Tactics The Black Hawk

[Black Hawk]

Hey guys!

I hadn't planned on playing the new version of FM because of Netflix, but I received some requests to see what I could do in this version of the game so I decided to test my old The Black Hawk in this edition.

Now, anyone who followed the tactic thread of 2023 version, the various save tests and tweaks I made, must remember what I'm looking for with this tactic. For those who haven't followed, in short this is a control tactic (I'm a control freak) designed to maintain possession of the ball for as long as possible, involving the entire team in the offensive process and pushing the opponent into their own area in such a way that they cannot even attack - even if they recover the ball, they will be so far from our goalkeeper that they will not be able to create any danger.

I'm not going to lie, the tactic has a serious problem just as it did last year: defensively, the team is not solid when we don't have the ball. The entire success of the tactic is based on having the ball to prevent the opponent from creating danger. Or, as a famous pundit in my country famously responded when asked who defends in an offensive team: "Who defends? The opponent defends".

With a well-built team, I believe that the tactic will allow the team to dominate the overwhelming majority of games. There will always be a handful of games in which we are let down by an underperforming player, or in which the opponents score two goals in two shots, but I think no tactic can stop this. The goal is to ensure that these exceptions are just that: exceptions.

 

The Black Hawk

 

 

Those who already knew the tactic may have noticed that this is what I called the "tweaked version" of the original The Black Hawk. When I decided to test this new version of FM, I chose to start with the last version of the tactic I created to see what works and what doesn't, but I found that it worked really well in the two tests I've already done and which I'll talk about in a moment.

 

Points to remember:

 

1) this tactic will require a lot of movement without the ball, as almost all individual instructions are aimed at making players move (Wing Backs, Roaming Playmakers, Box-to-Box, Pressing Forward...);

2) attributes such as Passing, Movement and Stamina are essential in all positions, later on I may not mention them in the list of attributes for each position because they are important in all of them!;

3) all players must feel comfortable with the ball at their feet, players who only serve to destroy the opponent's game are useless.

 

Wing Backs

Must have Pace, Movement and Crossing.

Helps if they have Technique, Positioning and Tackling.

 

Ball Playing Defenders

Must have Speed and Aerial (i cannot stress enough how Speed is key for all this to work!).

Helps if they have Technique, Dribbling and Positioning.

If anyone don't has good centre backs to be Ball Playing Defenders, it may be changed to regular Central Defenders.

 

Roaming Playmaker

This is the engine of this tactic. The defensive midfielder is actually an undercover attacking midfielder, so look for attributes that suit them (last year Bellingham was the best RP I tested).

Must have Movement, Passing, Creativity and Decisions.

Helps a lot if he has Shooting as he will have a lot of shooting chances just outside of the box.

 

Box-to-Box

Must have all the usual attributes of a B2B, like Passing, Tackling, Decisions, Movement and Teamwork.

Bonus if they have Dribbling, Shooting and Creativity.

 

Inside Forwards

Must have all the usual attributes of an IF, like Movement, Pace, Creativity, Decisions, Passing, Shooting. Bonus if they have Crossing.

I use IFs with their foot exchanged - don't know how to say it in English, but this is to use a right footed on the left and a left footed on the right.

 

Pressing Forward

Now, this one is tricky. Stamina, of course, but here we have two options: to go for a striker to score or to go for a striker to create spaces for others to score.

Last year, my favorites for this were Osimhen, Scamacca and Beto (the one from Udinese, now Everton). They all had in common Agression, Aerial and Movement as I found that these three attributes together are just overkill.

If they have these, it will work, but if they also have Teamwork, Shooting, Passing and Pace, the better.

Anyway, with these three guys I mentioned you guys probably are already seeing what kind of striker to look for.

 

After all this, here are two save tests I did to get some numbers. The save tests are the same I did with the tactic last year: the first with Sporting CP (a top team) and the other withy hometown Amora FC (an underdog team, this year really an awful team).

 

The first save test -> Sporting CP

 

 

 

 

 

So, this went really well. I played with Sporting CP original squad, no signings, I only recalled two youngsters midfielders from their loans as Sporting CP has a shortage of them.

Last year this The Black Hawk did 33W-0D-1L in 34 games, this year I got 32W-2D-0L, which is almost the same. This year it performed better defensively (9 goals conceded is insane in a first season) while also providing a staggering 84 goals (2,47 goals per game) which is fantastic for a control tactic. These are numbers for a overload tactic.

We won all domestic competitions and only lose against Paris SG on semi finals of Europa League, our only defeat all season. Not ashamed of it, they are really strong and we battled them toe to toe.

 

 

Starting with my IFs, as trying to put them to work was the reason I designed this tactic last year, they were really strong. They scored a total of 59 goals and made 39 assists, which was Incredible.

I think they are stronger this year. They cut inside more to shoot outside of the box, they run more behind opponents back to create 1x1 against the goalkeepers, overall they look more active than last season.

All the others performed as I expected. My three main midfielders (Hjulmand, Bragança and Morita) are not suited to the roles I assigned them (Hjulmand is not gifted as RP, the others are not good at Movement), but still did well. Gyokeres is an absolute beast and must be a good signing for any team.

As Sporting CP is one of the "Big Three" of Portugal, I was not convinced as this might have been because of the overall strong squad The Lions have, so I tried a season with my Amora FC to see how it would perform.

 

The second save test -> Amora FC

 

Now, let me just say about Amora FC that we are a small team. We play on Liga 3 (portuguese third tier) and this season we have a weak, awful squad. Really, I'm afraid we end up relegated by the end of the season on real life. That would crush me...

Anyway, Amora FC is a good team to test this tactic on an underdog, as that is what we are this season.

We play on Liga 3, a league that has 20 teams divided on two regional groups (north and south), each with 10 teams. The first regular phase has the top 4 teams of each group go to a final promotion phase (8 teams, the 4 top teams of each group), all the others go to a relegation phase.

 

 

 

 

As it can be seen, we won the first phase and got a place on the promotion phase. We ended up second place, so we not won the league, but were promoted. Also, we were knocked out of Portuguese Cup by Farense only on extra time, they are a team from portuguese first tier.

I'm really proud of all this. Amora FC has one of the worst squads of the league (it can be seen how almost all games were graded as 3 or 4 of difficulty), but we managed to get promoted.

Now, what I learned from this save test is that in most of the games we were slightly better than our opponents, but we were let down by individual mistakes, both in our defense as our IFs missing goals (my IFs are terrible, terrible even for portuguese third tier).

Overall, we clearly overperformed and I do not believe an AI Amora FC ever to get even remotely close to get promoted as we did. For example, in the first save test with Sporting CP, Amora FC was dead last by a long range.

This was it. Two successful save tests, I believe the tactic has some tweaks in it to perform better, but by now I believe this is already good.

Now I will try it on Premier League, last year I did a save test with Wolves, this season I may do one with Brighton. Latter will post updates of how it went.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Abadi.]

I cant see any photos there. And i am big fan of your work 

 

[Stiv]

I'm trying the same tactics but with CDs and IWBs. Works great with AS Roma with almost no transfer on the first windows. I already done my first season so I can't share datas, but I won the title and the Europa League with only 1 lose despite a lot of injuries.

[rseven]

This tactics is the final answer for FMM. 

No more. You killed game.

[DutchTony]

How were the goals distributed between your players?

[Helio]

This was the first tactic I tried with FMM 24 and I'm here to say that you killed the game again this year.... Promoted with over 16 points advance in the fourth tier French league with a team expected to battle for relegation....

[trungz12345]

Look at these amazing results!!! Deadly tactics

[sampishhh]

How to rotation your player

 

[DanEnglish]

Am delighted @Black Hawk has tested + posted this for the new version.

It was the most commented on (and easily one of the best) tactics for last year’s version.

While the original is BEST, in last years version I found a couple of tweaks also work fine if your squad / match situation really needs it:

• WBs - I found FBs and IWBs also work fine - FBs give less crosses, IWBs are good to avoid crosses (more central passes) - any of these three work, but WBs + FBs are overall better as you’ll need the width.
• DMC - having an RP is a genius insight, which works beautifully. If you need to be more solid (e.g. to defend a lead after 70-80 mins), you can change it to an Anchor / DM. No attacking threat, but defensively solid.
• ST - I found an AF also works well - but assume it gives less pressing up front.

Just some thoughts from last years game 👍 the original is best, but sometimes you need something slightly different

[Lav50]

10 minutes ago, DanEnglish said:

Am delighted @Black Hawk has tested + posted this for the new version.

It was the most commented on (and easily one of the best) tactics for last year’s version.

While the original is BEST, in last years version I found a couple of tweaks also work fine if your squad / match situation really needs it:

• WBs - I found FBs and IWBs also work fine - FBs give less crosses, IWBs are good to avoid crosses (more central passes) - any of these three work, but WBs + FBs are overall better as you’ll need the width.
• DMC - having an RP is a genius insight, which works beautifully. If you need to be more solid (e.g. to defend a lead after 70-80 mins), you can change it to an Anchor / DM. No attacking threat, but defensively solid.
• ST - I found an AF also works well - but assume it gives less pressing up front.

Just some thoughts from last years game 👍 the original is best, but sometimes you need something slightly different

Anchor/DM and FBs could help with saving the lead as well tho this tactic is defensively solid as it is

[Bayu Rahmat]

i can't see the photos can u share there please

[Kavver]

You beautiful man. Very good tactic. Thanks a lot! 

[NoSignal]

Im sory for my english but this is not my native language.

i wanted to try this but cant Apply that in my language. What kind of formation is this? And can u post screens of players roles? For example on my language there is Nothing similar like box to box midfielder. And i dont know what to chose. Same with RP or IF. Please Help. Thank u 

[JimmyPage]

Still a killer tactic. Took over Atalanta mid season with them sitting in 15th, now challenging for Europe and the Conference League.

 

One thing i've always wondered, how come the striker scores so much in this tactic? You'd expect a Pressing Forward to be the sidekick to the forwards either sides of him, but it's not the case for me.

[Stiv]

1 hour ago, NoSignal said:

Im sory for my english but this is not my native language.

i wanted to try this but cant Apply that in my language. What kind of formation is this? And can u post screens of players roles? For example on my language there is Nothing similar like box to box midfielder. And i dont know what to chose. Same with RP or IF. Please Help. Thank u 

Just put the game in english, literally copy the tactic then swap language again.

[Ctof86]

@Black Hawk big fan of your work! Delighted you are back for FMM24!

Your v2 version was my goto tactic in FMM23 and I have been testing it (with great results) in FMM24 before you even made this post!

I have a couple of Q’s about the RP Role:

1. I find it difficult to get a player that has all A. Natural in that position, B. That is good/decent at shooting, C. Affordable. In my current save there are only 40 players total that have 13+ attribute for Shooting in that DM position. Of the 40, only 5 are under the age of 24. Only one of them is interested in a move but unfortunately he doesn’t fit the other required criteria. Any advice?

2. Due to the above, I try to re-train more attacking players to play in the DM position. However, I have little success as many just have no interest in retraining to that position! I have experimented with try to mentor them with someone who has the Adaptable trait but it’s not possible to force that specific trait on the mentee so the experiment has not been a success as of yet. Is there a trick here to get players to re-train to that position?

Thanks

[DanEnglish]

5 hours ago, JimmyPage said:

One thing i've always wondered, how come the striker scores so much in this tactic? You'd expect a Pressing Forward to be the sidekick to the forwards either sides of him, but it's not the case for me.

Great question - firstly I think the PF is the same as an AF, but does more pressing off-the-ball. This could be wrong, but would explain why the PF scores so many goals.

Secondly, the central ST gets a LOT more chances than the IFs - in a half-season test with the original Black Hawk tactic in FMM23:

• Shots - PF had 3.5 shots per game, vs IFs’ ~1 shot per game each.

 

• Heading - PF and IFs all had 4 to 5 headed attempts per game

 
 

• Passing - PF and IFs all had ~10 pass attempts per game.

Hope this helps 🙂 

[DanEnglish]

4 hours ago, Ctof86 said:

Is there a trick here to get players to re-train to that position?

Here is one trick. Find a player who is ‘competent’ in the DMC position - as (i) they won’t show up if you search for DMCs, and (ii) they’ll easily retrain to become a natural DMC 👍 

Here are some examples (loading only the English league on a new save)

[Mae]

Quite a start for me 😅

 

[malekhit]

sick tactics. 

 

lost one game - vs Shahtar Donirc in 1/8 Europa League

 

[hykhenry]

On 12/11/2023 at 06:53, Black Hawk said:

Hey guys!

I hadn't planned on playing the new version of FM because of Netflix, but I received some requests to see what I could do in this version of the game so I decided to test my old The Black Hawk in this edition.

Now, anyone who followed the tactic thread of 2023 version, the various save tests and tweaks I made, must remember what I'm looking for with this tactic. For those who haven't followed, in short this is a control tactic (I'm a control freak) designed to maintain possession of the ball for as long as possible, involving the entire team in the offensive process and pushing the opponent into their own area in such a way that they cannot even attack - even if they recover the ball, they will be so far from our goalkeeper that they will not be able to create any danger.

I'm not going to lie, the tactic has a serious problem just as it did last year: defensively, the team is not solid when we don't have the ball. The entire success of the tactic is based on having the ball to prevent the opponent from creating danger. Or, as a famous pundit in my country famously responded when asked who defends in an offensive team: "Who defends? The opponent defends".

With a well-built team, I believe that the tactic will allow the team to dominate the overwhelming majority of games. There will always be a handful of games in which we are let down by an underperforming player, or in which the opponents score two goals in two shots, but I think no tactic can stop this. The goal is to ensure that these exceptions are just that: exceptions.

 

The Black Hawk

 

 

Those who already knew the tactic may have noticed that this is what I called the "tweaked version" of the original The Black Hawk. When I decided to test this new version of FM, I chose to start with the last version of the tactic I created to see what works and what doesn't, but I found that it worked really well in the two tests I've already done and which I'll talk about in a moment.

 

Points to remember:

 

1) this tactic will require a lot of movement without the ball, as almost all individual instructions are aimed at making players move (Wing Backs, Roaming Playmakers, Box-to-Box, Pressing Forward...);

2) attributes such as Passing, Movement and Stamina are essential in all positions, later on I may not mention them in the list of attributes for each position because they are important in all of them!;

3) all players must feel comfortable with the ball at their feet, players who only serve to destroy the opponent's game are useless.

 

Wing Backs

Must have Pace, Movement and Crossing.

Helps if they have Technique, Positioning and Tackling.

 

Ball Playing Defenders

Must have Speed and Aerial (i cannot stress enough how Speed is key for all this to work!).

Helps if they have Technique, Dribbling and Positioning.

If anyone don't has good centre backs to be Ball Playing Defenders, it may be changed to regular Central Defenders.

 

Roaming Playmaker

This is the engine of this tactic. The defensive midfielder is actually an undercover attacking midfielder, so look for attributes that suit them (last year Bellingham was the best RP I tested).

Must have Movement, Passing, Creativity and Decisions.

Helps a lot if he has Shooting as he will have a lot of shooting chances just outside of the box.

 

Box-to-Box

Must have all the usual attributes of a B2B, like Passing, Tackling, Decisions, Movement and Teamwork.

Bonus if they have Dribbling, Shooting and Creativity.

 

Inside Forwards

Must have all the usual attributes of an IF, like Movement, Pace, Creativity, Decisions, Passing, Shooting. Bonus if they have Crossing.

I use IFs with their foot exchanged - don't know how to say it in English, but this is to use a right footed on the left and a left footed on the right.

 

Pressing Forward

Now, this one is tricky. Stamina, of course, but here we have two options: to go for a striker to score or to go for a striker to create spaces for others to score.

Last year, my favorites for this were Osimhen, Scamacca and Beto (the one from Udinese, now Everton). They all had in common Agression, Aerial and Movement as I found that these three attributes together are just overkill.

If they have these, it will work, but if they also have Teamwork, Shooting, Passing and Pace, the better.

Anyway, with these three guys I mentioned you guys probably are already seeing what kind of striker to look for.

 

After all this, here are two save tests I did to get some numbers. The save tests are the same I did with the tactic last year: the first with Sporting CP (a top team) and the other withy hometown Amora FC (an underdog team, this year really an awful team).

 

The first save test -> Sporting CP

 

 

 

 

 

So, this went really well. I played with Sporting CP original squad, no signings, I only recalled two youngsters midfielders from their loans as Sporting CP has a shortage of them.

Last year this The Black Hawk did 33W-0D-1L in 34 games, this year I got 32W-2D-0L, which is almost the same. This year it performed better defensively (9 goals conceded is insane in a first season) while also providing a staggering 84 goals (2,47 goals per game) which is fantastic for a control tactic. These are numbers for a overload tactic.

We won all domestic competitions and only lose against Paris SG on semi finals of Europa League, our only defeat all season. Not ashamed of it, they are really strong and we battled them toe to toe.

 

 

Starting with my IFs, as trying to put them to work was the reason I designed this tactic last year, they were really strong. They scored a total of 59 goals and made 39 assists, which was Incredible.

I think they are stronger this year. They cut inside more to shoot outside of the box, they run more behind opponents back to create 1x1 against the goalkeepers, overall they look more active than last season.

All the others performed as I expected. My three main midfielders (Hjulmand, Bragança and Morita) are not suited to the roles I assigned them (Hjulmand is not gifted as RP, the others are not good at Movement), but still did well. Gyokeres is an absolute beast and must be a good signing for any team.

As Sporting CP is one of the "Big Three" of Portugal, I was not convinced as this might have been because of the overall strong squad The Lions have, so I tried a season with my Amora FC to see how it would perform.

 

The second save test -> Amora FC

 

Now, let me just say about Amora FC that we are a small team. We play on Liga 3 (portuguese third tier) and this season we have a weak, awful squad. Really, I'm afraid we end up relegated by the end of the season on real life. That would crush me...

Anyway, Amora FC is a good team to test this tactic on an underdog, as that is what we are this season.

We play on Liga 3, a league that has 20 teams divided on two regional groups (north and south), each with 10 teams. The first regular phase has the top 4 teams of each group go to a final promotion phase (8 teams, the 4 top teams of each group), all the others go to a relegation phase.

 

 

 

 

As it can be seen, we won the first phase and got a place on the promotion phase. We ended up second place, so we not won the league, but were promoted. Also, we were knocked out of Portuguese Cup by Farense only on extra time, they are a team from portuguese first tier.

I'm really proud of all this. Amora FC has one of the worst squads of the league (it can be seen how almost all games were graded as 3 or 4 of difficulty), but we managed to get promoted.

Now, what I learned from this save test is that in most of the games we were slightly better than our opponents, but we were let down by individual mistakes, both in our defense as our IFs missing goals (my IFs are terrible, terrible even for portuguese third tier).

Overall, we clearly overperformed and I do not believe an AI Amora FC ever to get even remotely close to get promoted as we did. For example, in the first save test with Sporting CP, Amora FC was dead last by a long range.

This was it. Two successful save tests, I believe the tactic has some tweaks in it to perform better, but by now I believe this is already good.

Now I will try it on Premier League, last year I did a save test with Wolves, this season I may do one with Brighton. Latter will post updates of how it went.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is this the formation after the update? Feeling okay

[Lav50]

Maybe if I used it from the get go we would have clinched the title who knows..early season saw us drop quite a few points and Bayern just kept on going..I was tinkering with tactics before ultimately settling for this one

It took few games to reach full effect and then it saw us punch really hard, we beat Bayern in both league games, dismantle Barca before eventually losing to Inter who were just superior and as always I started the game with no budgets in first transfer window to make it more realistic

Got entertainer title after last game of the season and now my GK moans I should focus on the defence which is funny considering we have the best defensive record in the game

Only downside so to say is that sometimes its hard to break down smaller teams that play defensively but just switching to attacking or overload sorted most of it out, could try some other stuff in the future too

All in all this tactics is definetly incredibly strong 

[anders1023]

My team is Ipswich Town in the Championship. I like this tactic but can't find anything consistent so far.

[rseven]

On 14/11/2023 at 07:45, DanEnglish said:

Great question - firstly I think the PF is the same as an AF, but does more pressing off-the-ball. This could be wrong, but would explain why the PF scores so many goals.

Secondly, the central ST gets a LOT more chances than the IFs - in a half-season test with the original Black Hawk tactic in FMM23:

• Shots - PF had 3.5 shots per game, vs IFs’ ~1 shot per game each.

 

• Heading - PF and IFs all had 4 to 5 headed attempts per game

 
 

• Passing - PF and IFs all had ~10 pass attempts per game.

Hope this helps 🙂 

How about offside？ AF is my prefer role for ST. But he will offside often. PF will help on this? Any data?

Edited November 17, 2023 by rseven

[DanEnglish]

1 hour ago, rseven said:

How about offside？ AF is my prefer role for ST. But he will offside often. PF will help on this? Any data?

On last years game, with Rashford as the PF, the side averaged <2.5 offsides per game. 

When I changed the tactic to have IWBs (and normal width), which led to less crosses and more passes, then that rose to 3 offsides per game.

I haven’t done a comparison of AF vs PF for offsides!

[Jaypunk]

Hey thanks for the tactics, the green lines connecting the players together? How do I do this? 

[DanEnglish]

1 hour ago, Jaypunk said:

Hey thanks for the tactics, the green lines connecting the players together? How do I do this? 

Green lines between the players (on the tactics screen) are ONLY a ‘visual indicator’ of form - I.e. that when those players are playing together, they have good average ratings. 

Those lines do not actually ‘do’ anything in the match engine 👍 so it doesn’t really matter if you have them or not (except they are nice to look at 😂) 

[Black Hawk]

Sorry for not saying anything last days, also I didn't expected so many replies. Hope you guys are having fun with the tactic.

I'll try to respond to some quotes, one at a time 😂

[Black Hawk]

On 11/11/2023 at 23:00, Abadi. said:

I cant see any photos there. And i am big fan of your work 

 

 

On 13/11/2023 at 11:23, Bayu Rahmat said:

i can't see the photos can u share there please

Is this a thing? Are there more people having trouble seeing the images?

I uploaded them on another host, please give me feedback if these are good or not.

 

[Black Hawk]

On 11/11/2023 at 23:59, Stiv said:

I'm trying the same tactics but with CDs and IWBs. Works great with AS Roma with almost no transfer on the first windows. I already done my first season so I can't share datas, but I won the title and the Europa League with only 1 lose despite a lot of injuries.

I remember testing this with IWBs on FMM23, I came to the conclusion the team was more solid defensively but was scoring a bit less, I believe because of the lack of width provided by the WBs. But it's a tweak that should work in some teams