Here's the notes I made as I went along. I'll refer to Jonathon throughout - as in Jonathon Aspey...
IN ACTION – TWO EXTREMES
THE MINNOWS
Given the way the German game works, with a season-opening DFB-Pokal (German Cup) game away to lower-seeded opponents, it seems like the ideal opportunity to have a first look at our most recent tactical ploy in competitive action. We played with it for much of the pre-season schedule, to get it as close as possible to fluid in terms of tactical familiarity, and it makes sense to keep doing that.
With every respect to Altona 93 there’s certainly no need for us to approach the game with a Defensive mentality but it’s good practise and, after all, the idea of this particular tactic is that it may be defensive in name but it shouldn’t lack an offensive edge.
Jonathon didn’t give a lot of detail away around settings, perhaps deliberately, so for the time being I’ve simply gone with ‘Hassle Opponents’ (which he explicitly mentioned), and ‘Work Ball Into Box’ to cut down on long shots - something that is pretty much a default setting for me in all formations.
In terms of player instructions, aside from the ‘Move Into Channels’ for the two AM players – as suggested by Jonathon – the only tweak I’ve made so far is to ‘Shoot Less Often’ on the wingbacks; they seemed quite wasteful in pre-season. With better finishers I might reconsider this, I’m also considering playing ‘inverted’ wingbacks (left-footer on the right, and vice-versa) so that anyone shooting should be seeing a decent strike curl in towards goal rather than away. Whilst I expect that we will see goals from our wingbacks, any move towards making these primary finishers will be longer term, requiring the development or purchase of more appropriate personnel.
Altona’s starting shape is a standard 4-4-2, which should be ideal to fall into the ‘trap’ of our approach. As such I set up Opposition Instructions to show their wide midfield men outside, and try and keep the play there. From early on the press is evident, with our AP, BWM, and CWB-L all closing down Altona’s right wing player.
There are passes open but both are backwards, and one is even wider to the fullback. The inside option sees a receiver who is in a position to be pressed from multiple sides, the wide option just shifts the current problem deeper along the touchline.
Throughout the first half, when Altona get possession their first thought is to take play out wide and, with the aid of the sideline, their options are severely limited.
Meanwhile, in attack, just to prove there’s not a lot ‘defensive’ about us going forward...
A quick break, and Ducksch (SS) goes close with a near-post header into the side netting. That’s as many bodies forward as I usually see with the 4-3-2-1 in a ‘Control’ mentality.
A few minutes later and we get the goal with even more men offering options – actually it’s the second goal, the first having come from a corner. This is the reverse angle...
A nice cut-back from the young wingback meets Ducksch’s late run; it’s an easy finish. Again, the opposition may not be of the highest order and we may not get the luxury of these numbers against better organised sides, but it amply illustrates that Defensive mentality doesn’t mean a defensive approach to the match.
At 25 minutes, and 2-0 down, Altona switch to a narrow 5-4-1 formation
Whether this is just something that they think will shore up their defence, or whether they’re looking for numerical parity in the middle of the park, I’m not really sure; what is evident is that they still tend towards wide play going forward, feeding everything out to their wingbacks. Anything that does come to their MCL or MCR simply results in a hopeful lofted ball forward to a well-marked striker or AMC.
At half time here’s some of the analysis, in the form of passing charts. Not only are Altona unable (or unwilling) to attempt to play through our centre, but they’re focussed almost entirely down a single flank – the flank that our Ball Winning Midfielder is closest to. Result.
As for us, we have the run of the middle of the park and you can see the joy that our wingbacks are getting.
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| Half-Time Passing Charts : Altona (left) and Karlsruhe (right) |
The second half sees a third goal, Mitrovic’s first for the club in competitive football, and a second assist for young Braun (#27). It’s a comprehensive win, and a good first outing for the tactic. Once again I do realise that the opposition is very much on the weaker end of the scale, but it gives us sufficient evidence of how the tactic ‘should’ perform when we’re on our game. It will also act as a useful benchmark as and when we encounter any difficulties against teams of our own stature (or greater).
For illustrative purposes here’s our average position map, which shows how adventurous the wingbacks can be, along with Altona’s final pass map. Note the lack of significant action in the central area of our final third, even when we do play tougher opposition I expect this to be the sort of pattern we see - although it's unlikely to be as clear cut as this example.
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| Left: Karlsruhe Average Positions - Right: Altona Pass Chart (full-time) |
THE GIANTS
The useful thing is that, having road-tested it against minnows, our league opener is against FC Bayern in their own back yard. I can’t think of a better way to step it up to the big game, and to get a ‘compare and contrast’ result for the two ends of the spectrum.
The match odds for the game put Bayern as 4-6 favourites, with us at 7-2. We’ve never won against the champions, and have only scored once – a 1-1 home draw in 2016. We have taken 3 points from our previous six league meetings though, and have never suffered worse than a 2-0 defeat (on two occasions). All things considered I go into the game somewhat nervously, fighting the urge to revert to our ‘attack is the best form of defence’ approach.
On the bright side the passing map for Bayern, at the end of the first half, shows that the formation continues to force play largely down the flanks. On the down side an early penalty has given them the lead, and it’s been all one way traffic; we’ve barely been out of our own half, not entirely surprising given the quality of Bayern’s playing roster.
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| Half-Time Passing Charts : FC Bayern (left) and Karlsruhe (right) |
Whilst it may seem counter-intuitive to some, my approach to playing 'bigger' teams has generally been a more adventurous one, at least attempting to make them do some defending of their own. Sticking with the shape, which is definitely doing something right – putting the ball where we want to see it – things get tweaked a little at half time. I’m interested to see how it performs on a Standard mentality, and with a touch of direct passing thrown into the mix.
If it works reasonably well then, in the longer term, I may be tempted to take a good look at jpcote09's excellent 'Tricking the Wizard' post over at the SIGames forum. He covers, in quite some detail, the different settings that Mentality changes affect; Jonathon's formation and roles all look good for forcing opponents to play down the flanks, so maybe I can stick to that whilst finding a middle ground between the Defensive mentality and a more adventurous one.
Eight minutes into the second half and it’s back on Counter (as a halfway house), after Wieteska tucks away the penalty that our first meaningful foray into the final third produces.
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| Full-Time Passing Chart : FC Bayern |
Given our generally conservative approach, and the sheer quality of their superstar line-up, I'm not at all surprised to see Bayern make more inroads into our central defensive zone once we started to push forward more. Even then, however, much of their play in that area has been lateral passes to work the ball into the wide spots; that's not entirely surprising, as they're playing a 4-1-4-1 and their 'wingers' are clearly the main supply lines to Lewandoski up front.
The 1-1 scoreline is an excellent result for us, all things considered, but whilst the lack of attacking threat is understandable, it is a concern. Over the coming games I expect that we’ll be mixing things up a bit to try and ensure we get some early points on the board.
(A couple of days after writing this update, and several games further into the season, I raised the question of Mentality and Role tweaks on the Dugout.net thread for the tactic. Whilst a more positive Mentality can clearly be beneficial, I'm thinking that a couple of the individual Roles may need reining in a little. Further experimentation is in order).
FURTHER (ON THE) ROAD-TESTING
Following a brief foray into 4-2-3-1* for the visit of HSV, another game where we were touted as underdogs was the trip to Wolfsburg so I ran with the narrow 4-1-2-2-1 formation again. The results were similar to the Bayern game in terms of the focus of Wolfsburg’s play, although we did produce a much better display in terms of getting into the last third. The scoreline was also similar, this time the hosts taking the lead from a corner – poor reactions on the part of our defence – before we pulled one back on the break.
*(I'm really liking what I've seen from the compact/narrow midfield arrangement in the 4-1-2-2-1, and have already started to tweak our 4-2-3-1 option to pull one or both of the Inside Forwards into more central positions. This is, in part, an effort to encourage the opposition to play wide; it's also an attempt to overload their back four, and the all too common defensive midfielders present in the German game).
It’s hard to be unhappy with either the Bayern or Wolfsburg results, but one thing I’m concerned with so far is the performances of Mitrovic at the spearhead. It may just be a case of him needing to settle, and the squad gelling, but just one goal – against non-league opposition, in the cup – is far from ideal. In the three league games played so far, during which he’s played all but 17 minutes, the striker has had only a single shot – against Wolfsburg. I’ll need to keep a close eye on him to see what going on.
A couple of further games follow. Here are our results for the season so far, I've highlighted those games in which we played with the 4-1-2-2-1 formation.
Against Mainz I ran the formation, but with a Standard mentality throughout. The hosts edged us in terms of chances, and saw more of the ball in our central defensive areas; that's entirely understandable as a less defensive mentality will naturally see our Regista and BWM pushing further up the pitch. On this occasion I didn't tweak their roles to compensate (per above reference back to the dugout.net thread), but I will adopt that approach at times in the season ahead.
Against Atlético we reverted to the Defensive style, with notable results. Unfortunately, despite bossing the game, we fell to a couple of goals where poor marking let us down against crosses from wide - the tactic is still doing what it's designed to, we just need to tighten up to deal with the 'advantage' that we're giving our opponents.
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| Atlético Passing Chart |
THE NEW AMIGO
I’ve been running the Three Amigos feature for a while, and Patrick Bauer has been a part of it from the outset. I believe that he’s pretty much the finished article now; not top class by any standards but I’ve got him about as far as he can go in terms of significant development, and his consistently good ratings indicate that he's become a more than competent option.
With that decision made it’s time to drop him from the feature and introduce a new face, Rüdiger Braun who I mentioned in my last update as someone who may come into play as a fullback/wingback option – and who, as you can see from our opening game, played a significant role on his debut. Here he is.
He’s currently being tutored in an effort to increase his Determination (tutor = 19), and is on a generic Wing Back training program for the time being. I’ll be looking to mix that up with some specific focus around Marking and Crossing, to dovetail with our team training which tends to be a combination of ‘Balanced’ and ‘Ball Control’ during the season.
I have high hopes for Braun, and it seems that Wolfsburg do too as I’ve spent most of the last few days of the transfer window turning down £5m bids for him. As I started to do with our young Czech contingent (Mares, Hasek, and Bednar), I’ll be looking to get him plenty of game time for the first team to aid his development, but also to ensure that he realises that he’s part of our plans.
It's early days in the season, but we're in a decent fourth position and unbeaten after five games. I'll be back soon with more updates on the first half of the campaign, in the meantime if you have any observations or advice then please feel free to drop something in the Comments below - or catch me on Twitter at @flipsix3_FM.
Cheers.
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