Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey

Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter two – Space Management, Adapting and Exploiting Quality

In the last post of part VI we looked at the strategy and logic behind creating a system, specifically focusing on key elements such as style, principles, balance and strategic considerations. As previously mentioned, the second post in this part will focus on issues like adapting your system to different circumstances, how to exploit the strengths of your squad and what matters the most when it comes to achieving balance in your style of play. Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter two – Space Management, Adapting and Exploiting Quality”

Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter one – Attacking Football and Developing a Style

Recent tactical experiments saw me focus a lot on ideas revolving around concepts on defending and the systems I’ve focused on have been a consequence of maybe too much dwelling on that, so I’ve decided to try out something new, yet again, with my Sparta Bucharest side Attacking football is a very debatable term… is it GegenPressing? is it Route One? is it Schimdt’s overloads? is it Conte’s 3-4-3? Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part VI.chapter one – Attacking Football and Developing a Style”

Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part V – Libero Rewind

As previously promised in the Libero article and due to the fact that I get easily bored playing the same system for too long, this is my attempt to integrate the Libero in FM with a squad of overall lower quality. I’ve decided to try this out with my Sparta team, considering the presence of the highly praised Milas Ionita II amongst our ranks: Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part V – Libero Rewind”

Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part IV – Simplicity brings Efficience

Hello everyone and I hope you’re enjoying this series thus far. You might be wondering why I change my approaches so often, as until now we’ve had very good success with most of the systems employed. This probably originates in my utter disregard to concepts like ‘stick to what’s working’ and ‘if it’s going well, don’t change it’, when it comes to football management. The whole idea behind this series is to provide an illustration of the fact that being adaptable and flexible are some of the most important aspects of management. Given this is a youth-only save, the ‘logistic’ set-up provides the perfect scene for that, as we’re unable to buy players and have to constantly look to adapt our tactics to players that come through the team through youth recruitment. Then again, it’s an exercise in trying to prove that success can be achieved on a football pitch with different styles of football, and therefore a subtle dig to the moralists of these realms which advocate a ‘right way’ and ‘wrong way’ to play football. Before this starts looking like an ego-trip, I will conclude on this conceptual side of things and I’ll get on with the real deal: Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey: Part IV – Simplicity brings Efficience”

Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part III: Evolve and Assess

The last couple of years have marked our successful transition from a team that has to focus on defending in order to survive the majority of the matches to one that can afford to try and test the opposition a bit more and even control play when the occasion arises. This happened mainly thanks to the much improved technical ability of the new generation of players that came through the youth ranks in the past 2-3 years. Last season was the main step up in that sense, as we shifted from half a decade of using a conservative, quite rigid system, mainly in the forms of the above shown 3-5-2/3-3-1-1-2 to a variation of 4-1-4-1 that allowed for more fluidity and variety in our football. Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part III: Evolve and Assess”

Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part II: integrating youth development & tactic design

After 6 years of using the 3-5-2/3-4-3 system described in the previous article in this series, as well as molding through specialized training the very young squad at our disposal to reach the desired attributes that are required by our philosophy, I decide to change the system based on a few key issues: Continue reading “Sparta | A Tactical Identity Journey – Part II: integrating youth development & tactic design”