P-Nut0712 -----------------------------------------VS-----------------------------------harms
P-Nut0712 Tactics
Formation: 442
Style: Direct
Defensive line: Deep
Player Roles:
DDG: Complete keeper
Neville: Full Back
Godin: Stopper
Passarella: Sweeper
Evra: Full Back
Beckham: Right Mid *
Kante: Ball Winner
Socrates: Playmaker
Overmars: Left Mid *
Batistuta: Target Man
Ronaldo: Complete Forward - Free Role
* - Both will tuck in at times to allow the formation to become a 4312, such as;
Beckham - Kante - Overmars
Socrates
Batistuta - Ronaldo
Key Player Roles
Neville - Beckham partnership is obviously well known and needs no further explanation for what they would bring down that side.
Kante is a perfect foil for Socrates, he's going to be covering the ground and doing the majority of the running for him, allowing him the freedom to run the game.
Batistuta - Ronaldo is a partnership dreams are made of. There is no weakness and every single aspect of a defender would be tested.
Speaking of every aspect being tested we've got excellent crossers of the ball, an exquisite playmaker in Socrates, a warrior of a target man in Batistuta, and the Fenom in R9 who can dominate a defence on his own. This attack will be a nightmare to play against.
STOPPING THE OPPOSITION
Maradona is obviously harms biggest threat, hence the idea of defending in a 4312 formation and trying to congest the space in the middle of the park and forcing him out wide,where there is much less of a threat with Godin and Passarella more than capable of dealing with balls into the box.
harms Tactics
Tactics:
The team is built to bring out the best in, well, the best. Diego Maradona is in his element, being at the heart of a very energetic, aggressive and yet immensely talented team. The others will be carrying water for him so that he can walk on it.
My first priority after securing Maradona was to build an infallible defence. Figueroa and Maldini both have a genuine claim on the defensive GOAT status and Förster is one of the toughest man-markers in history of the game with the likes of Platini, Sanchez and Ceulemans in his resume, who spent the majority of his international career on the right of a back three. Legendary Yashin forms the last line of my defence with his intimidating presence — his name alone was often enough to force a mistake out of the opposing forwards. My tireless wingbacks will be actively participating in both parts of the game. I'll discuss their CV in detail later to highlight their match-winning potential.
My midfielders are well-known and they all play in the roles they historically excelled in. Edgar Davids is a box-to-box midfield dynamo who combined aggressive closing in and tackling with street footballer's tricks, while Bernd Schuster is responsible for creativity from the back. This is not a 20 y.o. enigma that shined at the 1980 Euros but a mature Schuster, a true midfield general that formed a telepathic understanding with Maradona at Barcelona and finished 3rd in 1985 Ballon d'Or vote. And then there's Maradona.
From the very beginning I planned to get Blokhin and Elkjær as Maradona's aids. It's hard to imagine a more tenacious front three and they'll be my first line of defence, I will comment on this point in the thread if needed. But first and foremost, they were genius footballers — while Elkjær's peak was not very long, he was undoubtedly the greatest striker in the world for a few years; Blokhin won Ballon d'Or ahead of Cruyff and Beckenbauer and did it in astonishing fashion. They consistently performed against the greatest defenders, not only of that era, but of all-time — Elkjær haunted Scirea both for Verona and for Denmark and Blokhin ran the show in the clashes between Dynamo and Beckenbauer's Bayern in the 70's. Again, if anyone's interested, I can comment on this in the thread. Their sheer pace and fantastic off the ball movement will be a devastating mix with Maradona's vision and playmaking — and both are very comfortable out wide, which allows Diego to make his trademark runs forward.
Thoughts on the game:
It looks like P-Nut took Ranieri’s quote about Kante doing the work of 2 players too literally, and built a midfield two with only one central midfielder. I’m a big fan of Beckham and even used him in a role where he provides support to midfield a few times, but his help won’t be enough to handle my midfield trio spearheaded by Diego Armando Maradona.
It's unlikely that P-Nut's team will sit back (his midfield is not suited for that), so it looks like he's going to play with a relatively high-line, which is not something that Godin is completely comfortable with.
