The date is 30/05/2020. Gianni Rosabosa is speaking to the media. “This has to be a foundation. A starting point we can build upon.” We will return to this point in the next post… Missed the previous post? Check it out here Preseason is for mistakes. We wind back a few months. The 17th of August 2019 to be exact. Where Gianni has just witnessed a defeat to fellow Serie A team Lazio in the final friendly of nine matches…
Part 1: Building a Total Football Club in FM20 One country has always fascinated me. España. The historian in me is attracted to its turbulent history of conquests and revolutions. And Spanish football is no less interesting. As a nation it is united by its love of the beautiful game. Nevertheless it is divided politically and geographically. Each autonomous community comes with its own distinct culture and languages. And it is this vibrant multi-cultural mosaic that also gives Spanish football…
Plenty of us love Football Manager. With the increase in numbers from the free week during the current situation there will probably be plenty more that get the addiction. It makes us dress up in suits for finals, and sometimes smash screens, but we love it all the same. We all love different things about Football Manager too, and all play in different ways. Some of us fight from the non-leagues up, others go straight to the top. Some wheel…
This articles continues my guided series on crafting the ultimate 4-3-3 Possession Tactic. I have been enamoured with this formation in FM20. I believe it offers the perfect balance of attack and defence while maintaining high possession. Possession has always been important for me when creating tactics although I have never been a fan of possession just for the sake of possession. Thus the main of this series is to find ways to optimize possession with intent within the limits…
Player Traits (or Player Preferred Moves – PPM’s as they used to be) can have a huge impact on your Football Manager experience. Just like in the real world, from the Premier League to non-league, in FM20 what a player prefers to do can change the way your tactics actually work. You might be telling your player to do one things, and they might be trying something completely different. Perhaps more importantly though the right moves or traits can change…
Welcome to the second post in my Anti-Football series. If you missed the first one you can check it out here. At the end of the last post we were just outside the play-offs in 8th. I made some changes, brought in some cover in January and we’ve improved significantly. In this post I’ll outline how I’ve improved my tactic, how I adapt during games, my scouting criteria and plans for next season.
After two seasons playing variations on the Allardyce 4-5-1 (4-3-3) system, I decided it was time for a change. Considering we had grossly overachieved with Red Star Wrexham and gotten into the Championship ahead of schedule, I am faced with the daunting prospect of avoiding relegation. Given that we’ve already mastered the dark arts of defensive, pragmatic, resultism football, where else could we go? How does a team of shithousers get even shithousier? After a few days of reflection, the…
You’re on a roll. You’re winning without having to break sweat. Keep everything the same, you say: you’ve found a winning formula. Except, as every experienced FM campaigner will know, it’s never that easy. Sooner of later, the wheel of fortune will turn. In my experience, the turning point can be undramatic. Just an underwhelming performance or two. Perhaps a draw in a match you should have won. And then it happens. Your team plunges into a terrifying descent. And…
The no-nonsense full-back might not be the player role in FM20 that get’s many plaudits but it is one that can be a complete gamechanger. I find it often will be overlooked for more attractive roles like the Anchorman or even Targetman. Here at Dictate the Game there are a few of us that worship at the altar of hoofball. You can hear us wax lyrical about it on the podcast quite often. Some of us are more inspired by…
Welcome back to my Moneyball series. If you missed part 1 you can check it out here, and if you have no idea what Moneyball is you can check out my FM19 series here. This time we will be looking at how the tactics I’m using are shaping my search for signings. We’ll also take a dive into my results so far, and compare my January targets with similar players and my own squad.
