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In 1991 Europe Champion was Red star Belgrade... Apart to fact that I am Red Star fan, thing that always intrigued me was that they played an unusual, in today football terms, brand of football.. Their formation was quite unusual, and their fast paced attacks were always something that was interesting for me...

But what was even more interesting is their setup.... They played some kind of total football... Everybody had licence to attack apart to GK and one CB, and everybody had to defend, apart from striker... They had only one stopper, and they had libero... I tried for years to get that to work in FM, and it was almost always disaster... Mainly because setup with one CD and Libero was always huge defensive problem.

But this year, I was reading something and it trying something, and suddenly, it was not such disaster... It still needs (much, much), work, but it is not that far from real Red star I remember...

So lets start from description of the team... Although, they did change a bit formation from time to time, so I will cover all important changes with this....

Basically, the team was built around Libero Mile Belodedic (ex KES winner with Steaua, Romanian), great playmaker Robert Prosinecki (later, he played for Barcelona and Real both, and was third with Croatian nationaln team in WC), and great dribbler Dejan Savicevic (latter Milan player, he destroyed Barcelona in KES finals back in 94.)...


Outfield looked like this...

GK - Stojanovic, he was normal keeper, not too fancy...
LB - Mile Belodedic, exceptionally gifted Libero, with high composure and technical ability. It was not unusual for him to push high up field and even send some final balls towards advanced players and create chances for them. In defense, he was usually guarding backline by cleaning anything that would pass them as he had enough pace to cover them...
RB - Vasilijevic or Radinovic, both high working players, that were going up and down field... Vasilijevic was more of defensive minded, while Radinovic was more of offensive minded player.
CB - Iilija Najdojdoski/Refik Sabanadzovic/Vasilijevic - plain simple stopper, mainly used to man mark opposition strikers. He was only one who always stayed at back. He played extremely simple game - won the ball and pump it out of stadium if possible.
LB - Slobodan Marovic - he was mainly defensive player, who rarely left his position, and if he did, it would be to send deep crosses from 30 or so meters from box...
DM - Vladimir Jugovic and (in some variants) Refik Sabanadzovic. Vladimir Jugovic (formerly he played for Juventus, Lazio, Atletico Madrid, highly successful and respected midfielder) was engine that drove team forward with his constant running, covering and movement. Refik Sabanadzovic was his alternative, something between CB and DM, much less attacking oriented player, but still technical enough so he could help in attack build up...
CM - Robert Prosinecki. He was main creative force of team, one that had free licence to send deep balls, run with the ball, roam from position, dribble at pace, and basically do whatever he see fits. And he was simply amazing at that role.
CM - Vlada Stosic, and at half of season, Sinisa Mihajlovic came to team and moved more to side playing WML. Vlada Stosic was high working, technical player, some kind of Box to box midfielder, while Sinisa at that time was playing more wide midfielder (with similar mentality) who would occasionally move into center of field.
WMR/AMR - was extremely fast player, at time, he run on grass 11 seconds on 100 meters (yes, someone actually measured time)... He was not most technically gifted player, but he was good enough to get past his man and shoot or cross at pace. Depending on situation, he would be more side midfileder/winger type, or second striker out wide (INF).
AMC/AML - Dejan Savicevic was essentially wide playmaker, not too much involved in buildup, but he was main gay to create something in final third. In defense, he was helping a bit, but he was rather lazy, and probably this was reason why Marovic never get to past opposition 30 meters, although he had very good crossing ability.
And finaly
FC - Pancev... He was extremely oriented to goal scoring, he was not included as much in buildup, but he did moved around a little. He was not too fast, nor too good of dribbler, nor too strong, but it was enough. The thing he was best at was scoring and moving around pitch finding ways to put the ball into net.


Team was essentially playing attacking, possession football, but they were also rather direct in transition, which was their main strength. They also like to pin down opposition and attack in waves. They also gave a lot of freedom to their players, so you could see Prosinecki or Jugovic crossing from byline, Binic acting like second striker in box, or Radinovic cuting insid and taking long shots, Jugovic sometimes was most advanced player of team and so on...

So I came up with this:
View attachment 167998View attachment 167997
Regarding player instruction, only back line and GK have some special instructions, in order to get it to be more defensively stable.
View attachment 167996View attachment 167995View attachment 167994View attachment 167993View attachment 167992

Now, you may noticed that I did not follow to a line with this formation what I explained, but this was some sort of compromise between defensive stability and my trying to come up with most accurate reconstruction of tactic. It may be more accurate to move BBM to side as WM-sup, and to move WPM to AM, but for now, I did not tried this yet, but I will certainly, and this is one of my long term plans to do. But at moment, I do not have anyone who could play this position as imagined, so this is close enough, as BMB is using space on left side and essentially is acting as WM-sup.

Also, I have to notice that I did not played too much, just couple of games, watching full length of games, and although it is not big enough sample, I saw some good things, and some bad things, fortunately, more good things, and this is why I decided to seek for second opinion.

Regarding good vs bad:

The GOOD.
My defense looks pretty solid, which was biggest surprise for me. I did needed sometimes to man mark opponent strikers, but I hardly allowed shoots to opponents, not to mention scoring chances. Ones I did, they came of set pieces, which is not a problem, since I did not setup set pieces yet, attacking or defensive. I did however had some issues with one team, playing direct football, that pressed me high, but I have to say it was my second unit on field, with glaring issues, where most of them were not on their natural position and lot of them were completely out of position. My LB at time was darn slow, as well as Libero, so they failed to cover properly hole on middle -left side of defense, which was forcing some issues, but while my first unit was on field, most of issues were non existent. So, as I said, this needs more testing, but at first glance, it looks very promising. DM and CB are closing down early, LB and Libero are closing everything that gets past them.

Regarding possession - looked great, against different formation and different styles movement, situations that I could capitalize on, and still, I was not too passive with ball, but my players were trying to use every opportunity to capitalize on space and opportunities that were there. Passing was all the time over 80% successful, and possession was between 55 and 65% regardless of opponents formation, style of play or result. So this is great.

There is also one more upside, I was able to pin opponent so hard that they had one or none player to pass ball to in order to start break. So easily covered with my CB and combination of Libero, Regista or LB, depending on situation. There is also one more thing I really liked. Angles for passes that opponent had were quite terrible. Midfield trio was doing magnificent job at covering space.

In opponent 30 meters, or attacking zone, there was a lot of situations I could be using better then I did, but I am more inclined to think this more connected to some faults of my players then actual faults of formation. But I will certainly look more into this latter on. There was lot of late runs that were overlooked, early shots in situations that could be better used and so on. I also think that PPM-s like one two passes could help greatly in situations like these, but I do not have anyone who has this ppm...

The BAD

I did managed to put in 20+ shots in each game, score at least one goal and create 1-2 CCC and 3-5 HC each game, and to get about 50% shots on target, if I exclude ones that were blocked, usually, I had about 7-8 shots on target, which is not so bad, but I agree this could be better.

I had problem against high pressing opponent to bring ball forward. My statistical parameters did not on decline, but this was a problem, and I will have to find some sort of solution for this.

IMPORTANT NOTE:
It is highly important that LB and Libero have some pace and acceleration, as they will mainly defend at space. It is also highly important for FC to have good off ball movement, as he will be used as outlet option and this is needed to disrupt defenses and create space for others.

For those who are willing to try it out and give me a thought, here is tactic:

View attachment 167972
 
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