If you are anything like me, you love a transfer window: a little in-house tidying of the squad, perhaps followed by the odd maybe-not-entirely-needed-but-definitely-desired impulse signing. And at some point in every Football Manager save, Read more
Football Manager has always loved a wonderkid. This time, the game has given us twenty players worth checking against reality. Part One follows the first ten through senior debuts, youth international football, transfer moves and the occasional very ambitious rating. Some already look ready for the next step. Others have a long way to go before the database’s optimism feels justified.
The temptation is to approach women’s football in Football Manager 26 as an entirely different game. That’s like treating tea and coffee as different food groups because they come in different mugs. After all, the Read more
There is a moment every Football Manager player knows intimately. The ball hits the net, you are happy, the scoreline flips to 1-0, and then a cold, familiar dread settles in. Now you have something Read more
Sometimes the most effective tactical adjustments are also the simplest. They are the kind of changes that sit in plain sight for months, quietly ignored because they seem too obvious to matter. In a simulation Read more
In Football Manager 2026, developing a robust tactical framework is paramount to creating your tactical identity. Your tactical framework is the living organism that dictates how your team breathes, reacts, and imposes itself across every Read more
In Football Manager 2026, set pieces have finally caught up with the rest of the tactical evolution. With dual formations and more detailed set-piece assignments, short corners have become even more effective. A short corner Read more
Like a Pokémon, the tactical engine in Football Manager keeps evolving. New form, same DNA. Before FM26, your team shape was basically your defensive skeleton, the starting point for everything. Everything else; roles, instructions, opposition tweaks, was there to mould that skeleton, like a potter shaping clay on a spinning wheel. You could sense the game trying to mimic fluid football but still thinking like an accountant: one structure, several workarounds. FM26 changes that. It lets you design two distinct shapes that breathe with the match, expanding to attack, contracting to defend, turning your team into something alive rather than arranged.
You’ve scouted your perfect wonderkid, but when his face pops up, he’s stuck with the same soulless mug as everyone else. Are you ready to fix that once and for all?
Short corners remain a neglected aspect of the game despite a slew of improvements and innovations appearing to enhance the beautiful game. While they frequently frustrate stadium supporters when they fail to produce results, the perfect Read more
Brighton & Hove Albion have been the favourite team of offensive trainers since Roberto De Zerbi arrived and took control. De Zerbi’s Brighton team has become a joy to watch for football purists, with a heavy focus Read more
References I wanted to put the references for this piece at the beginning (I can hear my lecturer at university wince in agony as I do it) as they all explain, at great length, the Read more
This new tactic is called the dreidl; a dreidl is a four-sided spinning top played during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The dreidel is a Jewish variant of the teetotum, a gambling toy in many European cultures. It’s called such Read more
A well-defined tactical style is essential for a football manager since it provides a framework for the team's performance and enables for effective communication and understanding among the players. A well-defined style allows the manager to create a unique identity and philosophy for the team, which benefits in recruiting and attracting players that fit the system. Having alternative styles and switching things up also makes sense.
I have debated whether or not to post this article. Should I offer a downloadable version of my tactics, just for people to generally ignore why they work in a specific way and complain to yours truly about their perceived lack of progress or success? Ultimately, there is no right or wrong way to approach things with FM. If you're getting more success from downloadable tactics and that feels fulfilling enough, then crack on. This article contains links to the latest formation of my "Riders (on the storm)" series of tactics, using both a deep and middle block in defence.
As my tactics setup evolved and developed, I noticed my build-up from the back was far too easily disrupted by high-intensity pressing sides. They targeted my deep-lying playmaker and, at times, my ball-playing defender. Players Read more
Over the past year, FM players have complained a lot about how good (or rather not good) the game’s newgen faces are, to the point where some have chosen to turn off newgen faces altogether. Read more
Set pieces in football, and thus in Football Manager, have received much attention and study. But what about the innocuous throw-in? Apart from when a team develops a long throw-in programme (see Delap, Rory, or last year’s trebuchet-styled throw-ins), it is largely ignored. This doesn’t do the humble throw-in justice, as they are essential to your Football Manager game. Just throwing the ball somewhere willy-nilly not only robs you of a potential goalscoring opportunity (depending on your location, of course), but it also increases your risk of losing the ball and ending up on the wrong side of a devastating counter-attack. So again, throw-ins are far more important than you might think.
Football, and by extension, Football Manager, is a game that is constantly evolving, and it features a wide variety of various formations, styles, and tactical approaches, each of which is successful in its own right. Read more
Ever since Beta came out, I have been no-lifing FM23. I started with a game just to scout around. There is no attribute masking, every league is selected, so I can just look around. This isn't even a fully fleshed-out blog post; it's just a place where I can dump the shortlist and maybe some screenshots soon. Who knows. For now, enjoy the download.
Goalkeepers who end up on the score sheet are often regarded as glitches or abnormalities in the matrix of football nature – and they are, in a way. There’s something delightfully depraved about goalkeepers scoring Read more
As with most great relationships between player and manager, my partnership with El Emperador Maissel Sabgh resulted from pure coincidence. As I started my career with Junior Popular de Barranquilla FC, or just Junior FC for short, we lacked a proper strike force. As it happens, a young forward has just been released by his club. He looked decent enough, and he was a product of Juniors youth academy, so he was quickly snapped up and re-joined his boyhood club. It was the start of a journey that lasted two decades in-game, an epic adventure that frustrated many a defender and goalkeeper and brought much joy and jubilation to the Junior faithful in the pixelated stands.
The following article regarding the application of defensive principles has the potential to become cluttered because a number of different ideas fit together pretty nicely in theory, but I am not quite sure if they translate well. In my head, everything makes a lot of sense, but if my mental gymnastics turn out to be incomprehensible, I would appreciate it if you would ask for clarification. Enjoy!
I am not someone who is willing to walk blindly into the unknown. I make an effort to read up on the possibilities as well as the potential problems, I make every attempt to plan, and I strive to figure out a strategy for the long term in ahead of time. How then do I go about playing this game? Which fundamental princples will be the core of my setup, which is so unlike traditional strikerless?
Attacking complete football is rooted in Dutch culture and national spirit, according to the British author David Winner, who wrote the book ‘Brilliant Orange’ several years ago. By analogy, defensive football is not a part Read more
penalty area, where the goalkeepers usually remained transfixed, allowing one of your players to score an easy goal. It's not functioning very well this year, unfortunately. The short throw-in on the other hand works very well.
Winning international silverware is regarded as a great achievement. In fact, some would argue that it is the apex of one’s professional accomplishments. It is possible to elevate one’s career to legendary status by leading Read more
Earlier I wrote a brief piece on my intentions for FM21, the defensive principles and the transition from defence to attack. In this article, I intend to look at offensive principles. In case you missed Read more
For my first foray into tactical analysis I decided to make the challenge that extra bit harder for myself by exploring the dark arts of strikerless football on FM pioneered by @GuidoMerry & @SeattleRed. What Read more
If you have been following me on Twitter somewhat, you will have noticed my ongoing digital love-affair with Zlatan Ibrahimovic over the course of my FM21 save with AC Milan. Ever since returning to Milan from his MLS exploits, the Swedish frontman has rolled back the years, playing like a man 15 years younger. I always knew that Zlatan wouldn't last forever and that the time of his impending retirement drew nearer every time I hit continue. Like any manager worth his salt, I saw what needed to be done. Who could replace Zlatan?
Earlier I wrote a brief piece on my intentions for FM21 and a much longer article on the defensive principles I adhere to. In this article, I intend to look at the transition from defence to attack.
Over the past decades, we have seen ample evidence of the long throw-in and its effectiveness. Most notably, Rory Delap's bullet throws long proved a useful piece of weaponry for Stoke City. Launching howitzers into the box towards tall and powerful players turned out to be a winning strategy.
The success of Delap and Stoke proves that football need not be complicated. Find someone to lob the ball into the box and have your strongest players shove around defenders and the goalkeeper. Since you can't be offside from a throw-in, you can bring up your strongest players to cause mayhem in the opposing box.
Earlier I wrote a brief piece on my intentions for FM21. This the first proper article in this series, in which I want to look at the defensive aspect of things. Defensively, I want to look at the three defensive principles forcing the opposition wide, restricting the opposition's space and maintaining a cohesive formation, how I am to achieve those and which performance indicators I use to make sure my players are performing the way I want them to.
A brief introduction into the style I am designing for FM21. I will briefly touch upon the gameplay principles and what performance indicators are,
Now that we have all been sucked into the enslaving obsession we all know FM can become if the game is good enough, it is time to look at another yearly seasonal tradition; the hunt for superb set-pieces. I am no stranger to the subject, I have tried (and succeeded on occasion) to create successful set-piece routines. FM21 was no exception to the rule and I tried my hand at creating a corner setup. You have probably heard of the famous saying "necessity is the mother of all invention"? Well, if necessity is the mother of all invention, blind luck is the drunk uncle of invention. Not exactly something to be proud of but there's a surprising number of such cases. This is the case of the mysterious throw-in routine that started as a corner setup.
Over the course of FM20 I have at times struggled to get into the flow of the game. It's not that my teams were not achieving successes but something felt off. My tactics were not producing the smooth, silky style of play they used to in other installments of the game. What was up? Were my earlier successes flukes? Were all those comments about exploiting, hacking and cheating correct? It all came down to the shadow striker and how he behaved and interacted.
During our succession save, two most excellent forwards played a major part in the quick ascension of Depor; Internazionale's Sebastiano Esposito and a Brazilian newgen forward called Ruan. While both forwards were formidable forces on their own, our tactical tendency had quickly shifted to a single-forward setup. Neither Ruan nor Esposito was undisputed for all the managers involved. This ongoing mystery plagued the minds of the entire managerial pool. How can two obviously world-class players vacillate between quietly mediocre performances and stellar form within the course of a season?
As any seasoned player of the game knows, you can add and remove leagues to the setup of your savegame. If you have used this feature yourself, you can probably relate that at times the game adds too good, fully developed regens to teams in a newly activated league. The addition of too talented players creates an imbalance in the game world, not to mention the vast potential for human player exploits. Those of you with dastardly motives should pay attention. Strategic manipulation of the game is the point where I come in; this article will feature a few ways to game the adding and removal of leagues within your savegame. I present to you an introduction to the wonderful, majestic yet dastardly world of leaguescumming.
In the previous article in what might become an entire series, I described how you could use a customised squad view FMF-file and an Excel sheet to generate graphics that showed you how many minutes Read more
After the unexpected success of the shithousing article, I went back for more. This time we are looking at various acts of shithousery one can commit on the transfer market. If you enjoyed the previous part, you will love this one. If you did not enjoy the previous part, I recommend you not read this one.
I am not going to take credit for coming up with this style of graphic, I saw it in one of the articles over at Voetbal International and figured it looked cool enough to replicate. While I am not at all an expert in the usage of Excel, it didn't take me long to whip up something that looked reasonably good. It's a quick way to identify squad management issues and let's be honest, it looks cool in your blog or on your social media page as well.
Over the past years, especially during multiplayer matches, I have become impressed with the various acts of shithousery the game allows you to unleash upon unsuspecting opponents. In itself, shithousery is a muddled, somewhat ambiguous term. For this article, let us define it as the dark arts of football, resorted to gain an advantage over a nominally superior opponent, often by somewhat underhanded means.
Chrissy Ross shares his take on the classic 4-4-2 with us, as it's a tactical with a significant cultural interest to this day. It has given us great teams such as Sacchi’s Milan side and Ferguson’s Treble winning Manchester United team, as well as giving its name to one of the world’s most successful football lifestyle magazines. This article will provide not only an in-depth description of a functional flat 4-4-2 tactic that can win the Premier League with Bournemouth first season without transfers but also will justify and state why we should not look to discount old formations but instead should look to reinvigorate them with our modern tactical understanding of the game.
I decided I wanted to shape the development of my players a bit more. I tried to form the players coming through the ranks to better suit my brand of football, so my U18's needed an overhauled training regime. That meant looking at their development and sculpting it more to my tastes and preferences. These are the training regimes I use to do so.
What inspired the creation of this tactic is the thorough dismantling of Ajax at the hands of Getafe in this season’s Europa League fixture. The Ajax side that had humiliated Real Madrid was now taken Read more
Set piece plays are an essential aspect of the game. If you are unable to break down a particularly sturdy defence, a well-executed set piece may be all you need to pry open the defence. Hell, you can win games by making sure your offensive set pieces are good. In this blog post, I am running through the plays I am using in FM20.
The final installment in the series on understanding roles in Football Manager. In this post, we intend to look at the defenders, both central and wide.
It's 106 miles to the Bernabéu, we've got a full tank of gas, half a dozen midfielders, it's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it.
Can Scotland win not one but two World Cups? They can in FM20... If you're interested in finding out how I did it, this is the article for you. The Mjölnir tactic is how I helped Scotland achieve greatness.
If Football Manager fora and Twitter are a reliable gauge to the mood of the gaming audience, one of the main gripes of gamers everywhere seems to be deadly accurate long balls played over the top, only for a striker to escape and end up in a one-on-one situation with the goalkeeper. So how can we fix this?
This is the first tactic from a serie I have dubbed Mythology. Gungnir is a straight-forward strikerless tactic in a 4-1-2-3-0 tactic with a minor twist. In this article, you can read about what it does, how it sort of works and a download link.
“Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” Arthur Ashe. We start this post with a lovely quote from the ex-tennis player Arthur Ashe, simply because it’s exactly what we’re doing Read more
In the past, we have mentioned the Withdrawn Targetman saga and detailed various tactics built around a deep-lying, playmaking targetman — Guido’s patented targetganche. In their infinite wisdom, however, SI have not added any role Read more
Football is a game of transitions, as matches can be won or lost by alternating quickly and successfully between attack and defence. Teams like Liverpool base their style of play on these transitional moments, making deadly counter-attacks a house speciality. This shift in style for many real-life football teams has been emulated by Football Manager; ensuring your tactical system is set up to give your team the best chance of taking advantage of mistakes in the transitional phases of the opposition while similarly limiting your own risks is key to doing well in Football Manager 20.
Welcome! If you haven’t caught up to the introductory post, just click here. _____ Expectations Talking about expectations, we have no strict philosophies that we are enforced to follow. The board wants us to develop Read more
Nicolaj Bur wakes with a start. He was having that dream. Again... A stranger's barbed voice from the other side of the hotel bed, half asleep. “Bad dream, love?” A sigh, followed by a mumbled, half-hearted response. “Something like that.” A comforting pat on the arm. What Nicolaj needs is a more sympathetic ear. Someone who understands him.
With the release of FM20, we can now use Inverted Wingers as a new wide option. So what is an Inverted Winger exactly and how is this role any different from the Inside Forward (and Advanced Playmaker)?
To me, one of the most exciting parts of a new version of Football Manager means perusing the new database: uncovering hidden gems, building them up and then wreaking strikerless havoc with them. This shortlist consists of my findings so far.
A guest series by Rien102 details his tactical analysis of an oncoming opponent in great detail. This is part III, the last part, of a short series.