Beating 3-5-2
 

Today I play a team that's just a little better than I am. That is, he has a good cental defender, and I haven't. He's playing the same 3-5-2, but with an offensive central defense (not against the stronger teams, I guess) and his tactic is attack on wings, where I play nothing fancy.
The last time we played my players were a bit out of shape and I lost 4-2 away. So I hope for a draw or something like that today.

But I was wondering, I could play a trick on him. In friendlies I always play 3-4-3, so I could do that today as well. But with his wing attack and my weak wingbacks, abandoning one wing would be suicide. So I could play with only three inner mids... and since my midfield would then certainly be weaker than his I could try to beat him on counter attack.

Would that work? Any other ideas for beating 3-5-2's with similar strength?

I don't understand, you play 3-4-3 with 3 inner mids and a winger towards middle or with a winger offensive?

Beating 3-5-2 is kind of tough. If you can play 3-4-3 and win the midfield (maybe with a winger offensive) then you probably win. IF the other guy has bad attack ratings you can try to play an ultra-defensive formation with decent attack and CA (4-3-3 or 5-3-2). Then you can always MOTS and get an edge over his midfield.

You know, I just won. 6-4! Amazing.

I meant 3-4-3 with a winger to forward and a central defender to midfield. But my "plan" to play CA is to play a central defender as forward and no other changes. Would that work?

On a sidenote: I was very lucky. The guy I played got this youth pull after the match:

Wilfred van Gogh
TSI = 3 260 , 17 jaar

Conditie: matig Keepen: rampzalig
Positiespel: goed Passen: goed
Vleugelspel: goed Verdedigen: zwak
Scoren: zwak Spelhervatting: rampzalig

Translated: a solid playmaker, passer and winger... If he sells that...

I;ve played a few CA games last season with mixed results. I have a defensive coach so my defense is usually quite ok and I played with 5 defenders to make it very difficult to score. I feel I has some better than expected results with CA but also some worse than expected (that is, I prolly would have done better just playing 3-5-2). I think in my I was a 50/50 chance to do better (or worse) but I dont have very good passing in my defense which is important for CA.

What's interesting about CA though is that you can PIC to make sure you score lower on the midfield and still have some advantage from that worse midfield. It's still a gamble though ihmo, so I would only use it when you're pretty sure you're gonna lose a match anyway.

Hm, good suggestion PP. I'll play the current number one in two weeks, so I might try this.