[Fantastic]

Okay, I've been working on the 5-3-2, which is proving to be harder than one would think.

For me the German 5-3-2 is based around three principles:

-The Libero
The key figure in the formation. This player not only acts as the net in the cantenaccio style of play, but in the German 5-3-2 he is the instigator of play, looking to allow the midfield to push further up the field, aided by active wing backs, to play sensible passes that ask questions but do not compromise the side's shape.

-Defensive solidarity
Attacking flair is only a product of strong build up play. A methodical process of development, based upon a strict dictation of the tempo of the game. There are three triangles at the back of the pitch DL/DLC, DLC/DRC, DRC/DR, all supported, depending on pressure of attack, by the sweeper to create the triumverate.

-The use of Wingbacks effectively
The formations lack of width exposes itself quite readily. Effective use of fullbacks does not mean simply defending and attacking in the right thirds, it is a composite, pushing wingbacks further up the field when off the ball to pressurise the opposition in their own half.

As it stands, I have begun the process of trying to create an effective 5-3-2, for me this has to begin with learning how the libero works, without him playing effectively you're simply putting players behind the ball and not utilising your formation to its advantage.

To start with the libero is required to be a good defender. They have to be otherwise placing them as the last line of defence is suicide, they're the Cryuff's of the eighteen yard box, whilst they have other uses they need to be excellent defensively. On top of this, however, they need to be good passeers, dribblers, readers of game, extremely fit and possess leadership qualities. Other aspects that wouldn't go unnoticed are flair and influence.

For my attempts I've be using the France National Team and the Algerian National team, mainly because France possess the most natural sweeper in the game, Phillipe Mexes and Algeria are a much weaker team, but who also have a suitable sweeper.

For my first game with France, against the Faroe Islands I merely set him as the default libero player role with a support duty. France won the game comfortably 4-0, however Mexes scored a disappointing 6.9. Here's some screenshot of his performance, passing wise.



It's pretty clear to me, from my initial assessment, that the role of libero as assigned by the game is not doing two things:

1. It isn't involving the libero as further up the pitch as he should be, he is still essentially tasked as part of the defensive line, only not the first port of call so almost left floating, waiting for play to come to him.

2. He isn't being read as an important passer of the ball, his passes, even though team mentality passing is set to short, are of a fairly long distance, rarely speculative and never interchanging. In short he's looking to offload the ball as soon as he gets it.

Following these basic assessments I made some changes to the role, which requires reverting to classic mode, so goodbye touchline shouts.

Firstly, in order to free up the player, I increased his runs from deep further, however keeping his runs with the ball to sometimes. It's important to maintain that balance between defender cum midfielder and not turn him into a winger with a lack of skill who happens to sit at the back of the pitch.

Secondly I placed him as a the playmaker in the team, with a free role, essentially imposing on all players the importance of his role to the team, that because this is a 5-3-2 with a relatively slow tempo, the build up is going to be longer and therefore going to involve more players and work towards the goal As a look, here's how his settings are now:



Our second match was against Romania, which we won 3-0.Mexes performed much better this time, scoring 7.3. But more important was how much more involved with all facets of the game he was:



That's a marked improvement before. Now he's operating in the areas of the pitch one would expect from a libero. If you look at the picture you can see clearly that the majority of his passing is now coming from the defensive midfield role, but not only that the passing is varied and particularly successful. He is moving the ball in the correct manner.Subsequent analysis of his team mates passing doesn't show a negative effect of assigning him a playmaker role, passing from midfielders and fullbacks in the defensive midfield line is going sideways to Mexes, allowing them to move forward when in possession and progress from defence to attack in a very organic manner that allows for a more structured build up play.

Mexes' finest hour so far, although there have been a few pivotal performances, came in a group stage match against Australia:



84 completed passes and some real involvement in the opposition half is a great improvement from where he was playing originally. I'm also pleased that as the game plays the ball is being pushed to him in the centre and he is then pushing it out wide to the fullbacks, creating the desired attacking width.

In the subsequent matches I've moved on to allow the use of the wingbacks to be more natural to how the formation should play. I have to be honest, when one utilises Bakary Sagna and Patrice Evra as wingbacks, I feel it might not accurately represent the tactic, merely because I'd say their ability would allow them to shine regardless of the tactic. But I was pleasantly surprised when editing their instructions to also see improvements in their game.



As I outlined at the start, trying to maintain width up the pitch in order to not allow the opposition midfield dominance was important in my vision. It's pleasant to see wingbacks tackling much further up the field, often pressing players in their own half, although I'm still unsure whether this may be too far up, but the Sweeper in a free role set as the only zonal marking player is proving effective for covering for the other defensive players.

With Algeria I've seen similarly good findings with Hemdani in the sweeper role, he's proven to be fairly competent at playing as a sweeper, whilst not as good a defender he is still performing the tasks required of him within the tactic.



Those are against Egypt and South Africa respectively, games we won 1-0 and 2-1 (we received a red card in the thirtieth minute).

With Algeria I'm seeing a recurring trend, whereby evenly matched or worse teams we play against do well against us when we play 5-3-2. Zambia, Benin and Iceland all draw with us, whilst we only beat Rwanda 1-0. However against better teams, the two from the screenshot above, we perform better. Now this could be a morale or confidence issue, or it could be that the tactic is not effective against teams we should be imposing ourselves on in a much more aggressive manner. I will have to do more exploration with this and it remains to be seen how we will fare at the African Cup of Nations and the World Cup.

This is just my findings from two outings, so far, but the improvements upon the originally specified libero role that comes out of the box and what I have done so far suggests that, with time, a very formidable and realistic 5-3-2 can be made. I've still got work to do on processing the support players, but as it stands there is already good scope to make an excellent tactic.

What I'm asking for, really, is what people think should be made to change it, where I'm going wrong and how to make it more accurate.

[Millie]

I've just this minute scheduled an article about the libero. Check the forums, and what do I see? That I need to completely rewrite the sodding thing. 

Fantastic, Fanny. This is going up in a big shiny link at the top of the article, and I hope we can draw as many people to it as possible.

Personally, I want to try and get the libero working in a 4-4-2, as we have discussed at Los Wonderkids in the past. (http://loswonderkids...3fa0fd630b232bc )

Right now, I don't have the squad to do it (Hinckley, slumming near the bottom of the Conference Premier), but it's my long-term aim.

I'm very, very interested in your modifications to the role for the sweeper, though, and will pass those on to SI.

Also (as an aside) I read your thread about Shakhtar (or, as I like to think of them, Waxtap) Donnetsk. Have a bit of a soft spot for Easter European football, and I totally agree with you about squad AI mismanagment. But that's another debate.

What are the sweeper's defensive stats like? Is he putting in a shift? And how knackered is he by the end of the 90?

[Fantastic]

Appreciate it. However I would stress that when it comes to complex tactics I don't profess to be experienced, my pedigree is in simple, effective 4-4-2's. It's merely that I've taken a fancy to something no one uses in the game and I'm trying to see if I can get it right.

I chose France for two reasons, the first is Mexes, who I regard as the strongest sweeper in the game (possibly Gonzalo Rodriguez or Domenico Criscito could be there as well) but also because France has Marc Planus, who was to act as cover for Mexes in emergencies.

Mexes attributes are as follows:



And for point of reference here are Hemdani's:



The players, in my eyes, need to be positionally astute, both with the positional attribute itself and with the off the ball movement, alongside attributes such as anticipation and decisions.

Here's an overview of all seven of his performances at the World Cup (we reached the final but lost on penalties to Argentina. A 'p' next to the condition means that match went to penalties)



I think it's pretty clear that he's playing well. Our younger, more overexcited friends in the community would not regard 7.2's as playing well, but I've always operated on the assumption that if a player averages over 7.0 then he is playing well.

He doesn't necessarily get as many tackles as one would like to see, but in the 5-3-2 he's primary role is to act as a second net a la Salernitana and act as the instigator of attacks, so to see his interceptions at a decent level, to me, signifies he is playing well. He definitely doesn't shirk from responsibility, he makes more passes than any other member of the team, although Sagna does come close sometimes. (analysis counts throw ins as passes mind)

All in all he works hard, covers the ground and whilst the process is still in its infancy, I'm seeing a good scope of how I think a libero should work. With that said, whether it would transfer to your dream of a 4-4-2 with one central defender incorporating the libero into his role, I don't know, to me the luxury of a libero is grounded in the security of numbers, with how adventurous I'm trying to make him play, without the two centre-backs there would be real issues, especially for less mentally and technically gifted teams.

Also, whilst I'm here, please tell me there's going to be plans to expand on the analysis tool. I need things like where the players move without the ball on the pitch, where the are when they receive passes, where they run with the ball etc.

[cagiva]

First of all congrats for the hard work and taking time to analyse and try to think in "real-life " model.

Second - if you try in TC to instruct your player ( in your case Mexes ) as libero ,but with attack role I think the effect will be great. Something similar,if not better,to what you achieve via the old system and tweaks.

Third - could you please upload .pkms of those matches in which Mexes performed better ?

[masconti]

When I was young (I'm 55) here in Italy every team  from Serie A to 3 Categoria played with the libero (free).
But the meaning of libero is free from a man to man coverage, not free to go everywhere: he is the only defender to play zone.
The other defenders look at and pursuit their men, the libero looks at the ball. He plays in the box.
This is the true meaning of libero. Only for few champions the word libero means to be free to defend and free to go where you want in the field and attack!
The best analogy of libero is in American Football the "Cover 1 Defence": the Free Safety (notice free=libero) plays deep in zone, Corner Backs play in man to man coverage
Armando Picchi, the libero of Helenio Herrera's Inter (catenaccio) was a pure defender like the 90% of the "liberi"
Bye

[7Bestie7]

Masconti, I recently worked that out in re-reading Wilson's Inverting the Pyramid. Very few of the Libero's were actually what people think of as those types of players. The Beckenbauer Libero in Brazilian football is called (something like) "the fourth defender".

Bestie.

[ontopoftheworld]

I love the 5-3-2 with wingbacks and throuroughly enjoyed this article. Is there anyway at all to make these role changes without losing the touchline shouts??

[Thiago Silva]

I'm trying to make this work now in FM 2012.

I was wondering, why in the hell the libero only really works in a converted to classic tactic?

Why the players don't pass the ball to the libero if not in a classic tactic?
I'm really tring to make this work!

[Maverick]

Have you tried making him your play maker.