Things have, fairly obviously, been coming together pretty well over the last few seasons at Karlsruher SC and I was looking to get at least one more season in before deciding whether or not to make the jump to FM2015. Would it be another good season though?
The answer is yes, but just how good?
TACTICS AND THOUGHT PROCESSES
Just to recap, without going back into detail, over the past two or three seasons we’ve seen a distinct move towards a narrow tactical setup. The primary principle driving that process has been the idea of encouraging our opponents to play wide and rely on crosses into the box – statistically speaking, both in FM and real life, crosses have a relatively low success rate.
To encourage that approach in our opponents we opt for a narrow and heavily populated midfield spine, this leaves our flanks relatively unguarded, makes it difficult for the opposition to play through our central areas in front of the back four, and as an added bonus gives us a well-balanced core through which we can channel the ball in our own attacks.
In terms of width our Wingbacks then maraud, giving us an alternative outlet when we do get forward and the opposition decides to sit narrow to counter our numbers. Our tactical set looks like this.
The newest thing in there is #3, and the minor tweak I made to @MerryGuido’s attacking tactic that I hinted at last time out.
I began the 2020/21 campaign playing with a mixture of these tactics, and when we left things last time out we were sitting in a solid 2nd place behind Schalke.
Despite an early (second round) exit from the German Cup (DFB-Pokal) we continued in fine form, including a more-than respectable Champions League group-stage campaign, and arrived at the halfway point of the domestic season undefeated. Only Barcelona, on their own ground, were able to deny us points in the run through to the winter break.
I would like to put it all down to excellent judgement on my part, but it would be foolish to suggest that there wasn’t some luck involved too. My general approach, given the relative strength of our squad by this point, was to start out aggressively against stronger sides in an effort to force them to defend. Against weaker sides we’d take a more conservative approach.
This may feel counter-intuitive but my thinking behind it feels reasonable. Given the freedom to push forward, stronger sides would be able to keep us penned into our own half; if we can’t get out of the half then we can’t score, if we can’t score then we have to hope that they don’t either – unlikely.
Against weaker sides we would often field a greater proportion of backup/development players, and a more ‘disciplined’ approach would assist in ensuring that they didn’t get drawn out of position. In addition weaker sides would often look to defend against us, if we also sit back somewhat then we encourage them to get more adventurous – before you know it, they’re leaving gaps at the back for us to exploit.
Clearly it worked out, although it has to be recognised that it wasn’t easy. I have a preference for ‘Determined’ players in Football Manager, those with a rating into the teens ideally, and I’ve previously mentioned that high Work Rate was also a key factor for me in assembling the Karlsruhe squad; factors that I'm convinced helped us out.
In the half-season played to this point we were trailing, at some point, in four games that we went on to win and another three that we eventually drew – a theme that would continue throughout. Sometimes I’d make changes, completely switching tactics, sometimes I’d trust that we had the will to turn the game around.
WINTER BREAK
Not a lot of business was done on the player front, as I was happy with the overall quality of the squad by that point – as happy as I could be, at least, within the sort of wage structure that I was trying to maintain. Nillo was a solid if unspectacular performer, whilst the £2m capture of Kim Young-Hun was already starting to look like an absolute steal. The Korean alternated between covering for Jon Williams in the AP/Enganche slot, and operating as our Shadow Striker.
The only further arrival in the winter break was that of Oleg Kaliev, from rivals Stuttgart. A 6’7” beast of a defender signed with one eye on the future – our first choice pairing of Touré and Wieteska are unlikely to be displaced, but Ryan Donk is getting on in years and is unlikely to see another season of regular football.
ONWARDS, EVER ONWARDS
The second half of the season started out nicely, with three fairly comfortable victories before we faced back-to-back games with Dortmund and Bayern. At that point I already had one eye firmly on the retention (for a third year) of our Bundesliga crown, but little more than that.
After we turned around a two-goal deficit at Dortmund I was feeling optimistic. By the time we clawed back a point from Bayern I began to dare to think the unthinkable.
If anything our qualification from the Champions League group became a distraction, as much as I wanted to try and push for greater heights in Europe the lure of an unbeaten season was too great to be ignored – we beat Paris Saint-Germain over two legs, but I’ll happily admit fielding a reduced strength squad against Barcelona just to ensure that we had maximum strength for the league games.
The 5-0 pasting we took in Spain was painful, and I had to hope that it wouldn’t dent our moral too much. The 3-3 draw we managed at home, coming from 1-0 and 3-1 down, was better and set us up from the key game of our Bundesliga campaign as we travelled Gelsenkirchen to face Schalke.
In for a penny, in for a pound, I went with the attacking tactics from the get-go. Originally we won the match 6-0, which had me literally dancing around the room - until my PC decided to reboot itself before I could get through the post-match screens and save the game. You can imagine the sort of reaction that got, but fortunately it proved not to be a total fluke.
With just three games to see out the ‘Invincibles’ achievement was beginning to look a very real prospect indeed. A nervy but dominant 1-0 win against Hannover was followed by a nail-biting trip to Wolfsburg, where we managed to emerge with a point despite putting only a single shot on target - Dennis Dahl proving to be our saviour on more than one occasion.
As if to further prove a point about our resilience, we then rounded off the season against Hamburger SV in a game where, contrary to the run of play, we found ourselves in this position at half time...
Cue Jon Williams, and a low drive from 20 yards out to seal the point and earn me this...
So, for the last* time, here’s the season-ending detail for Karlsruher SC (or Der KSC as they’re affectionately known)
*(for the time being?)
THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN
I don’t know what the future holds, but I am intending to take a run at FM 2015 – for a while at least. I’ll be keeping my Karlsruhe save, and may well return to it at some point, but those intentions don’t always pan out. If I do, it’s likely to be purely on a casual basis so I can’t say for sure whether they’ll ever grace the blog again.
Talking of the blog, I suspect that there may be something of a change in direction going forward – assuming that I can find the time to continue to write updates (I want to, it’s just a case of being about ten times as busy as I was a couple of months ago).
I set out to use the blog as a medium through which to explore and learn more about the tactical side of the game. Whilst I can say that I have learned something, I’m not sure that I’m ever going to reach the levels of understanding so evident in many of the guys I interact with on Twitter, I simply don’t have the ‘eye’ to see what a lot of them (you!) see when watching matches. I will continue to strive to do so, but my progress is unlikely to make for entertaining reading in its own right – past updates will show that I have more of an ear for a narrative than a detailed discourse on tactical minutiae.
What I think will happen is that, for FM 2015, the blog will become more about ‘learning’ how to succeed in that particular game. There will, of course, be tactical elements in it – I’m already picking up little bits and pieces that hint at ‘verticality’ and direct play being the way to go, but that will all depend upon the club I choose to manage.
I’ll also cover more around my general thought-processes relating to squad building, development of the club facilities and staff, and dealing with the inevitable egos and demands of the players. If I do say so myself, I’ve generally been a pretty successful CM/FM player, and given my relatively modest tactical knowledge that would suggest that I’m generally doing things the right way in other areas.
So where next then? I’m not entirely sure, a couple of people on Twitter suggested Roma – and I had a quick look, but their demands for attacking football didn’t do me any favours whilst I was trying to get a foothold. I was also guilty of trying to immediately transplant the successful FM 2014 tactics and squeeze the Roma players into them. Bad idea.
I’ll probably play with Blackburn for a while, just so that I can get used to the new layout and interface against a familiar backdrop. Once the full game is launched I’ll have a closer look, although I’m leaning towards starting in one of the lower playable leagues in Scandinavia – a region that I’ve never played in earlier incarnations.
For the time being I‘ll bid you Auf Wiedersehen from Karlsruhe...
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