Important Cup Match against Stronger Team, need help ASAP!

[Krishna Sadhana]

Going to face this guy in the cup today, slightly if not much more stronger than my team



This is his squad. He plays 4-3w-3, but before that he played 4-3w-1-2 and 4-1-2-2-1, and there's a chance that he's going to change his formation, AGAIN.



How to beat this guy? And what is the perfect formation to counter his players?

This is my team btw:



Thanks in advance!

[Krishna Sadhana]

<<Edited for premature posting, see below for the post. Thanks, touchscreen.>>

[Krishna Sadhana]

Damn guy changed his formation (AS EXPECTED) into a 4-1-2w-2-1. Countering it with a defensive 4-1-3-2, going through the right flank since his DR (Maher) has the weakest ratings of his back four (all of them averaging between 7-9).

What do you think? Match is on 6.56pm Japan Standard Time. Please respond._.

[padrino]

Damn guy changed his formation (AS EXPECTED) into a 4-1-2w-2-1. Countering it with a defensive 4-1-3-2, going through the right flank since his DR (Maher) has the weakest ratings of his back four (all of them averaging between 7-9).

What do you think? Match is on 6.56pm Japan Standard Time. Please respond._.

Try 3n-4-1-2

[Krishna Sadhana]

Try 3n-4-1-2

played that and got a 1-1 draw. Need a miracle since I'm playing away next and he's probably going to change his formation :|

[pcmacdaniel]

1-1 draw isn't a bad result.

Regarding countering him, your best bet is to setup with most versatile setup you can. If he's active (watching the match) high versatility will enable you to change your formation during the live match with minimal substitutions. This is important because with in-game formations you don't want to be in scenario where you need to respond to his formation change with more substitutions than him. If he's able to use less subs than you in changing formation, he'll be able to counter you no matter what you do (assuming he knows what the correct counters are).

With in-match formation adjustments you'll also force him to think on his feet. It's one thing to identify a counter-formation/strategy if you have hours to prepare one. With increased versatility, he'll lose the luxury of stuff like asking for a counter-strategy on a forum like this one, instead having to identify one all by himself on the fly. Basically, you'll be creating a battle of wits, a chess match of sorts where he won't be able to phone a friend to identify a way out of his mess. Hopefully, he doesn't have a great grasp on counter-formations, etc... and you'll send his cup dreams crashing with an early exit.

Also, max condition, morale and win bonus. I don't normally recommend max morale because of the blue pack cost, but considering your opponent has a roster consisting of 22 scout list players, its a relative safe assumption he has the funds to put all players on max everything! From my experience, there is a big difference is how my team plays if all players are on "max morale" instead of "superb but not max morale."

[Krishna Sadhana]

Thanks mate. I got that 1-1 draw after I set everyone on max morale, probably gonna splurge my blues and greens for the return match...he just rescheduled our game by one hour, so I don't know whether I wanted to thank him or not...

From what I saw from the last two days he alternated between 3-4-1-2 and 4-4-2 classic. Probably going to counter him with a defensive 5-3-2, and since my midfield's quite strong, I'm putting faith on it.

[Krishna Sadhana]

Didn't worked out. The guy deployed a 4-4-2 classic right into the dying minutes before the game, so I decided to bring out my 4-4-2 killer - 4-1-3w-1-1. DAMN GUY CHANGED HIS FORMATION INTO A 4-3W-2-1 CHRISTMAS THREE IN THE LAST MINUTE. Thankfully my AMC's out so I used an MC to cover for him and was able to switch to a 4-1-4-1 during the match. GUESS WHAT HAPPENED? The Italian dandy with his smile turned out for the match! I managed to kept him at bay for 44 minutes, until the curse that is the double corner got me. 1-0 down, I changed my formation into a 3-5-2 V, and the guy saw through it and changed into 4-4-1-1, and scored again, forcing me to transform my formation into a narrow diamond. That didn't worked out, and I was forced to deploy 5-3-2. I scored (eventually) but it's too late. Lost 2-1, out of the cup 3-2 on aggregate. EXACT MIRROR of my defeat in the QF last season - against a level 3 Italian team FILLED WITH SCOUTS. Pissed off that I lost, but nevertheless the cup isn't my goal anyway. CL can give me the added revenue that I needed.

PS: I followed pcmacdaniel's advice and maxed out everything, win bonus, morale, condition. Didn't work.







Can anyone tell me what went wrong?

[pcmacdaniel]

I'm sorry it didn't work out for you.

Regarding what went wrong, I think you did quite well, keeping it as competitive as it was. Your opponent was a massive token buyer whose team was stronger and more versatile. Since he watched the match, you were going to need a little bit of luck to advance (or him screwing something up).

As for formations, against the X-Mas Tree, the table of counter formations suggest the 3w-2n-3n-1-1 Eiffel Tower, so that or something similar that could cover the AMC's and exploit his lack of central midfield defense (3w-2n-2n-1-2 or 4-1-2-1-2 ND, etc...) most likely would have worked better there. However, considering how many of his players have duel and triple roles he most likely would have changed to something else.

[Krishna Sadhana]

Considering I almost hold him at bay for most of the first half and only losing by a single goal, yeah I think I did a great job there. My opponent's simply better with his team and his counters. Thanks again, pcmacdaniel!