2025-04-06, 04:40 AM - Word count: 893
For my fifth academy task I want to go through the tactics that have been used this season by our team (Victoria Falls Eagles). I'll explain my thoughts, the decisions that were made and reflect whether these were good or not. With tricky issues in depth of certain positions we have had to be creative on quite some occasions.
Matchday 1
![[Image: 5znJynH.png]](https://i.imgur.com/5znJynH.png)
I have not been able to find out who made this tactic and what thoughts went into it. This was a tactic made before I joined the SSL. What immediately catches the eye is the cautious mentality and the very defensive out of possession instructions (low block and lower defensive line). Defense has been the biggest struggle the entire season for the Victoria Fall Eagles so you can imagine that by staying very far back, you're basically inviting the attackers to come near your box. Combine that with the lack of quality and personnel in the back... you lose the opening match 1-4 at home. Another peculiar choice is the playing for set pieces when nobody in the team is good at taking them.
Matchday 2 - 10
![[Image: iSjzu5s.png]](https://i.imgur.com/iSjzu5s.png)
This formation has been used by us for most of the season and has been tweaked several times throughout the matchdays in terms of team instructions and player roles. The base of this tactic was created by Don Lorenzo and I have been tweaking it together with input from him and Giacomo Santori. It's the only tactic that has actually given us wins this season (only two unfortunately). It's a pretty offensive tactic with high press and wing play with both me (Kupinas) and Santori being wingers trying to deliver crosses to the striker and attacking midfielder. I was on attack duty because it (usually) makes the player run all the way to the by-line before crossing and because of the positioning of Okocha Jr. and Junior-Junior I should usually have two options to pass to. For Santori we have considered an inverted winger position but we noticed that in offense he would often occupy the same space as Delibasic. It has proven more useful that he would stay more wide (thus the winger position) and give early crosses (instead of crosses from the by-line if he was on attack duty). For Delibasic we have also tried him as a mezzala since his stats suggests that he would be suitable for that, but tactically we realized that a deep lying playmaker fitted the team better and it has resulted in him being a vital part of the team in that role.
Matchday 11
![[Image: 9Ucpmqu.png]](https://i.imgur.com/9Ucpmqu.png)
This tactic we've only used once and it honestly was pretty decent since we drew the champions 2-2 at home with it. It's actually not too different from the previous tactic but you can see that there's only a single center back which is an obvious vulnerability. TERMINUS ULTIMUS wanted to play as a striker and had changed his attributes accordingly, so we decided to line up like this. With Lorenzo being the only center back now we had to take a no-nonsense approach to our defense. It made it necessary for Green to become a halfback, so that he would almost stay in line with the defenders. Moving Delibasic to the right a bit allowed Santori to become an inverted winger which fits him really well. The reason why we only used this tactic once... the attacking midfielder. In this kind of formation you really need a very strong attacking midfielder to support the two strikers, but that simply wasn't the case with Junior-Junior who has basically been inactive since the start of the season. We needed to score way more to make up for the goals we were gonna concede anyway due to our lack of center backs.
Matchday 12-14
![[Image: UtbK3NG.png]](https://i.imgur.com/UtbK3NG.png)
The final tactic we used during the season with some small tweaks throughout the matchdays. Also known as the Christmas tree formation! Since we concluded that our attacking midfield was not strong enough to support the two strikers, we decided to drop Okocha Jr. down to the attacking midfield as a shadow striker. Since Okocha Jr. would now occupy space that Santori previously wandered as an inverted winger, he had to go back to being a regular winger. Having found out through testing that no nonsense fullbacks worked quite well to make up for a lack of center backs, we have used them in our last few matches. In formation it's surprisingly similar to the one all the way back in MD1, but a completely different playing style. This one was very offensive and we out xG'd our opponents in all these matches, but unfortunately our lack of quality in the finishing department came back to bite us since we lost or drew all the matches with this tactic.
So yeah, quite an eventful season in the tactical department of the Victoria Falls Eagles, but it has been a lot of fun working on tactics for the team. I want to thank my team for putting faith in me for doing most of the tactical work! I myself have learned a lot in these last months. Hopefully I'll get to do that as well during my time in my next team!
Matchday 1
I have not been able to find out who made this tactic and what thoughts went into it. This was a tactic made before I joined the SSL. What immediately catches the eye is the cautious mentality and the very defensive out of possession instructions (low block and lower defensive line). Defense has been the biggest struggle the entire season for the Victoria Fall Eagles so you can imagine that by staying very far back, you're basically inviting the attackers to come near your box. Combine that with the lack of quality and personnel in the back... you lose the opening match 1-4 at home. Another peculiar choice is the playing for set pieces when nobody in the team is good at taking them.
Matchday 2 - 10
This formation has been used by us for most of the season and has been tweaked several times throughout the matchdays in terms of team instructions and player roles. The base of this tactic was created by Don Lorenzo and I have been tweaking it together with input from him and Giacomo Santori. It's the only tactic that has actually given us wins this season (only two unfortunately). It's a pretty offensive tactic with high press and wing play with both me (Kupinas) and Santori being wingers trying to deliver crosses to the striker and attacking midfielder. I was on attack duty because it (usually) makes the player run all the way to the by-line before crossing and because of the positioning of Okocha Jr. and Junior-Junior I should usually have two options to pass to. For Santori we have considered an inverted winger position but we noticed that in offense he would often occupy the same space as Delibasic. It has proven more useful that he would stay more wide (thus the winger position) and give early crosses (instead of crosses from the by-line if he was on attack duty). For Delibasic we have also tried him as a mezzala since his stats suggests that he would be suitable for that, but tactically we realized that a deep lying playmaker fitted the team better and it has resulted in him being a vital part of the team in that role.
Matchday 11
This tactic we've only used once and it honestly was pretty decent since we drew the champions 2-2 at home with it. It's actually not too different from the previous tactic but you can see that there's only a single center back which is an obvious vulnerability. TERMINUS ULTIMUS wanted to play as a striker and had changed his attributes accordingly, so we decided to line up like this. With Lorenzo being the only center back now we had to take a no-nonsense approach to our defense. It made it necessary for Green to become a halfback, so that he would almost stay in line with the defenders. Moving Delibasic to the right a bit allowed Santori to become an inverted winger which fits him really well. The reason why we only used this tactic once... the attacking midfielder. In this kind of formation you really need a very strong attacking midfielder to support the two strikers, but that simply wasn't the case with Junior-Junior who has basically been inactive since the start of the season. We needed to score way more to make up for the goals we were gonna concede anyway due to our lack of center backs.
Matchday 12-14
The final tactic we used during the season with some small tweaks throughout the matchdays. Also known as the Christmas tree formation! Since we concluded that our attacking midfield was not strong enough to support the two strikers, we decided to drop Okocha Jr. down to the attacking midfield as a shadow striker. Since Okocha Jr. would now occupy space that Santori previously wandered as an inverted winger, he had to go back to being a regular winger. Having found out through testing that no nonsense fullbacks worked quite well to make up for a lack of center backs, we have used them in our last few matches. In formation it's surprisingly similar to the one all the way back in MD1, but a completely different playing style. This one was very offensive and we out xG'd our opponents in all these matches, but unfortunately our lack of quality in the finishing department came back to bite us since we lost or drew all the matches with this tactic.
So yeah, quite an eventful season in the tactical department of the Victoria Falls Eagles, but it has been a lot of fun working on tactics for the team. I want to thank my team for putting faith in me for doing most of the tactical work! I myself have learned a lot in these last months. Hopefully I'll get to do that as well during my time in my next team!
