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Ahh, the offside trap - a nightmare for many furious Div. 4, 5, and 6 managers. If you forget to watch your next opponent's last game, you may be wandering into such a trap, and go on to receive a crazy amount of offside calls against your side. I am not going to create a tutorial explaining how you APPLY a high offside trap, for reasons which will be explained at the end of this tutorial, and as it should be apparent from reading this tutorial. This tutorial is for you if you are have been frustrated watching your team get pulled back 20, 30 times each match while your opponent laughs at their screen, and if you do not know what to do about it. Do not despair - the success of the offside trap is ultimately its downfall, and as such it is beatable! First, some theory... To be offside, the receiving player has to be: 1) Further upfield than the last opposition defender... 2) When receiving a forward pass... 3) When in the opposition's half. We all know this - and we all know it's harder to describe the offside rule than to see it in action. When our opposition's defense sprints to the center line and our forward is all out on his own in enemy territory...surprise surprise - he gets called offside when he receives the pass. This means our opponent, to effectively apply the offside trap, needs to leave space between the defense and their goal. And we need to exploit that space. How do we do this? By following the four steps below. STEP 1) Formation At this point, it's worth repeating it is not possible to create an advanced formation using the mobile version of the game. To see more guidance on creating an advanced formation click here: ADVANCED FORMATION TIP 1 Move your players inside your half when the ball is in your half. We already know that offsides are only counted if the receiving player picks up the ball in our opponent's half, so what we want to do is ensure all of our forwards receive the ball in our half or on the center line. We therefore have to make sure our forwards are not in the opposition's half when the ball is in our half. This whole tutorial is aimed to help those who face aggressively high offside traps where the opposition defense really is on the center line. For each square in the advanced formation creator where the ball is in your half or on the center line, make sure your players are in your half. When the ball is in the center circle, because of the stipulations of the game, it's impossible to avoid this, though you can do quite a lot to make sure sure your guys stay onside even then. Your opponent's ability to apply the offside trap will also be limited because of these same stipulations. You can still do yourself a favor here by making sure your attackers in particular are as deep as they can be in the starting lineup formation. TIP2 You want to AVOID the situation where one of your forwards has the ball, your other players have gone ahead, as these guys are likely to be offside. The game is set up so that each player often passes to the next player upfield, so even forwards, if set up in such a way, will sometimes pass to a forward nearer the goal than he is. This causes a problem in that this can create offsides even when the first forward was clever enough to pick up the ball on or before the center line. Because of this, we also want to make sure our forwards are level with or behind the attacker who has the ball, so when your CF has the ball, your LF (for example) will not race ahead of him to an offside position in anticipation of receiving the ball. Check each square when the ball is in the opposition's half to make sure your forwards are at most level. Now apply the same logic to when your other forwards have the ball. The only exception to this rule should be the corner squares. These dictate where our players will be when we attack and defend corners. STEP 2) Tactics Once STEP 1 is set up correctly, we know that in principle our players should rarely be offside. However you will still need to watch the game. Are they still creeping over the center line when they shouldn't be? Still running ahead? If not, great! You've beaten the offside trap. If so, you'll need to make some amendments on the tactics page. For more guidance on this page, click below: TACTICS TIP 3 Pull your forward line back. Take it as low as it can go, and then experiment with what works best for your team. Personally, I would be more comfortable seeing 3 offsides each game than 0, but that's down to you. For me, 0 offsides means I could have pushed further forward, so I wasted attacking opportunities. More than 6, (excluding stupid unavoidable offside throw ins - you'll need to watch the game to identify these) and I'd say you have cause for concern. STEP 3) Need for Speed When I said earlier the offside trap's biggest strength is its downside, I mean this: The opposition is no longer having to defend their goal, but let the linesman do the job instead. In fact, with no offside protection, a one-man defense could theoretically frustrate some teams. TIP 4 Fast forwards or wingers are very effective against a high offside setup. I also said our opponent needs to leave space between the defense and their goal to effectively apply the offside trap. Fast forwards, lying in wait just on the center line, will make mincemeat of a high offside line, as their defense won't be able to track back in time and the forwards will be in lots of space each attack. TIP 5 Play a wide setup. This doesn't mean slower CFs need to be left at home, but you will see it is the RFs/LFs and RWs/LWs who will be better placed to take advantage of the space. Set your tactics to use wide play rather than down the middle. STEP 4) Evolve your setup I started off saying the offside trap was a nightmare for managers in Div. 4, 5, and 6. You will also have ambitions to be playing in the higher divisions, and it's currently true that you will not see many aggressively high offside traps above Div. 4 as it is simply too easy to beat and managers in those divisions do their homework. Make sure you continue to do your homework, too. Keep monitoring your opponent and looking for ways to improve your setup. As you become more familiar with the offside trap you will learn how to apply one for yourself (more pragmatically than lining up your guys on the center line). Once you have implemented what you have read in this tutorial, you will see a huge reduction in offside calls. You will also need to prepare setups for games where your opponent does not use a very high defensive line. You will need this in the higher divisions. Good luck! Edited by @sicox86 17-01-2022 20:25 |
05/01/2022 13:00 |
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