Tactics & Formations

Your squad’s raw ratings matter. How you set them up matters just as much.

Formation

Pick the shape that fits your players. Common options include 4-4-2, 4-3-3, 3-5-2, 4-2-3-1, and 5-3-2. Each position on the pitch has a best-fit role — a wing-back suits a 3-5-2, a full-back suits a 4-4-2.

Team style

Your team style sets the team’s default behaviour across the match:

• Balanced — no strong lean, safe default.
• Possession — keep the ball, build through the thirds.
• Counter — sit, absorb, hit on the break.
• Press — high line, aggressive ball recovery.

Tactics amplify your squad’s strengths. A fast, direct squad is wasted in possession. A technical squad is wasted sitting deep.

Individual instructions

You can fine-tune each starting player:

• Stay central / drift wide
• Stay back / get forward
• Man-mark / zonal
• Shoot on sight / pass first

Kick takers

Assign penalty, free-kick, and corner takers. A specialist on set pieces can swing tight games.

The “lock”

Every fixture has a team lock time. Your team is frozen at that moment and used for the match simulation. Changes you make after the lock apply to your next fixture, not the current one.

Always save your setup before the lock — if you’ve saved a valid XI earlier, it’ll be used automatically.