Seems to be a couple days old, but is first I have seen of it.
FIFA 15 - Team Management Indepth Analysis
It's probably 'the' most requested change to the FIFA formula and for FIFA 15 we get it. Brand new team and tactical management. Here's whats inside.
The new Team Management setup, as well as looking very pretty is broken down in to five key sections.Squad, Formation, Roles, Instructions and Tactics which we'll talk you through below, detailing all the new options and features you'll be able to utilise in FIFA 15.
This screen allows you to control your team selection, subs and reserves but as you can see it has a brand new look for FIFA 15. Gone are the tedious vertical lists, and in their place a dynamic view of your team (including player faces) which allows you to quickly switch players and make minor tweaks to their base positioning. To change a player position you simply hover over the player and press X (Xbox) then, you move the analogue stick, that's it. Good eh?
You can also use this screen to compare players and pressing Y (Xbox) will bring up a list of the best available substitutes for you to choose from. It's an incredibly slick and simple interface and having real player faces adds a welcome layer of familiarity. Player fatigue is shown by the green bar beneath each player and when players gain, or lose form white directional arrows appear to indicate their level of form either positive or negative.
This is where you choose your formation, but again instead of lists, it's a very quick, and very visual grid layout for you to choose from. There are plenty of pre-set options here to choose from but custom tweaks can be made to individual positioning by going back to the squad tab and moving your chosen player. Having a clear visual representation of each formation is the major benefit here and you should have your ideal formation applied in no time at all.
The Roles screen allows you to set your team captain and set piece takers. Individual options are available for penalties, left corner, right corner, short free kicks and long free kicks. To get a better idea of who to choose for each role you can hover over a player and pressing A (Xbox) will launch an overlay which shows their key stats relating to the specific Role you've just selected. Handy.
Now this is where it gets very interesting because you can now control individual player behaviour on the pitch, to a level never seen before in FIFA. The table below details all the options which can be chosen, and which positions they become active for. Some positions like CAM, may have multiple instructions you can apply, allowing you to control that players on-pitch behaviour down to the finest of detail. The best thing about this is that settings changes have a really clear and profound effect on the pitch. So lots of trial and error will be needed.
***An option called Balanced is the default setting for most player Instructions. The positions column lists examples only to give you an idea of where the different instructions can be applied. This may change in the full release.
Plenty of options there as you can see which allow you to govern the way your individual players play and thus your team as a whole. The good news is that the impact on-pitch is quite profound with wingers who are told to stay forward, visibly slow to track back (if at all) and in reverse, fullback who are instructed to 'Always Overlap' become a constant menace from the flanks.
The Tactics tab you will recognise because it's basically the same as in FIFA 14 in terms of options and layout. But a number of pre-set tactics are available for your to choose from called Counter Attack, High Pressure, Possession, and Long Ball. Selecting one these options will allow you to view the individual settings applied underneath, but if none of these are take your fancy you can choose Custom and build your own.
Every time you make a modification to your teams setup in any of the above tabs it's automatically saved in to a Team Sheet. These Team Sheets are accessible from the main Team Management screen which you can Edit, Create or Import. You can store up to six individual Team Sheets which can be renamed to make them easy to manage. When playing Career Mode i quickly setup Team Sheets for my Main XI, Cup Team (which contained my Youth/Reserves players ready to go in the starting lineup) and Europe Home and Europe Away to give me plenty of different tactical options and setups.
What does Import mean? Well if you're playing Career Mode and happen to stumble on a great formation, you can use the Import function to copy that formation to a different Career Mode save and other FIFA modes too. Huzzah.
When you get to the Play Match screen, Team Sheets can be selected easilly with the RS meaning you don't even need to go in to Team Mangement unless you need to make a substitution, or another alteration. Simple.
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Sounds fooking awesome to me. I have been screaming for this since FIFA 11 and now it appears to have come. This is great news for manager mode players.
