How to set up a modern, playing keeper.

Until today, the FM engine seems to know eleven football players, and there is by bad luck or destiny one very unfortunate guy who does do strange things like almost never leaving his own penalty area and catch the ball with his hands. This is probably why still his rating is based on pass completion as if he would be a playmaker, his missing runs with ball and lousy number of crosses do not help to increase it either. If he is lucky, he can occasionally make some interceptions, win a key tackle or a key header to justify his poor existence on the pitch. There are no such things as key saves or a ratio of kept chances, stats that you will easily get while watching TV or buying a football magazine. Unfortunately all these factors have not been acknowledged by the game developers until now, and this leads to the large majority of players neglecting almost any other keeper settings then the game default ones.

However, modern keeper play requires a sweeping keeper, if not a playing keeper who gets more involved into defensive play, and sometimes with his commands even into the build-up and attacking play. His quick distribution and quick throws often initiate a fast attack or counter. Especially for teams playing high lines and offside trap, these kind of keepers are instrumental players acting as the backbone of the defence and as an additional defensive player.

Fortunately the game does allow us to implement the sweeping keeper, coming at least somehow close to a real playing keeper. So this last topic of the TB 07 – or first topic of TB 08 – will look at the tactical and player requirements to add a sweeping keeper in order to support your defence. While the concept has been made based on FM 07, the article is finished after the release of the FM 08 demo, and so far every evidence is strong that the settings can be transferred without any loss to FM 08.

Setting up the sweeping keeper (base version)

The mentality and closing down (both 11) are marked since these are the only needed basic settings. If you are lazy, you can keep these settings for any tactic, no matter if defensive or attacking and it should work right away from the start.
However you can refine these settings and adjust them to increase the teamwork between keeper, defence and even attack.

Sweeping keeper supporting a Control tactic

The team playing a rather high line, offside trap and uses attacking fullbacks while the opposition will sit very deep and only test your defence occasionally while avoiding any risk:

The mentality is increased to 14, closing down to 15 to reflect that the team is playing very offensively and with offside trap, as well as mixed FWR and mixed through balls, which could be increased to often.

Sweeping keeper supporting a shut-up-shop/kill game tactic

There will be less interceptions and rushing out needed, since the complete team will play deeper and try to hold the pressure, but hoofed up balls and through balls always are a danger

Mentality is reduced to defensive (5), closing down to first notch of mixed (7). Passing is direct (15) and distribution long kick. FWR and TTB rarely. This reflects the defensive and deeper setup of the team, but the settings are still enough to sweep out occasional through balls that might reach the final third.

Alternate examples and methods

If you are adjusting the attackingness of your tactics by the width or tempo, you can adjust the keeper closing down in a parallel move. E.g. width 18 for a very attacking tactic results in closing down 16 for the keeper.

Sweeping keeper supporting attacking tactic

High closing down and Through Balls Often will support the attack and also make the keeper look for a quick pass up front. The passing style is rather short to encourage distribution to the own defence in order to keep possession, if there is no through ball option available. Surprisingly these settings can work with a medium to high creative freedom level (as team default), giving the keeper more options to look for the best pass or distribution, if he is a good football player as well. However, you should carefully check if he able to handle this setting.

Sweeping keeper supporting defensive tactic

The keeper now does less closing down since his defence will set deeper, no through balls and direct passing, to keep his defence away from picking up short passes while the opposition attack may put them under heavy pressure.

More options

These examples may have illustrated several different options to set up both a very basic and even highly refined sweeping keeper, based on your own tactical approach. There will certainly be many more options available to set up this keeper and while you may see some mistakes caused by wrong decisions, many more goals will be prevented by a keeper who actively sweeps out through balls behind an attacking minded defence or who tries to get out his box to narrow the angle in a one-on-one situation.

Which kind of keeper do I need?

Not every keeper is suited to play this contemporary style (just like in real life). As you may have noted, many older keepers do have problems with this approach, while a huge number of young keepers is trying to learn this style nowadays.

Rushing out seems to be obviously required, acceleration and pace would be a fine bonus (but should not be overrated). But most of all, the key stats will be: decisions, anticipation, concentration and positioning. Good or excellent stats in these areas could make up for any other bad stat.

Additionally a good outfield player rating can be very helpful and indicate that your keeper may adapt to this role easily.

Overview:

• Decisions

• Anticipation
• Concentration
• Positioning
• Rushing Out
• Acceleration
• Pace

It may seem more difficult to find such a player, but you may notice that you would not want to miss a sweeping keeper again, once you have tried it.

Helpful Links

TB 07 Player Requirements I

Tactical Bible Credits

crazy gra, Millie. Written by The next Diaby & garyh. Editor: crazy gra
Screenshots: 1-3 TND, 4-5 garyh

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About the Author // Matt vom Brocke

Matt’s contribution to FM-B as a whole and the tactical area in particular cannot be over-estimated and the respect he is given by fellow staff members reflects this. The writer of the very well-recieved Communication and Psychological Warfare and Creativo set of tactics, Matt is a key member of the Tactical Think Tank and part of SI’s beta testing Dream Team.