Oftentimes you’ll be up against a far more talented squad than your own in Football Manager 2024. If you try to face these teams head on, chances are that you’ll get demolished due to the greater technical ability at the opposition managers’ disposal. Your best bet is probably to maintain total defensive solidity, shut the opposition down, and attack on the counter using long balls. That’s precisely what we aim to teach you to do in this Football Manager 2024 Route One Tactics Guide.
If you want more guides for Football Manager 2024, check out the following:
- Football Manager 2024: Pressing Tactics
- Football Manager 2024: Best Tactics for Counterattacking
- Football Manager 2024: Best Tactics for Possession
- Best Free Agents to Sign in Football Manager 2024
- Best Young Players to Sign in Football Manager 2024 (Wonderkids, Hidden Gems, High Potential)
Tactical Style
Before we dive into the details, we need to choose an appropriate tactical style. Go ahead and select Route One. This strategy emphasizes getting rid of the ball from your own half as soon as possible. While this is primarily for defensive reasons, it can also result in opportunities for your forwards. If you decide to go ahead with this approach, do not expect to have much possession during your games because you’ll usually be losing the ball when you hoof it up the field! Remember that your primary objective here is not to score, but rather to not concede.
Go for Route One, it’s in the name!
Formation and Roles
Up next in this Football Manager 2024 Route One Tactics guide, let’s consider the formation and relevant roles. We want to get as many men behind the ball as possible, and the 4-4-2 does this job perfectly. With two lines of four rest assured your goalkeeper has sufficient security. Additionally, the two forwards up front will put in the shift as well, as we’ll discuss below.
Coming to the player roles, you want to assign the No-nonsense role to both your central defenders. Keep your fullbacks on defense or support duty; you can use a wingback role if you fear you will have no width up front, but ensure he has the pace to cover the length of the pitch. In midfield, a Ball Winning Midfielder should be paired with a Box-to-Box Midfielder to ensure there is support on both ends of the pitch. Up front, the Target Forward is what makes the entire Route One Setup tick. This needs to be a physically imposing figure, given that he is responsible for winning the long balls hoofed up field by your defenders!
4-4-2 gives you two solid lines of four.
In-Possession Tactics
When your team has possession of the ball, your objective is to get it away from your side of the pitch as quickly as possible. The following tactics can help you accomplish this:
- Keep Attacking Width at Fairly Wide so that the player with the ball has wider options when he needs to clear the ball or play it long. Quite often, this will mean an overlapping fullback or advancing wide midfielders.
- Activate the Pass into Space option. This helps especially if you have faster wide players who will receive the ball in their stride and run directly at goal.
- Select Overlapping runs in the approach play menu.
- Keep tempo higher so your players move the ball forward as quickly as possible.
- Set Time Wasting to frequently in order to run the clock down and get a result against a stronger opponent.
- Your players should play for set-pieces as chances will be few and far between. Get those long balls to your physically strong forwards and defenders!
Get the ball forward quickly!
In-Transition Tactics
Next up in this Football Manager 2024 Route One Tactics guide, let’s talk about your strategy during transitions. The following should get you all set for these situations:
- When you lose possession, get your players to regroup as soon as possible. This ensures there is the least amount of space for the opponent to exploit in case they beat your press.
- On the other hand, when you win the ball, quickly launch your counters through vertical football. Remember that counterattacks represent most of the chances you’re going to get.
- Instruct your keeper to distribute the ball to the physical target man upfront through long kicks.
Regroup and counter.
Out-of-Possession Tactics
How your team acts out of possession is extremely vital, considering that most of your game will be spent without the ball. Ideally, you’ll want to do the following:
- Keep a Lower defensive line to crowd the penalty area and leave minimum space for the opposition forwards to create goalscoring chances in.
- Accordingly, keep a Low Block as your line of engagement so your forwards get behind the ball as well and constrict space for the opposition midfielders.
- Ask your players to get stuck in to bully the opposition player with the ball.
- Invite opposition players to the center to trap them as this is where majority of your players will be. You can then win the ball and launch more dangerous counters.
- Stop danger at the source by blocking crosses.
Learn to play without possession.
Mentality
Let’s wrap up this Football Manager 2024 Route One Tactics guide by talking about the mentality of the team. While the strategy we have discussed can be effective in getting you draws, you do not go into games expecting to win, although that’s entirely possible as well.
Accordingly, you’ll want to select either the Cautious or Defensive mentality. Which of the two you choose will depend on the level of the opposition in front of you as well as the quality of your players. While Very Defensive is another option, we don’t recommend it as it gives up far too much of the ball and essentially gives the opposition a free go at your goal. Get your men behind the ball but do play with some pride!
Be wary of your opponent.
Conclusion
That covers just about everything for this Football Manager 2024 guide. Go out there and rack up those wins – or should we say draws – with your Route One football!
