Originally Posted by
HeavensAAA
Yes, opponent tactics would be revealed within the animations, and quite clearly.
Say zonal vs man-marking.
When it is zonal, we can see the marking defender is only keeping a distance from the ball-holding player and not attempting to move very close to the attacker. His job is kind of doing the minimum (saving energy) to ‘just to be there’ as a nuisance. Other defenders will form a stable shape to take the best positions to clear possible crosses.
Upside: Conditions saving. And also better team shape to avoid through-balls if general defence is better than opponent’s attack by a margin of at least 10%
Downside: Defenders will allow more space for anyone to shoot, and especially vulnerable with long shots from AMs when there is no DMC or less DMC vs AMCs
Perfect counter: AMR/AML/AMC (even better with shadow striker SA) will be having a field day because the opponents are not actively closing in to tackle, and so should go for attacking or hard attacking, with more AMs than opponents’ DM to win by scoring from range. Even better if we can sub in good AMs after 60th minute to take advantage of conditions (90%+ vs 70%+ in the last 15 minutes).
When it is man-marking, the man-marking defender will move very close to the ball-holding attacker and consistently try to push the attacker away from doing his preferred attack (say he covers the angle from crosses coming in and force the attacker passing back). Other defenders will be tracking each attacker to close down on possible passing coming to them.
Upside: Equal or slightly weaker team’s defenders will be able to match their attackers most of the time. Attacker finds it easy to have moves broken down by tackles at early stage of attacking moves. Good crosses also cannot come in that easily.
Downside: Energy draining, which will pose a incurable problem on conditions deficit if attacking side knows this by earlier animation and switch to low pressing+zonal, then switch to high pressing+man-mark in 2nd half. Also vulnerable to creative and long-ball playing midfielders playing through-passes if attacking side has man-advantage in certain areas, say 3v2 on the flanks or 5v4 in the middle.
Perfect counter: Rather than wasting energy to press and create chances when it is hard, switch to low press, zonal, normal/defensive and short passing to build up play from our back. That will further drain the defenders conditions. Then switch to high press and long pass after 60th minute, put on 90%+ midfielders sub, and keep attacking. Defending side is now exhausted and will concede loads.
Long/short passing type should be easy to tell, so won’t need further illustration.
Generally, use offside trap to deal with long passing teams, or use offside trap with only 3 defenders (that means the 3 defenders have all to be top quality) having very good ‘positioning’ attributes can also stop counter attacks.
Short passing means a very high, usually 85%+, passing success rate. Those teams are easiest to deal with as high pressing + hard attacking means they will usually lose possession in their own half, and they do not pose much attacking threat with little long balls.
Mixed is the hardest to deal with as it needs the most caution of ours.
And that’s why I said inactive managers are the easiest to be dealt with, because they won’t change pressing type or zonal/man-marking type during games. Either they tire out to lose in 2nd half (we use only change to high pressing in 2nd half when they use high press the whole game), or they will lose because they don’t mark properly (AMs will score a lot with space).