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Tactics : the important facts

 1- Background

I am going to present you my work in the tactics and training fields. But before to start, there is the results I get with this work:

  • Starting with an English conference team (Hayes), real hard, no cheating, no go to public, no gambling, no saving/loading (actually sometimes I left the game in some unimportant match in order to sell more players, and the result of that game is usually a loss).
  • Win every champion in every chance, until European cup.

 

  • In the first season, win Conference League and FA Cup
  • In the second season, win Div3 League, Charity Shield, FA Cup, League Cup, Auto Wind and Cup Winner Cup.
  • In the third season, win Div2 League, Charity Shield, FA Cup, League Cup, Auto Wind and Cup Winner Cup.
  • In the fourth season, win Div1 League, Charity Shield, FA Cup, League Cup and Cup Winner Cup.
  • In the fifth season, win Premier League, Charity Shield, FA Cup, League Cup and Cup Winner Cup.
  • In the sixth season, win Premier League, Charity Shield, FA cup, League Cup and European Cup

If you feel this is great, then you may have interest in the followings…

2- The most important data in this game

There are two data which are most important in this game. However you cannot find both of them in any panel. They are hidden data. They are real fitness and team training level.

Real Fitness:
There is already a data named fitness for each player in the game, but that one is useless. In order to differ from it, I call this one “real fitness”.
The existence proof of real fitness is by comparing player’s performance in the match. One is giving the team 10 days’ training camp with leisure before the match, while the other one is giving the team 10 days’ full days training.
You will see the very difference in players’ running speed in the match. In the first one, Players run super quickly to their opponent and catch up with them when the opponent get the ball, while in the other one, players “walk” all through the match.
Team Training Level:
The existence evidence of team training level is also can be found by comparing player’s performance in the match.
One is not giving team training for a long time before the match, while another one gives normal team training.
In the first match, you can see although players run very quickly and catch up with their opponent but they seldom steal the ball, and they are very likely to make a miss in passing, shooting and tackling. However in the second match, all these things are much better.
Real fitness and team training level are extremely important to players’ performance in match, especially when you are using a conference team play against premier team. The ability gap may greater than 30-40, however if you can make these two data both perfect by elaborate training, then you will surprise to see the conference team rule the match completely. Players win every single competition in the match – stealing, passing, ball control, shooting. The possession percentage can be up to 60%, while the premier team has few chances to shoot.
Since these two data are invisible, how to know how well they are now? The only way is by observing the players performance in match.
I separate the performance in three levels, perfect, good, bad.
1. When possessing and dribbling a ball: the opponent will run up to you and try to steal the ball.
1.1. Perfect: You will always pass the ball accurately to others before the opponent catch up with you. So in such cases your players even seldom get injured because the opponent don’t have chance to offend.
1.2. Good: You will be catch up by the opponent, while you can still break through him with ball control, and then pass the ball to others.
1.3. Bad: You will be catch up by the opponent and lose the ball.
2. When stealing a ball: when your opponent gets the ball.
2.1. Perfect: You will run to him very quickly and catch up with him, and get the ball immediately.
2.2. Good: You will run to him quickly, but cannot steal the ball. Or you just go around him and don’t catch up with him accurately. Your opponent will pass the ball to others lately.
2.3. Bad: You are “walking” to him and watching him dribbling the ball over a long distance.
3. Passing:
3.1. Perfect: You will always find a player to pass the ball to him accurately. A ball control is not needed before passing, so the passing looks extreme frequently and quickly. In some cases the screen scroll speed is not fast enough to keep up with the ball.
3.2. Good: The passing frequency is low. Players have to control the ball first before passing. Sometimes you pass just because you have to, that is you are being stealing. When being stealing, although the ball is still under control, he can’t dribble anymore. He has to pass or shoot lately, that is a game internal setting.
3.3. Bad: You often make a miss in passing. Sometimes you kick the ball out of the sideline directly.
4. Shooting: When players get ball close enough to the gate.
4.1. Perfect: Shoot at once, no more actions.
4.2. Good: Shoot but control the ball and turn around first.
4.3. Bad: Blast widely or pass the ball to others.
Team training level is increasing by team training. Every training item has a data in percentage, which might be how much does this item can be increased in once training. Team training level is dropping when time elapse and match may do the same. If you wish the team performs well on some aspect, arrange more training on that and arrange them close to the match.
Real fitness is increasing by rest. A day without any training will increase some of them.
Team training level and real fitness always change their value in different direction. When training, team training level increase, while real fitness drop. When resting, real fitness increase, while team training level drop.
How to make both of them good enough? The key is training camp with leisure.
Training camp with leisure can increase the real fitness very effectively, so the team training level cannot drop too much during that period.

3- Best practice of team training and training camp

3.1. My suggestion is arrange 6 days’ morning training plus 2 days’ afternoon training in each week. Afternoon training is necessary, and too much of them make the recovery really hard.
3.2. Make more arrangement on important training items, and better arrange them at the day just before the match. Important training items are passing, ball control, set piece, move and fitness.
3.3. Arrange training camp 2-4 times every month, and 2-3 days each time. Better arrange them before an important match to secure both training and rest in that week.
3.4. If the important match is on Saturday or Wednesday and Saturday, then arrange the training camp at Thursday-Friday or last Sunday-Tuesday. If there are three important matches on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday, then we must arrange the training camp at Thursday-Friday, because some players have to play two matches in that week and real fitness recovery is needed. In such cases the team training may not enough, so we need to secure enough team training in the previous week.
3.5. It is better to alternate all players for each game, because player’s data is less important. Good team training level and real fitness can make up huge gap in data. Reserve substitute can do everything good enough.
3.6. Training camp need money – about 1.5M each season. That is not small money, especially when fighting in conference league. If money is not available, then use full days’ rest instead. In such cases, a suggestion is don’t arrange any personal training, replace them by team training.
3.7. Don’t make full days’ training without training camp before an important match.
Arrange team training without personal training.

Arrange team training with personal training.

Arrange training camp

4- Personal training and talent

4.1. Personal training contributes to player’s data only. It has no contribution to team performance.
4.2. Players’ data can increase without personal training, and it grows really fast when they are young, that is far beyond what they can get by personal training (2-4 each season).
4.3. Each player has a talent which determines how high they could reach in data. A player with talent of shooting 80 will never reach 81.
4.4. Each player also has a talent in age, which determines how high they could reach at that age. For example, a player with talent of 99 has a talent in age of 80 in age 19, and then he can reach to 80 at most at age 19, and reach to 99 some years later.
4.5. Talent in age determines players’ growth curve. Some players grow very fast when they are very young, while some players grow fast when they are at age of 20.
4.6. When the gap between the current data and talent in age is big enough, the player will increase their data automatically. The bigger the faster and it may grow 3 point in one week in extreme cases.
4.7. The fastest growing players start to appear from the second season (99-00). Each season there are about 0-2 youth player can reach to 96 at end of that season. So keep your eyes open to find them. These players will stop growing for next several seasons because they have almost used up their talent. Such players always begin with age of 15 and nationality of England.
4.8. Youth players in the first season (98-99) will never grow that fast. Usually they can only reach to 70 at the end of first season. However they can keep up growth slowly until 99. Some of them can only reach to 50 at age of 17, while can reach to 90 at age of 20. The number of players with talent 99 is biggest in first season, so they are the best resource in this game.
4.9. So you can see the personal training is only making sense when players are old enough, and cannot increase their ability automatically since their talent is almost used up. If you still fighting in lower level league, a suggestion is not to hire any coach, and replace those personal training items with team training items.
4.10. Players’ talent is hidden data. You can find it out by external tools. A better way is find them out in game by observing players’ growth speed. Usually the highest and fastest growth player is the best. Keep touch with them in negation without the final deal, then they cannot be bought by other club. Then you can distinguish them easily several months later. If you accidentally lost some of them (bought by other club), you still can find them out by looking into the transfer information in extra data, and have chance to buy them back. The price is always cheap before they fully grow up.
4.11. Do not make personal training too long in one item. Players will bore on that and the growth speed will slow down. Change it just after 1 point growth, and change it also when you see a description of improve slowly.
4.12. There is a bug when doing speed training. It doesn’t show any growth status while it does increase. You can compare the data by write it down in paper.

Super youth player:

5- Tactic

Real fitness and team training level is the cornerstone of victory. When both of them are perfect, you will get a perfect victory easily. Your players will control everything in the whole match; win every stealing, passing etc. No matter whom the opponent is. No matter what formation they are use.
However it is not easy to make a perfect status. Usually you can only get a good status. That means you still have many work to do. That is tactic adjustment in the match.
5.1. defense
The key point of defense is reducing your opponent’s activity space. NEVER LET YOUR OPPONENT DRIBBLES THE BALL OVER A LONG DISTANCE. Force them to pass frequently far away from your gate, and lose the ball by mistake.
The game setting is when players are being steal, although he doesn’t lose the ball, he cannot dribble anymore and has to pass or shoot.
So first adjust you players’ position, make them close enough to opponents, then they can make the steal as soon as possible.
Here are some best practices.
5.1.1. If there is an empty field that your opponent is very active there, you can choose a player nearby, and adjust his position by up/back/left/right to cover that empty field.

5.1.2. If there is an empty field in whole line between you and opponent. (e.g., your defender line vs. you opponents’ attacker line, you can adjust the style to attack/defend/normal to reduce that empty field.

5.1.3. If your opponents’ attacker is very active, and find many empty positions to shoot, you can adjust some defenders’ individual tactics to man to man. 1 defender to 1 attacker or even more, 2-3 defender to 1 attacker. When opponents’ midfielder found their attackers are surrounded by defenders, sometimes they even don’t know where to pass, and kick the ball out of sideline directly.

5.1.4. 2 defenders vs. 1 attacker are very effective in many cases. I like formation of 442, because I can have many defenders to deal with attackers. However if your team’s status is perfect, man to man cannot bring your player into full play.
5.2. Attack, move, set piece
Now comes to the last piece of the puzzle.
All of above we have done can secure 80% victory. However if you want to complete some mission impossible, you need to increase the probability to 95%.
We cannot lose a game by lose 1-2 ball by accident. We need to make lots of goals to secure a victory. The secret of goal is hiding in tactic of move and set piece.
5.2.1. The last step of tactic is shooting. SHOOT AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO THE GATE. Only 20% shoot on target can make a goal. But shoot at end line has 80% chance to make a goal. So you may treat shoot at end line as a cheating. If you don’t like cheating, then shoot at a reasonable place close to the gate.
Shoot at end line.
5.2.2. Make the move and set piece as simple as possible, and as less players involved as possible. Because each step is triggered only when all players involved are in position.
5.2.3. Adjust players in attacking apart from the opponent, so they can have enough empty space. Close to sideline is usually a good method.
Adjust Ricken close to sideline to apart from the opponent.
5.2.4. REAL FITNESS AND TEAM TRAINING LEVEL ARE STILL IMPORTANT TO TACTIC. Only when both of them are in good status, tactics can be
triggered at high frequency. The number could be 20-30 times in one match.
5.2.5. Make the tactics connected. For example, if a move has a step of a long distance dribbling, that means you are very likely to be offended in the way. Set up a set piece start on that way, so if the move is interrupt by offense, you can have a new start set piece continuously.
FL F Kick 442 is a connected tactic of L Assist.
5.2.6. Trigger start position is important. Make sure the first player has many chances to get the ball in the start position. ML Assist 442 starts from left middle field. Adjust Warren to left, so when he steals the ball, he will very likely to pass it to Ricken, so the probabilities of trigger of that move increase.