Creation of successful tactic on FM14

What makes a tactic successful? Which factors can we fine-tune until we get ourselves a tactic that works? What steps to take? This is what you’ll learn in this guide (written by members of www.fmscout.com community).

Player skills

Every position requires a different set of skills, some skills are more important than others, for example a striker’s finishing is more important than a striker’s tackling. If you can get the players with the right skills for the positions where you need those skills, you can succeed.

To find out what are the key attributes for a certain Player Role, go to your Player’s Profile and underneath the Attributes, click the box labelled “Highlight key attributes for role”, and select a role from the drop down menu. Always keep your player attributes in mind when setting player roles. If your wide midfielders lack pace, don’t set them to play as wingers. Try to give your players roles which suit them, so that they can perform well in those roles.

To have a certain style requires the majority of players to have a set of skills which correspond with your strategy, e.g. Barcelona requires high passing, composure, technique, and creativity among others, and enables the team to work effectively as a unit if told to play to those strengths. Or the counter attacking style, where acceleration, off the ball, and work rate are often used.

Player skills determine everything in a game, for example set pieces; although a free kick taker requires a high free kick taking skill, they also require good decision making, long shots (if the free kick is far out), technique possibly, and not to mention aerial ability for free kicks which are whipped into the box and are just waiting for a header. Many of these skills influence the result of the free kick.

You can increase certain player skills through individual training, on the training tab. This can be useful In some situations where, for example, a winger has poor dribbling, which is usually a requirement of a winger, so to increase that will increase the effectiveness of that winger. You could also have a senior player mentor a younger player to develop certain skills of the younger player, which the senior player is quite capable in.

When a player gets older, his mental skills increase due to experience. This often does not decrease, whereas physical skills will obviously decrease with age. Natural fitness often plays a part on how slowly players lose their ability with age. Make sure to keep this in mind when piecing your squad together, as age does make a difference to a player’s development and how their skills are spread out.

Philosophy

Within Football Manager the philosophy of play is overlooked by some people and how important it is can vary between different players. Your philosophy (style) can be set to either Very Rigid, Rigid, Balanced, Fluid or Very Fluid.

The more fluid your style of play, the more your players will try to contribute to both attacking and defensive phases of play and will break from any tactical restrictions to give more flair in attack.

A more rigid style of play will make players stick to their own position and obey their tactical instructions. This will grant you more tactical control over your players and give the team more shape and stability.

Now, lets have a look at each one of them individually:

For a more fluid style, individual mentality instructions will be closely matched across all players in the team, while each player's creative freedom instruction will be higher than in less fluid styles. This means that the team will attack and defend as a unit with more interchanging of positions, while also allowing for more movement and flair when attacking. Tactical intelligence attributes such as anticipation, decisions, flair, off the ball, positioning, teamwork and creativity will be very important and defensive players should have good enough technical attributes to be able to help out in attack, and vise versa for attackers.

A more Rigid style will see your players stick to the formation set. The players in more defensive positions will be given more defensive mentalities and so they will focus on defending rather than attacking. Those in attacking positions will be given more attacking mentalities and they will mainly focus on attacking. Therefore, a more rigid style is suitable if your players’ mental attributes are lower and if they are not gifted technically. Since your players have to stick to their position, attributes such as Positioning and Anticipation are important in helping the team to keep shape. If players have high flair and creativity, a rigid style will not suit them.

In a balanced style, players mentalities will depend on their assigned roles and duties. Those with more defensive roles will be given more defensive mentalities, and the same goes for attacking players. This allows you to set a team structure whilst also allowing for more fluid movement in attack by effectively choosing roles and duties for each position. This gives you far more control over exactly who defends, who attacks, and who supports play at any point during each match simply by adjusting roles and duties according to the match scenario.

Formation

The formation you play is without a doubt the backbone to any successful, or indeed unsuccessful, tactic. Of course, you could just roll with a basic 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 and still reap some benefits, but sometimes it’s the most original; the most abnormal formation which proves to be the most successful. However, choosing that “world-beating” formation is far from easy.

When picking your formation, it is important to remember to work with what you’ve got. Feel free to experiment with weird formations to some extent, but there really is no point in choosing a heavily defensive-minded formation if you’re lacking in defenders, or a formation which utilizes three strikers up front when you only have five in your entire squad. Of course, there is always the transfer market to further strengthen certain areas of your squad, but remember that you’re not always guaranteed to get any of your transfer targets, so choosing a formation that works with your current roster of players is the safest bet.

Next, bear in mind that your formation doesn’t have to be symmetrical. It goes without saying that sometimes, weird is best, so don’t be afraid to try out one winger and one wide-midfielder simultaneously or anything like that. Pre-season is the perfect time to try out new tactics without anything at stake whatsoever, so don’t be afraid to line up a little differently than normal. However, as obvious as this may sound, don’t go doing anything stupid – putting everyone to one side of the pitch is not a good idea!

If you do choose to have multiple tactics at your disposal for one team, try to set each one to a formation that will match your situation when using them. For example, if you’re looking for a defensive tactic to use against much better teams, perhaps going for 5 (or at least 4) at the back is the correct choice. The same goes for an all out attack formation; just because you only play with one striker normally shouldn’t mean you have to here - when in desperate search of goals you’re going to need to attack in numbers, regardless of your usual style of play.

Finally, and this is an important one, we probably all have (or at least will obtain as the save goes on) a favourite tactic, complete with a formation integral to its success. However, there is no “wonder-tactic” to cheat FM that is guaranteed to win you every game, and as such your preferred formation is unlikely to be successful wherever you go. Therefore, you have to be prepared to change formation when things just aren’t working out – if your tactic of choice just isn’t winning you games, change is adamant. At the end of the day, all good things must come to an end, and if saying goodbye to your formation that won you the league at your old club is necessary, you must be willing to do what is required of you.

Hopefully, you can take these factors into account when creating your formation for your tactic, and I wish you the best of success, wherever your tactic takes you.

Team instructions

Here we will have a look through each of the Team Instructions, and how they affect your team’s play.

General

Take A Breather
This shout will instruct your team to slow down the pace of the game to allow them to physically recover. They will not press the ball or attack with great urgency, instead they will focus on regaining stamina and keeping the game at a nice, slow tempo. This is useful if your team is looking exhausted and just needs a break.

Much Higher Tempo
This shout will tell your team to move the ball around at a very quick pace, playing only with one or two touches per player. Your players will also look to make quicker runs and make sure that the game stays at a very fast pace. This shout is more utilized when you desperately need a goal.

Higher Tempo
This shout is very similar to Much Higher Tempo but is not quite to that extreme. Your players will still look to play in one and two touches but will not be as aggressive in doing so. This shout is more utilized in an attacking tactic.

Lower Tempo
This shout informs your players to slow the game down and take their time on the ball. This can be very effective should you want to keep possession, control the match and not allow the opposing team to create a hectic, end-to-end scenario.

Much Lower Tempo
This shout will tell your team to hold on to the ball and keep it slowly moving at all costs. Often your players will keep the ball just for the sake of keeping the ball and look to ensure the game is played at an easily controllable pace.

Be More Expressive
Should you boast highly creative players with flair and other attacking enterprises, use this shout to allow those players to play more freely and create more opportunities. Players in creative roles may transcend other tactical instructions but may chip in with moments of genius

Be More Disciplined
This shout will tell your players to completely adhere to your own tactical instructions. This helps if your players make poor decisions on their own or your team simply needs defensive shape and discipline to ensure they aren’t scored on during critical moments.

Defending

Hassle Opponents
If you want your team to utilize a high pressing defensive system, use this shout. Your players will be instructed to pressure the ball at any opportunity and hunt in packs to regain ball possession high up the pitch and in dangerous counterattacking situations.

Stand Off Opponents
If you want your team to set up shop defensively and play with a strong, rigid shape to avoid being opened up, use this shout. Your players will give the opponent more time on the ball but will look to clog up any passing lanes.

Get Stuck In
This shout will instruct your team to be strong and tackle hard whenever possible. While this may lead to an accumulation of fouls and possible bookings, it can also unnerve the opposition’s attack due to the physicality your team will introduce.

Stay On Feet
This shout will tell your players to not go to ground when tackling and instead tackle standing. This can help reduce bookings from poor slide tackles and also help your defensive shape as players will not be completely beaten as often.

Use Tighter Marking
If you find that the opposing team is constantly finding their attacking players in dangerous positions and your defenders are nowhere to be found, utilize this shout. Your defenders and deeper midfielders will find marks and stick to them, keeping them from being entirely open.

Use Offside Trap
If you are a fan of the offside trap and boast reasonably quick defenders, use this shout. Your defenders will look to step up at opportune moments to catch opposing strikers offside when that killer ball is played, often rendering them useless. Be wary, though, as a defense with little chemistry may do poorly with this.

Shape

Play Wider
This shout will instruct your team to stretch the field out and play from touchline to touchline. This instruction is best used if your team plays with wingers and you want to play an expansive, attacking style of football.

Play Narrower
If you use narrow tactics or want to be defensively compact, utilize this shout. It will help your team to stay together defensively and not be drawn out as much, making your side far more difficult to break down when trying to not be opened up.

Much Higher Defensive Line
This shout will inform your defenders to push up all the way to the half line when your side has possession. They can then assist the side in keeping the ball while also constricting the opposition side to playing in their own half if things go well.

Push Higher Up
This shout will work similarly to Much Higher Defensive Line but is not quite as extreme. Your defenders will still push up but will generally not cross the half line, still constricting the opposing team and being part of the attack but being slightly less risk-taking defensively.

Drop Deeper
Should you want your team to play safer defensively and not venture too far forward, use this shout. Your defensive line will stay in your half almost exclusively to ensure that they are not caught out on an opponent’s quick counterattack.

Much Deeper Defensive Line
Use this shout if you want to park the bus and drop your defensive line almost to your own box with the responsibility of allowing no attackers behind them and defending the goal at all times. Should you need to protect a late lead or want to try knocking a certain Barcelona out of the Champions League, try this shout.

Stick To Positions
This shout will instruct your players to keep to their areas of the pitch and not venture too far so that they do not get dragged out of position. Your team will thus be more defensively rigid and harder to open up; good for creating a very strong defense.

Roam From Positions
Should you boast a number of creative players in attacking areas, do not be afraid to use this shout. Your flair-filled forwards and midfielders will be free to roam and find space to make things happen in the attack, perhaps creating that winning goal.

Allow Wide Players To Swap
This will allow your wingers to swap flanks every now and then during a match. This will make it difficult for the opposition to man-mark your wingers, and it also gives you a variety of different abilities on each wing, if that is what you need.

Possession

Go Route One
This instruction will command your team to get the ball into the final third as quickly as possible. This is useful if you are desperate to grab a goal with little time remaining in a match. However, you are a lot more likely to lose possession of the ball as your team’s passing will become extremely risky.

More Direct Passing
This instruction will command your team to pass the ball with a little more urgency, and to play riskier, longer passes to players further up field. If you are looking for a quick goal, this can be useful, but you are more likely to lose the ball in this manner.

Retain Possession
This instruction will command your team to keep possession of the ball at all costs. This will mean that your players will look to make a safe pass to a nearby teammate rather than playing a risky pass to a player who is quite a distance away. This is an instruction which is a must if you are looking to hold on to a lead.

Shorter Passing
With this instruction, your players will make more short passes to your teammates rather than pumping the ball long. This is ideal for keeping possession of the ball, or looking to play the “tiki-taka” football which has become synonymous with FC Barcelona.

Pass Into Space
With this instruction, your players will look to pass the ball in to open spaces for others to run on to. This can be used i

Morale

It is no secret that a player plays his best football when he is confident and happy. A happy player will work hard to win every game and to play at their best, and every manager wants to keep his players happy (provided they don't want to sell them). The true secret is how to keep your players happy. With all the challenges regarding modern day football, a player's morale is hard to control and to keep a handle on. If you can do it successfully, you will get the best out of your players. But, how do you do it successfully?

The most important factor of player morale is how settled your players are. You need to make sure that your players are happy with their current contracts, they are happy with their training schedules, and are happy with the team chemistry. If a coach suggests that one of your players is unhappy with something, make sure to have a look at the issue and try to solve it before the issue becomes a major problem.

Another important factor is interacting with players, something which is often overlooked by FM players. It is important to communicate with your players on a regular basis to build a strong manager-player relationship, and to help them develop as players. If a player is on form or training well, praise him as it is deserved. If they are training poorly or playing poorly, tell them that. Make sure that they know how they are developing, that is important. However, do not try to interact with your players too often. Once every month or so is enough, any more is too much and will just confuse the player.

Game time is a very important factor for player morale. Players want as much game time as possible so making sure that everybody in your squad gets enough time on the pitch is important. Even if it is only a five minute cameo, your players will still appreciate the chance to play. Just keep in mind that if you are not playing somebody all too much, he may become unhappy. However, if a player is completely lacking confidence, do not play him too much. He is more likely to end up playing poorly and will become even more unhappy. Try to find a balance for playing everybody.

Training

Contrary to what many people think, training is actually a crucial part of helping a tactic work as well as it possibly can.

To ensure that your players get familiar with your tactics as fast as they possibly can, it is advisable to set your General Training focus to Tactics, and to set the intensity to High or Very High until just before the season starts. After the season begins though, setting your training intensity to Medium would be preferable to ensure that your players do not get injured frequently and are able to be match fit for the majority of your fixtures.

Moving on, Match Preparation or Match Training can give your team the edge you need for the upcoming match. For example, if you are up against Stoke, it would be wise to prepare your team for the match by training in Defensive Set Pieces as they specialise in scoring from set-pieces, and physical play. Defensive Positioning match preparation will definitely help when you ar

Trust in manager

As a manager, having the trust of your players is a very important aspect of having a successful tactic. If your players do not trust you, they may choose not to play in the way which you want them to play, and just play in the system which they want to play. If your reputation isn’t great, you may find it difficult to gain the trust of your players. However, as time goes on, your team will begin to trust you.

Gaining the trust of your players can be quite difficult to do. With every team comes a sense of needing to prove yourself to the players before they have faith in you. This can be done by offering your players new contracts, signing big name players who affect the squad well, communicating well with your players, by getting good results, or by showing your commitment to the club.

When you sign a contract with a new club, you should always look at whose contracts are due to expire. If the contract of a player who will be useful for you is due to expire soon, make sure to offer him a new deal as soon as possible. This shows the players that you have faith and trust in them, and they will show you the same trust.

Every manager always looks at how and where they can improve the squad, and the most common solution is found on the transfer market. Signing reputable players will undoubtedly encourage your squad that you show great ambition and that you want to take the team as far as you can. Every player wants to see their team improve, and they will show faith in a manager who does bring in players who strengthen the squad.

Communicating with players is key to gaining their trust. If a player is performing extremely well in a match or in training, make sure to praise him for his ethics. If a player isn’t performing well in a match or in training, make sure that they know that. This will show your players that you want them to be the best player that they can be, and they will develop a trust for you. However, do not communicate with your players too often like this, as they will soon get fed up or confused.

The most obvious way of gaining your players’ trust is by winning games and winning trophies. Every player wants their team to be a successful one, and if you can earn impressive results, they will love you. Every player dreams of winning trophies, so for them to be able to win trophies will give them great trust in their manager.

If you show your commitment to the club, your players will show the same to you. When the time comes where you have to choose whether you should stay at your club or whether you should leave for new pastures, choosing to stay will show your team that you have faith in them, and they will adore you for it.

Familiarity

Your team’s familiarity with the tactic being used is crucial if you want your tactic to be successful. If your players do not know how to play in your tactical system, how could your system possibly succeed? You can’t expect your players to instantly learn how to play in your system and become instantly comfortable in it, that would be outrageous. Gaining familiarity takes time.

There is only one way for your team to become fully familiar with your tactical system; practice, practice, practice. When introducing your tactics to the team, make sure to have a high training workload on learning the tactics, and make sure that you test them out in friendlies so that your players can learn how to play in your tactical system in a match situation. There is no other way, it just takes time and practice.

Player roles

Player roles are important in creating your tactic. They give each player their role in the game, and what their mentality is. They define how your players act on the pitch, whether it’s in an expressive, attacking sense, or a cautious, defensive sense. Once you have chosen your formation, you will want to give your players their roles on the pitch.

My main point of this section is to not have too many of a similar type of player. This will hinder your team either attacking or defensively. Too many attacking players will leave you short in defence against a counter attack. On the flip side, having a team too defensive will leave your team weak in front of goal, and maybe lacking in support.

To help against this, you will need to create a balanced side. The easiest way of doing this, is by using your assistant manager, he will tell you the type of player that they are. From this you will be able to determine if a player is attacking or defensive and what role in the game that they play.

You can then build a squad around the formation you have picked and the types of players that they are. Say, for example, you are using a 4-4-2 formation. You have a general coverage of the pitch, and it is very balanced. This would also need to be balanced in the player roles as well. Ideally, you want your team to be able to dominate every area of play. To do this, let’s have a look at the three key areas; defence, midfield, and attack.

Defence

Starting with the defence, a Stopper and a Covering Defender perform very well together. One puts the pressure on attackers and makes the tackles, while the other one sweeps up the stray balls and the players that manage to slip through past your defensive line. It can also be a good idea to have a Ball Playing Defender in your line-up if you are looking to build your attacks from the back, as these players can show creativity and a passing outlet.

Midfield

In Midfield, you can have a variety of combos. The most common combination is a Ball Winning Midfielder, and an attacking Central Midfielder. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong combination in midfield, but you need to make sure that you can dominate this area of the pitch. To do so, you need a more defensive player in your midfield to win the battles for the ball, and a midfielder who will create attacks with his passing and creativity.

Attack

Your Attack is where you really get the chance to experiment player roles, as there are more unique playing styles in this area than in anywhere else. If you are using an Attack which has two or more players, make sure that their roles are all different, so as they don’t act in the same way, make the same runs, etc. The most common combination is having one Deep Lying Forward who will drop back into midfield to pick up the ball and create opportunities for himself, or for a Poacher/Target Man, who will look to get on to the end of attacking moves to score goals.

You can play around with this yourself and use Friendlies in Pre-Season to judge what player roles suit your tactic the most. Remember to try to keep a good balance and avoid using too many similar player roles when creating your tactic. If you can combine Player Roles which compliment each other well, your tactic is a huge step closer to being a success.

Team-talks

Team-talks are what can make or break your season. In my opinion, it is one of the most important ways of keeping your squad motivated and determined throughout the season, especially when it feels like the season just keeps dragging on and on with no relief. There are many different scenarios which you will face, and you will need to choose your team-talk accordingly in order to get the best out of your players.

Your team is struggling

Let’s say your team has been struggling in recent fixtures and you have found yourself in a drop of form, your team will find it very difficult to get the confidence back to break their bad run, or you are struggling to break the deadlock in a tough fixture. It is a popular belief that the “hairdryer treatment” is the correct solution for this situation, when, in fact, it usually isn’t. You need to be calm and encouraging, letting the players know that you have faith in them to improve their form. You need to instill belief in to your squad instead of fear, although that can work at times, but not often enough to consider an aggressive approach to team talks a success, in my opinion.

Your team didn't perform as expected

An aggressive approach might not work when your team’s morale is down the drain, but it can work if your team is playing complacently and making silly mistakes. For example, if you are playing against a much weaker team but you find yourself on the wrong side of a hammering, your team needs an aggressive team-talk to make them understand that they alone were at fault for the defeat. You do need to be careful with aggressive team-talks because if you deliver them in the wrong situation, your team’s morale will suffer enormously.

Your team barely wins a game you expected to win

Now that we have covered what sort of team-talks you should say when your team is struggling or didn’t perform when you expected them to, let’s discuss what sort of team-talks are needed when your team wins a game. If your team won a game which they were expected to win and by a score-line which they were expected to win by, praise them calmly. You do not want them to become over-confident and complacent, you want them to know that they did what was expected of them well, but it was nothing special.

Your team pulls off a shock win

If your team has performed admirably and gotten a result to be proud of, a passionate team-talk can really help to boost your players’ morale that bit more. A passionate team-talk will make your team realise that the result which they earned was one to be proud of, and they will be filled with confidence and joy, ready to take on their next opponents.

Your team is playing nervously

There will come a time where you will be facing a team which can really damage your’s, and your players are nervous going in to the game. In this situation, you should calmly tell your players to stay relaxed and play their football. If your players can play with a settled mind, they will have no additional weight on their shoulders and they can play freely. This is particularly useful for cup finals or derby games, where there is an added intensity to the fixture.

This was a brief summary of the sort of team-talks you can use in Football Manager, and when to use them. It does take a while to master the art of team-talks, but it is an invaluable skill to have, and one that you will be grateful to have developed. Be wise and be careful with your team-talks, as they can indeed make or break your team’s season.

Team chemistry

Team chemistry is how your whole squad works as a unit. It is how well they get on with each other, if their playing styles match, if their personalities match, the list goes on. A team with a good team chemistry will play better, more unified football than a team with poor chemistry. A good team chemistry is the key to success, and a very valuable key too.

Ultimately, team chemistry will come to play on the pitch, and that is where you get your results. On the pitch is where player styles come in to the fold. You want to have players who suit your system and can play in a similar mind-frame with their team mates. For example, you are not going to use a 6'8'' un-technical brute in a team full of ground-pass merchants, that would be illogical. You want players in your team who know how to play with each other, who can see how your moves will develop and link up with team mates well. If you can get a squad of players who can play well together and in your system, you can succeed.

It is important for your players to get along with each other. They are not just colleagues, they will depend on each other on the pitch, so they must be able to depend on each other off the pitch too. If you bring in players from a large variety of countries, they won't get on well together because of the language barrier. Equally, if you bring lazy players into a squad with determined, hard-working players, there are going to be clashes. Try to bring in players whose personalities match, that is how you can get an overall sense of togetherness, and better morale too!

One of the most underrated values that people often forget about is a player’s experience. Quality will win you games, but experience will win you trophies. If you have an extremely young squad, problems will arise. Sure, they may have the quality to win every game, but if they face a tough challenge, it will hit them hard mentally. It is much harder for an inexperienced player to pick themselves up after a bad run of form than it is for an experienced player. It is important to have some experience in your squad, this will help the young players in your team to excel, and it also gives you a reliable backbone for your team when the going gets tough.

One obvious challenge that you will face as a manager, and there is no escaping it, is when a key player is sold or retires and leaves a hole in your team. Do you try to replace this player with another who is like-for-like? That can be very difficult to do. For example, look at Gerrard, Lampard and Scholes, the last of a Golden Era of English midfielders, all of them as irreplaceable as the next. Instead of trying to replace that player, simply look for a player who can play in that position, is good enough for your team, fits your style, and will fit in well with your other players. If you can match these criteria, you do not need to worry about your lost player affecting your team chemistry.

Are there any other ways you can improve your team chemistry? Of course, there are plenty! Having experienced players tutor younger players is a very good way of doing this. Another good way is bringing your team for training camps where they can "bond" more as a team. You could also focus on bringing in players from a particular nation to avoid varying languages and cultures in your squad. Whatever way you can improve team chemistry, do it, because a good team chemistry brings good team play, and good team play wins you trophies!

Set-pieces

Set-pieces are becoming a more important part of modern day football with each passing year. With the introduction of sophisticated sports-science technology and the improvement of people’s knowledge of fitness and diet, people, and footballers as a result, have become physically stronger and well-tuned, meaning aerial battles are contested much more frequently in the current era of football than they were twenty years ago.

Direct Free Kicks

The most important attribute for a free-kick taker to have is Free Kick Taking, to state the obvious. However, that does not make this the only important skill. For a free-kick taker to be able to create a goalscoring opportunity for others, or to threaten the goal himself, he needs to have a good Technique, as well as at least one more good attribute among Passing, Crossing, and Long Shots. It all depends on what kind of free-kick you want to be taken.

If you are a team without much physical presence, you will be looking to score directly from your free-kicks. Otherwise, the other team will find it easy to beat your diminutive team to the ball, provided they are not as diminutive as your team. In this case, you will want to have someone who has high Free-Kick Taking and Long Shots attributes, as well as Technique . Ideally, your set-piece maestro should have the Preferred Player Move "Tries long range free kicks", otherwise when he could theoretically take a set-piece from reasonable shooting range, he might make a short pass instead.

There are not too many variables in this situation, your player will either score, or he doesn’t. It is, however, the only way you're going to score with a physically weak team.

Corners and indirect Free Kicks

Let’s move on to corners and free-kicks in non-shooting areas. In general, a football team will have two tall, strong central defenders, a physically capable defence minded midfielder, and maybe even a target man too. You will want to have your aerial threats in the positions which they are most dangerous. These positions are at either post, or attacking the six-yard box. If you have the players needed to threaten from these positions, your set-piece taker will have a variety of targets to attempt to feed the ball to.

How to deal with defending team attacking on the break

Not many teams can score from every

Opposition instructions

When you head in to an important fixture, whether it's a lower-league derby or a Champions League Final, many new FM players will probably skip the opposition instructions, and anxiously head on into the match. However, not placing instructions on players in the opposition team who can really hurt your team might end up costing you the game.

Before you start your game, or even head on into your pre-match press conference, be sure to check your scout's team report of your upcoming opponent, which will probably tell you who their best player (or players) is at stopping a counter-attack, who can skillfully bamboozle your defenders, and who their goal threats are. If you are willing to go an extra mile to see gain further knowledge of your opponents, be sure to check what kind of attributes their midfield and forward line have.

One of the most important factors is looking for potential players who could cause damage to your team. For example, if I were to play against a player that has high acceleration and pace attributes, it would be better to have “tight marking” checked, to keep that player under pressure. Another “must” for a dangerous attacker is to “show on to weaker foot”, as the player might decide to test the goalkeeper, or whip in a cross, and you can then force them to turn on to their weaker side. Of course, this would make your defence’s and goalkeeper’s lives easier.

If you are facing a real technical player, whose Creativity, First Touch and Passing stats are fairly high, it would be preferable to have him “Closed Down”, and have the “Tackling” set to hard, to make him feel that he needs to keep looking over his shoulder when he receives the ball, not knowing when the next challenge will come in. This will stop the player from being as expressive on the ball as he usually is, and force him out of his comfort zone. To add, if you were to find yourself against a tall, yet slow striker, you would also want to have him “Marked Tightly”, and “Shown on to Weaker Foot”, as he can unleash a shot if your player decides to give him the opportunity to test your goalkeeper.

Consequences

One of the many consequences of having the “Tight Marking” and “Close Down” instructions on a player, is that the defending player’s condition will be lowered at a faster rate, which will not help the player’s fitness over long-term. To add, it might get too many players focused on a single player, which would allow other players the freedom to cause your team damage.

As for the “Tackling” (Easy, Normal and Hard) consequences, it can bring various yellow cards or, in the worst case scenario, can get one of your players sent off. If you do choose to go on “Easy Tackling”, it can also open up many other opportunities for your opponent's players.

The last instruction, “Show on to Foot”, can confuse your defenders - if you choose the left or right foot, instead of the weaker foot, it can bamboozle the defender, leaving your defenders helpless for a 1v1 with the goalkeeper.

Player Condition

Player Condition is something which must be cared for as best as possible. If a player becomes fatigued, he will not play as well as he would if he were match fit, and he becomes more susceptible to injury. You need to take good care of your players so this never happens, otherwise you will face some big problems.

Fixture congestion is one of the many tough challenges which a manager may face. If you find that your team ends up playing two or three games a week, your team’s physical condition will quickly deteriorate. You need to make sure that you rotate your team to keep your players as fresh as possible for each game, and less likely to pick up an injury.

Sometimes, your team will be leading a game by a comfortable margin and the game is effectively over. To save your players’ fitness levels, you should look to substitute your tired players out as soon as you think your team has the game wrapped up. At this point, you don't want your team trying to win the ball back aggressively or chase down the opposition players needlessly. In your Team Instructions, set Tackling to More Cautious so your players don't risk getting injured from tough tackles. Change the Closing Down setting to Stand Off More, and set Time Wasting to maximum. Also, use the shout "Take a Breather". This will make sure that your players don't waste their energy on a game that you have already won and instead save their strength for the upcoming fixtures.

If you find that one of your players has played a lot of football recently and is becoming jaded, it would be a good idea to allow that player to rest for a few weeks to avoid injury and to make sure that he is fresh when he is ready to play again. You will find that you will need to do this more often with older players than with younger players, as their Stamina and Natural Fitness levels have weakened considerably.

[david.leeming]

Well done, well thought out and constructive guide to a great game - my congrat's and hope you write more, many thanks (from FM14 user).

[Fyrkanten]

Very helpful!

[Captain Arpad]

great guide

[Spud]

great guide and very informative. Thanks for posting this.

[ManoDjauma]

Assymetrical tactics seems to work wonderfull. I used always symetric.
Thanks man

[Marcus Franconium]

this game is a piece of junk multiple careers with the same team every time starting with the normal line up 1st match lost 2-0
2nd time lost 3-1 against same team
3d time lost 4-2 against same team

line up with 4 startplayers bought during transfer window

lost to same team 2-4 after being ahead 2-0 then sudenly my 4 star players get injured with in 5 minutes and 20 minutes from time and l conseed 4 goals

2nd match with the same four star players lost 4-6 and again the 4 starplayers where injured within 5 minutes and
again conceded 4 goals and lost

3d time lost 1-3 1 -0 up til 80th minute than 3 players are injured and 1 red card and again 3 goals conceded to loose with a 2 goal devesit

[|Go4Ts3| Sl|mY]

Try this game! the best managergame ive ever played! Gl! http://www.goaltycoon.com/bestfootballgame/slimython

[Timbone]

My first and last game. Returning it, not that the crashes were not bad enough but the gameplay is broken, Rosina is outmuscling my pacy strong CB haha. Its ridiculous how 2 star players can beat my 4 star CBs with high morale. The game favors speed a lot too. I won the Russian league with Luca Tony as one of my strikers, in Sparta Moscow but I am angry, even winning the Russian cup and supercup did not placate me. I wont advice my enemy to buy this game

[Danny20114]

great guide, great depth, gotta do this again for FM15

[bankpyt]

great guide, i have played fm for many years,but i still have to adapt my tactic to every patch