Here We Go Again!

Finally FM14 arrived, wrapped up and hidden out of sight from me. My parents always buy me FM. It may seem strange for a 30 year old man to get a game from their parents, but it does give them an easy present that they know I will enjoy.

This year my parents decided to play a little trick on me. They passed me a FM shaped package, which I unwrapped in a fury as my excitement had been building – I tend to start thinking about the next FM a week or 2 before Xmas day.  However as the wrapping was discarded and the realisation that the package was not FM sunk in, I felt a small twinge of panic. Was I actually going to have to wait a few more days to get the game? What the hell would I do on Boxing Day! This panic was short lived though. I pulled my chair out to gorge myself on our now annual Beef Wellington and another FM shaped package was sat snug on my allocated chair. A nasty trick I am sure you will agree. One which will be avenged!

On To The Game

Much of my FM these days is played as part of a succession game. I have tried to tailor the game style to the needs of my relative FM newbie compatriot.

We had a very enjoyable save on FM13 with Metalist, a relatively large side in Ukraine. Although not the biggest side, they were always capable of challenging for the title and as such were ideal for the objective I had in mind for the save. This save had two targets: 1) To show @K_risma how my interpretation of the player development mechanics work and 2) To show him that to maintain a successful club you do not need to pay over-inflated fees and exorbitant wages (Apparently @K_risma already knew this, so I wonder why he gave a 17 year old a £12k per week contract when our highest paid player was only on £18k!). For those new to FMFocus, you can see the framework I put in place and the financial constraints that I forced upon the club in my previous posts.

In the build up to Xmas before i had the game, I had started thinking about what sort of side and challenge I wanted and what I wanted to show @K_risma next. Although @K_risma loves FM he is probably quite a rarity in that he plays the game whilst not particularly following football. Therefore he has little to no knowledge of football tactics. This then clearly should be the main focus of our FM14 adventure. Now whilst Metalist was ideal for learning budget control and focusing on player development at the same time, I am of the opinion that a side of this size isn’t the best place to start to learn about tactics. I believe lower league clubs with their inability to attract the top talents are the best place to experiment. Lower league clubs however generally come with the distraction of financial problems. For this save I didn’t want us to get bogged down with trimming debt.

I considered many clubs, including match fixing Lecce, but I kept coming back to one club …..

RassenBallSport Leipzig is part of Red Bull’s attempt to enter the elite football market, building on their existing football presence with Salzburg and New York Red Bulls. They are newly promoted to Germany’s 3 Liga and according to FM they are 6^th favourites for promotion.

Red Bull clearly has large plans for Leipzig and in 2010 moved them to a 44000 seat stadium. According to FM they also give them an £8m sponsorship package per year and have afforded the club state of the art facilities. More information on Leipzig can be found here.

RB Leipzig are the ideal candidates for this adventure. They already have the infrastructure and the financial backing, so we can focus entirely on the playing style(s). With the facilities and finances sorted, my own plans for Leipzig would be to be playing in the Bundesliga within 4 seasons and challenging, if not qualifying, for a Champions League place by the 7^th season.

To do this, we will follow slightly amended financial guidelines from the ones previously applied during our Metalist game, but I won’t touch upon these now because the club is projected to increase its bank balance from £4m to £18m over the course of the season, Thus I imagine these guidelines will be of little relevance until we reach the top division.

The Squad

Leipzig’s squad was obviously my first port of call when the game loaded and on first glance I was relatively happy with what I saw.

 Daniel Frahn

Daniel is the squad‘s standout player. He has outstanding attributes for this level and you could argue that he is playing 1, if not 2, divisions below his level.

He is a quality finisher and has all the hallmarks of a solid target man. He lacks in pace but compensates with great mental stats. All in all, I am very happy to have him in the squad and he should gobble up chances in and around the box.

Niklas Hoheneder

He is a tall centre half and is very solid for this level of football. Like Daniel, Niklas is also on the slow side, however unlike Daniel, Niklas doesn’t quite make up for this with his mental ability. For this level he does have strong positioning and concentration , but his low decisions and anticipation let him down. He is strong enough for this division, but as the club progress he will definitely be one to replace.

 Tobias Willers

The towering centre half is a new signing for Leipzig and is very similar to Niklas in the respect that he is slow but aerially dominant.

 Fabio Coltorti

The 6’6” Swiss keeper is sturdy if unspectacular. He has tremendous balance, jumping, strength and aerial ability but he has low reflexes, anticipation and agility, His attributes therefore aren’t conducive of a top quality shot stopper.

 Bastian Schulz

Bastian is probably the best midfielder in the squad. However he isn’t  brilliant in any particular area and it is his all round ability that attracts my attention. Strangely, Bastian‘s best role is a defensive winger but he can’t dribble or cross!

Juri Judt

Juri plies his trade at fullback, he is the club‘s highest paid player and has all the attributes to be one of the best attacking fullbacks in Liga 3. He is naturally a left back that is all right foot. Now I know that there is a fad for “inverse wingbacks”, but this guy isn’t of that ilk. It will be interesting to see how he plays, as I will almost certainly be looking for him to provide width.

 Yussuf Poulsen

Yussuf is the highest rated young player in the team. He looks decent enough and is tall, strong and quick. If he is going to reach his potential and move this club forward, he is going to need to progress mentally. However his physical ability should allow him plenty of first team opportunities in the low divisions.

 Starting Shapes

So now that I have highlighted the suspected key players for my team, we can roughly identify the shapes we will be looking to play.

Half the battle with football tactics is playing to your strengths, whilst managing your weaknesses. Clearly our central defenders and keeper are dominant aerially, but lack pace and shot stopping skills respectively. Thus it would be prudent to play a deep line whilst funnelling the opposition towards the flanks, this is where our defenders and keeper can dominate the opposition attackers. To help push the opposition‘s attack wide I am going to play a man in front of the defence. This should block the opposition‘s passing angles in behind my centre backs, whilst also protecting them from runners from deep. The shielding midfielder also gives us the option of forward thinking fullbacks.

Up top, Frahn is clearly going to be the focal point, despite having great strength and aerial skill, I have doubts over his mobility and ability to run past defenders. These concerns combined with a lack of players able to play as inside forwards mean that I have decided against playing him as a lone forward and have opted for a strike partnership. My hope is that by playing him with a partner I can keep Frahn in the penalty box and utilise his outstanding finishing ability.

I have therefore gone with a 3-1-4-2 formation as my main tactical approach. I think this formation perfectly complements my main strengths and constructively  manages the squads weaknesses.

Whilst assessing my initial squad, I suggested my centre backs were very slow and therefore we would need to play deep. However when I met with the board, it was clear that they had been mesmerised by Guardiola’s Barcelona. The board would only entertain a manager who would play possession football. Now, it isn’t impossible to play this brand of football with a deep line, but rarely do they go hand in hand. For this reason I decided to move away from my initial musings and move my line forward. My defence isn’t going to get quicker overnight, so I haven’t been able to be as aggressive with my line as you would normally expect of possession teams. This would surely be suicide! Although the combination of a medium line and a player in the defensive midfield slot should exact enough pressure to turn the ball over in dangerous zones.

There will be a number of teams in this division that will utilise a lone front man. I follow the school of thought that 3 defenders are wasted against 1 striker. In these instances I would prefer to make use of this additional man elsewhere. I therefore need a second approach.

With the board‘s penchant for possession football I could have easily been drawn to closely match the opposition lone forward and play in any of the 4-5-1/4-3-3 variations. However as I previously mentioned I don’t fancy Frahn as the only outlet. So I have taken some inspiration from the 2004 Champions League winning Porto.

This formation is hardly associated with possession teams, but it does afford me four players in the middle of the park. I hope that this additional man will combat the usual strength offered by an opponent’s three man midfield within any 4-5-1/4-3-3 variant. I do worry about the lack of width in my chosen formation, so rather than go for a midfield diamond I have placed three men in the midfield stratum. This is in the assumption that the outside midfielders are pushed slightly wider and thus I suspect they will offer a small amount of protection out wide.

In an attacking sense I have been rather aggressive with the full backs and want them to surge to the by-line in an attempt to pin back opposition wingers. I have also gone with a shadow striker behind my forwards, effectively giving me three forwards when the team is in the attacking phase.

Transfers

As I mentioned I had inherited a pretty decent squad, nonetheless after identifying the shapes I wanted to implement, I could see  some areas were lacking.

For a team with outstanding finances I was given a rather paltry £0.00 to spend (I imagine the previous regime had been rather selfish and spent this year‘s budget). I tried to supplement our MAHOOSIVE! budget by selling a few players.

The players I looked to move on were the ones whose contracts are expiring and who currently have no intention of renewing their deals. Despite offering these players out at cut prices I didn’t get a single taker. I even tried offering some of the higher paid players out on frees in the hope I could convert the additional wages into transfer funds, but the players I offered are clearly not good enough to attract anyone.

This meant that I had to look at the loan or free transfer markets to improve my squad, and although there will be a few gems to be had, this vastly limited the players available to me.

Although the Leipzig board fancied the team as possession superstars, I wouldn’t consider us to have a particularly strong passing midfield. Only 3 players in the squad have a passing attribute higher than 13 and of those 3 only 1 has the technique and decisions to match. A couple of players with these abilities became priority.

I found 2 suitable targets, with the better being Kevin Pannewitz, a supremely talented young player who I immediately wanted to build a team around. However it wasn’t to be. He was happy to join the club but was fixated on receiving £12k per week. This was 3 times the amount of my current highest earner and £1k above what I could offer anyway. Such a shame!

Marc Mateu then came up in a search and filled 90% of the criteria I had set for an advanced playmaker. He combines good passing with great technique and flair. Physically he is lacking but he should be able to cut it at this level, and if I am going to play a passing style it can’t hurt to have a Spaniard in your squad.

With a passer capable of playing in the advanced position I turned my attention to a deeper player and came up with a rather pleasing loan from Karlsruhe. Steffen Haas comes in on a totally free loan – no wages, no fee. He is a very solid deep lying playmaker at this level and I am very pleased with his capture.

I then made another move in the loan market, bringing in the ball winner required within the 4-3-1-2 formation. This again was a “no wages, no fee” loan, this time from Hertha BSC. Perdedaj unfortunately doesn’t have any passing prowess nor is he a smart player but what he lacks in football nous he makes up for with pure enthusiasm.

Players listed in-order of preference. “/” indicates player’s ability in this position can’t be separated

With the transfer activity all but concluded, my squad is in good shape. Our only real weakness being wide midfielders for the 3-1-4-2. I did want to add a couple of wide players to the fray, yet I was generally thwarted in my attempts. I still have my eye on one free transfer, Karim Yoda but despite his quality name I can’t currently justify the £9k per week contract demands.

For the meantime we will have to play our current 2 fullbacks in the wide slots, with cover being provided on the right by Schulz and the left, by young up and coming left winger Luge. The market for free players is open until March, so if Yoda lowers his wage expectations or my players don’t perform, you can expect a move in the future.

Next time out I will update you on what we have achieved and conduct a full analysis of how the 2 styles have panned out.

Thanks for reading

@cook1e_mr