The Basics : The very basics of Tactics

This for all those new football managers who start to play the game with FM08.

To start lets look at the different parts of a tactic. I will try to explain them in detail, in later guides for each one.

The three vital parts of any tactic are,
Formation
Team Instruction
Player Instruction

Others include,
Selecting Players of special jobs (captains, free kick takers and such)
Opposition Instruction


Formation
Formation gives your team the shape, which you want. The game has many pre set tactics, which you can select from the tactic menu/standard tactics. There you will find many tactics of different formation. You can either select a formation which you think is best suited for the players you have or maybe you want to play a certain style of football, then select a formation best for such a style.
If you are unsure about what formation to select, then go with a 442. You cannot do a lot wrong with a 442. And if you feel you don't have the players to win tough away games by attacking, then select a 451 formation for an away tactic. With a flat five man midfield or with a midfielder as a DMC to anchor the midfield.


Team Instruction
When you select any standard tactics, all of the team instructions will be set at Normal. You can change them accordingly.
The team instructions include : Mentality, Creative Freedom, Passing Style, Tempo, Width, Closing Down, Time Wasting, Defensive Line, Tackling. Other Options include : Focus Passing, Marking. You have the option of using : Tight Marking, Use Target Man, Use Play Maker, Play Offside, Counter Attack.

Out of these you have to first change the Tempo, Time Wasting and Defensive Line. Because others can be adjusted for each individual players, by using the player instructions. The best way when starting with a tactic is to set Width, Tempo and Time Wasting to Normal. You can of course change these during a match, depending on the situation.
The defensive line have to be set according to your defenders and your tactic. If your style is an attacking one, then you can set it to Push Up, against teams with slow strikers. Or you are playing against a strong team with good players, and you want to play a counter attacking game, then select your Defensive Line to Deep.
The Width is also an important part of any tactics. If you are playing with 4 or 5 midfielders, then set Width to Wide. Or maybe the opposition team has a creative midfield and you want to pack the midfield area, so they don't have any space to work their magic. Then you can set Width to Narrow.

Focus Passing can be set to Both flanks if you have good ball (players with good passing, dribbling and creativity) wingers. Or Through Middle or Any flank depending the players you have in that area, or the players the opposition team has in that area.
Marking can also be changed for each player by the Player Instruction menu.

Tight Marking can also be change for each player. The rest of the option depend on the kind of tactic you want to use. Using a Target Man requires a strong target man to play up front. Maybe you have a Cesc Fabrigas or Xavi in your midfield. Then you can Use a Play Marker. Remember to select a player for either target man or play marker from the Instruction menu.
You can set you team to Play Offside, but your defenders muct have good Decision attribute to make it work to the best. Select Counter Attack if your tactic is a counter attacking game.

You can also select different options for your team to use in Set pieces or Throw ins. At the start it is best to leave then at Mixed.


Player Instruction
You can set each of your players to many different Instructions. The main ones are :Mentality, Creative Freedom, Passing Style, Closing Down, Tackling, Forward Runs, Run with Ball, Long Shots, Through Ball, Cross Ball. Other Options include : Cross From, Cross Aim, Marking, Swap Position. You also have the option of using : Tight Marking, Free Role, Hold up Ball

Selecting Player instruction is now made very easy, as the game has pre set instructions for all most all the positions. To start you can use the pre set instructions and gradually change them according to your style and the player in that position.


Selecting Players of special jobs (captains, free kick takers and such)
This job is also made very easy now, you can see the corresponding Attribute of the players to the Job in the tactic screen. From the View/Attributes menu. The Jobs and their corresponding Attributes are pretty much self explanatory. But just in case any of you have difficulties...
Corner Attribute = Corner Taking, Free Kick Attribute = Free Kick Taking, Influence Attribute = Captaincy, Long Throw Attribute = Throw in, Penalty Taking Attribute = Penalty Taking.
Out of these it is best to set your left back or left side defender or midfielder to take left Throw ins and the right Throw in to the right sided players. You can also select a player with exceptional Throw in Attribute (if you have one) to take both the throw in, as this will give an extra edge. Think Bolten of late.


Opposition Instruction
Opposition Instruction have now become a major part in tactic of FM. Here can set your team to : Tight Mark, Close Down, Tackle, Show onto Foot , a specific Opposition Player. It is a good idea to Close Down the opposition wide midfielers and the creative center midfielders in away game, so they don't have lots of time. Also a good idea to Tight Mark the opposition strikers or a creative winger.

When you start a new game, there are three rules that decide what type of tactic you should use. They are:

· How strong is your team?
· What kind of players do you have?
· Variables (i.e. Weather etc.)

Now that you have selected your team we can begin:

· How strong is your team?

First of all, when you start a game there are two branches of thought that dictate what you should do. This will also shape your transfer policy. First there is the Classical school of thought which states that you should look at the team I front of you, locate their strengths and create a tactic that plays to the strengths available to you. You proceed to buy players that will shore up the team and remove the weaknesses that you see. Then there is the Sven school of thought (Named after the immortal Sven-Goran Eriksson) which states that first you find a killer tactic and then proceed to try to fit your current players into the tactic. Or buy new players. This strategy exploded when tried with the England National Team because of the type of players with whom he was dealing. But works phenomenally well with Manchester City because all the players have been bought in to make the tactic work. This contrary to what many people think is not the same as fitting square pegs into round holes. In the first instance with the English National Team it was and hence the failure.
In most big teams in each division or with teams with money, you can go with the Sven school of thought but in the case of smaller teams you cannot simply because you don’t have the resources. I will only deal with the first school now.

So now there are two possibilities:
· You are now a big team
· You are now a small team
(I haven’t gone into midtable teams because with them it’s a matter of personal choice and you can mess around with them.)

If you’re a big team then you go attacking. You can play a passing game with creativity. But if you’re a small team then keep it simple. Don’t try too much. Play a 4-4-2 or a 4-5-1. Always have atleast 4 defenders. If you have a really good striker then you can go for 4-5-1 and rely on him to get you the goals. But this usually doesn’t happen so you might have to go 4-4-2. If you go 4-4-2 you have to decide on whether to go play diamond or normal. Diamond if you have a good AMC. Otherwise stick to the basic 4-4-2. Protect your lead by playing DMs in the last 20 mins and go to Counter-Attack aswell. Use short passing and give creativity only to your best players. Don’t tell your CBs to close down, because you will get raped by good strikers. Instead make everyone else close down. Defend deep. Don’t offside trap. Give your best tacklers hard tackling. Avoid giving people with low marking the tight marking order. There are lots of basic things that you can do but in the end you will still lose games. No tactic can stop you from losing completely and if you’re a small team than it just becomes harder. Most FMers are good at scoring goals because they know the best strikers etc but seem to loose out on the defending aspect so hopefully these tips have helped you.

No matter what kind of team you have a good set-piece routine is always useful. Most people don’t realize how useful this can be. Im FM 07, just putting a targetman on the near post flick on position would get you goals almost every game but this doesn’t work as well in 08. Ill outline some good routines later.

· What type of players do you have?

Lets take the example of Tottenham Hotspurs. As soon as you look at the squad who jumps out at you?
You see the 4 strikers and you see Aaron Lennon. This tells me that we have to play 2 strikers up front and we need to play attacking wingers. So an attacking 4-4-2 comes to mind. Now you’ve got your basic outline. Most of the spurs players go straight into the formation with not much tweaking.

Attacking
Wingers are given little creativity (so that they don’t try anything else) and have forward runs and dribble the ball and cross. Also put their crossing to byeline so that they get as high as possible. With Bent and Berbatov in the box you’ll have people who though not brilliant in the air have good intelligence and will get at the end of the crosses. If you look at Spur’s style of play in real life you see that Berbatov holds up the ball so make him do that. Give him through passes and high creativity. Give Bent forward runs and play the ball in front of him. This will make Berbatov hold up the ball and then play through passes to Bent, or the Wingers whoever is making a run. Now your attacking is taken care of.

Defending
With Spurs’ team you have two options: you can go defensive central midfielders with Zokora and Huddlestone or play Jenas for some attacking qualities. I’d prefer going for a defensive pairing as Tottenham’s defense is quite poor. So give them closing down and short passing. Your back four is something of an enigma. You can play Dawson and King or Kaboul whichever seems the best. Check if they have pace, if they don’t you might want to defend deep against really pacey strikers. Fullbacks come in two flavours: the attacking and the defensive. Gareth Bale is an attacking full-back so you might want to give him “swap position” with your winger Malbranque but I wouldn’t recommend it. Bu it is something to remember. Give your attacking fullbacks crossing while giving your defensive fullbacks tackling and closing down. If you give your CMs and WBs closing down then most probably the other team will keep booting the ball up the pitch or crossing from deep and since your CBs are good in the air this should suit you nicely. I’ve not delved into GK tactic much but I heard that if you have a pacey GK with rushing out high then you use him as a sort of sweeper but then you must have pacey CBs who hold a high line with the offside trap.

· Variables (i.e. Weather etc.)

Have you ever wondered why your team is playing really well but then they cant seem to hit the target the next game and then they go on to playing well? It just might be one of the Variables that keep cropping up in the game. One of which is the weather: When its raining or snowing, it isn’t very good for short-passing, quick tempo teams. Long-ball teams tend to do better. Does that explain the surprise loss to Walsall? If the weather says heavy rain lower the tempo of your play and play long passes from your defenders and mixed passes from your midfielders. You might also want to lower the closing down as players will get tired very fast. Don’t do this if you are a big team as with your depth you can afford it. There are other variables aswell which I will experiment with and get back to you on.