Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey - Football Manager 2013

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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 22, 13 at 7:31pm ^ Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Log in to remove this sponsored message Standard de Liege - A Journey of Tactical Discovery A Brief Introduction I will start off just by quickly telling you what inspired me to start this journey. Having played Football Manager and the Championship Manager series before it for over 15 years, this edition is the first to really force me to understand my tactics at a higher level. Previously I found the game fairly easy after finding the right players to play how I wanted to, which was quick strikers latching onto killer through balls. My most successful saves of recent editions were AC Milan on 2011 with Pato being the key to all things, scoring 50+ goals per season. On the 2012 edition my Stade Malherbe Caen side became the number one team in the world after 6 seasons due almost entirely to Mbaye Niang's god-like goal scoring feats. However, this years version sees the introduction of a new Match Engine (lets leave criticism for another time) and more critically, the "Collision Detection System" which makes it much harder for players like Pato and Niang to dribble through and breeze past defenders. As such I have had to change the way I approach the game, and by documenting this journey I hope to give an insight on how others can do this too. Why Standard? So, why did I choose Standard Liege, basically I wanted a club that is competitive in their own league, with a good youth set-up and a chance to compete effectively in Europe in later years. Belgium as a nation seems to be on the cusp of a "Golden Generation" with the likes of Hazard, Kompany, Fellaini, Miralles, Lukaku and Benteke just to name a few. I would like my youth products to have the ability to move into a well regarded national team that will allow them to compete for international trophies. This is also an experiment to see if I can drag the Belgian domestic league up the rankings. No More Prattle - The Squad Well, without going on about it too much more, below is the starting squad at Standard Liege (Note: Using Chels's Winter Update) As you can see from the Assistant Ratings there is quite a strong squad here with two players standing out; Frederic Bulot and Michy Batshuayi. Both are young players yet to reach their potential, and as you will see, with a little bit of care, can become the stars of your team. There are no obvious weaknesses, young loanee Luiz Phellype can be sent back to his club as he will play no part in Standard's future. The first problem that will jump out at you is that there is only one natural full back for each side of the pitch, and only one natural right sided attacking player. Closer examination of Paul-Jose Mpoku reveals he is actually a right footed, albeit left-sided, player and with a little training he could easily fill in on the right side. Now this thread is more about the tactical journey than any sort of team guide, so I am going to refrain from going through the strengths and weaknesses of every player, only highlighting the area's critical to tactical development. Youth Squads - Potentiality Now is where it gets exciting, the level of youth player at Standard is fantastic, particularly the Under 19's Squad, with an average Start rating of more than 3.5 Stars. One player stands out though, Imoh Ezekiel, and we will talk more about him later on when I detail my training and tutoring set up. Tactics - The Beginning Now, after assessing the squad I have to devise a tactic. Much like Ajax, I want to have a tactical philosophy that runs throughout the club, and waiver from it very little. My training of my youth players will be based around creating players to suit my tactic, not making adjustments to my tactic to suit the players. I have decided to go for a popular modern tactic, the 4-5-1 with a deep holding midfielder. This is very similar to the way Barcelona play, and perhaps one day I will have a talented enough squad to emulate their success. Using the Tactic Creator I have generated what is basically a "Blank Slate" 4-5-1 with everything left on default. The only thing I know for sure that I will be using this season are specialist roles (i.e. Deep Lying Playmaker, Ball Playing Defender) and as I don't want these specialists pulled into other positional roles throughout the match I will be using a rigid philosophy. As I play the friendly matches in pre-season I will make adjustments to the finer points of the tactic, but things will be left rather loose as I will be using shouts to influence my players during the match. If you manually override the sliders then the shouts will not adjust them and become near useless. Signings - Do I need them? As my main goal in Season 1 is to compete for the league title, I feel the squad at my disposal is already good enough. As I pointed out earlier there are no glaring weaknesses, so I won't be venturing into the transfer market just yet. Instead I will use the funds to revamp my back room staff and invest in youth and facility upgrades. ------------------------------------------------------------- That will be it for now, in the next edition I will go through how I set up training, preferred moves and tutoring as well as detail how my friendlies went, what I changed and my revised thoughts on what I would like my tactic to achieve. general discussion
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Euphoric au contraire Neo: Essential since: Apr 2006	Feb 22, 13 at 7:51pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Good stuff mate this looks like it could be really interesting. I've been meaning to do something similar with Brisbane once the new update is out. I've always enjoyed having a philosophy and sticking to it while trying to foster it all the way through clubs. The new game is proving like a good time to go deeper into it. Looking forward to seeing the development of your tactic. What's the update you are using like? and where do you get it? ------------------- Gumdrop Fields
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 22, 13 at 9:03pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	The update I use can be found on these forums. Be aware that as well as the transfers some players have had their attributes updated and this may impact your enjoyment a little. I'm away from my computer at the moment but hope to have part 2 up tonight. I really want to focus on ny youth and getting the best out of them rather than just selling off any that are 3 stars or less.
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justplayingitcool This comment has Chuck Norris' approval Resident Neo total posts: 2984 since: Apr 2008	Feb 22, 13 at 11:28pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	This is really well done and well thought out, I congratulate you. I'll admit that I haven't got into a game since my unemployment challenge save. I might try it out with this team! ------------------- quote Shave ya Head justplayingitcool is the master of everything, the beginning and the end, overseer of all. He is a god. The only god. We must serve our master.
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 23, 13 at 12:15am ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Well I'd certainly like the extra insight and experiences of other people playing as Standard. I will go into detail about how I intend to develop my tactic and will keep you up to date with my youth players progress. I need to find some decent tutors though and they won't be available until season 2.
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Maski Football Lounge Member Of The Year N'Somniac total posts: 4678 since: Jul 2007	Feb 23, 13 at 3:15am ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	With a rigid strategy like that and with neither of your CM's being in 'Attack' mode, aren't you prone to getting a bit short of numbers when you're attacking due to your Striker dropping deep and playing with wingers instead of one IF?
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ArwelT Cardiff Cittttttaaayyyyy! Still Seekin' total posts: 3486 since: Oct 2009	Feb 23, 13 at 3:47am ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	quote Maski With a rigid strategy like that and with neither of your CM's being in 'Attack' mode, aren't you prone to getting a bit short of numbers when you're attacking due to your Striker dropping deep and playing with wingers instead of one IF? quote Phelix Using the Tactic Creator I have generated what is basically a "Blank Slate" 4-5-1 with everything left on default. The only thing I know for sure that I will be using this season are specialist roles (i.e. Deep Lying Playmaker, Ball Playing Defender) and as I don't want these specialists pulled into other positional roles throughout the match I will be using a rigid philosophy. As others have said, looks interesting. Will be good to see this developing.
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 23, 13 at 1:50pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	quote Maski With a rigid strategy like that and with neither of your CM's being in 'Attack' mode, aren't you prone to getting a bit short of numbers when you're attacking due to your Striker dropping deep and playing with wingers instead of one IF? I haven't played a match yet. When I pick my first squad there will be slight changes to the player roles. The tactic will evolve over the opening stages of the season based on analysis and input from you guys.
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 23, 13 at 3:15pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Training - Chicken and the Egg Lets talk about how I am going to train my players. Previously the first thing I would do is set up an intensive pre-season training schedule with a focus on getting the team to gel and learn my tactical set-up. I see training as a little bit like the Chicken and the Egg situation. In the end, good performances is what I want, but training can be approached two ways. 1. Getting the team to know your tactics and each other. This will help your teams overall performances, and in turn improve morale and the players will improve their attributes more quickly. 2. Focusing on individual training performance to achieve a higher calibre of player. This will give you better players who will in turn be better able to win you football matches. It comes down to what you really want to achieve with the club. In this game I don't intend to buy any ready made players, I have to concentrate solely on getting the very best out of what I have so I will be going on focus number 2. In the pre-season I have my general training set to "Team Cohesion" and the intensity set to "High". The match training will be on "Tactics Only" to allow my team to become familiar with my tactical wishes. Individual Training - Getting the best from your players We have a couple of options here, we can either micro-manage each and every player, changing their individual focus (attribute) each time they reach the level of improvement you decide is adequate, or we can set them to focus on a specific role, which will cycle through the key attributes of the selected role. I don't know a lot about my players yet, so I will be training them in specific roles to have a wider attribute increase. Take a look at each of your players and decide how you can get the best out of them, improving weaknesses, or focusing on their strengths. This will differ based on their position. A striker can afford to have weaknesses in tackling and marking, but a midfielder who is a good finisher would also benefit from good defensive stats. Don't be afraid to train a player in a role that is not where you would play them. The role training is separate from positional training and is only used as a guide as to what attributes will be focused on. To understand which attributes will be trained, open a players attribute screen and in the top right you can select "Highlight Key Attributes For" and that will show you exactly what attributes will be trained when you select a positional/role based focus in training. You will notice that almost all the players are on "Heavy Intensity". Those that aren't are the players I have learning Player Preferred Moves. I would prefer they learn the move more quickly so I drop the focus intensity to allow a greater amount of time spent learning the new move. Once the move is complete I will increase the intensity again. Player Preferred Moves - PPM's These have become more important in this edition of Football Manager. They can be the key to a players success and allow greater flexibility in a tactic than sliders and checkboxes ever could. The ideal time for a player to learn new PPM's is between 15 and 21. Though older players can learn them, it will take longer and has a lower chance of success. It can take anywhere from 3-6 months to learn a PPM and you can effectively teach a player up to 3 PPM's per year. Think about players in real life who you would like to have emulated in your tactic, this will give you an idea of what PPM's to teach to which players. The easiest way of teaching PPM's is to get a tutor who knows the PPM you want to impart and have him tutor your young player. There is a high chance that the PPM will be passed along the line. Infact there are some PPM's that can only be learned this way. There are a few players I will be teaching PPM's to straight away and let me show you one of them; Imoh Ezekiel. As you can see he is a top quality prospect, and at 18 years of age is ripe for knowledge. He currently has no PPM's and I think he game can benefit from quite a few. To begin with I want to influence the way he moves around the pitch. You can see he has great pace and agility so movement is one of his strengths, I want to exploit this. He has a good off the ball stat, but his anticipation isn't great so if I can use a PPM to get him in better positions then he will hopefully score more goals. I will be training him with the PPM "Moves Into Channels" as I will be playing a lone striker system and I don't want him to get stuck trying to stay between the two centre backs. I will also give my wingers a bit of freedom to move inside and hopefully this will pull the oppositions defence out of shape. Tutoring I will touch briefly on tutoring now, as I don't have a lot of suitable tutors in my squad, with it being a very young team. Tutoring is extremely effective at improving a players personality. Their personality is made up mostly of hidden stats like Ambition and Professionalism as well as their determination and other mental attributes. Personality directly affects the attitude with which a player approaches training and matches, which means the better the attitude, the better they train, the better they play, the more matches you win. Don't be afraid to sign older players simply as tutors, without the intention of ever playing them. You will see as I progress through the seasons this is exactly what I will do to ensure I get the best out of my players. Note: We wouldn't have to do this if SI let former players who are now coaches be selected as tutors for young players.
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 23, 13 at 7:16pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Tactical set up - Friendly Matches Ok so I am about to begin my friendly matches, nothing significant except for a Friendly Cup including Feyenoord, Dusseldorf and Burnley. Upon picking my squad for my first friendly (I always try and pick my strongest squad available for the first match) I noticed straight away that I would have to make adjustments to the "Blank Slate's" role assignments. Namely, my fullbacks both like to get forward, meaning they are going to push up into similar positions to that of my wingers, I wanted to harness this so with Opare I gave him an attacking duty as he clearly has the work rate and stamina to get up and down the pitch. With Pocognoli however, he has the PPM "Gets forward whenever possible" so I left him on a support duty, knowing that he is going to get forward regardless and I don't want him hanging out down the pitch all too often. I adjusted the central midfield to provide more balance. Going for a Deep Lying Playmaker > Defend in the DMC slot, allowing us to build the play from inside our own half, and also having a player deep who is capable of breaking up opposition attacks. I intend to play with a high defensive line and force teams into long balls, so this position is key in snuffing out the long pass. I also want the keeper to distribute to Pocognoli who is my most technically gifted defender, but keepers have a tendency to ignore distribution instructions, so I don't hold out much hope here. Lastly, I don't want to select a target man or play maker in the team instructions as I want to see what the natural tendencies of my squad are. Here are some screenshots from my first friendly match: You can see from the heat-map that I cover a good area of the pitch with my formation and even my loan striker is not isolated too far from my creative players. As I get better players through the squad I will try and push the defensive line higher and play a little more compact to restrict the opposition to long balls and long shots. As you can see, even without being told, my team utilises the DLP who had a respectable 90+ passes in the match. The only shout I used in this match was "Push up higher" and as a result we really restricted the room the opposition had to work with, as we also played a rigid philosophy my defensive line held its shape and we forced the opposition to shoot from distance, as evidenced by the shot's analysis. Overall we played a very handy first match, and I look forward to blooding some young players throughout the rest of the pre-season and working on getting the team playing with the right structure to make the most of the 4-5-1. Post-Friendly Wrap Up Ok, my pre-season is done and all in all things went very well. I will re-cap what I have learned. - My squad's natural inclination is to play a short passing game. With the passing set to default, we still manage to win the possession battle without it being laid out as a goal of my tactic. I will note this for later and work towards harnessing my teams ability to retain the ball. - My DMC, currently set as a Deep Lying Playmaker > Defend is the hub of my team. Regardless of the fact that I set the distribution to Pocognoli, most of my attacks begin with the DLP, which is exactly what I want. The best part is I didn't have to set a "Playmaker" in the instructions to achieve this, which means my team will use their own decisions and vision to decide whether the best option is to pass to the DLP, meaning we won't always be one-dimensional. - A deep lying forward is not suitable for this formation with the current wide players. I needed to bring my striker into the game a little more. As a DLF he would drop too deep, my wingers would get forward and have no-one to pick out with a cross. Advanced forward yielded some success during later friendlies and is how I will start the season, perhaps moving to a poacher role if I feel that I don't need the extra man in the build up. As you can see, I pushed a good Feyenoord side all the way to penalties, and in that match I even won the possession battle, finishing just above 55% against a technically superior side. Quite happy despite losing on penalties. The following match was a lot more one sided than the score suggests, two late goals when we already had the match in the bag really don't reflect the way we outplayed the Germans. From here on out I will update probably 3-4 times a season, highlighting anything that I feel will be valuable information. I hope to challenge for the title and get Standard back into Europe this season, so fingers crossed.
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11kgm Relentless total posts: 9042 since: Oct 2007	Feb 24, 13 at 1:46am ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	This is amazing if it was a SOM i would say it was the best i have seen. I have loved the way it is written very well worded easy to read and good use of the graphics ------------------- Credit to Messa113
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 24, 13 at 1:16pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Yeh I didn't really intend for it to be a SOMS, more an insight into how I have to approach the game now and a starting point for more in-depth tactical discussions. I had to make a few signings right before the transfer deadline actually. I lost both my 'Keepers to injury forcing me to loan in a backup, and I also lost all 4 of my strikers, so I signed Wesley Sonck as a short term measure and also a potential tutor, but I will speak about that in the December update.
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 26, 13 at 12:10am ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Struggling Well it's now almost February and I would be lying if I said this has been smooth sailing. After some horrific injuries, including losing my best striker to injury for the season, the team has only just found some form in January. The formation never really kicked on as the friendly matches suggested it would and I found myself in charge of a squad with very low morale and hardly any goal-scoring ability. I pushed on through the rough stuff, persisting with my 4-5-1 and eventually came out the other side with some form. Having clawed my way back up the ladder from 12th to 4th I should at least make the Championship Group at the end of the regular season. I haven't been very active in the transfer market, but one good thing did happen in January, Victor Ramos, a Brazilian centre back rejoined the club after a loan spell with Vitoria and will partner very nicely with the incredible Jelle Van Damme. Here are some screenshots; As you can see, we are still in with a shout, but will need to concentrate to get the required results. The absolute heart of my squad, averaging almost 8 this season, a truly great club captain. Van Damme's new partner in the center of defence, should prove capable. My only real striker since Ogunjimi got injured, not ready for first team football but I really had little choice. Has performed fairly well despite some obvious weaknesses. The improvement in form changed when I finally got my midfield combinations right. I was getting down the flanks without issue, but once in the final third my wingers had no options and had to delay on the ball before being tackled and losing possession. I switched both the more advanced central midfielders to "Box to Box" to let them charge into the box once my wingers get forward. The tactic is still evolving and as I get a better calibre of player we will work toward a more natural style of play like that of Barcelona, though it will be a long time before I get a Busquets or a Xavi to control the midfield. Anyway, I am in the quarter finals of the Belgian Cup and should be able to press on and claim the Championship and a place in Europe despite my woeful start to the season. I will keep you informed of my progress.
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Phelix Description: Wonderkid Two much Neo total posts: 2449 since: Feb 2008	Feb 27, 13 at 11:11pm ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	The Cream Always Rises To The Top It was a struggle and after finishing 4th at the end of the regular season I moved into the Championship Group quietly confident that I could sneak into 1st place and win a group stage spot in the Champions League. Some incredible form from Frederic Bulot, Jelle Van Damme and William Vainqueur lifted the squad and we managed to win the championship in the final game of the season against 2nd placed Beerschot. Tactically I had to embrace the skill of William Vainqueur and make him the hub of the center of my midfield. I switch the DM position to Anchor Man > Defend to break up attacks and simply feed the ball from the defence to Vainqueur who has the PPM's "Dictates Tempo" and "Dwells on Ball" meaning he would naturally slow the game down and meant the movement of my wide players became more important. My right fullback had more time to overlap the AMR who had been set to inside forward at this point and became a dangerous weapon when crossing the ball in from the byline. Sebastien Pocognoli had a natural tendency to cut inside, as Bulot had been taught to stay wide, this often caused trouble for opposition defences as they couldn't deal with the extra man on the edge of the area as their winger stayed wide and didn't follow infield. Things really clicked and we had some great matches, while remaining really tight at the back thanks to Jelle Van Damme and the ever improving 'keeper Anthony Moris. Youth Intake - Potential The Belgian youth intakes take place in March and I was so caught up in the game I forgot to update about it. The board had agreed to upgrade the facilities but that wasn't completed in time for the first youth intake. I still managed however to produce one very good prospect and a handful of players who may well go on to play some part in my first team in the years to come. Mael Aubert is only 16 and played just 1 game for the Belgium Under 19's before being moved to the Under 21's squad. He got one start, due to an injury to Pocognoli, and 3 appearances from the bench in his first 2 months at the club. He certainly has a bright future in the game. He is naturally right footed, despite being a left sided player, so I will likely retrain him to play on the right side as I have youngster Matt Debra who starts at the club at 16 years of age. Another top class youth prospect at the club, another real player no-less, is Sebastien Locigno, a right back with some potential, though due to Aubert being retrained as a right back I will probably push Locigno further forward as he has some great attacking ability. Transfer Market - A Little Too Excited After securing Champions League status I was a little too active in the transfer market. I was looking almost exclusively for players with at least a Professional personality to act as tutors for my young players. Due to my issues up front last season I was concentrating on finding a striker. Eventually though I noticed that Alberto Paloschi was available and I jumped at the chance to sign him when I noticed he has a Professional Personality, and at 23 years of age is ready to tutor my young strikers. The problem I faced though is that while looking at Diego Reyes as a midfield option (turned out to not be interested) I noticed that one Carlos Fierro was extremely interested in joining the club and was available for only 4 million. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to sign such a wonderful talent and went for him as well. Now I play with one striker, yet have Paloschi, Fierro and Batshuayi to rotate through. The only justification I made in regards to Fierro is that I probably wont be able to keep hold of him and he could be a very sizeable pay-day for the club. Before the emergence of Locigno, I was playing former Real Madrid trainee Daniel Opare at right back, he wasn't really cutting the mustard so I let him go as I had already planned to sign young Brazilian right back Romario on a free transfer in the summer. Retraining Due to the arrival of Paloschi and Fierro, young Prospect Imoh Ezekiel is going to have to switch positions to find game time. Due to his pace and finishing he will be a great inside forward from the wide positions, so I am going to retrain him to AMR as that is the position where he will find more game time this season. I had a successful pre-season, winning the Belgian Super Cup in emphatic style with a 4-0 drubbing of last seasons league runners-up Beerschot. Tactially I have kept things very similar to the way I finished last year, though I am hoping to score a few more goals this year with the ability of Paloschi up front. I will probably look to drop him out of the build up play and keep him high up the pitch to pin back the opposition defence and allow some more room to move for my AML and AMR. Centrally I have, as previously noted, reverted to an anchor man at DM to link defence and midfield, while employing both an attacking playmaker and deeplying playmaker side by side in the center of midfield. This should allow a center corridor of players to move in tandem with the wide players, making ball movement more fluid. I am looking forward to testing my squad in the Champions League, though I don't expect to even qualify for Europa, the experience and financial windfall will be more than enough. Will keep you all updated on how things move along for me in season 2.
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11kgm Relentless total posts: 9042 since: Oct 2007	Mar 06, 13 at 3:38am ^ re: Standard de Liege - A Tactical Journey
	Very excellent posts mate ------------------- Credit to Messa113
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