Cool.
Awesome.
Talking about tactics, I guess they're relatively less important the better your team becomes, though they surely play a part in any success you might have.
In the lower leagues, I'm finding them to be key. I created a 3-4-3 when I was playing with Leicester in the Championship cause I had an abundance of central defenders and strikers but no decent fullbacks. It's simply a line of 3 at the back, a line of 4 in the middle, and line of 3 strikers upfront.
At first I thought it would be a disaster cause opposing wingers could do me a lot of damage but it rather worked nicely. The attacking trio, when they click together, they become so dangerous it's amazing to see.
It's an attacking tactic, with short passing. I use a sweeper keeper with 'support' instruction and 3 ball playing defenders - the one on the right and the one on the left are stoppers, while the one in the middle is set to 'cover'.
The line of four consist of two defensive wingers playing wide with an 'attack' instruction, and it's really important to have the right players in these positions: the more defensive work, stamina, teamwork etc they have, the better cause they drop back a lot to help the defenders.
One of the CMs is a ball winning midfielder - if possible the best tackler in the team - and the other a deep lying playmaker set to 'defend'.
The attacking trio is composed by a target man in a 'support' funcion on the right side, a poacher in the middle and a deep lying forward on the left, also supporting.
Sounds quite bizarre but worked wonders for my Leicester team and got me great results with Accrington Stanley as well. I like these tactics so much I try to use them whenever I can, or whenever it makes sense to use them. I found it truly amazing how even Accrington Stanley players could play such a good passing game after they really 'got' the tactics. It's important to play with aggressive tackling and high pressure as well.
Now that I'm in the Championship with Stanley, however, these tactics are no longer useful. I got so little money for transfers/wages because the club is expanding the stadium that I think my Championship squad is actually weaker than my League One squad was the season before. If I tried to play attacking football with these players, I could picture myself being destroyed week in, week out. Claudio Pitbull, for instance, is now being forced to play as a right winger cause I have no one there. Kirk Broadfoot, a new signing, is playing as DM despite being a central defender.
So I've started the season playing a counter attacking tactic, set as a something like 4-1-1-3-1.
A defensive back four, an anchor man in front of them, then a CM and a line of 3 attacking players - 2 wingers wide and a central advanced playmaker - with one striker upfront.
I've switched to long passing to make use of Arthuro's great aerial ability. Basically it feels like I've gone from being the lower league's Guardiola to become a new Sam Allardyce. It's depressing but is working well so far. I haven't won many games but I'm doing better than expected, around midtable. It's only the start of the season though and it's gonna be difficult to escape relegation. Come on Stanley!
(You can see from the length of my posts recently that I'm excited about it
)