Off to Oskarshamn [2012]

The Offer

 
Well there it was. Not actually the first offer I'd received but one worth taking. The first offer had been from a Swedish team fighting against relegation, and with only a handful of games left I didn't fancy walking into my first relegation of my career.

So I held on and accepted this instead. A small team playing well above the level they should be.

With a few games left they were actually a challenger for promotion. Definitely worth taking a chance on, and with the Swedish season being quite short (22 games at this level) and good place to build the career. I don't have the time I used to so a 22 game season means I could whizz through a lot more.

 As I'm writing this retrospectively I don't have all the details that I might include to hand so I shall go through things roughly.

Basically I had 2 days until might first match. When I looked at the team I couldn't quite see how they had managed the 442 formation they had been playing. They didn't really have much in the way of a striker force. Plenty of those combination AML/R's and ST's that seem to scream but no one that actually looked like an out and out striker apart from one player we had in on loan. And they were awesome, a Mr Knuttson.

So with only 1 decent striker, plenty of wingers and attacking midfielders I went for...a 4-2-3-1 (or perhaps a 4-5-1, depends how you feel about these things).

Defence

2 wingbacks and 2 central defenders. Nothing special here, tactics or player wise. The wingbacks would surge forwards and work with the wingers to create space and overlaps.

Midfield


For the two central midfielders I have one advanced play maker and one deep lying playmaker. These two would hopefully pull some strings. The DLP from deep, maybe with some long searching balls. The AP from the hole behind the striker. Both were on support duty.

On either wing I had...an attacking winger. I was tempted by inside forwards cutting in but frankly the players I had wouldn't have been able to do that well. They were fast, and some of them could pass and cross. So that's what I stuck too.

In the AMC position I had an attacking advanced playmaker. Their job would be to provide an outlet to the striker if they ended up with their back to goal, or to act as a provider with deft (ish) defence splitting short passes.

Attack

Up front I had my lone striker playing as a Trequistra. A little odd a tiny isolated team playing in the lowest level (on FM anyway) of the Swedish leagues but I'd had some success with this before. They can bring in others players quite well and react to space as it opens.

If that didn't work though I had no problem stepping in and changing matters so they became a standard poacher.

Style

Beyond the basic positions I set man marking for zonal and strategy as counter. I did have a control variant as well. This was largely so I could react to odds (there's a fantastic post on strategies from the SI forum, I'll see if I can find it). If I happened to be favourites then control would be my approach, if I was the underdog (as I usually was) then counter attack would be the name of the game.

I actually like playing counter attacking football if I can. I think it works really well, especially if you've already scored and the opposition are under pressure.

Anyways, I thought that would play to the team strengths and give me some flexibility. I brought in a few extra youth players. All 17 or under. I wasn't expecting them to be able to do much more than run fast. They would be my subs to try for desperate last minute hoof and hope situations.

Onwards Oskarshamn.

<< Normally I'd put a lot more in about the history of a team and its surroundings, as well as why I joined but for several reasons (one that will become apparent in a couple of posts) I thought it best not too. >>