Tactical Variation
Tactical Variation is a term, which was ever so occurant if you were browsing through the Football Manager forums a few years back. Many a topic would have the same story, a new member – a new team, a problem. The formation seems valid, normally 4-4-2 based, with a set of good players who seem right for there jobs. What was the problem? Game in game out the team would be underperforming either going ahead and the formation has not sustained itself throughout the match or plainly getting thrashed. If the sustainability of the formation throughout a match was the problem a member would post up and generally post up a reply talking about how the user should rotate formations. The aim of this article is not only to bring up an issue which no longer receives the recognition it once did, but also to introduce people who may have been oblivious of this technique before so they can incorporate this into there game or a reigniting if you will.
The method speaks for it self, to be ‘Tactical’ is showing skilful planning in order to accomplish or as a Football Manager term; the way the formation is set up, mentalities etc. ‘Variation’ or ‘Variate’ is something that differs from the norm which is the change I have been talking about. Tactical Variation is to rotate formation regularly which used to be regarded as a bug or a ‘cheat’ either way it was certainly seen as a secret. Through the entire series of the SI games when this technique is employed into a game it, assuming the tactic is valid and useable, this unsettles the opponents and can give a team the vital upperhand especially if it is sudden, the opposing team could be playing the formation to counter the respective formation. So it is established, the variation in tactics can help a team along – onto the tactics themselves that are recommended to use for this.
Keeping the balance – Option one
Option one is the rotation of two balanced formations, for this I would recommend the beginners to go for two neutral formations of course the common 4-4-2 to start off with but, perhaps, a custom one alongside it – just be sure it’s neutral wink.gif. What do I mean by neutral? It is a formation, which will not be too attacking or defensive but just in the middle. Another option, more recommended to the users who have played the game quite a bit before is to play an attacking formation and a defensive which compliment each other. For the defensive a 5-4-1 or a 4-5-1 immediately springs to mind but there is room for creativity just be sure to slide the mentality a couple of notches toward defensive. An attacking formation could be one of your own or just a simple well acclaimed combination for example 4-3-3. The user may want to think about moving some other variables for the defensive and attacking formations:
Attacking:
- Creative Freedom.
- Attacking Mentality.
- Direct Football.
- Quick Tempo.
- Closing Down Lots.
Defensive:
- Man Marking.
- Closing Down in own Half.
- Defensive Mentality.
- Long balls (often)
- Hard Tackling.
The change of these are just an opinion, not a recommendation to those who do not know how to get the most out of them.
Keeping the balance – Option two
Option two is the rotation of three formations. The logic is simple an attacking formation, a defensive formation and a neutral formation. "For the defensive a 5-4-1 or a 4-5-1 immediately springs to mind but there is room for creativity just be sure to slide the mentality a couple of notches toward defensive." "An attacking formation could be one of your own or just a simple well acclaimed combination for example 4-3-3." A neutral formation would simply be 4-4-2, however with this option there is a lot more room for creativity as you have 50% more chance of it working than in Option One although there are more clear complications.
Sign off
This is a basic introduction and too many, may be worthless but hopefully it helped a few people then it has served its purpose at least. Safe,
