How To Create Real Life Tactics In FM20 Part Two: Atalanta Tactic

How To Create Real Life Tactics In FM20: Conclusion

Creating a tactic is like building a jigsaw, every piece has its place and one rogue connection can fell the whole system. You will need patience and determination because what works one game can break the next.

Despite replicating Atalanta’s rotating diamonds, aggressive pressing play and attacking, liquid Football, I never truly got both strikers firing on all cylinders. There are limits to what you can create in Football Manager and sometimes you have to decide between a style of play or efficiency. I chose style, opting to accept my strikers low return rate for the beautiful Football on display.

FM 2020 Atlanta Tactic

And here it is, a tailer made system to replicate Gasperini’s rotating diamonds. I have enjoyed great success with this system but failed to carry that over to other saves. This is not a plug and play tactic, we sacrifice better results and goals in favour of creating a REAL system made around a teams strengths and beautiful game.

Here are the results from a fantastic season. We struggled against the 4-4-2 and 4-5-1 formations due to an overload in wide areas, but rarely faced such systems. Serie A is rife with 5 at the back tactics playing right into our hands.

FM20 Atalanta Tactic — Results

Amazing results all round and pleasantly surprising away form. We seemed solid at the back conceding 28 to amass 101 points, a margin which maybe flatters the Bergamo club. Small portions of the season were hard work, like December where goals became hard to come by but even when lacking goals we created plenty of chances.

The Coppa Italia followed as we defeated Italy’s best; Lazio, Juventus and then Inter Milan in the Final.

European Football proved tough with 3 of our 4 opponents overloading the wings. Despite finishing top of a tough group we struggled against Manchester City’s possession play in the First Knockout round. Still an admirable effort in my eyes.

My wing backs were a sight to behold in the final third; This system would fall apart without Gosens who scored 17 and assisted 13. While both strikers scored fewer than I’d like to admit they played a key role. Gomez was pivotal from AMC with 11 goals and 13 assists but more so for his pressing play and speed on the counter.

I did notice the difference when resting key players and would advise against constant rotation. The importance of player familiarity in each role can not be overstated, this is not a plug and play tactic so must be loaded in pre-season with suitable training schedules like these.

FM20 Atlanta Tactic: Download

If you would like to give the tactic a try, follow the instructions below:

1. Click the download link above and download the file.

2. For Windows put the downloaded file in this folder: Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2020/tactics. If the «tactics» folder doesn’t exist you will have to create it. Windows users skip to step 2, Mac users read below.

Mac users put file in this folder: Users/YOUR Mac USERNAME/Documents/Sports Interactive/Football Manager 2020/tactics. To access your files on Mac open ‘Finder’, click ‘Go’ from the menubar, press and hold the ‘alt’ key to show ‘library’ in your menu, while still holding ‘alt’ click it, then go to ‘Application Support’ > ‘Sports Interactive’ > ‘Football Manager 2020’

3. Now load the game as normal and enter the tactics screen.

4. In the tactics screen, click the tactic you currently have loaded then select ‘load’ from the drop-down menu

5. Select the tactic and click load.

Any questions or thoughts please hit me in the comments but don’t complain if this doesn’t work for you, it was never intended for public use. I can guarantee it will be player suitability to blame.