Winning 4-4-2 Diamond Tactic

You saw that my Ultimate FM 2009 challenge with Andria Bat is going extremely well, as I have won promotion. As promised, I have now the tactic that helped me get that promotion: a simple, yet effective 442 tactic.

In my 4-4-2 Diamon Tactic I do alter things very little. Below I have posted the on-pitch positions and the team instructions for this great tactic for Football Manager 2009 (click image to enlarge it, hit back button on browser to return here):

Every player on the pitch will get a specific "Closing down" (CD) setting, done as follows: Strikers have the biggest CD and it decreases until the central defenders, who have a low setting for it. The goalkeeper has none.

Next, your full backs will have a normal mentality and they should cross often. Central defenders should man mark and have a very defensive mentality.

The defensive midfielder is very important in this tactic, as it double teams players. Make sure to keep him on a defensive mentality and let him close down a lot.

Wingers and the central attacking midfielder have normal creativity levels and also make sure you will set one striker a bit less offensive than the other and don't let him forward run or run with the ball. This way, he will sometimes go back for the ball and provide it to the other striker. He usually drags the central defender with him, so if your other striker likes to "move into channels" you will have lots of goals.

Here you go! This is the great FM 2009 tactic that brought me promotion! As I said, keeping it simple seems to pay off. Try it and let me know the results of trying my tactics!

Football Manger Live Trailers

I announced a while ago the release date for Football Manager Live and today I have a new update about FML: Sports Interactive has released two announcement trailers for the game. One is intended for an adult audience only, while the other can be viewed by everybody. According to your age, please select the corresponding trailer.

The clean Football Manager Live trailer:



The adult version of the Football Manager Live trailer:

Football Manager 2009 Patch 9.2.0 Released, Download Now

SI Games has released the 9.2.0 patch for Football Manager 2009, fixing and improving a lot of stuff to make our playing experience even better. The patch brings tons of new stuff, so you'd better go download it right away without losing your save game!

"The 9.2.0 patch includes an updated database and incorporates all of the updates from the 9.1.0 and 9.1.1 patches. The 9.2.0 update is save game compatible, so you can continue playing your current games, although to make use of the updated database, you will need to start a new game." says an official posting.

If you want to download the Football Manager 2009 patch 9.2.0 follow this link for instructions! Cheers!

Andria Challenge: Season 2 Over

It's been a great and impressive season for Andria this year, since we've managed to grab the promotion to a higher league and, hopefully, to real football - only if the team manages to keep up the great form of the season! But I will worry in the future, as I have to show you the great results of the second season!

As you can see in the screenshot below, Andria Bat managed to keep up with the great form presented in the previous update, and I am sure that naturally we would've been the winners, but Gela also had an amazing form and grabbed the first place. Fortunately, following the playoffs, I managed to lead the team to victory and we gained promotion - it was tough and unexpected, but I am incredibly happy.

French man Yann Schneider was impressive and he became the best player in my team and also the highest rated player in the division, while winger Aris Falzone - a kid with awful stats, managed to perform incredibly well in the matches. Probably he won't be here next season, but he looked great and I kind of got attached to it.

Also, as opposed to last year when my strikers were simply embarrassing, this year Andria made me proud of the Football Manager challenge and we had two forwards in the top - unfortunately no first place for us.

Finally, the Serie C2C stats: Andria was not considered overachiever (which seems strange to me) but Yann Schneider grabbed the signing of the season tag and, as I said, he also became the highest rated player in the division. He loves the club and I love him, so I hope I'll be able to keep him a little longer in the team :) Oh, and as a fun fact, Daniele Russo, the "worst signing of the season" is an ex-Adria player. It appears that I have done a good job selling him for an immense 10K!

More personal and detailed impressions about the second season in my Ultimate Football Manager Challenge are coming up in a future post, as well as an explanation of the tactic that got me so high in the charts. So stay tuned!

Back for business!

Hello again, Football Manager fans all over the world! After some great Christmas and New Year holidays, I am back home and ready to carry on with my Adria challenge. But until that happens (with updates, of course) and other goodies like players, tactics and more will be posted, let me wish you all the great things for the new year.

So, may 2009 make all your wishes come true and be an overall better year than the previous one. And, of course, let's hope that this year we'll all do great and achieve everything we have wanted. A happy new year, my dear visitors!