The new creator has migrated from FML to FM10. Learning how to use it will make a massive difference to your team’s tactical fortunes. The information here is taken from Tactical Theorems ’10, available now for free at FM-Britain.co.uk.

Brand new to Football Manager 2010 is the tactics creator. Whilst this does not replace the “classic” sliders from previous versions of Football Manager, it does provide a cleaner and more intuitive tactics system based on real-world football terminology.

The creator acts as a new, easy-to-use interface, but all of its instructions use the old slider system. So, every time you make changes in the creator, the sliders “underneath” the interface will change according to your instructions. What makes the new creator useful is that with one or two clicks you can make changes which would have required many different slider changes in FM09 and its preceding titles.

Choosing a Formation

The starting point of any tactic is designating the placement of players on the field in a formation. Traditionally these are quoted in a “defenders-midfielders-attackers” format. So, for example, the “4-4-2” formation has four defenders, four midfielders and two attackers. Some are a little more complex than that, but will tend to quote the positioning of players in bands up the pitch. So, the 4-2-3-1 has: four defenders; two more-defensive midfielders; three more midfielders placed higher up the pitch; and finally one attacker. This is basic football terminology that most of you will know, but it is an important concept which needs to be understood. In later, more complex discussions about formation theory it will become clear that these names are rather limited.

Choosing a formation is relatively straight forward, but it’s good to think of how your squad is made up and what their strengths are. For example, if you only have one good central midfielder, is a formation that uses three central midfielders really a good idea? Either you will need to change your tactical plan or will need to use the transfer market to supplement the squad with the required playing staff.

The creator has most of the world’s most common formations already in its database. If you want to use something more complex then you can drag players around on the pitch diagram to suit your needs.

Philosophy

Philosophy is a key component of tactics in the tactics creator. It decides how the team attacks and defends and how your players behave relatively to one another. This seems like a complicated and unrealistic idea at first, but it becomes clear why they are there once you see the philosophies.

In the previous incarnation of Football Manager, teams were only set up using sliders. Those sliders are still there in the background. One of those sliders, mentality, decides how attacking players are and roughly how they position themselves on the pitch. In many tactics, managers would have set up their players so that their individual mentalities were spaced out to set the team’s shape; but not so much of a gap that the players are too far apart and cannot communicate with each other. In other tactics, teams may have favoured a more fluid system where most, if not all, of the players had the same mentality (sometimes referred to as a “global” system).

The philosophies in the tactics creator decide how big those gaps are how strictly you define the roles of “defender”, “midfielder”, “attacker” and so on. Rigid philosophies tell the players to stick to their role and their position. Fluid philosophies allow defenders to join the attack and also encourage the forwards to track back.

Simply, rigid philosophies can work well with weaker players with low mental attributes, whereas players with great creativity, positioning and decision making skills may well thrive in the more loosely constructed tactic. That is a simplification, and good tacticians will quickly work out what works best for them. Experiment, and see what gets the most from your squad.

Playing Style

Formation and philosophy, of course, only say so much about a tactic. What can really define one formation from another is the style of football they play.

The creator in FM10 allows the following modifications to be made to the team’s style of play. Each of them has an effect on the team and individual instructions:

• Passing Style
• Creative Freedom
• Closing Down
• Tackling
• Marking
• Crossing
• Roaming

These options have three setting which effectively equate to “shorter/less/lower”, “default” and “longer/more/higher”. Experiment to see which settings suit your team, your formation and your own personal preferences. Bear in mind, however, that different strategies, touchline instructions, duties and roles may change these style parameters. For example, more attacking strategies will automatically employ more creative freedom. Be aware of how instructions interact in order to judge how to most effectively change your style of play.

Roles

Roles are dependent on positions. For instance, you cannot play a full back in the FC position. You can, however, have a variety of different types of player who play in the MC position. Roles allow you to dictate what you want your player to do, and as part of a general team tactic can mould your side and style of play.

Full backs provide an excellent example of this. A full back is a defender who plays in the DR or DL position. He concentrates mainly on defence, but will support the winger when asked. An attacking full back can play in exactly the same position. He concentrates more on supporting the wingers and putting in crosses. A wing back will play even more like a winger. So, while they might all play the same DR position, they are playing in different roles.

The creator has many such roles which you can assign to different players on the pitch. For instance: as Milan manager playing with Andrea Pirlo, one might decide to play him in the DMCc position with the role of “deep-lying playmaker”. This is because you may want him to sit deep and play balls to the wingers and forwards. You could also play him as a defensive midfielder to cover the defensive line and make lots of tackles. However because of Pirlo’s lack of height and size, it might be better for him to play with the ball at his feet rather than try and play the hard man. Genaro Gattuso on the other hand, might do things a little differently.

Experimentation is the best way to work out which of your players will perform best in certain roles. The game can help in this regard by highlighting the key attributes for each position when making your tactical selections. The section in this guide on roles will also describe them in more detail and outline which players perform best in certain situations.

Equal to the importance of choosing a philosophy, choosing roles (and duties) will define your style as a coach and the balance within your team. Defining roles will have a massive influence on how your tactics will connect or fail. In this regard, you are making similar choices to the ones a ‘real’ coach has to make. How many times do we have to ask whether Lampard and Gerrard can play together? Roles are the tools to answer this conundrum.

This is the essence and spice of creating tactics, and most likely it will determine your success as a manager. If you are not sure which way to go, rely on default selections made by the creator until you gain the experience and the confidence to make more complex decisions.

Duties

Essentially, duties control whether the player is more concerned with attacking, defending, or supporting the attack and defence in equal measure. Based on your strategy, the game will automatically choose the appropriate amount of “defenders”, “attackers” and support players. Attacking tactics, naturally, have more attackers.

Finding the right balance for the right tactics and in-match tactical situations will determine your success as a coach. Duties are also crucial in adding more flexibility to a formation.

One of the common misconceptions is that all defenders must defend, all attackers must attack and all midfielders must support. This is not the case. Or, at least, you could try doing this, but the team would play in three separate units, not communicating well with one another and finding it difficult to play anywhere but in isolated bands.

Mixing duties means that the team play more evenly around the pitch, can move the ball from one stratum to the next, and, crucially, can cover and support attacks whilst being able to defend in a co-ordinated way. Lone forwards, for example, will usually be given a support role (instead of the “attack” role that you might expect a forward to use) because if they didn’t they would remain isolated. By dropping back a little bit they can use midfielders to help them if they get into trouble, whilst still being able to play on the shoulder of the defenders and nip forward to receive through balls and crosses.

Similarly, having a midfielder in the defensive role helps out the defence when they need cover. Attacking full backs can aid attacks in more offensive strategies. And support players dotted around the pitch provide better cover and more options for the attackers when they get into trouble.

Duties can be affected by match strategy (more on this later). Getting the right blend of duties is very important. As far as possible, the strategy choices you make may override some of the duties you have set. If you disagree, then you can go back later and switch the duties back. Some players may be given an “automatic” duty, which will change relative to how attacking the team’s strategy is.

Even if the advanced instructions (slider settings) players get given based on their duty look odd compared to the way you used to play before FM10, it is best to give them a try before you think the system is “broken”. It may open your eyes to new ideas and help give you a tactical edge.

Strategy

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we have strategy. On the macro level, strategy determines the broad outlook of the team and its general shape.

Sometimes, you will want to attack the opposition hard to get a goal. Other times you will want to desperately keep the ball out of your own net. This is one of the most basic of tactical decisions to make, but perhaps one of the most difficult. Do you go for that second goal and risk conceding the equaliser, or sit on your lead and hope the opposition don’t break you down? Or do you do something in between?

The creator has seven strategies to choose from, each of which affect how attacking the team will be, the duties of the players on the pitch, and, to a certain extent, aspects such as width, defensive line, creative freedom and tempo. Roughly, the more defensive you are the deeper, narrower, less creative and slower the team play; and vice-versa for attacking strategies. However, this is just a very rough guide, and by using other instructions, shouts and players you can play with other effects than just these bog-standard strategies.

You can split strategies into 3 rough categories. First, we have the “standard” strategies: defensive, standard and attacking. These are not too complicated and simply direct the team to hang back a bit more and be more cautious, to go forward and try and cause the opposition problems or to go somewhere in between.

Second, we have the “breakdown” strategies: counter and control. Counter looks to sit back a little more than the standard strategy and hit opponents on the break as they push forward into the space you leave them. This can give you counter attacking opportunities against sides that coming on to you, providing clear chances to score. Control looks to attack a little more, but does so by holding onto the ball and drawing the frustrated opposition out of their hole: rather useful against sides who “park the bus”, since you can control possession and force them to come out and tackle you, leaving a hole which you can then exploit.

Third, and finally, we have the “extreme” strategies of overload and contain. Overload looks to throw caution to the wind and push many players forward in order to overload the opposition’s defence with waves of attacks. Contain looks to flood your defensive area with bodies to keep the ball away from your goal, but does not care if the team don’t attack: safety first is the key.

Choosing the correct strategy at the correct time can make or break a side. It is dependent on the relative skill levels of the two teams, the score line and how long there is left in the game. We will return to this topic in depth later, as it really can be the thing that clinches those tight games.

The information here is taken from Tactical Theorems ’10, available now for free at FM-Britain.co.uk.