Settling back in to Bundesliga life I entered pre-season still in two, or even three minds about which formation to start with. Should I stick with the 5-2-1-2 which served us well last season and won us promotion? Should I stick with my head and adopt a 5-3-2 with an anchor in the DM slot to give us extra protection? Or should I go for it with a 4-2-3-1. I decided to give them all a chance in friendlies but…
North America is a continent that I think is undervalued on Football Manager in terms of management. It is a continent that can produce some of football’s top talents with countries like America, Mexico, and Canada amongst others that have seen players like Landon Donovan, Hirving Lozano, Clint Dempsey, Alphonso Davies, Jonathan David and many others. Granted, in some nations the registration rules are complicated but that makes for a worthy challenge on Football Manager. Below we’ll provide a list…
Once you get immersed into playing Football Manager, the mind starts to wander, or wonder perhaps. Creative people have come up with many creative ideas playing the game and shared them with the wider community via the forums and social media. I thought I should try to bring to light the many challenge ideas that players have come up with over the years and feature them in a series of articles here at Dictate the Game. What better way to…
Restart the clock. We’re back in the Bundesliga Hamburger SV were in the Bundesliga for a very long time. So long, that they installed a huge digital clock showing everyone exactly how long they’d been there for. To the very second! A massive fifty four years! They were so proud that a miniature version was even installed on the team coach. Of course, all good things come to an end. After three years of narrowly avoiding relegation they finally lost…
Intro In part two of my debut season with Hamburger SV, we found ourselves in 2nd place in 2.Bundesliga. Whilst the season was going well I felt the team were only operating at around 85% so made some tactical tweaks. When I left off I was just about to navigate the perilous waters of Transfer Deadline Day before setting sail for the second half of our first season in a bid for automatic promotion. Bids were coming in for Jatta,…
There are two things in Football Manager that can pose a challenge to even the most seasoned FM players. They are 1) setting up a low block tactic that’s actually successful, and 2) breaking an opponent’s low block, aka “parked bus”. Realistically, these two tactical concepts are also not easy to execute in real life. Very few teams can actually pull off a good parked bus against superior opposition. Facing a parked bus is similarly dreaded by real-life managers. Experience…
The story so far… In the Part 1 of this series, I created Football Manager tactics for Hamburger SV, based on the strengths and weaknesses of the players. The formation settled on was a 5-2-3 with the following strategy. Use short passing to control possession in the opponents half. Use attacking wingbacks to pin back opposition fullbacks and create room centrally. Reduce the amount of space our “not very mobile” central midfielders have to operate in. Convert Bakery Jatta to…