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Career Scratch Tries The Last Dance [Attempt 2]


Scratch
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As I've mentioned before, my first attempt was abandoned because Suarez picked up a 2 month injury early on. I probably would have pressed on in normal circumstances, but this was the proof of concept for the challenge and I needed to know that 30 contributions each wasn't too many. So, I reloaded and kept playing until I was sure it wasn't too hard. Of course reloading invalidated the attempt for the leaderboard...

Not long after, I started my second attempt. Here's how it went.

 

Transfers:

Less than usual, but still a lot:

Spoiler

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The 3 main exits were Coutinho (didn't perform well in attempt 1), Dembele (lazy and unprofessional) and Umtiti (unprofessional and we had too many CDs). Apart from that, we sold a bunch of youngsters to fund our acqusitions. 

Coming in were S&N and a bunch of decent midfielders, as the existing midfielders were all a little too young (and plateued). I also bought Azpilicueta in January, as the 3 lads were worried about squad depth. They were still a little unhappy about it (showed as a concern on their Personal screen), but not too much (the blue exclamation mark disappeared).

 

Team Dynamics:

Even though I bought quite a few players and sold even more, only a couple of those leaving had positive relationships with other players. I was hoping this wouldn't affect our play too much. I also made sure that everyone coming in spoke at least some Spanish, to help them settle. This meant I had to walk past players I would normally have signed.

Anyway, it semed to work. Our team didn't have any players in the Others group:

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And although it took a little time for the on field lines to appear, the performance seemed a lot more solid than previous saves, where it took 6 months for us to really click. Of course, it's hard to prove the improvement came from this and not the tactical changes themselves - I'll probably never know, but I suspect it's a little of both.

 

Tactics:

With the tactics, I went with something less attacking than my FMM20 tactics and it did seem to work much better:

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I still went with one at the back (although I think I will give that up next save), but I added a DM and only went with one up front. I also played with an attacking shape rather than overload.

The result was that for the first time in FMM21 I felt like I was in control. We still lost the odd match and had too many draws, but I went into each game thinking we'd have a good chance of winning and the results seemed realistic (ie what a team this size might actually get over the course of a season in real life). Before this, I was going into games with no idea whether we'd get thumped 4-0 or not.

As you can see with the lads, I went with Suarez as a TM which has worked well for me in recent years, Messi as a T behind him and I retrained Neymar as a RW to send the crosses in. Suarez isn't too great in the air, but I thought he'd be good enough to get a few goals that way. Many will think playing Neymar as a proper Winger is crazy, but I used him there a couple of years ago and he was awsome. Took him too long to retrain this time (March), but he still did a decent job. 

The real magic happened with Messi and Suarez. I was expecting Suarez to score more but they actually finished with very similar stats. It was very common to see Messi bring the ball forward and pass to Suarez who'd score. I was expecting that. What I wasn't expecting is that it was just as common to see Suarez drop deep, receive the ball and pass it forward to Messi who'd run past him into the box and score. It was a great combination and I'm thinking it might work with Kane and Son...

 

The Last Dance:

So, how did we do? Very well, a truly worthy last dance, winning everything:

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We only won the league by 4 points and we had some close calls on the path to the CL final, but lads pulled it out when it was needed. Legends! And the benchmark of winning La Liga is met.

 

The Lads:

As mentioned before, only a couple of ingame injuries this time around, no proper injuries. But both Messi and Suarez lost some of their skill over the course of the season and I had to rest all 3 a lot. This is what the lads ended up looking like:

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The Performance:

Did the lads deliver? Let's see:

Spoiler

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  • Messi: 44 goals and 23 assists for 67 contributions
  • Suarez: 43 goals and 24 assists for 67 contributions
  • Neymar: 13 goals and 25 assists for 38 contributions

They all meet the benchmark of 30, giving us the badge with a final score of 172.

I'm happy with that. It's a decent score. I'm sure others will get much higher ones, but I've been struggling with FMM21 so far and this career feels like I'm finally competent! Hopefully I'll eventually get better with the tactics and then I might be back for another go at this. But for now, I think I hear London calling...

 

Edited by Scratch
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1 minute ago, Jsavfc said:

Decent score there mate. A interesting set up to say the least!

Thanks mate. Yeah, I don't think many would come up with that set up! It's a bit from here and a bit from there from my other tactics.

I really want to hold to 1 at the back as it worked so well for me in FMM20, but it didn't work in 21 until I brought in the DM... But when I look at those lines and there's no links to the WBs, I start to think I'd be better with the DM as a CD... 

And this time, I really tried to get most of the players out of the box. No more 3 upfront with 3 behind... And it really seemed to work a lot better. May leave the front 3 like this next time, or might go with 2 upfront instead of the AM.. Not sure yet... 

 

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2 minutes ago, RichD said:

Brilliant score there mate, smashed it, love the look of the tactic! Well done😁

Thanks mate. It's a bit of a bitzer (bit from here, bit from there), but I feel like it's a step in the right direction. Will definitely be experimenting further in future...

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5 minutes ago, Rob said:

I think that is a really, really good score. Anything 170+ is top tier IMO.

Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it. But last year I wouldn't have been! And I think others will go way past that. And I'm hopeful I'll be able to beat it in future, but we'll have to wait and see! 😄

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51 minutes ago, FuddledFox said:

Great attempt and score with a spicy tactic to, well played.

Thanks mate, going to try a slightly more boring version of the tactic for Kane and Son, with the DM becoming just another CD. More boring, but better green lines, so we'll see how that goes!

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