with their playing role. Since the tactic has already proved to be effective, I prefer to make sure the players stick to it instead of doing some unexpected behavior. I'm not saying switch balls is worse, I just prefer to stick to what I know works well.
I'm isolating the best score of each position and role in FM-Arena as well as each team instruction. As a reminder, a low score doesn't mean a position, role or instruction is bad, since they were not tested in similar conditions. Tables are presented in the link below.
Day A - Attacking Movement + Match Practice
Day B - Defensive Shape + Match Practice
Day C - Teamwork + Quickness
That covers match bonuses, happiness, cohesion and the most important attributes (speed).
What is the 'DEFAULT' mentality for Zazz blue when going on vacation & leaving the Ass Man in charge?
The default mentality is Positive. You can change to Cautious when you want to hold a score or to Very Attacking when trying to grab goals, but to have the best win rate overall, it's Positive.
I wasn't trying to be mean, but they only test if you create your own topic.
I wanted to try something different within Magician's tactical genius.
You should create your own topic.
I doubt any team would fall short for having Sancho instead of Arnold or vice-versa. Only better if you can use both.
Zazz Blue - DM - recommended I think is DLP defend.
Been playing an Anchor Man for cautious/defensive mode & a BWM (DM) in Positive mode.
And it appears to me to be not much different. Anchorman seems top stuff down in defensive. But I've only played those roles in a dozen games.
What say you guys?
Changing the role of one position won't usually achieve the desired effect. Football is about synergy, meaning each role should allow the others to play better. If you look only at a role individually, maybe you will increase it's impact in the game, but that might cost you less impact of all others, leading to a worse tactic overall.
That being said, I would rather stick to tactics that were already tested as a whole instead of changing one small detail here or there. You can always test it yourself or post it for testing to see if your changes work, but more often than not, those small changes end up disrupting the tactic instead.
If you want a defensive tactic, you can always go to the table and sort it by "fewest goals conceded", then pick one with a good score as a secondary tactic.
About throw-ins, I can only imagine you might have slow defenders in the back. Try to get defenders with high acceleration and pace.
For complacency, you need to use pep talk to challenge your players before matches and complain when they underachieve. For example, if they are winning by only one goal a match were you are expected to dominate, don't be afraid to tell you are unhappy with their performance.
If you won the league, that's what matters in the end. I think the problem of your team is emotional. When a team is overachieving, it can get nervous in important matches (those deciding the title) or complacent in less important matches, specially when you are winning too many in a row. You need to use shouts and team talk to counter that.
Just remember that you are the weak team of the league. That means your players are worse, making more mistakes than the opponents. Maybe you feel like the BPD or another role costed you a victory here or there, but you need to also consider how many times they made you win against all odds.
Ass man? I think you are playing another kind of game.
Like Egraam said, it's not needed to change player mentality individually. Just change the team mentality and that will automatically make them take less risks. If you change the player mentality directly, he will completely change the way he behaves, leading to lower win rate.
I haven't got to the instructions yet and it might be a bridge too far
Below are the results:
Thanks for the extra data!
Normal wingers with lots of pace, acceleration, agility and dribbling.
To be honest, I checked the data of my team and defenders do very close to zero dribbles per match, so I'm not sure if bringing the ball out of defense would make much of a difference. I'm not sure why it still works better with "dribble more" than without.
Canyou test this tactic?
How to use more than one Libero?
A stronger team is one that you don't expect to win in normal circunstances. For example, when a newly promoted team in Premier League faces the likes of Liverpool. In that case, I often use the strategy to stall in the first half, to get opponents nervous or complacent, then I change mentality in the second half to snatch a winning goal when they start performing worse.
Usually Teamwork, Attacking Movement, Defense Positioning and Team Bonding. Those give bonus for the next match, hapiness and cohesion, as well as resting your players enough to be used every single match of the season (since you probably have a small squad).
Since the players are usually awful and your training grounds are also bad, it's kinda pointless to focus on atribute gain.
I usually only learn player traits that overlap with their playing role. Since the tactic has already proved to be effective, I prefer to make sure the players stick to it instead of doing some unexpected behavior. I'm not saying switch balls is worse, I just prefer to stick to what I know works well.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dCOg-gGo9PhdlY2VTjxgNrtF-HfeL6k7AhE6fFVEla8/edit?usp=sharing
For player instructions, @Egraam is keeping tables in the link below.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qM5Gxv2Qk3MkxiaiYWFP70iSxUb7TNr2/edit#gid=1710399827