Welcome to the Barcelona FM26 team guide! Thanks to the financial downfall of the club, this one is a popular rebuild challenge.
In the Barcelona FM26 team guide we are looking at the key players, suitable tactics, the reams of wonderkids and top transfer targets.
By the end of this guide you will have a Barcelona sized platform to launch your assault in La Liga.
Let’s take our first steps into the Barcelona FM26 team guide. We are looking at the board and supporter expectations to see what style they want us to manage with. With clubs like Barcelona, this is an identity that they want to see, it’s their fabric if you like.
Starting with the board they want playstyle and recruitment objectives to be followed. The playstyle objectives are attacking, possession and entertaining football. This means that Gegenpress, Possession Control and Tiki Taka are all viable options. They are all attacking styles, they are possession styles and also create a lot of chances which equals entertainment.
In terms of the recruitment options they want high reputation signings like they always have. They also want to sign players based in Spain. Both of these objectives are linked with the style and character of Barcelona over the years. We will speak about this in more detail later on.
Moving onto the supporter objectives we can see, that they are agreed in most of the playing style goals. The only exception is that they want a high tempo press as well, which confirms we are probably playing Gegenpress.
The other difference is that they want to develop players using the great youth system that they have at Barca. Every supporter loves a local hero, some who comes through the ranks and pushes the club on.
Want to try this with a different team? Check out the Man United version here.
So the next phase of the Barcelona FM26 team guide is identifying who the key players are. We do this by using the assistant reports and then we use their best positions in order to map out a formation. Easy as that.
We have some incredible talent on these books at Barca. A 36 year old Lewandowski who is still doing the job and well. Then the other end of the spectrum the 17 year old Yamal, who is an absolute world beater in the making.
After looking through the key players I think it is really obvious that the formation is 4231. The strength here is that 5 man midfield, it captures all the great assets in one formation.
Let’s move onto the youth prospects and wonderkids now. It’s the same process, but we use the potential ability star rather than the current ability star. Then we map out their positions in a formation, and combine them with the key players. This creates the ultimate formation to move forward with.
I cannot believe the amount of youngsters and wonderkids, it’s literally is a warehouse of top talent. Both groups indicate a 4231, but the key players use MCs and the youngsters indicate the DM variant. We could use both as a home and away variant.
This is one of the more exciting sections in the Barcelona FM26 team guide, the wonderkids! We all want to buy, develop and take the credit for their success and they fit in with so many recruitment methods.
Barcelona on the other are a producing wonderkids at a rapid rate as you can see from the list below:
This is a good opportunity to play these players in their natural positions, any positions which are not covered you can go out and buy for. This is succession planning at it’s best.
This is my personal favourite section of the Barcelona FM26 team guide. This is where everything comes together in line with the identity of the club and it’s expectations. With Barcelona the expectations are high, but so is the talent level in the team.
Yes I know you’ve had a look, and it is a 235 in possession and a 4231 out of possession. The 235 transition is very popular in football with managers like Pep and Arteta, it gives us 5 attackers. The 4231 was obvious because of the key players we have and the youngsters can replicate it.
With the tactical style I have gone abit anti-Barca and gone with the Gegenpress rather than Tiki Taka. We have a young and physically very fit team so it makes sense to go with Gegenpress. As well as this a lot of the board and supporter objectives align with this style.
We have gone with the standard pressing setup in the out of possession tactic to win that ball back quickly. Also we are set up very centrally with these formations which suits Gegenpress all day.
This shape works even better if you use the FM26 433 transition model.
As we have seen throughout the Barcelona FM26 team guide the strength of Barca is their midfielders and the attack. The area which is of concern is the defence, mainly the centra backs. While there are some good players coming through in this position there isn’t one who is ready right now.
The only players which are going to be suitable for Barcelona and to be ready now are defenders that play for the big teams in each country. These are going to be players like Saliba, Konate, Bastoni for example. These are some of the top defenders and would instantly be an improvement for the defence.
With Barcelona this could be a FM26 rebuild challenge. The club have good players, youth facilities, but are in trouble financially. We could use this a chance to rebuild Barca in it’s previous image and get the finances back on track through becoming a performance or profit club.
Barcelona are the team in most people’s hearts, and what a team it is. They always provide entertainment and always challenge for the titles. What I noticed is that is was a very large squad which can be rotated easily and with plenty of options.
I managed Barca for half a season using the Barcelona FM26 team guide and it was wicked. Although we are joint at the top with Real Madrid we have scored 40 goals and only conceded 15, there is definitely a future for this team and I look forward to the run in with Real Madrid.
Barcelona were only ever going to be fun weren’t they? I mean look at the results, how could you not want to give them a run now?
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