Season 12: Secret Code Episode 11: Down Both Flanks and Mixed

Soccerblog 8 Minutes

Welcome back to another episode of your favourite Soccermanager content brought to you by the good people over there at The S.M.B! 😎

In today’s episode, we take a look at a set up that is rarely used and tends to be one of the more difficult ones to get the best out of: The Down Both Flanks and Mixed style of play.

Down Both Flanks is ofcourse a systemized approach to operating when your team has the ball which involves making the pitch as wide as possible in order to stretch out the opposition while also allowing for a lot of numerical advantages in the wing area that could be taken advantage of in order to breakdown a stingy defensive set up by your opposition. It requires players with high technical skills since playing closer to the sidelines means having to deal with the tightest spaces on the pitch with the sideline operating like an extra defender for the out of possession side due to potential turnovers if the ball goes out of bounds.
We’ve mentioned way back in Season 2 that the D.B.F and Mixed is arguably the most unique of the various style of plays available due to it needing specific types of players in order to work at its best. We will aim to explain this further via the breakdown of every section of the pitch below

DEFENCE

We start out in the backline where we have chosen to use a 3-4-3 which is one of the best formations to use for a counter attacking biased playing style and that is exactly what Down Both Flanks is all about.

In goal, we have the Benfica No.1 the Ukranian Anatoliy Trubin who is arguably the tallest player within the entirety of season 12 standing at an impressive 6’6″. Trubin is a young shot stopper that has good reflexes that went to the Euros as third choice for his nation which means that his future is very bright as a GK. In front of Trubin, we have a back 3 consisting of 3 varying types of D(C)’s, but our primary focus will be on the lads at D(RC) and D(LC) as they have a crucial role in ensuring that this style of play can blossom since both need to join in on the attack whenever the chance permits to allow the overload to take place. Odilon Kossounou is a beast of a D(C) who is extremeley athletic and simply unstoppable on his day, but what really makes him stand out is the fact that he has the intelligence of a ‘General Defender’ when it comes to his positional awareness even though he is a ‘Stopper’ who’s all about his defensive work. Speaking of ‘General Defenders’, we have a good one on the other side in Spaniard Mario Hermoso who brings a calming presence in addition to positional intelligence and his comfortability in attacking areas having played as a DM(L) a lot of times during his career to date. While both are assisting the players up the pitch in dominating the ball, the man in the middle has to keep everything very steady and we have a safe pair of feet in the Brazilian Roger IbaΓ±ez, who many may have forgotten due to him selling his soul to the devi- we mean to Saudi Arabian money as he chose fortune over the opportunity to become an iconic Brazilian Center Back. Greed aside, IbaΓ±ez is a rare ‘Stopper’ who also has a silkier side to his game similar to the likes of Ruben Dias, JosΓ© GimΓ©nez and Stefan SaviΔ‡. Roger will be crucial in assisting the midfield 2 with getting unto the ball and recycling it to the wider regions without failure

MIDFIELD

The above illustration of what to expect from the D.B.F and Mixed whilst using the 3-4-3 is a perfect example as to why there is simply no other footy blog out there that breaks down Soccermanager like we do.

We hope that this has been useful for you, and we’ll catch you in the next one!

We come to the very interesting 4 prong midfield set up of the 3-4-3 where we have another mixture of players that bring something different to this team as well as being pretty flawless when it comes to the adaptability of the D.B.F and Mixed. We start off with the French wonder kid who is competing with Kobbie Mainoo for the title of ‘the calmest teenager on the ball in Europe’ title: Warren ZaΓ―re-Emery. The P.S.G starlet burst unto the Ligue 1 scene as a 17 year old bossing Champions league matches like it’s second nature to him. ZaΓ―re is a very busy player whose touch map always showcases someone seeking to touch every blade of grass, and in this team his responsibility will be to stay as close to the ball as possible while utilizing his short passing, technical and explosive dribbling capability to keep his team ticking. The D.B.F and Mixed does not need a ‘Playmaker’ who is static and only wants to stay in central positions and pick teammates out since it requires even the M(C)’s to assist in overloading the wide regions from time to time, and ZaΓ―re fits this bill quite effectively.

Alongside ZaΓ―re, we have the captain of this team and the man who can rightfully be disappointed with not having a star next to his name in the all action Austrian Marcel Sabitzer. Marcel is a teammates’ dream of a ‘B2B’ who simply has a “never say never” attitude towards his approach to football. He’s tenacious, willing, a grafter, and someone you can rely on to do the business within the middle of the park. While ZaΓ―re floats around collecting the ball, Sabitzer steadies the ship in the center of the pitch, utilizing those machines he has for lungs in order to make sure that he and ZaΓ―re puts up a good fight in what will be an area in this team that is likely to be outnumbered for majority of matches.

Now then, The ‘Wingbacks’ that we have outwide will have a field day match after match as they will continually be fed the ball time and time again to make things happen for this team. In the Turkey international Ferdi Kadioglu, we have one of the stars of Euro 2024 who was arguably Turkey’s best player at the competition. He is everything you’d want out of a ‘Wingback’ playing in a D.B.F system as he will provide good service in the box, take on his opponent if the chance permits, rarely give away the ball in controlled possession, over and underlapping for fun, and will have an extra oomph given the license he has to go forward within this 3-4-3 formation. The Spaniard on the other side is everything we just explained but simply at a higher level. As a matter of fact, the only thing stopping Alejandro Balde from having 3 stars was the fact that he’s only 20 years old, but mark our words when we say that he will be an absolutely nightmare to mark given who he has both in front and behind of him

FORWARDS

Speaking of, let’s dive straight into the undoubted star of this team, the Georgian wizard Khvicha Kvratskhelia (Who gives Gannis Antetokoumpo a stiff challenge for the athlete with the most difficult last name to pronounce) is the ideal candidate for this system as ball hogging dribblers simply won’t fit and the Georgian will continually isolate himself against his defender and aim to run directly towards goal every chance that he gets. The constant overloading of the flanks will mean the he will get opportunity after opportunity to make clever runs in behind of the opposition and we already know how lethal he can be in front of goal.

On the opposite side, we have more of a goal socer in the Englishman and Westham talisman Jarrod Bowen, who is one of the most clinical players in the England set up at the moment. Bowen doesn’t miss a beat in terms of his efficiency and will aim to get things done in a swift manner operating closer to the goal compared to his Gerogian teammate (don’t get it wrong though, he will still be providing the starting width necessary to play this D.B.F system successfully but will be more eager to get in on goal).

This XI and style of play requires that we have a F(C) who is capable of playing across the front line, going outwide to assist the overload, and dropping deeper into midfield to help out both ZaΓ―re and Sabitzer whenever he can. It is safe to say we’ve got just the right player in the Portugese goal machine Rafa Silva, who will be operating as a ‘D.L.F’ that has the special license to drift wide most of the time since that’s where the bulk of the play will be taking place

PITCH SIDE…

Since this style of play is so unique, we’ve chosen to display what to expect in a regular match whilst it is being used. The team in blue represents a starting XI that is set up in a 4-3-3A  formation with the instruction to press all over. Mario Hermoso has the ball and we can see that the left sided bias is already being formulated. Although on paper ZaΓ―re-Emery starts as the M(RC), he has to be situated near the ball hence the reason for him drifiting towards that left hand side. The width is really on display here as both Balde and Kvratskhelia are basically hugging the touchline while Rafa Silva is also aiming to make his presence known in between the lines in that left half space. Notice that despite the left hand side bias, Bowen, Kadioglu and Kossounou have stayed on the opposite side of the pitch which enables this team to completely stretch the opposition and is something you should be looking for whilst playing any form of D.B.F attacking areas
As we venture further into the play, we see that Kvratskhelia now has the ball and is looking to line up his defender, Balde is already looking to make the overlapping run with the No.7 keeping a close eye on him but not being able to stop the overlap since it will impact the No.2’s ability to defend properly. Silva has positioned himself intelligenlty and can receive a slide rule pass from Kvratskhelia or simply make the box if the ball goes to the overlapping Balde. Notice again that ZaΓ―re stays with the play throughout, while Bowen gets closer to the penalty area, and Kadiolglu still giving the No.3 a decision to make wether to tuck in next to his No.5 or stay closer to Kadioglu.

The most likely outcome in this scenario will be that Balde receives the ball on the overlap in an attempt to make a one time cross, with Rafa Silva darting towards the edge of the six yard box, Bowen running towards the penalty spot in order to prevent theΒ No.5 from running back to goal trying stop the cross, while Kadioglu makes a swift dash towards the back post on the blind side of the No.3 (who will be more focused on Bowen since Bowen could be on the blind side of the no.5) and scoring a tap in from 6 yards
What to expect…

PLAYER INSTRUCTIONS

We’ll leave the player instructions explanation blank as we’d like you to figure out why you think we chose what we’ve chosen…
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