After 5 weeks of nonstop babbling about Deep-lying Playmakers and General Forwards, who would’ve thought we’d be talking about something other than a player role?
You can call the following episodes coming up for the rest of this week as season bonuses which is my way of saying thank you for supporting me up until this point. On another note, this episode can also be considered an open letter to Invincible Studios (the creators of Soccermanager) in order for them to make an adjustment to a specific attribute whenever they plan to start the creation of SM24 (so,what this means is that we gotta figure out some way to get this episode to their eyeballs!).
I’m going to show you 5 images. In these images, I want you to think to yourself on the one thing they have in common:
Do you see it? Awesome, Congratulations! If you haven’t seen what I’m talking about yet, I’ll give you another 10 seconds to take a look again.
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5, 4, 3, 2, 1
See it now? (I really hope you did)
The one thing that these 5 key attributes (and EVERY key attributes for each role) have in common is that they all require a player to have a high level of Positioning. That’s right soccermanagerite, the most important attribute within soccermanager is indeed the positioning attribute, and here’s why: How on earth can a player perform in a role if he dosen’t have good positioning?🤔
No matter the formation, pattern of play, or role that each player is playing within an X1, they all must have the knowledge of knowing where to be at all times on the pitch That, my friend, is what positioning in soccer is all about.
As I was going through the different player ratings found within SM 23, I realized an uncomfortable pattern. Most attacking roles within our game lack a good positioning attribute. The attacking roles in question are the Wide Forward, Winger, Deep-lying Forward, General Forward, Target Man (in particular, the Explosive Target Man) and Finisher.
Before I go into more depth as to why each of these roles require a better positioning attribute, lemme talk to you about the Finisher role. From what I’ve seen in SM23, there are some Finishers with great positioning and others with terrible ones. The problem here is that the Finisher role requires that EVERY PLAYER have a basic understanding of playing on a Defender’s shoulder for majority of a match ( which would represent their positioning), with the differentiation between a good Finisher and a great one being their movement attribute, finishing and composure attribute. So, why dosen’t every Finisher have decent positioning?
How can Ollie Watkins’ positining be so high, yet Aubameyang’s is so low? Are you trying to tell me that Watkins has more positional intelligence than Aubameyang???
Now, back to the other roles with poor positioning: What about the Wide Forward who positions himself between the D(C) and D(L) to then use his exceptional movement to get in on goal? Or The General Forward who positions himself on the left to swap with his Winger? Or the Wingers who position themselves high and wide to stretch the opposition defence in order to create more space for their Classic No.10? Or the Deep-lying Forward who’s playing as an F(C) in a 4-3-3A but decides to position himself in Central midfield to create an overload? Or the Explosive Target Man who uses his innate hold up play to position himself on the weaker D(C) to create space for his Floating AP to run into?
I’m not a person who simply complains just to complain. I complain because I have a solution for whatever the complaint is about. For this particular complaint, I highly suggest that on SM24 it is mandatory for EVERY senior level player within Soccermanager to have a positioning attribute of at least 60. This allows for more realistic match scenarios and visualization (with the latter being more for soccermanager worlds) on how players will be playing on the field.
Thanks again for showing your interest soccermanagerite. If you’re with me on this, don’t be shy to leave a comment below, send me a DM on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter. If you’re a fan of these kind of blogs then stay tuned, as this is a sneak peak of what to expect from season 5…
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The Soccermanager Experience 