Man marking vs zonal marking

[Kaushik Murmu]

Hello friends!! Can anyone explain the advantages and disadvantages of man marking and zonal marking in details. Thanks in advance.

[festinator]

I would like to know this as well

[tongly45]

if your opponent have a dribler, man marking is stupid. But it work very well when you face a better team with good atacking player. if you play attacking and pressing whole pitch, you need to use zone marking

[reddeviljohn]

In order to apply man-marking your defenders and defensive midfielders must be good at marking and also good in all defensive attributes. They must be able to stop the attacker in 1v1 situation, otherwise it causes very significant problems in your defense. What I understood is that man-marking means that the defender follows the attacker who enters his zone even after attacker leaves the zone and thus leaving it undefended against other enemy players stepping in the zone. For me it means that man-marking is unacceptable against highly mobile and technically gifted teams such as Barcelona and Arsenal, because a player like Messi will just drag your defenders out of their zone while his teammates tear you apart(Messi is at the Right Inside Fwd position, drags your left defender with him to the middle and passes to Dani Alves, who is free to do whatever he wants, because your left defender is gone). Man-marking is also more suitable if your team has a lot of defending units and the formation is very defensive minded so that even one of your defenders gets beaten there is always someone nearby for backup.
Overall, Zonal marking seems to work best for me. Whenever I want to stop a key enemy player who is very good with the ball in his feet - then I tight mark him from the enemy instructions. Tight marking as I read means that your defender will be marking the attacker tighly(charging him for first ball or not letting him have much time to think what to do with the ball) when he is in his zone but will defend his zone when the attacker leaves the zone. Of course zonal marking doesn't require as high marking attr as man-marking, but it requires a decent teamwork from all defensive units and an anchorman or defensive minded midfielder.

[jklm_37]

I use zonal all the time because i generally put out a 4/4/2 or a similar formation...it best suited to how i play...

Never used man on man (i understand the difference between them both) so i can't comment on that subject...

Advice...don't play MoM unless your formation demands it...

[Sxrenity]

I've always used zonal marking.

Only use man marking if your players are far better than his, in one on one situations, or if they're very good defensively.

Basically what reddeviljohn said in simpler terms

EDIT: it only works if your formation counters his effectively, ie if you have enough defenders to mark his STs, or MCs to mark his MCs etc.

[Piyush Ravi]

How do we tight mark an enemy player?

[Amane Ito]

It was explained countless times but here is my take on it:

Zonal marking is solid defense. It is good if your team quality is similar or worse than your opponents, or your opponent is playing very aggressively. Aggressive mentality usually don't work well simply because most players choose this mentality as default. It also require your team to spread out evenly on the field, as unmarked position in any area of the field, even on the opponent's defensive line, makes it extremely vulnerable to counterattacks.

Man to man marking offer better defense against counterattacks, thus it work best if your opponent plays defensively. As many experienced managers play defensive counter against stronger opponents, it is usually effective if your team is of better quality. It is also more flexible, that formations with holes in its defense it may be used successfully.

[Sons of Pitches]

asked many times before. There is some good advice here...

http://forum.topeleven.com/tutorials...s-tactics.html

[Adam T. Brown]

asked many times before. There is some good advice here...

http://forum.topeleven.com/tutorials...s-tactics.html

Good bump, thank you