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PriZe

The Wideman: the ultimate wing play guide by PriZe


The Wideman: the ultimate wing play guide part 1

Wingplay title.png 

Intro

A lot of us on Vibe spend a lot of time in creating tactics, tweaking them, crunching the match statistics to find that one epic improvement. It’s a part of the game that just makes my heart tick a bit faster when I find that tactic that does what I want and rewards me with results. But for every rewarding moment, countless hours of research and frustration was the price. And the best rewards and frustration for me over the years have come from the roles we can use on the wings. Inspired by a great article from @MerlionMaple96 I want to dive in the world of wing play and enlighten us with hopefully some insights we can use.

This will be a four-part guide with the following topics

  • Wing roles in modern football
  • The Winger role
  • The Advanced playmaker role
  • The Inside forward role

 

In the end, I hope to help you and myself better understand how tactics work in FMM and why certain things do and don’t work. I want to end this intro with crediting MM. As he has set out a few basic principles in his article that I am using in these articles as well.

Spoiler

 

 

The Winger, The Advanced playmaker and the Inside forwards

FMM has granted us the ability to choose between three roles that we can use on the wing. I explicitly say wing as I will not be focusing on roles that can be used at midfield (for instance the wide midfielder). But before we dive in the nitty gritty let’s have a closer look at the roles.

The Winger

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The good old winger, a dying race if you ask me as we hardly see the likes of Marc Overmars and Figo nowadays. The Winger’s goal in football has always been to beat the outside man (a back or midfielder) hug the touchline, sweep in a cross from the byline or dive in to space to give that game defining through ball  to the forward. Traditionally the winger is more focused on creating chances for his team mates versus going for a goal.

The Advanced playmaker

ronaldinho1.jpg

We all know the typical advanced playmaker that drifts around between the midfield and the opposition’s defense. Although they drift all over the pitch, the normal habitat is the center of the pitch either fancying their own chances beating a center back or dictating the flow and direction of the attack.

Now deploying the Advanced playmaker om the wing changes his behavior significantly. The Advanced playmaker becomes a hybrid of all three roles. Either delivering a cross, cutting inside beating the full back, or giving that defining 1-2 pass. Notable examples are Hazard but even Ronaldinho in the past played like this. As they playmaker is a hybrid, he will either go for a pass or his own chances depending on his situation.

 The Inside forward

ronaldo-messi.jpg

A role made most popular by the likes off Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo and a dominant role in football at this moment. Primarily you will see them hang wide, cut in between the full back and a center back and try and catch them on the brake to either score or give a pass to the forward.  The role is more focused on scoring then providing assist. Don’t expect much defensive support from this lad as he typically is to high up the pitch.

When to use what role?

To answer that we first need to have a look at some key characteristics of the roles. Luckily the article of MM already has given us some key characteristics we can use. So what sets the Winger, Advanced playmaker and the Inside Forward apart from each other? To give an unbiased view on this we are going to use the following statistics:

  • Shots per game per role
  • Goals to assist ratio per role
  • Passes per game

The assumption is:

  • Shots per game: The Advanced playmakers average between 1-2 shots a game. Inside Forwards often average more than this and Wingers less.
  •  Goal assist ratio:  Inside Forwards score more than assist and Wingers assist more than score. The Advanced playmaker is roughly 1:1 ratio.
  • Passes per game: Advanced Playmakers are more involved in the game and play at least 40 passes per game. Inside Forwards and Wingers both have lower values.

All though simple in their nature these three statistics will clearly set apart the goal of the role. And hopefully gives us an insight in which role to use in certain circumstances.

Statistical analysis

Let’s put the theory in too practice. Have a look at the following players.

 

Inside forward

Advanced Playmaker

Winger

 

Lionel Messi

Lorenzo Insigne

Pione Sisto

AvG Shots per game

5,4

4,2

1,3

AvG Passes per game

52,9

62,3

28,5

Goals to assists ratio

32 to 13

11 to 7

7 to 9

 You can clearly see how each fit in our expectation from the role. Insigne is a bit off expectation shot wise, but shows all the signs of APM on the wing.  And if we look at our other trio you see the distinct traits of the roles.

 

Inside forward

Advanced Playmaker

Winger

 

Salah

Christian Eriksen

Nolito

AvG Shots per game

4,1

2,6

1,3

AvG Passes per game

27,3

57,5

24,3

Goals to assists ratio

32 to 9

10 to 8

5 to 5

And to confirm our assumptions we top it off with another 3 players.

 

Inside forward

Advanced Playmaker

Winger

 

Cristiano Ronaldo

Adem Ljajic

Douglas Costa

AvG Shots per game

5,6

2,5

1

AvG Passes per game

34

41,4

28,5

Goals to assists ratio

37 to 11

3 to 5

4 to 6

Concluding

So what can we concluded so far based on our look at real life? Some more obvious then others

  • The Advanced playmaker in theory has a significant place in our FMM tactics as he would bring assists and goals
  • If you are trying to get as many goals a tactic using Inside forwards looks like they will boost your goal tally.
  • Winger’s will contribute but potentially will leave you vulnerable goal wise. Keep in mind you should counter for the loss of goals from the wings.

 Based on the above information we can now start focusing on how can we maximize the efficiency of the roles. In the next article, we will be looking at the Winger role and try too setup the formation in a way we will get him performing at its best.

For now, thanks for reading and don’t forget to drop a like or a comment. I also want to thank @FuddledFox for the graphic and feedback, as well as @Ashez for sparring and feedback.

Cheers Prize 

Ps: I am looking for a few people that are willing to crunch out a season for me to gather data. If you are willing, please drop me a PM.

 

 

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I remember reading that article about advanced playmakers when it was first released. I had never thought of playing APM’s in the wing before reading it. Now it’s one of the first things I do when creating a new tactic. Well done :D

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Good article. Though maybe not that useful for my tactic since I do not use any wide player at the front. Just wing backs for me.

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8 minutes ago, rafa said:

Are those in-game stats or real life? Asking for a friend :P

real life stats :)

added 0 minutes later
On 3/2/2018 at 12:05, TheServant said:

Good article. Though maybe not that useful for my tactic since I do not use any wide player at the front. Just wing backs for me.

hope that by the end you will have 3 viable options to look at ;) 

 

On 3/2/2018 at 15:52, BatiGoal said:

Can't wait to read this article in its entirety. Great job! (y)

thanks mate!

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Good looking article dude and will follow intently as I favour using wide players, but tend to stick with wingers, but may have to look more closely at the AVP in future (I don't like the IF role this year as they don't seem to produce as well as they have in the past)

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4 minutes ago, Taff said:

Good looking article dude and will follow intently as I favour using wide players, but tend to stick with wingers, but may have to look more closely at the AVP in future (I don't like the IF role this year as they don't seem to produce as well as they have in the past)

Thanks mate! Think it depends on what you expect from the IF i guess :)

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1 hour ago, PriZe said:

Thanks mate! Think it depends on what you expect from the IF i guess :)

Yeah I suppose, just previous versions of the game the position was deadly, now there like sticking two limp fish out wide and they play like it as well

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Good evening. I'm still active on FMM (and will be for years to come, if the pattern goes along) and I'll help you with any save you need, PM me. Thanks for all the work!

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