Not a Footium Blog

It’s like Deja Vu all over again…

In case you’re struggling to distinguish between the previous post and this one, you’re not the only one. It was 3-1-4-2 last time and now it’s 3-4-1-2! The ONLY difference between these formations is that the DM from 3-1-4-2 moves forward into an AM role, and this is a more attacking version of the formation.

The Line Ups

Our Line Up

Yes I KNOW about the energy. With a lot of training and a lot of matches and rotation, a few players were not in the best place energy wise. However, this was a decent overall squad, allowing us to make use of our strong AM. Our regular old CMs are the weak link here.

Average Squad Rating: 41.7

Opponent’s Line Up

So very similar, but with a DM instead of an AM. Strangely enough, even though they’re playing 3 at the back, one of the CB’s is a lowly reserve player.

Average Squad Rating: 33.9

This leaves us with an Average Squad Rating 7.8 higher than our opponents. This is our biggest rating advantage in a game so far.

Real Life Context

3-4-1-2 is incredibly similar to 3-1-4-2, yet they both came into the world in very different circumstances. 3-4-1-2 came out of 3-4-3, whereas 3-1-4-2 came out of 3-5-2. It’s a subtle but important distinction.

Perhaps it’s most prominent use was during Johan Cruyff’s total football era!

Strengths:

• Balance. This is an incredibly balanced formation, between defence and attack.
• Flexibility. Depending on the circumstances, the wing-backs/wingers can get further forward and attack extensively, or drop in to be more solid in a back five.
• Midfield Dominance. With a midfield 4 and a DM backing them up, there is a good opportunity for control through the middle!

Weaknesses:

• Limited width. With only two wide players, there’s a danger that the team lacks width going forward and defending, so can be overrun on the flanks.
• Congestion. Like many formations that use a lot of midfielders, there is a danger of congestion in the middle of the pitch.

The Match.

So, we went into this expecting to win by some distance, but perhaps a fun second bit of information it is showing us is the impact of energy. It is hard to perform isolated tests on energy, as we can’t guarantee a test where two of the teams have variance in energy, but nothing else.

This match finished 3-2 to Marrouck Villa, with our much weaker opponents actually having MORE of the ball. We had more shots, but this demonstrated to us that the fact the opponents had higher energy overall definitely made an impact.

The stats are below.

Still, good to have a win!

See you all on the pitch.