FM-Britain Forums: Managing one of the two Bulgarian "giants" - FM-Britain Forums

Some of you may know, some of you � may not, but in Bulgaria the two biggest clubs are Levski (Sofia) and CSKA (Sofia). I opted to take over the latter, just because their problems in the past few years are bigger than their arch-rivals.


The goals

No matter what is the moment situation in the clubs, these two clubs are having similar goals every year � to be champions, to win the domestic cup and to quilify as far as they can in the European competitions.
So,as manager of CSKA,I have this goals set by the club�s chairmen ( yes, they are two).


The squad

Having the time, to see the current players in the team, I experienced one of my biggest problems � the squad I have at my dispossal.

I have 34 players at my dispossal, most of them completely lacking key aspects of the football skills. And the things to be even worse 21 of these 34 players are new to the club. The conclusion ? These bunch of players are completely lacking team cohesion on and off the pitch,softly said. Most of them even can�t speak similar languages.
And with such as squad the board is expecting from me to win the title, the Cup and to have succesful European campaign. Why not, I said ?!

The tactical dilemma

As managing one of the two biggest clubs in the country, I should expect almost every domestic team, who plays against us, to park the bus and just counts the minutes till the end of the match. So to break such as �brick walls� match after match I should build solid attacking tactical set-up which can win us that matches. The problem is with these players it�s far more easily to say than to actually do it.

The other side of the coin is that in the European matches we will be facing much,much more stronger oppositions, which will requires completely different tactical approach � or directly said � we should be the team, that parks the bus.

And that is the tactical dilemma which I faced immediately. How to learn my squad well enough to attack teams in Saturday�s/Sunday�s matches and then in Thursday to defend well enough, to be not completely ashamed with the numbers of goals we conceded ? Moreso when the squad I have at my dispossal is, as I said before, completely lacking key football skills, not to mention flexibility and inteligence to be tactical flexible and knowledgable enough to understands what I want from them in completely different tactical setup.

To be the things even worse in our pre-season time I have only 30 days to set-up some friendlies and see my tactical preferences in �fight�.  After these 30 days we have our first European match, and there is no time to build a cohesionable ( is this the proper word ?) and knowledgable enough team to face such as teams.  But that�s the life of the football manager, isn�t it ?!

A nice post, and I think its a dilemma which is relevant to most teams out there: I often have little idea as how to best set up my dominant lower league side when playing a slightly superior team in the cup, for example, or even when playing as a top half/upper midtable side in the Premier League, its best to have two distinct plans: one for how to crack those defences that will set up to park the bus against you, the relegation strugglers and lower midtable sides, and one for those teams around your level, and a way to beat the title challenging giants. I'll also be interested in how you try to get around your team's lack of cohesion, as I've found no solution to that other than to just get every player as much game time as possible.

The hardest sides to manage in football are these sorts of clubs. Giants domestically and minnows on the continent. Building a cohesive (that's the word you are looking for) squad to do that with what you have is rough. I am interested to see how you do and the way you go about it.

Suggestion. From earlier posts I have read of yours, you are naturally a defend-and-counter manager (correct me if I am wrong). So, if your players are up to it, play that way with some tweaks to that for the minnows. Look at Spain in the last World Cup. They played both offense and defense at the same time with their passing. Most of their goals did not come as a result of such possession, but rather a direct strike or set piece. In principle this is not necessarily the setup you want, but the idea is the same against the domestic sides who will park the bus. They are not going to attack. So, circle the ball around and make sure you do not get exposed on a counter. Eventually you will get a set piece or a chance for a direct bomb - use that chance and make it work. You will be far ahead of most opponents in quality, so the chances of such working should be good. The upshot to this is that you can then play in a similar manner (but without the ball) in the CL/EL. This gives your players the ability to hone one setup well with a simple variation.

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And that's what I'm aiming for. Just because the two matches, when in the first I play home against some Bulgarian minnows is completely different to the one, when I'm away from home against some good and stable european side.

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Precisely. Their is no solution. It's all depends on how much time t the players will play together ( and spend together off the pitch to learn to communicate to each other ) and will learn to play with each other.

But when you have such as not-cohesive ( new word, probably ? ) side at your disposal all you can do is to try and minimize the negative effect of that with specific and detailed tactical setups. THat was my aim for the friendlies.

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Thanks. Appreciated it.

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Nope, you are perfectly right. The problem is that with CSKA I should adapt and adjust my tactical preferences with the aim to reach my goals. And I should do that drastically,I'm afraid.

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With so uncohesive ( the right word, this time ? ) side it's more hard to achieve it. I experienced that in the friendlies ( more on that later ).

The tactical setup





Given the fact that I have players, which doesn�t possess all-round skills to transition between the phases and to participate in the two phases decent enough, I think it�ll be more productive to stick to rigid type of players placement/positioning  and movement on the pitch.
With such as formation, the separated lines should have enough cover between them just because they are in pairs/couples and more imporatantly � they are near enough between each other. With such as conservative setup my players will stick to their base position and will position themselves, in each phase, only due to their specific role, duty and tactical instructions.
With so uncohesive ( is this the right word ? ) and side, lacking key aspect of football skills, such as setup will give the team more stability and covering in phase defence.  The negative thing will be that we will attack with less numbers, movement and unpredictability.

From my players I�ll demand some crucial thing which will help both our defence and our attack � to keep the possession in our favaour, most of the time. To achieve that they should learn to pass the ball with short passes, even sideways or backwards, but the main aim is to keep the possession. This is a safety approach, which will complement our rigid movement between the two phases and in each phase.
And to add furtner more to this safety approach I�ll limit my players from their acting freedom � their focus should be to do the �simple� things and nothing so fancy or so risky. I prefer to recycle the possession,and starts our attacks, over and over again, but to not lose the ball, just because one of them tries something, he can�t execute properly with his limited skills, or risk to lose the ball just because he will think that :  �oh, I think that pass may  do the job�, and then just try to unleash killer pass when there is less than minimal chance the ball to get to the other player.

The defence includes a flat four with two limited central defenders, aiming to broke the oppositions attacks with physical presence, mainly. The fullbacks are with attacking duty, but not so attacking as if they were pure wing-backs. They will attack and join our attack only when they can go forward without the ball and there is obviously not serious chances that the opposition could break and attack us via counter-attacks. But the fullbacks will have one major aim � to cross the ball from deep position ( ie around the centre line or little bit ahead of the centre ). My aim behind this is to add some surprise and, hopefully, to catch the opposition�s defence out of position. I prefer such as crossing style from my fullbacks, rather than to ask from them to dribble down the whole flank and then just cross the ball when the whole opposition�s team have all the time to re-shape and cover all of my attacking players.

Ahead of our defence will act the double pivot.  One of that pair will be the much needed pressing-type defensive midfielder and the other � our main playmaker, which will act from deep position aiming to dictate our attacks from this zone and not going forward so much as so often, (but still he will be the player, that is just behind the front four) just because he should help his partner in covering the righ-hand part of the pitch when we are defending, while his partner covers the left/left-ish side.
His partner is having the job to cover our left-hand side, where to cover the space behind our left inside-forward, giving him freedom to roam all over the last third, starting wide and then cutting inside with, or without, the ball.
When the team is facing huge pressure from the opposition the defensive midfielder will drop deeper and act as shield of our defensive line ( ie more like anchor man than pure destroyer), while his partner will act as the pressing-type defensive midfielder ahead of him.

Our front three includes three different types of players as roles and tactical instructions. The left winger will act as inside-forward, aiming to start wide and then cut inside,with or without the ball. His main task is to roam all over the left-hand side of our attack, often taking central position, acting as second-central-striker. His defensive task will be to put pressure on every player that is near to him.
The player on the right side of our attack is having �balancing� role � acting as pure winger, but with more defensive mind. In phase attack his job is to give the team width from that side, running and crossing , having freedom to pop-up from deep position/late running without the ball, when the attack is started away from him and he is not with the ball. In phase defence he acts as our �work horse� - pressing and tackling his near opponent, balancing our front three, participating in our transition between attacking-to-defending.
The player behind the lone striker will act as pure classic attacking midfielder, with a role, which is something between second striker and advanced playmaker. He will have the movement freedom with and without the ball to go forward and moves between the channels ; and will have the freedom to pull all the strings from the zone he is � ie the last third. In phase defence this player will have huge task � to close down early and high on the pitch every player that wants to receive the ball in that zone and thinks he is having easy time to control it and pick out a pass.
The lone striker is the player, who spearheads our attacks. Always aiming to  play on the shoulder of the  defenders, always trying to occupy the spaces between the two central defenders or between a fullback and a central defender. He will move often more wider than deeper with the aim to open space for the players behind him � mostly the inside forward and the attacking midfielder, forming somekind of attacking trio with them. In phase defence this player will have the aim to close down the central defenders and/or fullback (depending on his moment position) and preventing him to distribute the ball forward.


The first friendly-match  : our first learning curve





http://www.youtube.c...?v=vuj5a4ztgOc#


In this video we can see our main attacking weakness, at least in terms of formation and players positioning in phase attack. When the team is splitting and every player takes his position, according to how the team is shaped in phase attack, there is huge space between our main playmaker and the front four. In that particualr case we definetely can talk about �front four� just because all of our attacking players are in one line, thus they making a front four line.
The negative of this is that our attacks becomes one-dimensional, at least in terms of  vertical and horizontal angles and zones my player can occupy, and not easily for interplaying and comunication between our attacking players and the players behind them, and most importantly � our main playmaker.

In the video we can see that when the ball reached our main playmaker, and he is in his favourite position to dictate the play, ( ie little bit ahead of the centre circle and behind the (four attacking player ) our four attacking players are far away for him. There is no player that is playing in the hole, which is the natural task of our attacking midfielder.  Instead of dropping deeper to create the 3-1 (AML,AMC,AMR,FC ) attacking shape, he push forward and is acting as second striker, or even as spearheading striker. This is due to his freedom to push forward everytime our team is with the ball. The reason behind such as behaviour is that I want from him to become such as pushing  attacking midfielder, just because the opposition is playing with three central defenders in one line and two wing-backs.
In that particular video we can see that our inside forward is completely unmarked on the flank and it�s easy passing outlet for our main playmaker. Instead of this the playmaker decides to pass the ball to our right back.
In conclusion � our main weakness in our attacking shape is actually our strenght, at least in that particular match, because the on-rushing attacking midfielders distracts the opposition to mark all four attacking players. The problem was that our main playmaker took the wrong decision where and when to continue our attack.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=vPlGgvxj6Vc#

In that video the focus is on how badly is the position of our inside-forward. This is due to his lack of proper anticapation and off the ball movement in that situation. When our forward is with the ball our inside-forward continued to hugging the line, ( or the flank in that case ) instead of trying to bypass his personal marker and cuts inside, offering different passing outlet and additional danger for the opposition�s defenders.  And not doing this he completely burned my tactical ideas and approach for using him, because he is not doing the job I wanted from him.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=l25O-P2qo4I#

In that case we can see how good can be our attacking shape, moreso when the playmaker is behind our front four player and the attacking midfielder is little bit deeper than the others, offering another passing angle and option ahead of the playmaker. But instead to combine with the attacking midfielder the playmaker choose to shoot from that distance (he has such as PPM ) which completely destroy that decent chance for something really dangerous. In that case he can pass to the attacking midfielder, who, in turs, can try to search the channel ahead of him, trying to unleash a killer ball towards the striker ; or just to recycle the possession passing to our right back or to exchange some passess with his defensive midfielder partner and change the direction/flank of our attack, waiting for another chance for something more dangerous.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=nLqI2OOv5G0#

In that case the playmaker again choose to try his luck from that distance instead of trying to recycle the possession becaue it�s obviously that all of our attacking players are marked well.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=QjpZ99OYZiE#

That video is proof/visualisation of my idea behind the specific tactical demanding from my fullbacks to cross from deep position.  When the ball reached our right fullback the opposition�s defence is not so well positioned and our attacking midfielder managed to run away from his marker and go into the perfect channel where he can receive the ball via crossing. Unfortanely his lack of first touch skill prevented him to strike the ball immediately and forced him to try and control the ball with more touches and, logical, the whole situation passed away. That was the negative in this situation. But the positive is that the right back did want is required from him.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=ze5oRtvyISI#

In that video we can see proof for weakness of my whole tactical approach � we were outnumber,easily, just because we are attacking with less number and less fluid movement. And the only real posibility was to stretch the ball into the wide areas and then crossed it, but my players are not so good into the air.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=PfQ75AhwBL8#

Here we can see the perfect proof of the positive to have deep-lying playmaker behind the front players. Yes, we were outnumbered, again, in that situation but the not so bad movement of our front four players managed to create a gap  where our striker was trying to work his place and waiting for the pass from our main playmaker, who is in perfect place to spot it and pass to him.  The problem was that the keeper anticipated very well the situation and prevent our striker to have a chance to shoot the ball clearly/easily.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=UHE6aKgVF1o#

And finally � the silly mistake of our whole defence that let the opposition to score the only goal, which won them the match.
No matter the fact that we were in our defensive shape and we outnumbered them completely the opposition player manage to score a goal via the most logical way they can do that � by using the gap between our central defenders. The problem here is personal,not tactical, just because our team was in it�s defensive shape and there were not surprising movement from the opposition. The problem was that our central defender, who marked personally their goal-scorer, was slowly, not agile and completely lacking anticapation and positioning sense. But that is, in fact, his main weakness as a player.


http://www.youtube.c...?v=Gn5brrvfTMU#

Here is proof for how deadly can be our team in attacking sense, moreso when the ball is passing with speed and inteligence.
We took away the ball, then with good short and one-touching passes exchanged the ball, giving time for our attacking players to take their usual attacking shape, waiting the perfect moment when one from our players ( this time our defensive midfielder ) to give a through ball to a player ( this time our defensive winger ), who is pushing forward from deep position.
That situation was also a proof for my tactical idea behind the specific instructions to my defensive winger � ie to act as inside-forward when he is not with the ball and the attack is not coming through his flank.

Conclusions

Despite the fact we lost our first friendly match I�m equal satisfied and dissatisfied. We made some mistakes � both personal and tactical - but also we made some good things, both in terms of movements, timing of our passes, attacks and etc. With the time, and the fact that my players will start to understand with each other, the things will become even more brightly.


Thanks to :

* Millie - for telling me the program, which I  used to make these videos ;
* my Bulgarian friend - for helping me uploading these videos in You-tube.

I don't have the time right now to read through and comment properly, but a big, big thumbs up from me for putting together this much information.

This will be on the mainsite pretty soon.

That is a very interesting way to go about your squad management. It is a good way to do it as it keeps things simple and allows you to play roughly the same way against most sides. The issue though is the individual flexibility; you will be too defensive against the minnows and too defensive against the giants - although it is better suited for playing the giants than the minnows. Although given your current situation and the nature of the club you have, this may be the best way to go about it.

One question that is not necessarily linked to the tactics but your squad management. If you keep this up for 3-4 seasons, how do you want to mold the team? What sorts of tactical plans would you like to ideally be able to set up for such a side as CSKA Sofia; one who is too big for their domestic league and too small for international competition?

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That's why this was my first tactical setup, my prefered one, but not the last, or the only one. It's more than logical to start with the tactical setup I'm comfortable enough to try to implement. And that's why the friendlies are so important - they give me opportunity to test my ideas, to see where the team lacks and to have another opportunities to adjust and try something different.

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I hope in the three-fours years the squad will be completely overhauled with much more players with specific key skills, suited to my tactical setups.

My first task is to give that side one full season to properly analize and test these players and decide who will leave and who will stay in the team for the future. Then I'll sit down and decide, according to that full season, what type of players I'll need, depending on the tactical setups.

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Like I said in the begining - we should be dominant in the domestic matches. That means I should have players which shall excell in phase attack, depending on what I want from them, based on my tactics.

In Europe my team should be comfortable enough to not lose with easy, and year after year, with the squad improvement, the team to slowly start to concur with the oppositions.

But the most important things is that every season we should be champions in the domestic league, because that will give us opportunity to enter CL, where the big money are. And with that money I'll have the resources to rebuild and improve my squad, which will give us opportunity to improve our European performances.

Everything is connected.

This is a really interesting analysis and I am looking forward to seeing more!

I play a similar 4231.  I noticed from the videos (especially since you pointed it out in the first video) that you don't have a good attacking shape.  Your ACM is playing too high up the field and stopping your inside forwards from making runs into the space left when your striker drifts out wide.  I had similar problems with my formation.  At first I setup my ACM with a support role, which helped a lot.  I have also recently gone to a more classical 451 (DCM, 2 CMs), which really seems to help.  How are you going to setup your ACM so he isn't killing your shape?

My attacking shape as whole, especally in that first match, was good enough. The problem was that when the attacking midfielder pushed forward the players behind him doesn't push forward enough to be close enough to the front four players.

The problem with my left winger (who was executing the role of inside-forward) who wasn't cutting inside so often and so good was not due to the forward runs of the attacking midfielder, so the problem is not due to our attacking shape. The problem is due to lack of proper ancitipacion and off the ball movement of the left winger, which you can see in one of the videos.

In other way I didn't want from my attacking midfielder to perform more playmaking/supproting role, as that wasn't my tactical idea about him. However in the next friendly match my tactical focus will be to involve him more in our build-up play and somekind different role and zone, where I want from him to play into. But you will see that in the next post.

I managed to completely fucked up the transferering of my all FM files ( the game and it's additional stuff ) from one laptop to the other. The result is that I lost many of  these files, including that save and some vital graphics and other FM-relative files.

I'm very upset in the moment, softly said.

Was wondering if setting your Striker to TQ would help as he would:
1) provide link up play and passing option to your playmaker
2) disrupt opponents defence when they are marking your striker and he interchanges with your attacking mids/wings

No. Because in 4-2-3-1 I want from him to be the passing outlet, that is always available, sitting on the shoulder of the defenders, always waiting a good through ball. If he is to drop so deeper and act as second playmaker,but higher on the pitch, one of the two others attacking players ( the inside-forward and the attacking midfielder ) should take his place upfront, which is not going to happen always because : a) they are playing wider and deeper , and they don't have the intelligence to timing their forward runs in that way.

I have read this up and frankly speaking I do not understand 100% of the meaning behind it mainly because I still need time to digest your ideas thus unable to give u any feedback or advices. Nevertheless, good job in making all this up. Especially the video part, I hope more people will put up the video more to show their approach to different games

From my experience, setting one of fullbacks to wing-back role can be very effective. In that situation he supports the inside forward on his side (left side in your case), but also sends diagonal through balls to the centre of the pitch (to your AMC).

Yes, it's very effective. But when your team is not a cohesive side, your players are lacking particular key skills I want add some more safety down the wings moreso when the two wingers are so far away ( as positioning) from the fullbacks.

It was just my approach based on my tactical preferences and current players, their prons and cons and etc details.

again gr8 post cagiva . this squad defenetly need imrpoving to be able to push for europe glory  . will folow ur future posts with interest