Forum

Some teams occassionally struggle to balance out the area SL requirements. I know sometimes I end up having to play a player out of position because of this or add in a couple of levels of hardness when I really don´t want to. This coach can be used to solve this problem by adding some useful extra levels to one area of your team (not Gk or Sw areas). When facing a highly touted offense one option is to play the ost combined with midfield dominance. This does not suit every team however, but this coach can for example give you a big boost in the DEF area to counter this problem.

What does he do?

This coach can add extra levels to one outfield area and we have several options as to how this might be calculated which we would welcome some feedback on. One option is to add 1 SL level per player in that position. If your team has 5 defenders playing this would give you an additional 5 SL. Another option is to add a % (10% in Def, 7.5% Mf and 5% Fw) to an area. Say you had 4 defenders at 14, 12, 11, 9 SL for a total of 46 in the DEF area. The positional coach would add 10% (truncated) for 4 more levels to be added to the DEF are making it 50. If you have 3 DF´s at 10, 9, 8 SL for a total of 27, this coach would give you 2 more levels for a total SL of 29.

Issues to Consider

One consideration is that thematically it is easier to coach defence than attack becaus the former is more about organisation and the latter creativity. Partly why we were considering tapering the benefit from Df to Fw in one of the options above.

Advantages/Disadvantages to this BRB?

Could this coach be too powerful in strengthening an already strong FW line? Maybe it should just be a Def Positional Coach or should the coach have the flexibility to add his benefits to any outfield area and make him more tactically useful in keeping the opposition guessing as to where he will be applied.

READERS COMMENTS

Readers Comments

This seems like a pretty cool idea. I won't say I know the best approach for distributing the SL.

I think if this is implemented it should be available for DF, MF and FW. At the most this gives Alon another 5 SL up front (salt in the wound for the rest of us). Allowing FW gives thaty extra level of strategy.

Here's a terrible idea: What if the PC accumulates one SL point per session (starts the season with one SL)? People can decide when to use those points, either one per session, save up a handful for a mid-season match, or leave it all for the FA Cup final? Yeah, that sounds bad when I write it out, but it's too late to delete this paragraph (or is it?).

I look forward to hearing other comments on this proposal.

Brian Beerman on Tuesday, May. 28th, 2024 at 5:30 PM

If we stick with a max of 6 BRBs per team (which would be my preference), a complement of all three PCs takes up half the available slots. Now that's what I'd call a bold strategic choice! I'm not sure I'd take it, but I love that it would be an option.

Sadly, I think a more realistic outcome is that managers would just choose the FW option and we'd have made the 1-1-2-2-5 lineup even more attractive than it is now. For that reason I'd prefer it if the DF and MF options were more powerful - say DF +7, MF +5, FW +3 per game?

I think there's something interesting in Brian's terrible idea, although it does feel a bit like an extension of GPPs. Not sure 1 SL a session would be enough but anything higher probably means you need a max limit per match. Again you could have more for DF and MF compared to FW.

Roger Mendonça on Tuesday, May. 28th, 2024 at 8:40 PM

Roger,

Another option exists: remove FW as an option; the Coach applies to DF & MF exclusively.

Brian Beerman on Tuesday, May. 28th, 2024 at 9:58 PM

We still need to maintain the 5:1 and 3:1 ratios, so there's only so many levels that can be added to the FW anyway.

Rob Peterson on Saturday, Jun. 1st, 2024 at 2:28 PM

I am not sure I like this one. It seems a little complex and much more powerful than the Groundsman.

Maybe it would be better to have players per position area compared.

So if you have 5 DF against 4 opposition FWs this generates 1 chance, 5 vs 2, 3 chances. Same for all areas compared.

But overall not my favourite and makes it much harder to strategically block a team from having any chances and I don't think this something we want to do.

James Tucker on Wednesday, Jun. 5th, 2024 at 7:04 PM