Reading the game

It strikes me as mildly amusing when I see people in the FML chat rooms bang on about how they have a tactic, which makes them a tactical genius. FML, like many games, is a glorified version of scissor, paper, stone - although some people have sharper scissors or bigger stones than others.

Having a basic tactic that gets the best out of your players is important. I prefer to play fast attacking football, maximise the chances I can make in a game, and accept that I will often make it hard for my defenders to keep a clean sheet. But I often make tweaks on the fly in reaction to what the opposition manager does. Here are a few tips that anyone could and should build into their matchday ritual; but remember too much tinkering is a bad idea.

1. When someone challenges you, ask yourself why they are challenging you? Are you just the next opponent on their list or have they targeted you? If they have targeted, why have they targeted you? Do you have a few injuries to key players? Do you have suspensions? Have you just sold a class player? As a general rule, strong teams challenge, weak teams wait to be challenged. If in doubt, put your DND until you are ready to play. This will block all challenges on matches before they are green or red flagged.
2. Quickly cast your eye over your opponent's squad. Look at their AFs. Does one player stand out - meaning that they have put all their money into one player? What's the value of their strikers versus their defenders or midfielders? Where is the weakness? Who is the cheapest player on the team? How does their squad compare to yours? If they are much stronger you should set up more defensively, maybe counter attack (counter attack beats attack in scissor-paper-stone).
3. Get your team submitted first, then wait for his team. As soon as his teamsheet is entered compare your formations and line-ups on the line-up screen. If he is playing two up front make sure your best DC is marking his best striker. If you have a fast striker match him up against the slowest DC. Is he playing an AMC? Is the AMC any good (ie Kaka or Robinho)? Do you need to drop one of your MCs into DMC and put him on man to man marking and hard tackling? Is he playing players in offset positions? e.g. one striker playing left of centre or one full back as a wing back. Do you need to move your players accordingly? A good tip is if the DMC is off centre, move your AMC to the other side. It's far more important for a DMC to mark the AMC than vice versa.
4. When the game kicks off, look for telling patterns. How deep is he playing his defensive line? Do his defenders chase the ball or back off into a tidy formation until their box. High defensive lines are usually used with high closing down. If that's the case you will have less time on the ball in midfield to play a short passing game - increase your through balls and increase the mentality of at least one striker and instruct him to make forward runs. If the defensive line drops quickly, you should focus passing through your midfield playmaker who will now have more time and space to pick the opponent apart; reduce through balls.
5. How wide does his formation look compared to yours? Do more passes go down the sides of your set up or through the middle. In attacking terms you want to be wider than the opponent but in defensive terms you want to be narrow and compact. Again scissor-paper-stone in effect.
6. Where are his chances starting from? Does all the play go through one player? Is one winger getting the better of your fullback? Adjust your tactics to stop the source of your problems. If he has a great striker up front the chances are he will score given enough opportunities.
7. At half time, review the team stats and player stats pages. What are the ratings for your players? Is anyone having a stinker? Who isn't getting into the game enough. If you wingers aren't being involved (say 6 passes or less at HT) it's probably not their fault - it's the fault of your MCs in not spreading the play enough (too short passing, too low a mentality, or they are being put under too much pressure). What's the ratio of long shots to shots - generally long shots are bad - you want clear cut chances. Who is having great success and how can you get more of the ball to them? Should you change your passing focus?
8. There is a bit of a fallacy amongst managers that bad things happen when you are in the lead. The opposition score when you are making a sub, if you are winning 2-0 at half time, you will probably lose. This is because managers who are winning rarely change things, and those that are losing realise they have to make changes. It takes a strong manager to make changes at half time from a winning position - but sometimes it's exactly the right thing to do.
9. You should have three basic formations up your sleeve - standard, attacking and defending. Switching between them depending on the scoreline via the click of one button is far easier than making the changes manually all the time. My attacking formation has a higher mentality, more players running forward, more direct passing, higher defensive line, wider and higher closing down. My defensive formation is low mentality, deep defensive line, low closing down, narrow, no forward runs, no running with the ball, very short passing (ie I am trying to keep possession rather than collapse onto my own area as soon as the ball is lost). 1-0 and 10 minutes to go? Click on defensive formation. Sometimes if you are being dominated or finding chances hard to come by, switching to defensive will give you more of the ball and more chances, whereas switching to attacking will make it worse.
10. Don't start giving up and find fault with everyone else and the match engine. You can't win every game. Sometimes you lose through bad luck; an early sending off or two penalties in the same match. Sometimes you get played off the park - no harm in that. But sometimes you lose because of something that you did, or even worse something you didn't do - because you couldn't recognise the signs in front of your eyes. If their striker gets free and blasts it over the bar, we all relax and count our blessings when you should be thinking about how you can stop that kind of chance happening again.

If you can improve your chances of winning a game from 50:50 to 55:45 through observation of what is happening right in front of your eyes (let along building a successful squad and underlying tactic) you are going to be a successful FML manager.