Season 12: Secret Code Episode 9: Through the Middle and Short

Soccerblog 4 Minutes

When it comes to season 12, THE STARS ARE OUT AND ABOUT IN THIS ONE!

Today’s style of play is arguably the most challenging to play within Soccermanager. It is the one style that limits you the most in terms of who you can afford to have within your team since it demands nothing else but perfection from Goal Keeper to Number 9. Just one player that doesn’t fit the style of play is all it takes to squander the entire pattern of ball retention or off the ball pressure in an attempt to win the ball back.

And these are the type of tactics we love the most! 😤 #tacticalchallenge

Just look at this team! 🥵🥵🥵

Let’s have it right, all 11 players are worthy of stars, but there’s a reason for everything we do over here…

DEFENCE

The main emphasis of this team is to dominate possession with a minimum of 65% of the ball game after game. This will call for every player on the pitch to play a part in ball retention and we have a top 5 GK when it comes to playing out from the back and the best player in the entirety of season 12 in the Barcelona vice captain Marc-André Ter Stegen who oozes with class and will be an extra outfield player whenever this team has the ball.

In possession, this team will be playing a ‘2-3-5′ which means that they will build up with a back 3 including Ter Stegen. Van de Ven (now rated ’90’) and Thiaw are two of the best young D(C)’s in world football and they are also quite proper with the ball at their feet. Thiaw will be the main one out of the two aiming to make a difference with his distribution, while Van de Ven will venture forward with the ball when the chance permits while also keeping up his side of the ball retention equation.

MIDFIELD

Here’s where things start to get more complex as we have both of our ‘Fullbacks’ inverting alongside the main ‘D.L.P’, Enzo Fernándes. Enzo is already spectacular with the ball at his feet and will be the main hub of this team, but those ‘Inverted Fullbacks’ will ensure that whomever they come up against will have hell getting back the ball as we have the Dutch veteran Daily Blind and the German Veteran Pascal Gross, with both players epitomizing the term “underrated”. Alongside Enzo, Blind will sit and potentially form a makeshift double pivot to ensure the ball stays in their control, while Gross will move slightly higher to be more of a progressive passer, mixing things up in terms of his range of passing but ensuring that the ball stays on the floor at least 80 percent of the time.

FORWARDS

Once the ball gets to the attacking area of the pitch the opposition might as well head for the showers because the positional intelligence, movement, speed of play, speed of thought, individual brilliance will simply be too much to handle.

We start things off with the lads out wide in Star boy Nico Williams (now rated 91! 😎) and Brigton Star Koaru Mitoma who will stay as high and wide as they can all game and isolate themselves against their fullback (do we hear an 80% take on success rate?). Both are very unpredictable and after exhausting the opposition via a “death by 1000 passes”, the last thing they’ll want to do is go 1v1 against any of these two. If they happen to survive the dribbling slaughter then there’s more stress to handle as the trio of Havertz (’92’), Xavi and Olmo will make you believe that positions no longer exist as the rotations and flexibility of the trio will cause a lot of confusion for the opposition. These guys are also excellent at finding pockets of space, and with Mitoma and Nico stretching the backline, the gaps will be a plenty

Now, one might aim to be wise and state that “I’ll just play a 5-3-2 or 5-4-1 to plug all of these holes”, and we commend the effort, but there’s a problem: The Through the Middle and Short style of play is one of only 2 style of plays that allow every player for the team in possession to be in the opposition’s half of the field. What this means is that the players will be playing very close to each other causing a lot of triangular positioning to occur which will leave countless players open due to the inability of the team out of possession to defend effectively…

Against a 5-3-2, the back 5 will be stretched by Nico and Mitoma; Xavi and Olmo will position themselves in between the wide D(C)’s and wide M(C)’s; Enzo and Gross will position themselves infront of the wide M(C)’s (leaving them confused as to who to mark next), while Havertz will position himself between the central D(C) and the DM(C) knowing that if any of them try to man mark him they’ll be effectively opening a very important gap in a very important area on the pitch. The front 2 within the 5-3-2 will also be tied up by Thiaw, Van De Ven, Blind and the sweeping Ter Stegen

Image of what we just explained happening on the pitch. The yellow team is defending in the 5-3-2 formation with the green team representing our squad for today’s episode. Feel free to re-read the passage above for a better understanding

As for the 5-4-1, it will basically be the same thing but this time it will be one of either Van de Ven or Thiaw (most likely Van de Ven) who will advance high up the pitch to be the extra man.

This time the yellow team is defending in a 5-4-1. We’ve moved some of our players around but the principle remains the same

So basically, there’s simply nothing that can be done and the opposition wilhave to pray that this team has a bad night.

PLAYER INSTRUCTIONS

Ter Stegen will be leading the team out with Blind just edging Gross for the Vice Captaincy. Gross will be on F.K duty, while Olmo and Xavi will share the corner responsibility game by game. Enzo is the man who will end most matches with the most touches on the pitch, Havertz is a decent P.K taker but sometimes loses concentration, so Pascal will take that responsibility, but Kai still has a very important role of being the chaos starter with his movement.

My word, what an episode! How do we top this one Soccermanagerite?

Well, here’s how…

*TBC*

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