3. Football Manager 20 and 3–5–2 tactic: a match made in heaven?
How Pro Vercelli conquered Lega Pro
Hello again, season 2019–20 with Pro Vercelli in Lega Pro, or Serie C if you prefer, is already over, an excellent season where we dominated the league finishing in first place with 101 points, only one defeat, while Monza finished second 25 points behind.
After 81 goals score and only 16 conceded, we’re back to Serie B after two years!
Given the premises I’m very satisfied, the team I found was certainly not built for promotion, being media predicted to finish 6th.
A group of youngsters from the youth sector to which I added some hot prospects borrowed from clubs of higher category, mainly seventeen and eighteen years old.
Having a solid Italian core with some more experienced players like Gianmario Comi (club top scorer with 11), Alberto Masi e Gabriele Franchino (11 assists from the right-wing) surely helped to achieve an unpredictable first place, one of the most impressive runs I have ever had in Football Manager.
Despite the promotion to Serie B, the financial situation of the club is not so flourishing; the wage budget is under control, we’re only 11th in the salary per annum table with 1.75M, but the club has continued to lose money all year round, also because of the low turnout (1905 our average attendance) at the stadium Silvio Piola.
We currently are in the red and it’s a stressful situation.
Anyhow the management is happy for the results obtained and also the five-year plan has been widely respected so far, let’s see how it will change next year in Serie B.
Players overview
The player of the year award ranking explains well the dominance of Pro Vercelli in the league, as you know from my previous piece Manuel Nicoletti was the only player signed on a permanent basis when the season started, snapped for 50k he scored 7 goals with 11 assists and 7 POM’s in his first season.
Both Manuel Nicoletti and Simone Rosso (a winger retrained) played in the left wingback spot, surely this match engine looks biased toward wingbacks, but I’ll try to clarify later how the tactic I used played a major role in this successful season.
Keepers: my young keeper Gianluca Saro (19 yrs) quickly became my first choice over the more experienced Moschin, 15 clean sheets tell he did a good job.
Defenders: I already talked about Nicoletti, Rosso and Franchino, another one who impressed here has been another wingback, Roberto Iezzi with his 10 assists.
Simone Auriletto (20 yrs) clearly emerged among my central defenders, on the right of my back three, played 35 games with 7.32 av.rating.
Midfield: many good news come from this department, Leonardo Mazza (renewed loan for another season) was one of the biggest surprise of the year, he’s been our starting regista for the whole season, at just 18 years old he’s very mature for his age, his Pirlesque vision and awareness were the main reasons behind his 8 assists and 3 goals. Two players coming from Pro Vercelli youth sector had a brilliant season as well: Raoul Mal (20 yrs, 6 goals and 7 assists) and Michele Foglia (22 yrs, 6 and 4).
Forwards: Baldè was my best striker with Comi, they were both club top scorers with 11 goals, the good news is that from next summer the Spanish forward will join the “Bianche casacche” permanently, having signed a three-year deal after Sampdoria were hesitating to renew his contract.
Another one that deserves to be mentioned is Belgian striker on loan from Sampdoria, Jamie Yayi Mpie (19 yrs), the boy is really talented as he showed in his 18 apps with 9 goals.
We are red, we are white, we are Danish dynamite!
Some teams are remembered for the trophies won, some others for the emotions aroused in people’s hearts.
In the early 1980s, Denmark became one of the most innovative and spectacular national teams in European football.
They won nothing but their way of playing football enchanted fans all over the world.
If you’re interested in their story you should read this: Danish Dynamite the Story of the Football’s Greatest Cult Team
There were some great players in that team: the bio-luminescence of Michael Laudrup worked perfectly with Preben Elkiaer’s raw power and Morten Olsen sense of position. Sepp Piontek, their German manager, was able to give them discipline and focus, things that until then had been missing in Danish football, without restricting its naive inspiration.
They lost to Spain, their nemesis, both the Euro 84 semi-final and Mexico 86 second round, but the kind of football they showed before those games won’t be forgotten.
But how do you connect all this to Pro Vercelli?
Simple, their 3–5–2 was the inspiration for the tactic that Alberto Gilardino’s team is using.
Many coaches claim to have invented or reinvented the 3–5–2 formation, from Carlos Bilardo to Piontek, passing through Ciro Blazevic and arriving up to Antonio Conte, the truth is that each version of this tactic has its own peculiarities, talking about Football Manager you could check Keysie Rensie blog and read about his version of 3–5–2, different from mine but still effective.
Now let’s see how mine works.
That Danish side was a team of dribblers, on the flanks and in the middle, they always tried to beat their direct opponents, they liked to have the ball but their game wasn’t merely possession-based as the search for vertical play was always present.
We did the same.
These are my wide men average dribbling per game stats:
- Nicoletti: 4.21
- Iezzi: 3.38
- Franchino: 3.41
- Rosso: 2.68
Like the Danes we’re using a libero but we’re even more expansive, we also have a regista in our formation (Piontek employed a more defensive midfielder, Bertelsen, to screen the defensive line) to be more aggressive from the back and move the ball quickly forward.
Stretch your opponents to hit them in the middle still works
The wing-back on the right must, above all, cross balls inside the penalty box, remaining wider than its counterpart on the other flank, mainly to leave space for the runs of the mezzala.
The left wing-back, having more space in front of him often cuts towards the penalty area to shoot.
When we attack our first target is to widen the pitch, so to have gaps in the middle of which my three central midfielders could take advantage.
Crosses are a vital part of this tactic but we score in several ways, just check The graphic below to discover how our goals are well distributed among the various positions on the pitch.
The problem with 3–5–2 formation is that it’s really tiring, especially for the wingbacks forced to cover with exhausting runs the flanks of competence.
I replace them often during the second half of the game because if they have no more energy to keep the formation high, we could end up playing a low 5–3–2, with a real chance of being closed down in our own half.
Fit and strong players are vital for the success of this tactical asset, heavy rotation has been used in this first season to keeep them fresh.
I know the Football Manager match engine is still a work in progress but I have faith in what I have here, I’ll face Serie B still using this tactic as a solid starting point.
Meanwhile there’s a lot to plan for next season , the rebuilding of Pro Vercelli has just begun.
I know, Zebre are everywhere, it seems the fix didn’t work for Juve under-23 squad.
Shit happens.
This is the end, for now, keep following the blog for more Football Manager content and Pro Vercelli goodness…
