So I thought why don’t I give it a try, I have similar sort of players that could play the system and if I can impose some good looking football.

So first of all the research.

1. The Question: Is the 3-1-4-2 Formation on The Rise? – Jonathan Wilson
2. Real Madrid 1 – 3 Barcelona – Zonal Marking
3. Valencia 0-1 Barcelona - Zonal Marking
4. Barcelona: My Interpretation – WWFan

I have looked at WWFan’s piece which speak more about the old system interpreted in Football Manager. This tactic has come about from evolution rather then revolution, so knowing how Barcelona used to play will lead us to realise how to adapt.

Here is a not so tested start.

Dortmund 3-5-2

I have chosen a counter strategy as WWFan best puts it

My own take on the Barcelona style is that is closest to the Counter Strategy in Football Manager than any other. When Barcelona get the ball, the first thing that happens is the defence drop deeper, opening up passing space between the defence and the playmaking midfield. The Counter Strategy enables this deep move. As mentioned above, they attack in two ways, the slow probe or the fast counter. Again, the Counter strategy allows this.

The rest of the roles are simply straight forward. Bielsa the greatest influence on Guardiola and the 3 at the back formation, it is common to see heavy pressing, hardly given the opposition time to think. This will hopefully mean we get the ball back quicker and also prevent the opposition catching us on the break over the wings.

Defenders

I have split the defenders. Mainly because I like to do this with modern football with the better defender as the cover because if it all goes wrong you want your best man to be the guy who is the last line before the keeper. Gunter makes it as a ball playing midfielder to help with the possession, patient football.

Defensive Midfielder

Sergio Biscuits job for Barcelona is mainly to break up play, but he also offers a consistent passing option. I’d like to think of him as a deep playing Lucas Levia. But he is the guy who starts the attacks off. Anchor man would limit this player where as a defensive midfielder hopefully will re create his role nicely.

Wingers

This is where I have the majority of dilemmas. Barcelona luckly have Dani Alves who is really a winger who makes tackles and not a full back who gets forward. I have no one in a similar mould, apart from a developing Romario, who I am looking to re-train as the MR. For now I have got a decent player who is in a more of a Kuyt mould in Kevin Großkreutz. I have Therefore given a defensive winger role to Kevin, while on the opposite wing Weiss will be another winger.

Central Midfielders

An easy bit of selection, a creative centre with a deep-lying player looking to pick the ball up and recycle possession or feeding it into the more advanced play maker who will look to create chances. Though I am not sure whether I need to have Wilshere or Shelvey the attacking play-makers on an attacking role to add more of a link between forwards and midfield, especially with attacking wingers.

Strikers

When Barcelona took on Real Madrid the chances that were made put Messi in the role of a classic number 10 who dropped pretty deep. This allowed Sanchez to move around horizontally. I have Gotze who has been re-trained to be able to play as a striker and will suit the trequartista role.

Barcelona have had the luxury of great versatile attacking footballers with Cesc, Sanchez, Villa and Messi. I wanted a more of a complete forward up top (but wouldn’t we all?), I have one in the making Ivan Subtic but he is long off in his development. Until then we have to make do and with Paloschi I have one of the best poachers in the league.

This is all a concept at the moment and still not been fully tested and I would love to get your feedback, suggestions and help.

Is 4-4-2 Still a Winning Tactic – Paine has a fantastic blog following his first FM2012 career game with cult German side St. Pauli. But if you have ever read any of Paine’s blogs he is also something of a tactical mastermind.

Here he takes us through the 4-4-2 which has taken his St Pauli side to a promotion and straight into the Europa league with a 7th place finish back in the Bundesliga.

Paine shows how the 4-4-2 can still work in this day an age of the 3 man central midfield, able to control games by slowly passing the ball about and winning the midfield battle with two deep-lying MC’s who protect the defence. The 4-4-2 is far from a dead formation.

I have adopted his 4-4-2 myself to combat my poor form against the bigger sides and away from home, giving me something more defensive in my armour. Protecting my wings too with a wide midfielder and implementing wing-back Lukasz Piszczek as the wide midfielder when I come up against those sides like Munich with pacey wingers.

Barcelona: My Interpretation – From the tactical genius brain of Richard Clayton (wwfan), many people have flatly said that the Match Engine in FM2011/12 has been incapable of reproducing the passing tika-taka that Barcelona show off. Richard moves to dispel this concept.

Although you won’t create a carbon copy of it as the football is much more deep-rooted and reliant on the emergence of one of the worlds greatest players at this particular time, wwfan believes he has come up something close to the perfect recreation.

The Art of Defending – ZdlR goes through a masterclass of defending, presenting the good and bad aspects of defending seen in the game. It is an interesting read which will help in the through process of how you can read a game in view of your own defending. With examples annotated from the matches. It will at least give you something to think about.

The Midfielder as Centerback – Going back to the Barcelona tactical guide, trying to implement the Barcelona style of football has been a major trend in what type of football gamers are looking to implement either at the virtual Barcelona or just at Stoke.

One major development as teams look for good passers is converting the MC’s into DC’s most notable example of this has been Sergio Basquets and Javier Mascherano.

I thought I would include this as it was something that provoked a post that you will see further this week and it be interesting to know how many other people have tried adapting players to suit their footballing philosophy.

The Santos Experience & The Project – Cleon could probably include himself up with SFraser and WWFan as the best tactical guide writers within the community. These two threads include much more then just his time at Santos, but tactics at Spurs and Sheffield United that make for interesting reading.

But it is his interpretation of attributes and the match engine that is the really useful part. Cleon breaks things done in easy chunks easy to stay focused and entertained.

I will be interested to know if you have read any guides that have inspired your. If so share them in the comments below.

I thought I would give you a little update on my game before giving you more information later through the week.

I have solved my goalkeeping problem with a inspired bosman signing of David Ospina.

David Ospina

For a bosman signing he would make a great backup keeper, but short term he is also good enough for the first team replacing an ageing Weidenfeller who for the past two season has picked up long term injuries causing me to play Hildebrand who capable does cost me the odd goal. In the long term I want to bring in Marc-Andre ter Stegen from Gladbach.

With Kagawa leaving himself on a bosman it will be handy to be able to use my transfer budget to replace him.

My other signing has been a young midfielder from Inter Milan

Lorenzo Crisetig

High determination gives me promise that I can mould him into a useful rotation player he will sit nicely in a deep lying playmaker role. Ready made for a loan move in his first season or if I wish giving him a few games in my own first team he will look good.

To end this post I want to share you with you my 6-0 thrashing of Hertha Berlin. My terrible away record has come against some sides I really should have taken apart. The second game of the season I faced Hertha in Berlin, it was a fairly close game that I should never have lost, but Rukavystya’s goal sunk me.

But checkout the return leg were revenge was mine, playing my attacking 4-2-3-1 this has been the game were everything came together. Gotze was man of the match and check out the way he exploits the space that he found.

Dortmund Backroom Staff

The target for the first season was to stay in the Champions League which would keep the bank balance up to build my squad. While doing this putting my scouts out and around to find the best talent young and old.

I’m not one to hang around wonderkid threads, searching for the best players. I like to think that I do a good job of finding my own players. Though admittedly I thank Twitter for some left back suggestions and if anyone wants to suggest a false 9 type player feel free to leave a comment.

After finishing the first season 4th my objective was achieved in a tight top 6, this kept finances healthy but the very frugal Dortmund decided to leave me with £15m to bring in any of my targets.

Transfers

I did sign bring a few players in the first season to sure up the squad on free transfer Andreas Hinkel, Timo Hildebrand and Timothee Atouba. None of these players were part of the long term plan but came in as cheap stop gaps.

My first signing though was:

Tobias Figueiredo

Tobias came to the side aged 17 for £2.2 million. The centre back looks a fair prospect for someone who might want to play at the back. But I was more interested in some of his decent passing stats, first touch, positioning and flair. Because I don’t intend to play him at in the back line.

Tobias has a future as a central midfielder, as soon as he has arrived I have been working on his ability to play in that position, re-training him and putting him on MC training schedules.

I need to work on his determination, other wise this attribute might cause some issues before I can send him out on loan once he is more then comfortable in his MC role.

With Hinkel and Atouba both leaving the club in the second season I went in search for a long-term options at full back. Last season I conceded so many goals from wide areas that it was important that I get in two players who are defensively sound.

Garry Bocaly (DR)

I have always been drawn to Garry by my scouts in previous Football Manager games, but only now have I ever signed him. Decent positioning, good tackler he is a sound full back, able to get up and down I hoped to get him a little cheaper then £8m but I thought that was money well spent, especially in my desperation for a player in that position. 24 still has room to improve so I will be working on the mental part of his game, positioning would be a good part for me to improve.

Aleksander Lukovic (DR)

After a massive search for an ideal left back, which included my scout searches and suggestions on Twitter, I stumbled across Lukovic. A better defender than Bocaly but equally as rounded a player. He has done some traveling Lukovic as he has played in Serbia, Italy and Russia before arriving in Germany.

I am pretty pleased with his capture at £7.75m, both players will strengthen my wing especially when they are left so exposed by my inside forwards.

I am little worried about the team work attributes of both these full backs but hopefully the quality of the middle defenders will combat this.

Targets

Now the full back are sorted I am interested in my central midfield. Ilkay though is maturing nicely and will definitely grab a first team place for the majority of next season as a MC. But I am also interested in two other players for this position

Jonjo Shelvey (MC)

Recently played Jonjo with my Great Britain side at the Olympics. A great looking deep lying play maker with good passing stats, work rate and composure. Though very little difference between him and Ilkay, he will add more depth to the midfield as I look to bring him in on loan with a view to a permanent move.

Defensively he isn’t all that, but play him alongside Bender or as an alternative to Kehl he will add something more to the attack.

Though in terms of all round play maker that would be perfect for my system

Arouca (MC)

This guy is my number 1 target. I have not had the money yet to bring him in and he has annoyingly just signed a 3 years deal with Santos so he probably won’t come cheap.

He comes from a perfect mould of Brazilian deep lying playmakers. Dunga, Lucas, Falco. Able to win the ball back and recycle possession or probe the ball forward to create goal scoring opportunities.

These targets are the key areas in which I want to improve in the short-term. Though I have been hit with the news that Kagawa in the final year of his contract wants out of Germany all together. His career aspiration to play for Barcelona are forcing him to look for a bigger side. This has thrown a few spanner in the works meaning that I now have to plan for a new AMC, though Perisic is more then good enough to step in as an attacking option my forward line will be left with out Gotze as a creative force. While a new striker will also do me nicely, someone in the guise of Rooney or Rossi who I had at Real.

Hello folks, just a quick heads up for all those using Steam: they had some problems with hackers and my advice is to change your passwords right away to avoid any mishaps. Here’s their official statement:

Dear Steam Users and Steam Forum Users,

Our Steam forums were defaced on the evening of Sunday, November 6. We began investigating and found that the intrusion goes beyond the Steam forums.

We learned that intruders obtained access to a Steam database in addition to the forums. This database contained information including user names, hashed and salted passwords, game purchases, email addresses, billing addresses and encrypted credit card information. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating.

We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.

While we only know of a few forum accounts that have been compromised, all forum users will be required to change their passwords the next time they login. If you have used your Steam forum password on other accounts you should change those passwords as well.

We do not know of any compromised Steam accounts, so we are not planning to force a change of Steam account passwords (which are separate from forum passwords). However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to change that as well, especially if it is the same as your Steam forum account password.

We will reopen the forums as soon as we can.

I am truly sorry this happened, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

I don’t think there’s much to worry about at the moment but you should still change your password, just to be safe. Take care!

 

Football Manager is a game that tests the persons ability to think, the patience the person has and most importantly the persons character. These factors determine how a player enjoys his/her Football Manager.

There are four ways to approach the game:

1- Some prefer immediate dominance through editing the budgets and player’s attributes before starting a game.

2- Others prefer entering as an extra new manager at certain times of the game to get what they want.

3- Some players prefer to bide their time by imposing their style through developing the youngsters and scouting the best talent.

4- Finally, there are others that prefer managing the lower league teams in order to make money or try to reach and establish themselves in higher/premier leagues.

To fully enjoy the game, I favour the last two approaches and will discuss my approach fully as you read on.

Starting the game with a lower league club is a challenge in itself as you don’t have a huge budget, you have mediocre players at best and also lack the depth within the squad to challenge and achieve what is expected of you from the board. However, this approach is the most fulfilling and exciting when well executed. It requires discipline, organisation, slick tactics and essentially, patience from the player.

I’ve used a number of clubs with this approach, and my greatest achievements were with Swindon Town, Football Manager 2010.

During my first season with Swindon, I used pre-season to refine the team, who will be a part of it and who won’t. Before selling/releasing/loaning out players, I signed two experienced free agents and loaned in three from the bigger clubs (this is one of the most useful and helpful methods in Football Manager). The players obviously had to settle but it was important for me to sign them straight after I started the game, to allow them to familiarise themselves with their new colleagues.

Although pre-season is mainly for the conditioning of players, I use it to test my tactics and practice them as much as possible with the line-up and strategy I plan to use during the course of the season. The tactics I use are ultra-defensive and rigid in the first half and change to a fluid attacking system in the second half. With the 4-5-1 formation, I set my teams mentality and that of all players but the striker to a defensive mode during the first half. At half-time, I usually change and set my tactics to a 4-3-3 formation, using a fluid attacking system. This obviously depends on the opposition and the half-time score, but I stick to my defensive strategy more often than not.

It is ideal to play cautious football when managing a lower league club as you facilitate ways to avoid defeat. For example, during my first season, Swindon had a match against Man. Utd in the League Cup. With the ultra-defensive system, the team was able to contain Man. Utd for 120 minutes and knock them out on penalties. I used the same method for the following rounds which lead to Swindon reaching the final only to lose to Man. City 0-1 with Micah Richards scoring in the final minute. During that first season I reached the Quarter-finals of the FA Cup and finished eleventh in League One.

The reason behind the ultra-defensive system in the first-half and the attacking shape in the second-half is to take advantage of the fitness and condition of the opposition. By absorbing the pressure in the first-half, the attacking players and midfielders of the opposing team exhaust their energies, so it is easier to take a chance and go for a win or draw- when losing- in the second-half. Most of my substitutions involve the central midfielders, as they are the players whose fitness decreases most of the time.

The following season I used the same philosophy of being super-cautious in the first-half and being adventurous in the second-half and it payed dividends as I finished fourth and was eliminated in the play-offs on penalties. The cup competitions didn’t go as expected but the league finish attracted more players, albeit on loan, to the club.

The third and fourth season were not as good as I wanted as the club finished eighth on both occasions.

The fifth season was the season where the patient approach and tactical astuteness payed off. After a run of poor results at the beginning of the season, we went on a 20 match unbeaten run including 13 clean-sheets in the process. This lead to us winning the league and gaining promotion to the Championship with
Jonathan Douglas, Sean Morrison and Bill Paynter being our star players. They eventually left, bringing a combined 8.2million pounds to the club. With the money, I bought a defender, defensive midfielder and a striker, all recommended by my scouts.

I was approached by Crystal Palace to take over their managing position but proudly rejected as I had been placed as a favoured person in the club and had ambitions for the Swindon FC.

Our first season in the Championship went perfect as we kept the same philosophy and crucially, most of the squad members were familiar with each other and the system we had been using since the first season of the game. Against all odds, we finished second and gained promotion to the Premier League and reached the semi-finals of both domestic cups with an impressive 19 cleansheets. My reputation helped us get two good players in Kieran Gibbs and Jake Livermore, who is now the captain of the club.

Swindon is well established in the Premier League and have registered a ninth and eleventh place finish. The club is currently fifth after 35 games and is in the final of the FA Cup.

With the “managing a lower league club…” approach, the realism of the game is evident. No cheating, and editing. Simply just enjoying the game as it was made. It is more enjoyable when the challenge is given to you and you accept it by playing the game without the need to edit and/or add new users. Applying your intelligence and tactical ability, and at the same time being patient pays off eventually, just like in real life. The point here is, this approach defines Football Manager.

Germany is my starting location this year with Champions League side and last years German champions Borussia Dortmund. Choosing Dortmund as they have a good spine of young players but with still a lot of work to do. I am looking to build an empire here in Germany to compete with the mighty Munich.

Before we start getting into great detail about my strategy I thought it be a good idea to do a quick introduction post

Tactics

I am not going to go into too much detail about the tactics that I am using right now, I will save that for a later post.

My philosophy is to develop attractive attacking football relying on flair, creativity.

This will be produced mainly from having the right players instead of having the right player instructions. My summer reading has brought me to the realisation that players are key. You can have two different players, in the same position with the same instructions. But depending on PPM’s and attributes you will get two different results.

Much of which has it’s roots in a lot the SFraser posts I read before the 2012 release. Once the foundations are laid, I will propse to build on them with my own ideas. I have started with a 4-2-3-1 framework which will look to harness the talent that I have already at the club.

My second and third tactics are a simple 4-4-2 and a 4-5-1 the staple formations in modern football.

Meet the Players

I will take you through the key men already at the side that will make up the foundations of the squad.

Dortmund come with a decent side which has a lot of potential, but for a reigning champion they don’t really have a huge side put together and with a few clear weaknesses I will need to overcome to implement the new system.

I am lacking quality in depth also, past the key first team players there is very little to go on.

Neven Subotic (DC)

I will start at the back with our defensive pair, starting with Serbian Neven Subotic, still young at 23 he holds good attributes in key positions for a defender. Good in the air, strong and positions himself well, still has a few years to improve and I will be mainly concentrating on building his intelligence.

Mats Hummels (DC)

German international Mats Hummels partners Subotic again 23 but a much better player so much, so he is being courted by Real Madrid who have had a £21m bid rejected for him. Both very good players, a little similar in strengths and weaknesses though which will be resolved over time with a few extra players giving balance and variety at the back, I am mainly looking for someone with a bit more pace.

I don’t want my defenders to do anything fancy. Just sit back stop the opposition and move the ball forward again. Mats and Neven will do that just fine.

Sven Bender (MC)

Sven wouldn’t be out of place at the back between these guys, he is simply a destroyer of midfields. 18 for tackling, 16 positions and 18 anticipation. He lacks anything going forward though. He will make up one half of the box that I showed you at Real Madrid though so will form a great foundation as I look for someone more creative to go alongside him.

The final corner in the square will be:

Sebastian Kehl (MC)

The veteran and captain of the team Seb is another defensive unit, but again another player that doesn’t want to do much going forward. Both have PPM’s to play the simple pass and both lack in creativity.

Kehl has an even more important role in my side so I will be keen to keep him in the squad as he is the best tutor in the side with fantastic mental attributes so he will be key in developing new players of the future even when I have found a more permanent player in that role.

Ilkay Gundogan (MC/AMC)

I have not been able to fully make up my mind on Gundogan just yet. The 21 year old does look a great prospect for the future. Passing is fine, a fair bit of creativity but lacking in flair, which makes me want to put him in the MC role alongside Bender. But he lacks defensively to control the midfield which makes me think AMC is his role. He might be only destined to play as versatile player in the midfield as his future goes on. But one I will try and mould as best as possible.

Mario Gotze (AML)

Mario is the talk of Football Manager 2012, one of the most exciting prospects this year. At 19 he is an excellent passer, creative and exciting. If he could put the ball in the back of the net he would be the perfect player. But never the less I will be looking to Gotze to put the killer balls into the path of my strikers and terrifying defenders.

Shinji Kagawa (AMC)

The Japanese attacking midfielder is the most understated player in the side. Quietly gets on with his job, with assists and goals. Catching the eye of Manchester City, I will be keen to wrap up a new contract for him soon. He has a few gaping flaws for a player who wants to play behind the striker, such as his creativity and composure. But he is doing a fine job so far this season. I will probably look to improve on him further down the line but even then he will be a fantastic squad player.

Kevin Grosskreutz (AMR)

Kevin I imagine is the Kuyt of my Dortmund team. Hard worker for 90 minutes who will contribute to the odd goal. Not the most technically gifted player but will offer a lot to the side.

Lucas Barrios (ST)

The goalscorer, he will be the end product of all the hardwork that is going on behind him. He is a fine all rounder striker, able to link up with the rest of the play, but steady in front of goal. Has a little problem keeping himself injury free though which will be testy through the season.

The Plan

So above will be the main spine of the team and what the rest of the team will be built upon. I have young players that in their own right can do a great job in either defensive role or attacking role, few that can contribute to both. The team really lacks in a player like Nuri Sahin who left for Real Madrid before my arrival. A true deep-lying playmaker and the type of player I want to bring back to the club.

My main areas of concern are those MC’s positions and full backs. With only £2.2m to start with, the board haven’t given me a lot to build a side capable of going too far in the Champions League and competing for the title again and not enough quality in the squad to make a bit of money on transfers.

This will be a long haul save as I build a side in my image over a few seasons. I will hope to consolidate our position in the Champions League with a top 4 finish and hopefully the extra revenue from being in Europe will reap it’s rewards in the second season giving me some money to play with.

Over the coming blog posts I will discuss my transfer targets, players brought in, tactics and training development.

With the big start out of the way it was down to the bread and butter of the league, a campaign I was favourite along with Barcelona to dominate.

But after the first two games it was clear that my system although defensively solid was not enjoying the attacking prowess that the players in the system should enjoy.

It wasn’t something that had just crept up on my the signs were all there in the friendlies, but I chose to ignore them putting it down to team blending and bedding in of the tactics. My front line didn’t seem to be moving as expected, the fluid movement that comes with creativity and flair just wasn’t coming together.

The game that followed the Super Cup was a frustrating 0-0 draw against Zaragoza. The system is designed to get the ball up to the flair players quickly with plenty of through balls and give a lot of freedom to these players to make use of their high flair and creativity a goalless draw at home against a side I am expected to walk over isn’t what I wanted from my first game.

You have already seen the defensive box were the 4 central players create in order to keep things tight at the back but on the attack Alonso and Sahin are also expected to be playmakers putting the ball into the path of the attacking players with plenty of through balls. Rossi will come back to link up with Ronaldo and Kaka behind him who will be running in the channels to create many goalscoring opportunities with Ozil. Rossi playing more of a number 10 role while Kaka a number 9.

Rossi I sought purposefully as what I was looking for was a Rooney type player, able to lead the line, but a good passer and able to create goals and link up with the rest of the team. High creativity and flair, decent passer and great in front of goal. £35 million for the man just looked a bargain to me.

In the system that relies heavily on flair and creativity Rossi looked to be the missing piece in the jigsaw to bring the whole front 4 together. Higuain and Benzema are more than credible candidates for any title challenge but won’t suit me as certain starters in what I was attempting to build, they will offer me something different though especially when I want to be a little more direct.

Ozil is an amazing advanced playmaker. Passing, decisions, anticipation, dribbling, off the ball, creativity and flair makes him immense. Able to play on the left and come inside to create and pass the ball in front of the back four. But with playing Ozil out wide I needed to find someone else to play through the middle. Que the return of Kaka to the Real Madrid side.

With the lack of any other player to put behind the striker with Ozil out wide I went with Kaka. But he looks a worthy replacement, able to create things for Rossi and Ronaldo but to run into the channels and score goals himself. The key is that he comes from deep to make use of the space given to him from the movement of the rest of the players.

Which leaves Ronaldo to play on the right and this is where all the problems start.

What is expected from the three behind the strikers is high teamwork and work rate to interact with each other well drag defenders out and bust a gut to create and score. Something we don’t get from Ronaldo or Ozil so on the wings we didn’t have anyone wanting to bust a gut to get forward or Ronaldo working together with the rest of the team and the system failed to produce the fluid football I was looking for.

But my worse problem was Ronaldo and his selfish nature. First two games of the season starting with Zaragoza he would get the ball and run into the defenders, or get any sight of goal and just shoot.

Against Getafe though was something a bit different. Alonso and Rossi put 3 goals in between them, despite the win the biggest name on the pitch Ronaldo wasn’t doing what I wanted him to do. Not playing anyone else in and wasting his own opportunities.

Ronaldo shots against Zaragoza (top) and Getafe (bottom)

A look through Ronaldo’s profile it is easy to see why we were having this issue.

From the two games, Ronaldo with his PPM’s of ‘Shoot from Distance’, ‘Tries First Time Shots’ coupled with his low creativity but high flair meant that the creative freedom given to Ronaldo meant that when he got the ball all he wanted to do was shoot from the most outlandish situations at times.

This lead to too many wasted opportunities. He was also not linking up, or moving fluidly with the rest of the team.

Looking at the squad again, I come to realise that Ronaldo could be a better number 9 then Kaka was expected to be, being the player we wanted to score the goals fire and foremost. Able to come back and create his own chances as well as profiting from the creativity behind him

Sticking Ronaldo into the middle up front would also mean that he was automatically in a central position to take advantage of his long shot ability and his need to want to keep testing the keeper. I’d suggest any player shooting from long often with power will be less accurate out wide then he would be through the middle.

But it also allowed to put a harder worker, more creative player out wide, Di Maria, making the players behind the striker a lot more fluid and creative.

The result 32 goals in the 14 games and football that is a joy to watch as Rossi, Di Maria and Ozil look to pop the ball all around the box, create and entertain while Ronaldo all he wants to do is put the ball into the back of the net. Whether that is something he has created himself or by those moving behind him.

Giving Ronaldo a supporting role also helps him link up with the rest of the midfield dropping back to find himself space. He will then run at the defenders scaring them as he hit speed towards them or turning into the space to jinxs before firing the ball into the back of the net.

This video is Ronaldo’s first game in the middle and his best bits from that game. For some reason although I took the video my game didn’t save. I still went back to play again and Ronaldo put away three again.

So where is Ronaldo’s best position? I think that all depends on how you want the rest of your team to play.

Disappointed not to see a German quick start with the demo to make a start with my Dortmund game. I thought I’d make a quick visit to Madrid and just as I did for the 2011 demo tried to create some attractive football at the Bernabeau

The first competitive game of the season couldn’t have been more fierce a competition as Real once again take on the champions of Spain and Europe much to the Irk of Madridstas. The 4 El Classico games that were played out over the previous season hadn’t done much to dampen the competition between the two teams and nor did the disappearance of one of the instigators Jose Mourinho.

In preparation of the last couple of weeks I have been reading the SFraser back catalogue and I became intrigued with his system of solid defensive shape to build a fluid attractive attack, Real Madrid seemed a perfect team to try out some of his ideas, at least for the demo.

Anyone would tell you that if you are playing Barcelona, the key is to concentrate 100% defend with discipline not allowing the team to pass the ball through your team and keep them at bay.

The team selection was important Arbeloa was preferred on the right to Ramos to give a little more defensive strength on that side of the pitch especially as Alonso although a decent playmaker isn’t blessed with great defensive skill. Pepe so aggressive and with Carvalho along side him would form a balanced and tenacious partnership at the back.

We weren’t blessed with any playmakers that could put a fantastic tackle in, but we were blessed with a pair of hard working intelligent playmakers that would position themselves well and work tirelessly for the side putting in intelligent defensive work and recycle the possession well in order to hit Barcelona on the counter.

From the selection of Xavi and Fabregas in the middle it can be expected that much of Barcelona’s play will come through the middle looking for Sanchez and Pedro coming into the middle to attack the goal, making the middle a key area to defend well. We were lucky for the first leg that Iniesta, Messi and Villa were out of the squad.

Bringing back my two playmakers to the DMC roles will ensure a a good starting position to close down the middle and protect the back four, putting a wall in front of Xavi and Fabregas to prevent them putting in dangerous through balls to forwards.

It would be a two layered wall that would start with the DMC’s who would press hard forcing Barcelona into a decision and with Barca we know they will try and pass you off the park.

With all of this in mind I wanted to put Barcelona under pressure but staying on our feet putting in a tackle only whenever it was clear that we would win the challenge. Flying into challenges we would only risk committing ourselves, the ball then being moved quickly by the intelligent playmakers to others exploiting the space.

The video highlights the defensive display and the defensive box is a big feature in what we did well in the game. As you will notice when Xavi or Cesc receive the ball in the middle they are instantly shut down, forcing a decision out of them. If the ball finds it’s way to Soriano again is shut down quickly and left isolated. Although Barcelona will keep the ball because that is a key feature of their play, they are regularly forced to move the ball wide. If they come inside they are only drawing themselves into the box of four players.

Real Madrid Interceptions (top) & Tackles (bottom)

The chalkboards demonstrate the heavy closing down and cautious tackling which allowed us to intercept pases in the middle of the park well with players who have high anticipation, position and decision making skills.

This reduced the effectiveness of Barcelona and without the magic of Messi to worry the defenders Barcelona were reduced to taking their chances from less dangerous areas outside the box or wide of the goalmouth.

Barca Shots (top) & Chances (bottom)

We never came into the game looking to compete on possession stats or to reduce the fact that Barcelona will try and their pass pass game. Instead we looked to stop them putting those passes into dangerous areas, using intelligent players to pick up the ball and offering a defensive rock to keep the clean sheet. It was a fantastic display by our team and if it wasn’t for some poor finishing from Rossi in the game we could have taken a lead into the next leg of the competition. But the next round if we are to take the cup we will look to get wider and exploit the space left by Dani Alves.

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