I was at the start of my second season with Benfica when I identified a problem. Looking at the amount of goals I had conceded last season from crosses being allowed into the box, I needed some new full backs. Now, I looked at my budget and knew that would not be enough to buy two full backs. What I did sign was Lucas Digne as an attacking left back.



Digne signed for what may eventually cost £5,750,000.

Instead of playing a flat back four, and playing a right back that I was not comfortable with, I decided to shift my entire back four along to the left, as shown by the screenshot below.



Team Instructions



The main items to draw from this is the quick tempo, more roaming and the focus passing. With a quick tempo, my teams can play accurate passes quickly and try and exploit holes in the oppositions defence. With more roaming set, my players will not always stay in their positions, as a result of this, they will give the defenders of the opposition a run around, trying to mark them out nof the game. I focus my passing down the left flank mainly, and this is because most of my attacking play comes down there. With my full back attacking and my inside forward cutting inside, keeping it down the left hand side of the pitch, where more atttacking players play, is sensible.

The Roles and key player instructions

Goalkeeper - Defend
Central Defender - Defend
Central Defender - Defend
Ball playing Defender - Defend
Full Back - Attack
Ball Winning Midfielder - Defend
Advanced Playmaker - Support
Inside Forward - Support
Attacking Midfielder - Attack
Inside Forward - Support
Trequartista - Attack

The Back Line

With me not having a good full back at the club, and also not being able to afford one, I went about playing a back three, alongside an attacking left back. I believe this worked very well. The left back darted forward, running with the ball when he could and also getting into crossing positions, meanwhile leaving a solid back three when we were attacking. Below shows the averag positions of the left back during the game.



Shown above is his average positions in the Taco de Portugal final against Porto, in which the left back Digne achieved an impressive rating of 7.8, winning the man of the match. As you can see, his most active area is probably around the left wing back position but he also covers far up the pitch, running along the left when it is wise to do so. Digne covered more distance than anyone else in this final, a total of 7.8 miles.

Moving on from the left back, is the back line of three centre backs. The left centre back, the ball playing centre back, is usually Ezequiel Garay, and he usually provides an outlet to the central midfielders and the left back, attempting to play balls into their feet. With a high creative freedom as a defender, Garay will attempt to break up play and try and find those killer long balls, if he can. The central defender is there to be solid and stick to his position, and kill off attacks. The right central defender however, has different instructions. With there being a lack of a right back, we still need to guard the right flank, as a result of this, whoever plays in the position has to close down very often when the left winger of the other team is on the ball in our half. This helps kill the attack and when he leaves his position, the other two centre backs are still there to deal witht he cross. Prime example is shown below.



As you can see, the right centre back Sidnei in this case, closes down the Porto winger Konoplyanka, putting pressure on him. Now it may be your argument to say, if I had a right back, would the winger have got to there? What I say is, I don't mind, as long as they are put under enough pressure to not make an opportunity out of it. If the ball came in at this point, Sidnei would have chance to block it and if he didn't, Luisao, Garay and left back Digne should be able to sweep it up.

Midfield and Attack

Playing with an advanced playmaker, an attacking full back, two inside forwards and an attacking midfielder makes my midfield look pronged to attack. The only defensive player in my midfield five is my left central midfield, who plays as a ball winning midfielder, who attempts to guard the back three when going forward, as the left back has joined the attack, whilst all the other midfielders are forward.

With me focussing my play down the left hand side of the pitch as I showed earlier, my advanced playmaker plays on the left side of the central midfield. This is where he pushes forward when we attack and attempts to play killer passes when on the ball.

With my full back attacking and taking it along the wing, hugging the touchline, I must tell my left winger to cut inside. The player who usually plays there, Willian is a good shooter and as he cuts inside, he has a shot if he cannot find the correct pass. Nicolas Gaitan, who usually plays on the right side, doing exactly the same. We are shown this by the goal below:



This goal is a perfect show of how the full back and inside forward foil themselves. Digne runs forward as far as he can, until he can't take it past the full back, where he finds Willian adjacent to him. He passes it to Willian, who cuts inside and scores a beautiful goal, into the corner of the net.



Another main part of my attack is the trequartista. Now, when i first joined the club, although Oscar Cardozo looks like a target man, I thought I would try him out as a trequartista.



He is not the fastest, but with his creativity, off the ball, first touch and passing, he provides an excellent makeweight between attack and midfield.

I am probably not the best to describe about trequartista's but you can read more about them with @llama3 's great guide here

Playing in the role of trequartista, Cardozo has been fantastic, scoring 28 goals the last two SAGRES seasons, winning the golden boot on both occasions.

I believe what attributes to Cardozo's goal scoring is his fantastic ability for shots from distance. As he drops back into midfield to pick up the ball like most trequartista's do, if he cannot find the correct pass to lay it off, he will shoot, and whilst some may miss by a long way, it is worth it as he scores some screamers, shown below is an example.



As shown by this goal, although it was some time ago (Aimar playing at AMC) you can clearly see the position that Cardozo is taking on the pitch. He comes deep to get the ball from Aimar, who doesn't have much else to do but lay it off to him, as Aimar is in a crowd of players. As Cardozo doesn't see much else on, he shoots.

In my tactic, Cardozo is played with a lower mentality than my AMC, which is Felipe Anderson. When we are attacking, Cardozo will come deep to get the ball and either lay it off to his attacking counterparts, be it Anderson, Willian or Gaitan or possibly shoot. When he lays it off either of the players, due to him coming deep and having a lower mentality, he will be passing it forward to them, giving them the momentum to run forward with the ball, whilst he will join the attack as a support option.



As you can see from Cardozo's positional heatmap against Olhanense, in a game where he scored all six goals in a 6-0 win, he mainly operated around the AMC area. He also occasionly drifted back into the MC area. This proves that not all modern day strikers, play as glorious poachers, I think that if the player has the brains to know when to drop back and know what to do with the ball once he has got it at his feet.

The Stats

2011-12 season



This was when I believed something needed to be done. In a weak division, conceding more than one goal per game, I believe is pretty poor, especially when the title winners only concede thirteen goals.

2012-13 season



As you can see, with the change in the back line, the defence has improved, we conceded twelve goals less and finished champions as a result. Conceding nineteen in the end was a lot more than I thought as after nineteen games, we had only conceded nine goals. I think that injuries and tiredness took effect at the end of the season.

I think, if we could afford it, recruiting a new centre back and goalkeeper could improve the situation even more.

Main Talking Points

• More proof that a trequartista is a massive aide to have in your team. If you have a player that can pull it off, use him.
  
• An attacking full back does not leave you short defensively. It adds an extra dimension to attack, and as long as you have a central midfielder or defensive midfielder covering the back line, you should be fine.
  
• Playing assymetric without a full back can help rather than hinder your progress.

Improvements

• Try and make more tactical adjustments, resulting in less goals conceded again next season.
  
• Sign a new goalkeeper and/or centre back, may be half the problem.

Teams that may work well with the tactic

• Chelsea. Without an outstanding right back in their team, I believe Chelsea may be the perfect team to play with the defensive set up. Ashley Cole would be a perfect attacking outlet going forward and Mata cutting inside would be perfect.
  
• Manchester United. Another team without a brilliant right back. Patrice Evra may be set to attack and with a load of centre backs available at United from the start, they could be quite the team to play the back three centre backs. Rooney may also excel as a trequartista.
  
• Any other team that have a weak side of the defence. If you haven't got a good left or right back, you can just do the same for either side. Make sure the focus passing is down the side of the attacking full back and it should work okay.

Credits

• A credit goes to @Foxo, for helping me and telling me to try the defensive set up in the first place.
  
• @Tommo for this guide on attacking full backs. Although it is from FM11, it is still very much applicable now and I took a lot of ideas from that.
  
• @llama3 and @BWP for their guides on a trequartista. You showed me how well it worked in your tactics and it encouraged me to try it to.

Finally, if you want to try this for yourself, please click me!

Thanks for reading and I appeciate any feedback that you may have.


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