“HOOO! HEEVE! HOOO!”, said the footballers of the 18th century…
As bad of a rep long passing gets, we still firmly believe that (if used correclty) it could become a very important key in the cog of Managers who aren’t that too interested in the “tactical mumo jumbo” side of footy.
Although this style of play allows more freedom to choose the different types of players you’d want, it is still important to get the most effective personnel within your starting XI, and we can proudly say that we’ve done just that! 🙌
DEFENCE
It takes a special kind of GK to be able to accurately hoof it forward 8 times out of 10, and if we didn’t already pick Jordan Pickford in season 9 then he would’ve been the first name on the team sheet. Nevertheless, we’ve gone with Italian and Lazio shot stopper Ivan Provedel who is a traditional ‘Keeper’ and will utilize his long passing capabilities as best as he can.
The main emphasis of the entrie team will be to get the ball airborne as quickly as possible which is why we’ve chosen to go with two Italian ‘Ball Playing Defenders’ in the heart of the back line (which means that there’s a perfect chemistry occurring between GK and DC’s). In Gorgino Scalvini and Alessandro Romagnoli, we have two players who are accurate with their long range passing, and all that would be required from them is to get the ball forward as quickly as possible.
‘Wingbacks’ Matty Cash and Alfonso Pedraza (now rated ’88’) are not the most explosive but fit this XI perfectly since they both have decent levels of crossing capility, particularly those ‘whipped’ or ‘floated’ balls which the men up top will absolutely thrive on
MIDFIELD
Filling a Mixed and Long Ball team with as many progressive passers will be crucial, but we cannot disregard the importance of having runners within this team. They will be quite effective when it comes to getting in and around the ball to latch unto ‘2nd ball’ scenarios, and we have quite the athletic type ‘B2B’ Midfielder in the American Weston Mckennie who is a Manager’s dream due to his incredible engine. He won’t do much on the ball, but it’s not necessary since the man beside him will take up the mantle as the progressive passer in the Slovakian Stanislav Lobotka who is now getting the recognition he deserves after him and his nation’s performance within Euro 2024 which saw them literally seconds away from getting to their first ever Q.F’s if it wasn’t for an acrobatic Englishman from Birmingham… Lobotka will be responsible for getting the ball forward from midfield towards all of the important attacking players within this starting XI, and with both Scalvini and Romagnoli also possessing a good long passing range, he will often find some space to do his business since opposition players won’t want to give both D(C)’s a lot of time on the ball
FORWARDS
We have quite an interesting 4 prong attack for this style of play, with each of them bringing something quite different from the other. We’ve gotta start with the main man up front in the Nigerian beast Victor Boniface who is a league invincible and is ABSOLUTELY PEFFECT for this long ball style of passing! His role is quite simple: Get unto the end of the 30+ long balls coming his way wether through flick ons, knock downs, or headed efforts unto goal himself. The service for Boniface is crucial, and we’ve got two varying South Americans outwide in the Brazilian Antony (now rated ’89’) whose technical ball sticking ability will come into play here as we expect him to cut in onto his left foot from the byline and whip some delicious balls into the box, while Lucas Ocampos is a completely different player on the other side who will primarily seek to be as unpredictable as he possibly can with his decision making, wether it be to take on his opposition, get crosses into the box, make darting runs to the back post to get unto crosses from the opposite side, or by being a target for long balls himself! The chrery on top for this team is the man we have in the AM(C) position. The big Serbian will be an ever presence within the box but what makes him even more dangerous is the fact that he stands at 6’3″ and is extremeley strong which basically means that opposition defences have to deal with duels against two bullies for at least 75 minutes every match… Based on how the game is being played in the modern day, there won’t be a lot of D(C)’s looking forward to coming up against that front 2 physically...
PLAYER INSTRUCTIONS
The more I look at this XI the more I like it, and it has a crop of experience within it that makes for being quite a difficult side to play against…
We’ve chosen to give the Slovakian the captain’s armband, with Romagnoli being the V.C, Antony and Lucas Ocampos will be sharing the set pieces, Lobotka spraying it from deep, Boniface racking up the goals as the PK taker as well as being the main focal point of the team with Milinković-Savić being a worthy and dangerous decoy.
Up next, we venture “Through the middle” of your struggles in Soccermanager… 😉
The Soccermanager Experience 