Olliekse tactics Part 1 : Variables, Rotation and High Percentage Ethos
Hey, since i got a few requests I figured i would just post some stuff here aimed at those who wish to get a grasp of the fundamentals of the 11 positions on the pitch and the possible variables that can occur in player roles. This is aimed at those who are unsure what player is best suited to what role.
Here i am going to deal with the most basic system that kids in England get taught in academies etc.. which is extremely easy to implement in FIFA or any football game, and a good starting point to learn what a player can and cant do attribute-wise.
We need the 442 for this. Why was this formation the go-to tactic in English football for well over 60+ years? Simple. Because its neutral. Players are positioned an equal distant apart, and each get the same total area of the pitch to work with. Its simple to teach and its simple to work out what went wrong. Its very similar to chess really, a nerdy comparison i know. The King is your goal, the Queen is the GK, The Rooks are the FB's, The Knights are the Wingers and the Bishops are the CM's.
What i have below is a basic 442, with the players territories, if you will, outlined in black. Remember i am conveying one specific system here, a system that is very tough to break down without pace, flair and overall superiority.
*THE POSITIONAL LABELS IN THE DIAGRAMS WERE NOT MADE BY ME, I JUST USED A FORMATION CREATOR. 'MC' = 'CM', ML/MR = RM/LM, DC = CB, DL/DR = RB/LB.
Here is a brief explanation of each role:
GK is self explanatory - although the 'sweeper' keeper variable will be discussed later.
So in this system, each player has an equal contribution to the attack and defence phase. The strikers will press the opponents back 2, the wide midfielders will will press the opponents fullbacks and so on and so forth.
Now lets create a scenario where the team has been pulled out of shape and there is a vulnerability:
In this example, The Wide midfielder has the ball and is doing some link up play with a striker. Imagine the opponent MC has managed to intercept the ball off the striker and looks up to decide what to do next. He notices your Fullback is on the half way line and hasn't yet turned around to run back to the middle of his area. So now the MC decides to ping the ball into that vacated area (highlighted black) for his wide midfielder to chase. I've seen this happen more times than I've had hot dinners. Its basic exploitation. If the solider goes off into the woods to take a leak, he leaves his outpost wide open. Now if thats Daniel Alves, this isn't an immediate threat because not only does he have the pace to get back, but Thiago Silva can come over and occupy that area. But remember this example is looking at average players in a specific system.
When a player is out of position, the #1 thing that will happen is the nearest player will rotate over and fill that spot. So using the above example, the DC will move over to DR, then the other DC will rotate over, then the DL will rotate to DC, then the ML will occupy the DL spot etc.. Its the same concept as basketball. Players rotate over to fill the gap. Once the team has regained possession, they can clear the ball and reset the formation. If you are struggling to visualise this, watch any game on TV and watch what the centre backs do when the Fullback is stuck in no man's land mid-overlap, they rotate over and eventually the fullback will slot back into position.
THIS IS PARAMOUNT IN PLAYING FIFA!!! I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. ONLINE OR OFFLINE, IF YOU DONT ROTATE OVER, THERE IS A GAP. THE AI WILL FILL IT FOR YOU BUT RELYING ON THE AI IS TO BE AVOIDED!
So in an ideal world, you play very rigid and enforce territories on your players. If the Fullback decides to skip inside and take on the MC - you give him a slap.
If you can use this formation and concept comfortably in offline game modes- you will not make defensive mistakes. The only way you will lose is because your players were not good enough, not because you're inept at Playstation/Xbox.
So we have covered the rigid 442, now lets look at variables in the roles.
Below is a more fluid variant of the 442 system with the changes highlighted in Blue:
The 2 changes are:
Winger : now we have a midfielder with a more attacking mentality. He has license to drive to the byline, at the sacrifice of defensive positioning. If he makes a dash to the byline and gets dispossessed, the fullback is very vulnerable as explained before due to the gap. You could say "well why doesn't he track back and help out?" Well he could if he wasn't struggling to get his breath back. If you are attack minded, you are going to conserve your energy for attacking. So in summary, we have sacrificed defensive positioning in favour of giving the opponents fullback a hard time. Wingers get a lot of players booked, mostly because they are fast and the fullback gets desperate and takes them out. Remember when i said that FIFA doesn't convey tactics very well? Well that goes on show here. You can specify to a basic degree whether the wide man is a winger or standard midfielder but it doesn't integrate that into the overall formation.
Moving onto the forwards, instead of having two strikers that perform identical roles a distance apart, we now have a clear difference in the roles that have been assigned to them. I will interject here and say that a striker CANNOT become a Centre forward, it is a totally different position that has totally different key attributes. You can scout or purchase one but you can't decide one week that striker X is going to be a centre forward, it doesn't work like that (flaw in FIFA). In terms of roles, the Centre forward is going to be the link between the midfield and the attack. He sort of floats in between the midfielder's zone and the strikers zone, and can come deep to collect the ball to pull the Centre half marking him out of position. One way of using a CF is as a battering ram. The defenders can hoof it up to him or the midfield can chip it onto his chest. Either way, his job is to either knock it down for the striker, put his head on it to direct the ball into an area of the pitch for the striker to attack, or to simply hold possession for a small period of time whilst the players around him move into advanced positions.
The strikers role is unchanged in this variant, except that he might gravitate around the CF more looking for those knockdowns. Think of the CF as a massive net that catches the ball and distributes it to the striker to convert high % chances.
The other players roles in this altered 442 are the same, except that the Fullback is slightly more geared towards defence, and one of the MC's will need to drop back ever so slightly so that he can rotate over if needed.
So i am going to end this part here as i feel its a good point to stop. I have explained the elementary 442 and the rigid roles assigned to it, as well as the basic variants that can occur should the team have additional pace (wingers) and strength (centre forward). One cannot grasp the more fluid formations without grasping this first, because the 442 was where it all started. England won a World Cup with it, My club won the Premiership with it, but it seems Swansea changed the mindset towards a more continental ethos.
Play some offline games and get used to performing these roles, with an emphasis on defence. Learn when you are dragging a player out of position, and learn how to rotate someone over to temporarily occupy the gap. A good tactic is to chip the ball into the channels for the striker to chase down and keep hold off until reinforcements arrive. Don't forget to CLEAR THE BALL to reset your shape, don't think you can just pass your way out of trouble, play high % football. Thats why fullbacks in real life concede throw ins instead of trying to beat the winger. I will post part 2 if people like this one, if you think i need to stick to the day job, ill take no offense honest
*DISCLAIMER* If you feel you know all the information presented in this post, and feel patronised as a result, that's your own fault. This was done on request, not to massage my ego
Here i am going to deal with the most basic system that kids in England get taught in academies etc.. which is extremely easy to implement in FIFA or any football game, and a good starting point to learn what a player can and cant do attribute-wise.
We need the 442 for this. Why was this formation the go-to tactic in English football for well over 60+ years? Simple. Because its neutral. Players are positioned an equal distant apart, and each get the same total area of the pitch to work with. Its simple to teach and its simple to work out what went wrong. Its very similar to chess really, a nerdy comparison i know. The King is your goal, the Queen is the GK, The Rooks are the FB's, The Knights are the Wingers and the Bishops are the CM's.
What i have below is a basic 442, with the players territories, if you will, outlined in black. Remember i am conveying one specific system here, a system that is very tough to break down without pace, flair and overall superiority.
*THE POSITIONAL LABELS IN THE DIAGRAMS WERE NOT MADE BY ME, I JUST USED A FORMATION CREATOR. 'MC' = 'CM', ML/MR = RM/LM, DC = CB, DL/DR = RB/LB.
Here is a brief explanation of each role:
- FC - striker : They patrol the the central area of the pitch 35 yards from goal onwards. They do not drift wide, and keep a similar distance between them for most of the match, usually 10-20 feet. On defence they don't track back and hover at that 35yard mark, sometimes slightly deeper to get available a pass.
- MC- Centre Mids: They float about +/- 25 yards either side of the goal line. They rarely intrude on the CF's area, and only track back so far before the DC's will have to come forward and confront the attacker. They tend not to drift wide unless they are occupying an open gap.
- ML/MR - Wingers/Wide midfielders : In this example, they are Wide Midfielders. The difference between that and the role of 'Winger' is that they only come forward so far before its up to the strikers to drag the DC's and DR/DL's out of position. I will demonstrate later a variable in the territory if a 'winger' was present. Once they get to the edge of their territory, they cross the ball into the box or pass it back to the MC's. They might pass it back to the fullbacks to reset if they are being closed down by the opponent. Defensively, the Wide Midfielders will travel back the same distance as the MC's.
- DL/DR - Fullbacks : A variable on this position is the wingback, but that doesn't concern us in this system. In this system they have a limited role, and are told to go no further than the half way line when the team has possession. On defence, they cover the byline to the start of the Wide midfielders area. On attack they will mainly pass the ball forward except when switching the side of attack.
- DC - Centre Half : The inversion of the strikers. In this system, they are limited, and never go past the edge of the centre circle. With possesion they will simply dump it off to the midfield or DR/DL.
GK is self explanatory - although the 'sweeper' keeper variable will be discussed later.
So in this system, each player has an equal contribution to the attack and defence phase. The strikers will press the opponents back 2, the wide midfielders will will press the opponents fullbacks and so on and so forth.
Now lets create a scenario where the team has been pulled out of shape and there is a vulnerability:
In this example, The Wide midfielder has the ball and is doing some link up play with a striker. Imagine the opponent MC has managed to intercept the ball off the striker and looks up to decide what to do next. He notices your Fullback is on the half way line and hasn't yet turned around to run back to the middle of his area. So now the MC decides to ping the ball into that vacated area (highlighted black) for his wide midfielder to chase. I've seen this happen more times than I've had hot dinners. Its basic exploitation. If the solider goes off into the woods to take a leak, he leaves his outpost wide open. Now if thats Daniel Alves, this isn't an immediate threat because not only does he have the pace to get back, but Thiago Silva can come over and occupy that area. But remember this example is looking at average players in a specific system.
When a player is out of position, the #1 thing that will happen is the nearest player will rotate over and fill that spot. So using the above example, the DC will move over to DR, then the other DC will rotate over, then the DL will rotate to DC, then the ML will occupy the DL spot etc.. Its the same concept as basketball. Players rotate over to fill the gap. Once the team has regained possession, they can clear the ball and reset the formation. If you are struggling to visualise this, watch any game on TV and watch what the centre backs do when the Fullback is stuck in no man's land mid-overlap, they rotate over and eventually the fullback will slot back into position.
THIS IS PARAMOUNT IN PLAYING FIFA!!! I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. ONLINE OR OFFLINE, IF YOU DONT ROTATE OVER, THERE IS A GAP. THE AI WILL FILL IT FOR YOU BUT RELYING ON THE AI IS TO BE AVOIDED!
So in an ideal world, you play very rigid and enforce territories on your players. If the Fullback decides to skip inside and take on the MC - you give him a slap.
If you can use this formation and concept comfortably in offline game modes- you will not make defensive mistakes. The only way you will lose is because your players were not good enough, not because you're inept at Playstation/Xbox.
So we have covered the rigid 442, now lets look at variables in the roles.
Below is a more fluid variant of the 442 system with the changes highlighted in Blue:
The 2 changes are:
- The Wide Midfielders have now become Wingers.
- The Forwards have been assigned different roles.
Winger : now we have a midfielder with a more attacking mentality. He has license to drive to the byline, at the sacrifice of defensive positioning. If he makes a dash to the byline and gets dispossessed, the fullback is very vulnerable as explained before due to the gap. You could say "well why doesn't he track back and help out?" Well he could if he wasn't struggling to get his breath back. If you are attack minded, you are going to conserve your energy for attacking. So in summary, we have sacrificed defensive positioning in favour of giving the opponents fullback a hard time. Wingers get a lot of players booked, mostly because they are fast and the fullback gets desperate and takes them out. Remember when i said that FIFA doesn't convey tactics very well? Well that goes on show here. You can specify to a basic degree whether the wide man is a winger or standard midfielder but it doesn't integrate that into the overall formation.
Moving onto the forwards, instead of having two strikers that perform identical roles a distance apart, we now have a clear difference in the roles that have been assigned to them. I will interject here and say that a striker CANNOT become a Centre forward, it is a totally different position that has totally different key attributes. You can scout or purchase one but you can't decide one week that striker X is going to be a centre forward, it doesn't work like that (flaw in FIFA). In terms of roles, the Centre forward is going to be the link between the midfield and the attack. He sort of floats in between the midfielder's zone and the strikers zone, and can come deep to collect the ball to pull the Centre half marking him out of position. One way of using a CF is as a battering ram. The defenders can hoof it up to him or the midfield can chip it onto his chest. Either way, his job is to either knock it down for the striker, put his head on it to direct the ball into an area of the pitch for the striker to attack, or to simply hold possession for a small period of time whilst the players around him move into advanced positions.
The strikers role is unchanged in this variant, except that he might gravitate around the CF more looking for those knockdowns. Think of the CF as a massive net that catches the ball and distributes it to the striker to convert high % chances.
The other players roles in this altered 442 are the same, except that the Fullback is slightly more geared towards defence, and one of the MC's will need to drop back ever so slightly so that he can rotate over if needed.
So i am going to end this part here as i feel its a good point to stop. I have explained the elementary 442 and the rigid roles assigned to it, as well as the basic variants that can occur should the team have additional pace (wingers) and strength (centre forward). One cannot grasp the more fluid formations without grasping this first, because the 442 was where it all started. England won a World Cup with it, My club won the Premiership with it, but it seems Swansea changed the mindset towards a more continental ethos.
Play some offline games and get used to performing these roles, with an emphasis on defence. Learn when you are dragging a player out of position, and learn how to rotate someone over to temporarily occupy the gap. A good tactic is to chip the ball into the channels for the striker to chase down and keep hold off until reinforcements arrive. Don't forget to CLEAR THE BALL to reset your shape, don't think you can just pass your way out of trouble, play high % football. Thats why fullbacks in real life concede throw ins instead of trying to beat the winger. I will post part 2 if people like this one, if you think i need to stick to the day job, ill take no offense honest
*DISCLAIMER* If you feel you know all the information presented in this post, and feel patronised as a result, that's your own fault. This was done on request, not to massage my ego
Ill get to that formation in the next one - its just a modified 442. It introduces the CAM and CDM, and a very different way of looking at the game. My team (leeds) uses the 41212 (diamond) so i get to see it weekly 
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