Tactic Building on FM24 with Inter Milan

In this small series of blogs we will be recreating a real life successful tactic in FM24. The reason for this series is that I enjoy recreating tactics and seeing how they play out on FM24. I love to experiment and play the game in new ways.

This edition is the Inter Milan tactic that Inzaghi used to get runner up in the Champion League last season. The reason for this tactic is because, well there is no bigger competition than the Champions League. I have played and recreated Pep’s Man City tactics so many times and I wanted to do something new. We will use the data available to us through the technical reports on UEFA.

In this guide we are going to:

• Look at the basic framework or formation for the tactic.
• We will look at the stats of the tactic and how to recreate it in FM24.
• Potential areas of improvement after a dry run.

Read on if you want to create your own tactic today!

Tactic Formation

In this section we will discuss the formation of the tactic according to the description and data we have available. We need to start somewhere with a tactic and the basic framework or skeleton is the best place. Once we have a formation we can start fleshing out the strategy and roles.

The tactic is described as a 352 in possession, which turns into a compact 532 in defence. What we can take from this as facts is that we have 3 centre backs, three midfielders and two forwards. We have two players which switch between defence and midfield, these are potentially wingbacks. It would look something like this:

The other formation we could look at is the 352 formation. According to the graphic on the technical report the wingbacks are positioned in front of the defence, so I opted for the 532. When looking at the graphic on the technical report, it shows that the DM Brozovic rarely moved. He stayed in position and was the first line of protection against a counter.

Alongside him, Calhanoglu was played as a close in defence and pushed forward in attack, but not a huge leap forward. This suggests he was playing a support role, potentially a deep lying playmaker. This makes sense as a defensive mid or ball winner would get the ball and lay it off to a playmaker.

In actual fact I think we are looking more like a 3412 formation at this point.

Stats to build with

In this section we will use the team stats to build the team strategy within the tactic using FM24. This is not as straight forward as we are led to believe. Using passing stats and graphics we can start to understand how the general team tactics work.

Passing

Looking at the stats the possession break down was 37% first third, 46% middle third and 17% attacking third. Straight away can see that the ball was in the first two thirds the most. This would mean to me that there are more players in the middle third and the defence has a slightly less number. This indicates the formation is correct.

If you divide 100% by 11 players you get 9% per player essentially. If you divide the 37% by 9 you get 4, and 46% you get 5. This indicates that the formation is correct on average as to where the ball is kept. If you’re team aren’t doing this it indicates a few weaknesses in your team.

“Winning is not important, it’s the only thing that counts.”

– Giovanni Trapattoni

When we look at the passing breakdown by distance we can see that Inter Milan had:

• 13% long passes
• 41% medium passes
• 46% short passes

This shows that Inter enjoyed retaining possession when combined with the third data. This is also displayed in the data by the top three passers were two defenders and the goal keeper. The basic premise of this football is pull the opposition into you and then hit it long as they leave spaces behind. As well as that we see that Inter Milan have an 82% accuracy with passing.

So looking at the tactics and how we interpret this in FM24, this is how I would replicate it. The shorter passing is reflected from the stats we have. I like to measure width and tempo as the same number as they work hand in hand. A possession based team do not play quick short passing, that leads to mistakes.

Attacking

So the next thing we need to look at is, how do we score? Looking at the data, there were a number of goal scorers in the tournament, but the regulars were Dzeko, Martinez and Barella. Two are strikers and the other was a box to box midfielder. This indicates that there were not many shots by anyone outside of the strikers. As a result I would say that we will be playing work the ball into box. Barella had a low XG while having 20 shots, so one would assume he took a lot of long range efforts, potentially free kicks.

Another interesting piece of information is that the big three creators in the team were all down the left – Bastoni, Dimarco and Martinez. Bastoni may have been playing a ball playing defender role, Dimarco was the main focus of the attack and Martinez was the unselfish forward.

pressing

Inter Milan let the opposition have 14 defensive moves before winning the ball back. This means that they were not a high trigger defensive and were more concerned in keeping shape and being compact. They had a low block and a high defensive. This is an interesting strategy as you are pushing up and could be exposed by fast forwards, but also cutting their lines of supply by staying so compact.

They were technically leaving the wings open for a number of reasons. Fast forwards in general do not have great aerial presence (unless it’s Haaland). The wingbacks are always there looking to intercept the wide ball and counter down the other end. They are essentially starving the opposition forwards.

Putting the tactic together

So let’s see what I have put together with all the information that we have gathered. B

It looks very defensive, but that is the old Italian tactic adage. Something tells me it will take any team a while to get to grips with this tactic as there is a lot going on. It will take a good footballing team to use this tactic and it will take a team with expectations so time to play this style. There is potential here, the emphasis is on not losing before winning.

I will give it a season with Inter Milan and see how it works out and do a blog on the changes I make. It’s always fun to make tactics like this, comment below about what you think.