Nifty Football (Beta) Formations: 4–4–2
With the advent of Nifty Football Beta we take a look at the good old fashioned fish-n-chips of football formations, the classic 4–4–2. The first in a series of community-led articles on formations and tactics.
It’s hard to believe that once upon a time, every team in the English Premier League played 4–4–2. Younger fans could be forgiven for thinking there was a lack of tactical imagination about football in the 90’s and they’d probably be right. Videos of the game at the top level from that period would suggest players had far more freedom to make things up as they went along.
Who can forget jazz footballers like David Ginola, Dennis Bergkamp and Peter Beardsley? The Ian Wrights, Gianfranco Zolas and Juninhos that proved that skills could outmatch pure might? And who didn’t fall in love with Keegan’s Entertainers, who set the league on fire with the novel strategy of having everyone go forward?
4–4–2 was a simpler formation for a simpler time, when individual skills were valued more highly than tight organisation and, fundamentally, strikers were cheap enough and humble enough to play in pairs.
4–4–2 Broken Down
Starting from the front, the 4–4–2 formation is based on an old-fashioned tradition of a striking partnership. The two strikers would learn to complement each other and in time, learn each other’s habits and movements so as to create an almost telepathic relationship on the pitch.
Famous examples of lethal striking partnerships include Brazilian internationals Romario and Bebeto; Manchester Utd’s Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole; and Alan Shearer and Teddy Sheringham for England.
One classic type of combination was that of a skilled ‘number 10’ who would feed the ball through to a sharp-shooting finisher — otherwise known as a ‘poacher’. That final tap-in would often be the poacher’s only contribution to the team. Another proven system was the little-and-large partnership, whereby a tall player would win aerial balls crossed in from the wings and nod them down to our sharp-shooter.
This leads us nicely into the midfield set-up, where the 4–4–2 formation dictates a left-footed winger play on the left wing and a right-footed winger on the right wing. Their jobs were to be fast and skilful enough to pass the full-backs and put in an accurate cross from the byline that strikers would get a head to.
Legends in the field include Manchester Utd’s Ryan Giggs and Andrei Kanchelskis; Liverpool and Real Madrid’s Steve McManaman, and the aforementioned Gallic genius, David Ginola.
In the centre of the park would be two classic ‘box-to-box’ midfielders, who would have the joint responsibility of directing operations, showing the opposition who’s boss and of delivering the ball to the strikers from the centre. In later years, a ‘diamond’ formation would evolve, whereby one of these midfielders would play a more advanced ‘support man’ role while the other (the ‘ball-winning midfielder’) would protect the defence.
Finally, in defence was the classic back four. Big, ugly and stupid, the wall of defence was exemplified in George Graham’s Arsenal. Two big, mean-looking central defenders would look to win those aerial battles against the strikers, while the full-backs would try to contain speedy wingers through a combination of good positioning and sheer violence.
Full backs were typically failed wingers and could therefore barely contain their opposite numbers. Central defenders were famous for being unaffected after severe bumps on the head. Some may say that this ‘old school defending’ made for a far more entertaining brand of football than the modern game often serves up.
Alas, constant modification of the rules over the years has made football far less of a contact sport, which means that modern defenders need to have a touch of, well, footballing ability about them in order to survive.
4–4–2 in Nifty Football
If you’re playing Nifty Football Beta and the above descriptions seem to fit the rabble of Sunday League players you’ve been generated, you should find 4–4–2 to be a solid and reliable formation. It requires two centre backs (CB), a left back (LB) and a right back (RB), two central midfielders (CM), a left winger (LW) and a right winger (RW), and two centre forwards (CF).
Matches are played in three thirds of the pitch. Any team will have between three and five defenders, three and six midfielders, and between one and three forwards. 4–4–2 is basically in the middle of all the possible formations, so you can’t be severely outnumbered in any area of the pitch, but nor will you numerically overwhelm the opposition.
Unfortunately in Nifty Football Beta, you can’t yet view your opposition’s previous match reports and therefore you won’t know their formation until the match starts, but overall 4–4–2 is a fairly safe choice.
Note: in the game’s current form, players should be deployed in their preferred positions as denoted on their player cards, or in one of their secondary positions. While it may seem logical to real life football fans that a right wing forward (RWF) should be able to play as a right winger (RW) — given they are essentially synonyms for the same position — this is not the case yet in Nifty Football.
But here’s your first tactical tip: playing players out of position only affects their morale over time. You can quite happily get away with it for short periods if injuries and suspensions limit your player availability. What really counts is that they have healthy numbers in the attributes that serve the position you put them in. Thus, you can play a RWF in the RW position, just not for too many consecutive games.
So, what do you actually need your players to do in a 4–4–2 formation? As described above, your back four can be ‘old school defenders’, so you can work on improving those particular attributes using the new Player Type filter on the View & Upgrade Squad page. Your wingers should be ‘skilful wingers’; your midfielders should be ‘box-to-box’ and your strikers should be both ‘target men’ or one ‘target man’ and one ‘poacher’.
Conclusion
All in all 4–4–2 is a fine formation to play as long as you have the strength in depth in the right positions and the players who play in those positions have the right balance of attributes. Given you don’t need many ‘intelligent’ players (‘ball-playing centre backs’ or ‘number tens’, for example) it’s particularly useful in the very early days of a Nifty Football manager’s career, when all players are low-level.
During a match you can get a glimpse of the opposition’s formation. If they have three up front, you may consider switching to five in defence. Similarly, if they have five in defence, you may consider switching to 4–3–3. This obviously depends on what resources you have available and fundamentally, whether or not the scoreline is in your favour!
Feel free to hit us up in our Discord community and contribute any thoughts or suggestions, particularly in the dedicated Tactics channel!
