Team Tactical Instructions

These instructions tell the team how you want it to play. These instructions fall into three different areas:

#### Attack Instructions

These instructions are used when you team has possession of the ball and are attacking. These instructions cover both what a player does with the ball as well as how players react off the ball..

#### Defence Instructions

These instructions are used when your team does not have possession and are defending. They cover a number of aspects, from tackling to how intensely you want to press the opposition.

#### Transition Instructions

These instructions are used for a brief period when possession has changed hands. When you first gain possession from the opposition, your team has to decide whether to counter-attack quickly in the hope of catching the opposition out of position, or to reorganise first and then attack. In a similar way, when you team loses possession they have to decide how intensely they want to counter-press and try to win the ball back quickly.  Lastly, transition instructions cover what your goalkeeper does when they have a goalkick.

#### Clashes Between Team and Role Instructions

Role instructions always overide team instructions for the player(s) with that role.

## Attack Team Instructions

#### Attack Mentality

The ‘Attack Mentality’ determines the default width of your attack formation. However, you can always change this width if you wish.

In addition,  the attack mentality level also shapes your team’s ‘Passing Risk’ and ‘Counter Attack Intensity’ by blocking out some options. For example, if you have a ‘Cautious Attack Mentality’ your team won't be able to choose an ‘Aggressive’ or a ‘Very Aggressive’ Counter Attack Intensity, nor will they be able to choose a ‘Risky’ or ‘Very Risky’ Passing Risk level - those options will be locked out. .

#### Dribbling Frequency

The level you choose determines how likely it is for a player to dribble with the ball when there is space for them to do so.

#### Passing Risk

This covers how safe the team aims to be when passing the ball. The more risk the team is willing to take, the more effective the pass can be in opening up the defence, but the more chance the pass will lead to a loss of possession. The level of risk your team can choose is limited by the ‘Attack Mentality’ of your team.

#### Passing Distance

This instruction sets the typical distance your team will look to pass the ball.

#### Passing Aim

The default Passing Aim is ‘Mixed’ meaning players will not prioritise ‘Passing to Feet’ or ‘Passing into Space’. If you set the instruction to ‘Pass to Feet’ or ‘Pass into Space’, your players will prioritise such passes if they can.

#### Attack Focus

This instruction allows to you tell your team to focus on playing the ball down one or both flanks, or through the middle. This means the team will have a tendency to play the ball with that preference in mind. You can also set it to ‘No Preference’ meaning the team is not swayed one way or the other when it comes to where they want to focus their attack. ‘No Preference’ is the default.

#### Overlaps

In team instructions, overlaps are instructions to your wide players to make move past  teammates in front of them. You can set your team to overlap on one of both flanks, or tell the team not to use overlaps at all. Within roles, it is also possible to give overlap instructions to players who are not on the flanks, meaning that when they make runs they will go past teammates in front of them even if positioned centrally. However, these overlap instructions are not part of team instructions.

#### Switch Play Preference

This instructs the team whether to seek to switch play with a long pass from one flank to the other flank or to actively avoid such passes. If you pick ‘Mixed’ then it means that your team may play a switch pass if an obvious situation arises, but is not actively looking to switch play whenever they can.

#### Run Depth

Run depth covers how far a player will look to make runs to find space from their formation position. ‘Hold Position’ means that players will not really make runs from their formation position at all, bar a few steps, while ‘Long Runs’ mean that players can seek space any distance away, though will not overlap other teammates to find space unless they have an overlap instruction.

#### Tempo

This instruction dictates how quickly the player on the ball will take to make a decision and do something with the ball. If you play a slow tempo, then your players can take their time when on the ball. However, the more time your players spend on the ball, the more time the opposition has to react. So you have to decide which tempo bests suit the players you have, and the style of football you want to play.

#### Crossing Frequency

This instruction sets how often your players will look to cross the ball into the area when they are in a position to do so.

#### Attacking Corners

This instruction governs how aggressive your team is when they have a corner. The more aggressive they are, the more players your team will commit forward into and around the opposition’s penalty area, and so the fewer they will leave back to deal with any counterattacks might be launched should the opposition win the ball. The exact number of players committed forward is partly dependent on how aggressive or cautious the defence sets up in a corner as well.

## Defence Team Instructions

#### Defence Mentality

The ‘Defence Mentality’ determines the default width your defence formation will set up in. However, you can always change this width if you wish..

In addition, the defence mentality also shapes your team’s maximum and minimum ‘Pressing Intensity’ level (e.g. a ‘Balanced’ Mentality cannot set ‘Pressing Intensity’ to ‘Very Low’ or ‘Very High’), as well as its maximum and minimum ‘Counter Press Intensity’ level (e.g. a ‘Cautious’ defence mentality cannot set a ‘Counter Press Intensity’ level of ‘Aggressive’ or ‘Very Aggressive’).

#### Marking Tightness

This sets how closely your players will mark the opposition. The closer they mark, the harder it is for the opposition to pass to the marked player, and also harder for that player to do something with the ball if they do receive it. The looser the marking, the greater chance your players have of intercepting a pass to the marked player.

#### Pressing Intensity

This covers how aggressive your team is in pressing the opposition. Pressing the opposition covers trying to close down the opposition player on the ball, as well as blocking passing lanes through the use of cover shadowing and shoulder marking. The higher the intensity, the more your team will commit to pressing, committing more numbers to harry and hunting the ball and hustling the opposition. The downside is that heavy pressing can leave holes in the defence that can be exploited and can be quite tiring for the players involved.

#### Pressing Trap

When a team presses they will often want to try and push the opposition to move the ball in a certain direction. This instruction allows you do to this. You can set your team to try and push the ball wide and to the outside of the defence formation (‘Trap Outside’), or to the inside (‘Trap Inside’), or choose ‘Mixed’ if you have no preference. ‘Mixed’ is the default option.

#### Tackling Frequency

Tackling frequency governs how much risk your players are willing to take when going in for a tackle. If they are willing to take more risks, then they will tend to go into the tackle early, but if they are more risk-averse, wanting to reduce the chance of giving away free kicks, then they will want to be more patient. ‘Balanced’ sits in between these two.

#### Tackling Intensity

This covers how aggressive your players are when they do go to tackle. ‘Aggressive’ means they are more willing to do slide tackles, at the risk of committing a foul, while ‘Cautious’ means the tackler likes to try and stay on their feet when making a tackle.. Balanced sits in between.

#### Play Offside Trap

This determines whether your team uses an offside trap or not as part of their defensive arsenal.

#### Press Play from the Back

This instruction tells your players to actively move forward and press far up if the pitch if the opposition goalkeeper decides to distribute it short.

#### Defensive Corners

This instruction sets how aggressive the team is when they are defending corners. The more aggressive, the more players the team will try and leave outside the area, to be available to take part in a counter-attack should they win the ball. The number of players in and outside of the area is determined by a combination of your team’s corner instruction and that of the opposition.

## Transition Team Instructions

These instructions cover what your team does when it first gains or losses possession, or how your goalkeeper distributes the ball when they have a goal kick.

#### Counter Attack Intensity

This instruction governs how committed your team is to launching counterattacks when they win back possession. The higher the level you set, the more risk your team is willing to take when counterattacking, and so the more players the team is willing to commit to a counter attack. A lower intensity means the team may choose to regroup into their attack formation rather than starting a counterattack, unless they see little risk involved. If you choose ‘None’ for the intensity level, then your team will always forgo countering and move as quickly as they can into their attack formation and then start attacking.

#### Counter Press Intensity

Counter-pressing is triggered when your team loses possession and immediately begins to press the opposition back to win the ball as quickly as possible. The more aggressive you set the ‘Counter Press’ instruction, the more you will commit to counter-pressing, both in terms of how long you will counter-press before getting back into defensive positions, and how many players your team will commit to such counter-pressing. Not all teams want to commit heavily to the counter-press, so you can set a less aggressive level if you want.  If you would rather your team just gets back into their defensive positions as quickly as possible then pick ‘Regroup’ as your option, and your team will rarely, if ever, counter press..

#### Distribution Distance

This covers how far the goalkeeper likes to distribute the ball when they have a goal kick. If you want to begin your attacks with a build-up from the back, then choose ‘Short’ distribution. If you want to just get the ball up to the attacking line as quickly as possible, then choose ‘Long’ distribution. The default is ‘Mixed’, where your goalkeeper will vary the length..

#### Distribution Direction

This covers where your goalkeeper prefers to distribute the ball. If you distribute to the flanks, then it is your wide players who are likely going to be the recipients, and the opposite for centre distribution. ‘Mixed’ is the default, meaning your goalkeeper likes to vary his direction of distribution.