FM21: The Santos Way — Tactical Analysis
An analysis of Santos FC’s season, exploring their playing style and tactical concepts which were employed by previous manager Cuca.
Introduction
This analysis will help me to replicate the Santos FC playing style which I will implement during my save with the Alvinegro (Black and white), my second save of Football Manager 21.
Like many of you, I have opted to start a save with a team that until now I have zero knowledge of. If asked, I couldn’t name you half of their starting eleven and posses zero understanding of both the structure and demands of the Brazilain/South American competition structure.
This piece will hopefully help me to fill in some of the blanks as I look to come out of it on the flipside with a tactic that I can use as a basis for the save.
Main Playing Style
A playing style of Football Manager can be created by selecting how the team will play over the three phases (In possession, In transition and Out of possession) of play.
A good aid within the game is the squad comparison tab which can be found under the team report. Here you can compare the physical, mental and technical attributes of your squad to help make an informed decision.
Attributes comparison
I will now explore the three profiles of the Santos FC squad which will help me to assess what style of play the team is best suited in both defense, attack and in transition before looking into player roles in more detail.
Starting on the physical profile, it looks as if I will inherit a squad who are the league leaders in terms of Strength and close to the 90th percentile in terms of Pace.
Taking the above into consideration it may be of benefit to use our strength to our advantage, physical power can help to create/make space as it is an asset which makes it harder for the defending team player to move into a particular area, for that reason we will look to play a slightly more direct passing game.
Unfortunately, the squad are lacking in Natural Fitness (how well a player can retain condition when injured or not training, recover condition between matches, gain match fitness) not exactly music to my ears giving the fact that the squad sizes are huge in Brazil.
Secondly, analysing the technical profile of the squad Heading (How accurately a player can head the ball to his intended target), Marking (How well a player can take up a position close to an opposition player that makes him a less viable passing option) and Tackling (How well a player can take the ball from an opposition player without committing a foul) are the trio of attributes that stand out.
Free Kick Taking, Corners and First Touch (How well a player can control the ball and set it up for his next action when receiving it)are areas technical aspects of the game that the squad are clearly lacking in, especially set-piece delivery which looks as if we are bottom of the pile.
Looking at the squad's mental profile the unit has the highest average in the league for both Bravery (How willing a player is to choose to perform an action that risks pain or injury) and Concentration (How unaffected a player is by lost focus when making a decision).
The squad also sit within the 90th percentile for Decisions (How well a player can evaluate the options he is aware of and choose which action to perform, when to perform it and how to perform it), however they also are only just performing above average for Vision which impacts his ability to see those options.
Off The Ball (How well player moves and positions himself, to either provide a passing option or create space for teammates to exploit when he is off the ball and his team is in possession). Determination (How much a player tries to succeed in his actions during a match even in mentally exhausting circumstances) and Composure (How unaffected a player is by mental pressure when making a decision or performing an action) are the three areas in which the squad are significantly under-performing.
Player Roles
In order to understand what player roles the Santos FC starting 11 are using to date, I have opted to create a nice little visual aid that shows the heat-maps from SofaScore, of the 11 players who drew down the most minutes in a Santos shirt across the Brasileiro Serie A season.
This visual helps to provide a starting point to build off and will no doubt help me to establish what player roles should be used for each player. This in turn will also contribute towards the playing style as the player roles in-game come with some bolt-on tactical instructions as player roles automatically assign player instructions.
Out Of Possession
The defensive line
The Santos FC shape reverts to a narrow 4–1–4–1 when out of possession, the wide midfielders drop deeper to assist the full-backs to ensure they don’t get overloaded by the opposition.
As you can see there are two defensive lines of four, with the deeper midfielder, usually the number six (Alison) zonally marking zone 14 and tracking any opposition players who enter the space between the two lines.
The low-block should operate in a narrow manner which in turn forces the opposition into the wide channels outside of the defensive block, making it harder for the opposition to penetrate through the block and playing into our strengths (Heading & Marking).
Offside trap
The squad's mid-range anticipation and composure make it hard to play an effective offside trap, therefore I think it would be criminal of me to attempt to use this when planning the defensive shape of the team.
As you can see from the above clip against Corinthians, the back-line drop-off, following the runs of the offensive players, ensuring that there are bodies between the opposition and the goal, hopefully forcing the opponents to shoot from range.
Taking the two above factors into consideration I will be implementing a standard defensive line in-game and will look to regroup when possession has been lost to ensure the team have a solid defensive base.
Passes Per Defensive Action
The above image shows the Passes Per Defensive Action from The Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, for those of you who aren’t familiar with this metric PPDA can be defined as;
PPDA = Number of Passes made by Attacking Team (opponent) / Number of Defensive Actions
You will note that Santos has a PPDA that sits slightly below the league average. The lower the PPDA value, the more defensive actions per opposition passes indicating a more intense press.
For this reason, I will set Santos to use the more urgent pressing intensity instruction when out of possession.
Tackling Style
Analysing the above visual from WhoScored, it shows that Santos are picking up less than average yellow cards in the league. Comparing this to the final league position, five out of the seven teams that finished higher than Santos picked up more yellow cards.
Therefore this is enough evidence for me to see that in-game Santos will need to Get Stuck In, we want to be aggressive and strong in the tackle, making good use of our high aggression score and the fact that we are the bravest team in the league should lead to us winning most of the 50/50 challenges.
In Possession
Work Ball into Box
Taking into consideration the fact that a shot from inside the box has a higher xG than one from outside, I will be looking to ensure that we work the ball into the box as frequently as possible.
I have opted for a midfield pairing of a Segundo Volante (A) and a Mezzala (S) with the view of the SV making regular runs into the penalty area and the MEZ operating in the half-spaces. This combination hopefully will cause chaos, giving the oppositions defensive unit serious headaches, as they are forced to make the decision to press the MEZ in space or drop off to counter the late attacking run.
Express Yourself
Allowing my players to Be More Expressive will allow my more creative players the freedom to play the game with additional vision and flair outside of the confines of the team’s tactical set-up.
Ginga is a spirit Brazilians are born with; it is a walk, a talk, a way of life, and a vital ingredient to being Brazilian.
In Brazilian terms, it will ensure that the spirit of life (Ginga)that’s engrained in the DNA of every Brazilian is able to flow.
I will be looking to analyse what attributes can be associated with ‘Ginga’, this will then become my scouting foundation in relation to searching for new players.
Attacking Transition
Distribute to flanks
In terms of the team's mentality in FM I will be looking to start with a cautious approach, this mentality aims to keep men behind the ball when defending but provides quick support to the attacking players when the ball is in the final third. It relies on getting the ball forward quickly enough to expose the spaces left vacant behind aggressive full-backs and wingers.
I am going to set the instruction in transition to distribute to the flanks as I will be looking to bring the likes of Marinho (Acceleration 16, Pace 15 & Dribbling 15) and Yeferson Soteldo (Acceleration 15, Pace 15 & Dribbling 16) into the game early, with the view to exploiting a disorganised defensive unit.
The Santos Way
I will be looking to document this save on my YouTube channel if you’d like to follow along then please make sure you subscribe to the channel to ensure you don't miss out on the updates.
You will find the first upload on the page which acts as an introduction to the save and also explores ‘Ginga’ and the attributes which I feel will make up the DNA.
