Formation
This guide will hopefully give you some insight into setting up your own 3-5-2 formation. I do not recommend copying this tactic down to a tee, as I spent many seasons building a squad of players which would complement my playing style. So although I encourage you to use this as inspiration for your own tactics, I would recommend some nuances. If you wish to get stuck in with a new save and try the tactic out right away, I recommend playing as Juventus, as they are probably the best equipped team to play in this style.
In the tactics window, the game considers this to be a 5-3-2. The reality is far from this however, as the wing backs are in more advanced positions than the central midfielders for the vast majority of the game. This provides some much needed width when on the ball to maintain a fluid, passing system, as well as offering support to the strikers. This does mean however that you can be left open to a counter-attack, but I will address this later.
As important as getting the wing backs right is, the most crucial element to the tactic is getting the right balance in midfield. I strongly recommend that you stick with the system of three central midfielders and also strongly recommend having a playmaker and box-to-box midfielder either side of a ball-winning midfielder. Your central midfield is the difference between this tactic being a success and failure, so make sure you get it right. I won't baby step you through picking the correct players, just use the "highlight key attributes" feature on player attributes if you are unsure on the best players for each role.
The Forward roles are less important I would say but as common sense would tell you, when you play with 2 up-front, make sure you have one supporting role and one attacking role. This helps to bridge the gap between Midfield and Attack more effectively and will result in a better passing game. In the attached picture, you can see my main attacking combination of a Supporting Complete Forward and an Attacking Advanced Forward. I've found this to be the most effective combination (given the players at my disposal) but I do like to bring out the traditional "little and large" combination of Target Man and Poacher, since I have a young, 6 foot 6 Forward coming through the ranks. I've found Deep Lying Forwards to be useful too but I prefer the Complete Forward, as he tends to get more involved in creating chances, rather than pottering around midfield.
Squad
As mentioned in the previous section, I have spent many seasons building the perfect squad for this tactic to work. It has involved extensive scouting and it is by no means an easy road to success. One simple point I feel the need to bring up which nobody else seems to is the teamwork attribute. If you want to play a controlled, passing game then a minimum teamwork attribute of 15 should be mandatory. You could have the most gifted players in the world at your disposal, but if they don't buy into your philosophy, they will struggle to perform.
So let me show you what I mean by selecting the correct players. Allow me to introduce you to my Right Wing Back:
(Before I go on, yes he was born in 2006, I shall save you the maths, i'm in the 2025/26 season)
Don't get me wrong, he is a fantastic player and at only 19 years of age, he will only get better but this is what I am trying to elaborate on. There are plenty of Wing Backs out there right now on my save with better crossing, passing, pace, dribbling etc but they are selfish players or have a low teamwork attribute. I cannot stress how important it is to have a squad that wants to work for each other in a system like this.
As for squad personality, I have opted to go for determined players over professionals. I'm still not entirely sure how much of an impact this has on the pitch so I will leave the science behind this to someone more in the know about it. All I will say is it works for me so I am sticking with it!
So that wraps up the squad section. No major breakthroughs or groundbreaking strategy, just a common sense approach on how to shape your squad if you want to dominate the ball.
Advanced Tactics
Warning, this section involves some very crudely drawn arrows on paint. I will also be diving deeper into the kind of players you should be looking for and getting down to the nitty gritty stuff. Not for the faint of heart but if you've come this far...
First, we'll get the straightforward stuff out the way. If you want to control the game in a positive way, apply common sense and set out with the "Control" mentality and issue a team instruction to retain posession. These two combined lead to an attacking passing game. My driving force in attack however, comes in the form of my Wing Backs.
The first thing I did upon their arrival at the club was get them to "Go forward whenever possible" and this does exactly what it says on the tin and they charge forward when the opportunity presents itself. However, this alone is not enough and I try to encourage my midfield to utilise these options by enabling the "Look for Overlap" instruction but if you really want to hammer the point of getting the ball outwide home, then instruct your team to "Play Wider" also, which can be very useful with an effective Target Man. (Note, your players will need high Stamina and Natural Fitness to play like this for 90 minutes.) Now it's time for those arrows I warned you about.
(Red Arrows represent movement and Black Arrows represent passes)
I shall explain to help make sense of this. Generally, this is the core of 80% of chances created with my tactic. Much more passing takes place to draw players out of positions but this is a simplified diagram, illustrating how the tactic works. Either the "BBM" or "BWM" drops back into a Defensive Midfield role when playing out from the back. This in turn, creates more space for the playmaker to work his magic.
This is when the supporting forward becomes the lynch pin in the attack and creates what's known as a passing triangle. A quick give and go from the wing back to the playmaker gets the move going and the pass between the playmaker and outlet buys time for the wing back to make his move in behind the opposition full back and into a dangerous crossing position.
When it comes down to individual player assignments, you don't really want to be going overboard. Try to only use player assignments if you have a player struggling with an aspect of his game. For instance, I like to give an assignment to me Complete Forward to "Roam more" (Free Role) which leads to him playing off the shoulder of multiple players and linking up play, regardless of where the ball is. This is just an example, feel free to add as many roles as you wish but I do recommend exercising caution.
I find my team's movement overall to be quite pleasing, so I leave the fluidity on balanced, don't fix something that isn't broken, right? But if you are having problems with link up play or not creating enough chances, try increasing the fluidity.
This system does have its drawbacks however. As you would expect with a 3-man defence, you can be left wide open to counter-attacking football against fast teams. To help combat this, I like to utilise the BWM in a tight marking role but it is worth noting that this requires high physical attributes, otherwise he will be left for dead. It is down to you to identify whether or not the opposition will cause you problems and there are two easy fixes. Either you isntruct your wing backs to be more conservative, or you can keep "risky passes" out of the game plan and play a total posession game. I personally prefer the latter but that's just me.
Well this concludes my 3-5-2 attacking posession guide. I hope you have found it useful and if you have any further questions or queries, feel free to get in touch. I'm happy to put something back into the game that is slowly consuming my life!
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=229508587
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