What's the point in sweepers?
FuddledFox 8 replies 8,302 Views
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The sweeper is almost extinct in modern football. Managers prefer an extra man in midfield and have added the burden of sweeping up through balls onto goalkeepers to create the sweeper keeper (which isn’t a new role in football and had been around for at least 60 years before Manuel Neuer burst on the scene). Through the history of football some of the best players to ever play the game have been sweepers. Franz Beckenbaur, Franco Baresi and Bobby Moore all played the role at times during their career. Often the sweeper would be described as a ‘libero’ and would bring the ball out of defence and into midfield much as the ball playing defender does today. Unfortunately we don’t have this role available to us in FMM17 and only have the ultra-defensive sweeper role to play with.
If I had to guess I would say most of us have never used a sweeper in any of our tactics. I know I haven’t since perhaps CM3 back in the mid-90s (yes I’m old!). What I have decided to do is create a formation using a sweeper to see what he does in game. At the start of an FMM17 save there are 3 top defenders who are capable of playing the role of sweeper.
· Leonardo Bonucci: Juventus (He has signed for AC Milan this summer in real life)
· Gerard Pique: Barcelona
· Jan Vertonghen: Tottenham
I am going to be Tottenham and use Vertonghan because I think Spurs are a less dominant team in their division than the other two and so will make a more interesting test.
What makes a good Sweeper
Let’s first take a look at what the man I like to call Roley has to say about them.
So what stats would we need for such a role.
· I think aerial and tackling ability speak for themselves. Sweepers are defenders and so these abilities are a must.
· Decisions: As the last line of defence before the goalie you need your sweeper to make decisions. This can include what balls to chase after and whether to just hoof the ball clear or if he has time to pass it and who to pass to.
· Positioning: If your sweeper takes up good positions on the field he is more likely to intercept passes or get to through balls before the attackers.
· Physically you will require everything. Pace so that he can move across the back line quickly. Stamina so he can do this all game and strength so he battle with opponents for the ball.
Jan Vertonghen isn’t bad stats wise as a sweeper but could be better. Pace is the biggest worry and everything could be higher so it will be interesting to see how he gets on playing the role.
The tactic
This isn’t the only way a sweeper could be used but I want to have some fun and in my mind it seems the best use of the role because I hope it will enable the rest of the team to push forwards with the sweeper as an insurance policy at the back. I have decided to be quite bold (at least for someone who usually plays balanced and a 4231) in my formation and team instructions. This article isn’t a tactics review but I feel it’s important to explain what I am trying to achieve using the sweeper as the base to everything. I tried a few formations during preseason and this was what I came up with.
The arrows represent how I expect the players to move on the pitch. I’m hoping that this formation will be the best use of my players but it could just go terribly wrong but it will be fun to see what happens.
Defence: I started with a standard goalkeeper as with the sweeper in front of him they will get in each other’s way if I had a sweeper keeper. I went with a back 3 as that is standard with a sweeper. I tried in a preseason game playing with a sweeper and 1 CB but all they did was stand one behind the other on the pitch leaving big gaps either side of them so I abandoned that a couple of minutes into the game . I went with ball playing defenders (BPD) as I want them to be adventurous with the ball at their feet using the safety net of the sweeper behind them in case they get it wrong. I hope they will push into midfield with the ball but we will see how that works out in game.
Midfield: Tottenham have good wingbacks and I hope they will get forward to put in crosses as well as covering the flanks defensively. The 2 central midfield players will hopefully maintain their positions to secure that part of the pitch. In possession I expect the DLP to look for probing ball forward whilst the CM will keep things more simple. The AP could of gone behind the striker but I hope that being out on the flank he will find more space although I do expect him to come into more central areas of the pitch with the WB over lapping him.
Forwards: Tottenham don’t have an abundance of top strikers so I am using an attacking IF on the right who can get the ball and then drive into the box looking to shoot or pass. Harry Kane will be playing the striker role as a complete forward to try and get him contributing to more than just goal scoring.
I think this screenshot from our game vs Watford shows how the formation works when we have the ball.
You can see that Eriksen has come into the centre of the pitch whist the CM are keeping position. The wingbacks (circled in black) are pushing forwards with the left WB the second furthest player forward. The IF is starting to cut inside and find the space between the 2 Watford CBs.
I have gone for an attacking and pressing team mentality as I want the whole team to push up the pitch and play nearer the opposition goal using the sweeper as the anchor at the back. This will be a test for Vertonghen as sweeper. He will need to be alert to the danger of counter attacks if we are committing men forwards. We have a short passing and GK distribution so I hope to see some exciting quick passing looking to open teams up. The passing focus is mixed so I hope players will play the ball to the best option at the time instead of being very rigid in where they pass the ball.
I am going to play fair few games with Tottenham with this tactic so I can really get an impression of what the sweeper can do for a team. I intend to use this tactic for every game but I will change up the TIs based on the situation of the game EG. Move to direct passing if we are losing, change team mentality if we are winning etc. I will present you with some screenshots from matches which will hopefully so the sweeper in action and give you an impression of what he does
What happened
In the end I played 13 matches in both league and cups. The set up in defence stayed the same in all the matches but I did tinker in matches with the forwards and wingbacks if I was chasing the game. Usually this involved moving the IF into the striker position and on a couple of occasions I pushed the wing backs up into wide midfielders.
The results were just about par for what I would expect with Tottenham. There are a few dodgy results in their as well but beating Juventus away 2-0 was a major highlight. I would of liked some trickier games against more top sides but I was restricted by the fixture list and time.
This was about what the sweeper did in the matches and whether there was any point in using him. I managed to get a few screenshots which I hope will back up my feelings on the role.
This was the only situation in all the matches where I saw Vertonghen called into action to sweep up any through balls. I was surprised by this as we were trying to push forwards in matches and play with a high line but situations like this just didn’t seem to occur. I played all the games on extended to try and get a good impression on the role but it maybe that these types of situations don’t show on highlights often.
This was our first match of the season and I was already fighting the urge to change the formation and remove the sweeper. I know Vertonghen (No2) is marking the Watford No10 but our No 4 could be doing that job. I would much rather him to be in defensive midfield and closing down Deeney to prevent him from playing a through ball. On this occasion Deeney went for an ambitious shot which didn’t trouble Loris in goal but a more creative player may have taken advantage of the extra time he was afforded on the ball here.
I have mixed feelings about this screenshot. Where Vertonghen is placed he can intercept any flick on’s if the ball is played forward to one of the West Ham strikers. On the other hand the strikers are well marked by our CBs and Vertonghen is just marking space (this is the sweepers job so he isn’t doing anything wrong). You can see he is sat slightly deeper than the 2 CBs and makes the chances of catching West Ham offside much harder. ). It just feels like a waste of a player when we could have had a defensive midfielder who would be further forward protecting the CBs and would drop into the back line if need.
I wanted to show you the player stats from the Juventus game. As you can see Vertonghen had a decent game with a 7 rating with both CBs doing better and getting an 8. Take a look and compare what the 3 players did during the game. Dier and Alderweireld had this game covered at the back. Jan really didn’t do very much. Of course it could be that what Vertonghen did do where goal saving but that didn’t show up in the highlights. We were surprisingly dominant in this game especially when you think Juve had Higuain and Dybala as a front 2. I don’t think the sweeper played a major part in this dominance and this wasn’t an isolated game I could of posted similar stats from other games. I choose this game because I wanted to show off we beat Juventus!
Despite all my negativity so far it does have to be said that Vertonghen had some good games playing the role of sweeper. A 7.46 average rating is pretty good over the 13 games he played. It also has to be said that he is rated as accomplished as a sweeper and not natural as he is as a CB He averaged 8.0 over 3 games for Belgium where I expect he played CB although I don’t know how good the opposition was.
Conclusions
I would of liked a few more in match screenshots but it wasn’t easy finding occasions in the game when the sweeper was involved. I guess in many ways that comes with the role similar to a goalkeeper you only notice them when they make a mistake. If I had been playing this save for myself and not testing a role I would of ditched the sweeper during the first game against Watford. I found myself wanting that extra man in defensive midfield and the sweeper was often not contributing in defence and obviously offers nothing going forwards. If they were to introduce the role of Libero into FMM and it worked as it should I might consider using it at least to test it out. The Libero plays as a sweeper when the opposition has the ball but once the ball is won back he pushes up into midfield and plays as a DLP. I had hoped the sweeper would enable the 2 BPD to push forwards when they had the ball into midfield but that just never happened. That could be because of the players I have not wanting to do that. I don’t think it was because of the match engine as I have seen BPD do it in other saves. I think I should add that Jan isn’t natural in this position so it could play differently with a player who is.
Would I use a sweeper again? Probably not if I’m being honest. I never felt he added anything to the team. Perhaps I was expecting too much from the role. It doesn’t seem to be broken in the game but the article is called ‘What’s the point in sweepers’ and an least in my mind I would say not much point at all. An extra body in midfield would have been more useful to the team in most of the games we played. I can’t see any reason I would need one unless I wanted an ultra-defensive formation with 3 CBs and a sweeper behind them. I think I will stick to using the sweeper keeper in future when playing a high defensive line.
It would be great to hear your opinions on sweepers. Do you ever use them and if so how do you set up the rest of your team?
I hope you have enjoyed the article. Sorry if it’s similar to the ‘3 at the back article’ but writing that got me thinking about sweepers and I really wanted to try the role out.
Thank you for reading
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