FIFA 11 Strategy Guide - Part 2B- Custom Formations

This hub is an extension of my previous FIFA 11 Formations hub that will elaborate on unleashing the power within customized formations. Selecting a proper formation for your squad is critical, but fine tuning one can make ANY squad shine. By the time you're getting into making a custom formation, it's best to have selected a club or squad you're very familiar with. Knowing your players' advantages is really key in developing a formation to suit them; some players excel in multiple positions while others can be of little use to you if they're placed in an unfamiliar area of the pitch. Let's take a look at some more general tips to be mindful of to help ensure you pump out some winners from the start.

• Play or observe until you have your own idea for a general style or flow of play. It doesn't have to be complicated, just think about short passing versus long, wide crossing play versus more compact penetrating runs and/or if you have preferences to playing the ball on the ground or in the air more. Long air balls forward are quite different than short ground passing build up play.

• Creating something balanced that every club can play is a terrifyingly difficult task. Every squad has its differences in players and their strengths, so don't shy away from making multiple club-specific formations. Work from basic ideas, you may have 2 or 3 multiples of the same formation with small but significant changes in them to suit a certain type of squad. You may pick up an injury in a career style mode of play and want to modify something to include 1 less forward or 1 extra midfielder.

• A top priority when creating the foundation of your formation is deciding if you want it to be an attacking, defending, possession based or neutral formation. You can't expect to create a 3-4-3 with several forward midfielders and play defensively. The same applies to making a 5-4-1 and wondering why you're players aren't crowding the final third of the pitch. Common sense will tell you if you're going in the right direction while you're creating.

• You can easily take a formation and build it to a certain point, then divert from it in two directions by saving it and building from that point. If you like a layout of players in a 3-5-2 you've just made, save it. Then, you can then edit your new 3-5-2 into a 5-3-2 by simply moving back your 2 wider midfielders' Player Base Positions and then saving a new, more defensive version of the same formation you just started! Don't forget to modify the Work Rates and Player Positioning afterwards to better suit the changes you've made. (Example - In the top image, I've created a defensive 5-2-3 formation with a small 3 man group in front. After saving it, I created the bottom formation by taking out 1 defender to create a 4 man back line with regular LB/RB's instead of LWB/RWB's and added an extra person in my center-forward area; thus creating a 4-2-4 with wingers. I then tweaked the work rate and positioning to better suit less defensive, more winger-based play.)

The entire Custom Formations area revolves around 3 elements to modify. Each has it's own powerful effect, and all 3 are equally important to building your formation. They don't take much time to get the hang of, you literally can get as creative as you like with each. A simple tweak of any one can change a role in your squad to operate quite differently, as shown above.

1. Player Base Position - This lets you choose wherever you'd like the player to be on the pitch and should be the first thing you work on. The box highlighted in the diagram shows the areas that position should generally be in, but you're not bound to them unless you're too near another player. If you're going to change the players role, do that before moving his position. Always remember to select a player on the squad nearest to where you'll be moving them, otherwise they'll appear on your squad list in a weird order. (Example - See Image: I have Cambiassio playing a SW position, but I changed his CDM role to do so, leaving an awkward space on the squad list. - see image)

2. Work Rate - I really advise you NEVER skip this, it's the most fundamental aspect you can include in your creation. I would say that any formation without this adjusted is less than 50% effective than it could be. It's split into 2 sections with 4 options each: Attacking and Defending with High, Medium, Low, and Default. Some formations will call for more obvious assignments like your CB's having high defense and low attacking, but definitely set them either way. Mix things up to your liking, but be sure to do each players too. In the end, it should look very suited to your play style and the style your formations depicts. (Example: Wingbacks @ hA,hD. Centerbacks @ lA,hD. CDM @ mA,hD. RM @ hA,mD. LM @ lD,hA. CAM @ hA,lD. LF @ hA,mD. ST @ hA,lD. My half features a high-defensive middle area with wingbacks moving both ways, a CAM that doesn't back track for defensive but doesn't go too forward, my RM stays around the half line area unless he's going in for a cross, my LM supports the attack and doesn't track back often, my LF will not fall back too far but will attack along with the rest of the players in the opponents side, and my striker stays forward and leaves the space behind him to the LF and CAM.)

3. Player Positioning - Unfortunately titled, this actually will relate similarly to the Work Rate option with it's selection for attacking and defending, but this one offers you 5-Directional guiding for the direction these players will move, relative to possession. These should generally match your Work Rate in the sense that you don't want a defender with low attack to have a forward direction for the attack setting {just leave out the direction for attacking} but you might want your ST/CF to have a backward defense setting so they can fall back to say with the play. (Example: This formation is more free form oriented and I've set the positioning to cover gapped areas. Attackers overlap, CB's play deep to cover space left by the wing backs, midfielders are stationary and anchor the team and distribute the ball accordingly. see image.)

That about sums it up. I hope I was helpful to you when you create your future formations. Feel free to ask any questions, no matter how specific, and I'll do my best to answer any and all of them ASAP. For more great FIFA info, check out any of my other hubs about the game, namely the basic formation one that I based this from. Thanks again for reading, and check back for more in the future, as I'm always writing new FIFA material. 

I do encourage any of my readers to contact me with suggestions for future hubs, the ones I write are really only as good as my readers need it to be. I was tipped off to elaborate on formations, so here is the delivery. If theres an aspect of FIFA that need be explained and/or discussed, please feel free to let me know. I always try to include image examples, but hopefully soon enough I'll be able to make video demonstrations of all of my tips. Once again, thanks for reading and look to the future for more FIFA fun!