How many times have you lost a game with a, theoretically, weaker opponent? How many times has your tactic been completely chewed over? How often have you lost stupid goals after your defender was outplayed by a player with lower-league attributes? How long did it take you to analyse your rival's tactic? Unfortunately, the time of Championship Manager and its “killer tactics” is over. It is impossible to win everything using just one tactical setting. It is necessary to watch our opponents and modify our tactics to achieve good results. I will try to use a one match case study to show you how to cope with our rival's tactical settings and gain a place in the Hall of Fame.

There is one irreplaceable man in our staff, whose reports about the next opposition are often priceless. Scouting in Football Manager 2008 is very complex: from reports about rivals to accounts of performances of our loaned players (even though this option has many bugs – reports are often unrealistic; scouts may tell us about our player's disastrous game and many fouls, while the match statistics say that he did not foul at all). Nevertheless, we should concentrate on the reports about rivals, which are the most interesting for us at the moment.

Before every match our scout provides us with a report about our rival. I suppose I do not have to remind you that better scout equals more useful reports. The most important attributes include current and potential abilities judgement. The report about my next rival is:

Scouting report includes information about:

Formation: preferred line-up of our rival.

Tempo: quick, slow or normal.

Passing and game style: short, direct, long or mixed passing and counter-attacks.

The best player: the most valuable rivals' player – we should pay attention to his abilities and possibly think about individual marking.

Injured and unavailable players: they will not be able to take part in the next match. Although, it is often ignored by many players, this information is really important because it gives us knowledge about the positions were weaker/reserve players will be put to fill in the place (it is possible that the first team player is replaced by a junior or a man usually plays on a totally different position).

Scouting report gives us information about the tempo that our rivals use (in my opinion it is very important) and we use this fact to set the opposite tempo, e.g. we set slow tempo if our opponent plays quick and vice versa. If the rival likes counter-attacks, it may be useful to set a deep defence line to prevent through balls being played behind our defenders' backs.

Before the analysis we should also see our rival's tactical screen (though, it is possible that the match formation and settings will be totally different just before the first whistle).

The analysis can be divided into three stages: pre-match, match (after submitting the team) and after-match, (analysis of statistics and conclusions to verify our efficiency).

Before my analysis, I need to say something about the tactic chosen by me. I am currently experimenting with 4-1-1-3-1 with several relatively irrational tactical settings. It is the test phase for this tactic, but if the results are satisfactory I will definitely write more about it. My team's formation is:

Pre-match decisions

I visit opponent's tactical screen before each match to see an expected formation and players on particular positions. It gives us a chance for making first assumptions about our formation and first team choices (if the opponent has five fast defenders with weak aerial skills, a strong attacker with good aerial attributes will be more useful than a fast one).

First conclusion: our rival uses offensive 4-4-2 with AMC and DMC – it is a formation prepared for passing down both flanks.
Solution: I choose formation that will allow for domination in the middle.

Second conclusion: Fast Małecki and tall and good at jumping Ibisevic will play in the attack.
Solution: I set deep defence line to prevent quick through passes to Małecki. The fastest defender is chosen for marking Małecki and Ibisevic will be marked by a player with the best heading. I will also ask one of my DMC for individual marking of Małecki.

Third conclusion: Wide midfield line concentrating on playing down both flanks.
Solution: Jirsak – the AMC of our opponents will support strikers and often run into our penalty field, therefore I need to choose a DMC who is good in marking and will be able to eliminate the Czech player from the game. Tiffer and Book, our rival's wingers, are fast and have high dribbling attribute, so they need to be faced by fast defenders with better defensive attributes (I always have two DR/DL: one better in an offensive game and the second one in defence).

Fourth conclusion: Lamprecht and Achenbach play on both sides of the defence line and they both have relatively high attributes. The weakest links in the team are the centre defenders: Leschinski and Noveski (they are slow and have quite weak physical attributes).
Solution: Choose fast and strong forwards and ask your midfielders to often play through balls.

Decisions during the match

I am not able to change any players now, so I can only modify individual players' settings. I use Opposition Instructions to set: tight marking, closing down, tackling and show onto foot.

First conclusion: My predictions and scout's report are correct.
Solution: I keep all the settings I had chosen before the match.

Second conclusion: The rival's manager chooses Lavric as Ibisevic's partner in the attack line.
Conclusion: I do not set my defence line so deep as both strikers are slow, therefore I will rather try to tackle them closer to the middle of the field and prevent any surprising headers. I choose 'always' for tight marking and closing down, hard tackling and show onto weaker foot for both forwards in the Opposition Instructions.

Third conclusion: All pre-match predictions are correct, except from Tiffert instead of Małecki on the left wing and weak Thorben Marx instead of Ottlo.
Conclusion: Our opponent uses DMC and AMC and I will try to respond by causing a lot of congestion in the centre of the pitch and setting passing through the middle. To prevent forward runs and crosses from the fast and good at dribbling wingers, I will set my defenders to have rare forward runs and runs with a ball. Jirsak is going to play as AMC, therefore I will ask my players for constant closing down, tight marking and hard tackling. I will also have one of my DMC set for individual marking of the Czech player. I do not set anything special for our rival's DMC, but I do set hard tackling, show onto weaker foot and constant closing down for opponent's wingers. It is important to remember that using tight marking against fast players is not a good idea and may have horrible consequences.

Fourth conclusion: Pre-match predictions about opponent's defence line are correct, so there are: Lamprecht, Achenbach, Leschinski and Noveski.
Solution: I choose fast and strong forward and set through balls on often for all midfielders.

Match time

My team has dominated since the first whistle. Unfortunately there were many wasted situations. Apart from Małecki, our rivals has shown nothing. It is why I asked one of my DMC for individual marking of Małecki. After 20 minutes Lavric leaves the field injured and he is replaced by very weak Schmidt (AM RL, FC) – it is important to notice his position change with Małecki. Although, we dominated during the whole of first half, the result was still 0:0.

Opponent's formation change in the 67th minute:

Therefore, I set the defence line deeper, to prevent quick passes to Małecki. I also play more widely and use wings, because these are the areas with more free space.

After-match analysis

I verify mine and rival's match statistics and analyse strong and weak elements of my team's performance and how efficiently they coped with their tactical tasks. The aim of my tactic was to dominate the middle of the field and it generally worked:

Tips

They are mainly connected with the Opposition Instructions:

Avoid tight marking if playing against fast and good at dribbling footballers.

Set rare forward runs and rare runs with the ball for the full backs to prevent attacks from the wings. You should also set 'always' for closing down and show onto weaker foot.

If your opponent uses AMC it is best to set individual marking by one of your players (especially DMC). You should also set constant closing down, tight marking and hard tackling in the Opposition Instructions.

Set a fast defender in front of a rival's forward if he has got a good pace and set one with good aerial abilities if his rival is tall and has good heading.

If our opponent has a fast forward we set a deep defence line to prevent passes behind our defenders' backs.

If our opponent uses a tall forward we push up our defence to prevent any heading possibilities for this attacker.

If any of the opponent's players has a poor condition or is slightly injured we may get rid of him quickly by setting hard tackling on him.

If our rival's footballer has got a yellow card and has fouled frequently we can use a little trick to try to send him to the changing room. We choose tight marking, constant closing down and hard tackling. Player with low concentration level may make mistakes and decide to foul our footballers.

After 20 minutes of a match you should see the statistics to check which of the rival's players has had the ball the most (pass attempts/completed passes). It means that he participates in majority of rival's actions. In such case we should set individual and tight marking, closing down, hard tackling and show onto weaker foot.

You should watch the formation screen during a match to see whether our opponent changes his formation and tactic, so in such a case you can respond to all his decisions with changes in your tactic.

Perhaps, the time of the killer tactics is over but it is still possible to finish a season without losing a single game and winning everything. Football Manager 2008 is much more complex. Buying the best players that fit our tactics is not good enough. The game requires us to think and winning a match after a deep analysis may bring satisfying results. Remember, all of us are Mourinho to some extent...

Notice: This article was based on FM 2008 and its findings could also apply to this version of the game.