Winning Tactics Are All The Same

Football Manager's Metagame Problem

Winning Tactics Are All The Same

I came across this Reddit thread a few days ago. It describes an award winning tactic that YouTuber Zealand featured in a recent video.

Take a look at the tactic:

The crazy thing is that this tactic fits the mold of “tactics that work” in FM24 perfectly:

• It’s a 4-2-3-1 and is symmetrical

• It’s a gegenpress tactic

• It uses underlaps and focuses play down the flanks

• It uses a high defensive line

• It’s played on an attacking mentality

• It uses the well known combination of a sweeper keeper on support with two ball playing defenders on a defend mentality

Now, if you go through the thread you’ll realize that there is actually some interesting stuff going on here. The player specific recommendations, for example, are a bit different than the other meta tactics. The central defenders are also not segundo volantes, which is what you usually see in extremely successful tactics.

Honestly, though, this type of tactic is precisely why I stopped speculating on how tactics work in the game. It really feels like it’s a question of whether you push the right buttons on the tactical screen or not.

One of these days I’m going to do a major project where I’ll force myself to use a tactic that is less than ideal.