The Deep Creator: Lying in the Deep and Roaming to the Advanced Areas
Welcome to my first article on Passion4FM’s new website. I’m Ryan Tank, a passionate Indonesian Football Manager gamer with great interest of the tactical aspects of the game.
With the raise of the importance of player roles it’s been an increased focus of how to utilize the different player roles in Football Manager. while as many as 8 new player roles where introduced for Football Manager 2014, a total of 4 has been introduced for Football Manager 2015.
In order to utilize the new FM15 player roles its important to understand how they work in real life and simply know what their mandatory responsibilities and instructions are.
Here I will analyze the raise of the deep creator – one of the new Football Manager 2015 player roles – also known as the roaming playmaker. I aim to make it easier for you to understand how the FM15 player role roaming playmaker works and why it has become so successfully empowered in real life football.
In his article, The Death of the Classic Number 10, Omar Saleem shows why the classic number 10 sadly comes to an end, by stating :
“The Increase in the speed of the game as well as a greater reliance on strength and power has contributed heavily to the downfall of such player.”
Omar also explains that the use of anchor men and powerful holding midfielders has been successfully denying the opportunity to play between the lines. For modern football, it also means the anchor men and the likes are whom to nullify the space to work for the classic number 10.
Omar then points out the importance of deep creator.
“……. Crucially these holding midfielders are frequently able to create from deep as Andrea Pirlo, Xabi Alonso, and Marco Verratti brilliantly demonstrate.”
When we see Dortmund, Bayern, Barcelona, or Italy, we’ll find out that the teams I had mentioned, utilize the combination of vision and wider viewpoint from the players who sit deeper in the central midfield, to control the play. Ilkay Gundogan or Nuri Sahin, are the Dortmund deeper creators. Gundogan offers range of passes and relentless-run which often shows him drifts into the penalty area and creates much havoc. Nuri Sahin is bit different. Sahin is known as a great long range passer. He also adds his play with his hardworking character, which puts Sahin to fight for the ball. Sahin also praised by his “arrive late into the penalty area”, which often appeared on many occasions in the season before he joined Real Madrid, gave him several important goals and Bundesliga Player of the Year.
Marcel Schmelzer comes from left-wide area. As Marco Reus there and ready to receive pass, Schmelzer then passes the ball into the space where Reus has been waiting for
Nuri Sahin sees the space to move into. He quickly drifts into the penalty area and hits the Schmelzer’s pass with unpredictably one touch-one shoot.
From the two pictures, we can see how Nuri Sahin makes use the wide viewpoint he has, by moving and patrolling from the deeper area. One of the benefit by playing deeper as a deeper creator, is, you can make a deadly blind run and break the opponent focus and defensive system, as what Sahin shows in this occasion.
In Bayern, what Xabi Alonso showed in the match against Cologne has been the epitome of modern deep lying creator. Xabi made 206 touches (which breaks the Bundesliga single player most touches in a match) and 175 passes. This amazing display, being the crucial part of how Bayern boss the midfield and boss the play. The crucial role which was taken by a deep creator.
Squawka data shows the Xabi Alonso’s touches during the match against Cologne
In 2010 el Classico, which showed the superiority of Blaugrana, Xavi Hernandez, the ideologue behind Barcelona’s aesthetic tiki taka display, opened the score and inspired Barcelona to puncture Mourinho’s side five times. It was the goal started by a simple passing combination from the middle. Messi then swept the ball out to Iniesta, while Xavi came from behind, penetrated into the box, as he found the Iniesta pass into the box, beautifully controlled it, and finished with simple volley past Iker Casillas.
Messi sweeps the ball out to Iniesta, while Xavi is ready to run forward and gets into penalty area
Iniesta passes into the box to Xavi, who roams from his deep position and gets into the penalty area
Lionel Messi drops very deep. He initiates the attack. Xavi Hernandez, the Bracelona deep creator, interchanges with him. Xavi makes a good forward move, picks up iniesta’s pass, and with a pretty tight control and a cold-blooded volley finish, he scores the open goal.
Football tactic changes form an era to another era. We have witnessed the “death” of classic wingers. We also see how the 4-4-2 basic shape has revolutionized itself into lone striker basic shape and even the strikerless one. Brazil won the World Cup with their double deep pivot in Gilberto Silva and Kleberson, who played huge role to boss the midfielder, with power, balance, and technique. Then, AC Milan and Andrea Pirlo raised the deep creator to the higher place, after winning the 2003 UCL trophy, with Pirlo played as the deep creator. Spain Euro 2008 and Barcelona treble winners the year after, show the world, why is deep creator is so crucial to help them won all the trophies, and, of course, how to make use of it for the team benefits.
Deep Roaming Creator (Roaming Playmaker) in Football Manager
Sport Interactive (SI) and Miles Jacobsen just released their official FM 2015 presentation of new features. From the SI presentation, we can see Miles explains the Football Manager 2015 player role, on the 3 different slots. The interesting point to discuss is the new Football Manager 2015 player role Roaming Playmaker.
Football Manager 2015 player role. The Roaming Playmaker Manual
Before finally seeing how this new role performs in FM 2015, I’ll show you how the deep creator performs in Football Manager, the role which inspired by the the real life deep creator has shown. All the pictures and explanations I give here, are from FM 2014 save. The Bayern save, in which I tried several times to generate the deep creator into my 1-2-1-4-2-0 shape. In this article, I focus to the deep creator on the defensive midfielder slot (the defensive pocket).
Deep Creator drops very deep. His movement immediately creates triangle shape, which is crucial in terms of possession football. Deep creator always tries to get close as possible to the ball carrier to offer passing option
In this occasion, deep creator roams little bit forward and positions himself little bit higher compared to his teammate on Central Midfielder position
Again the deep creator roams from his position, pushes himself high up the pitch to control the play
Deep Creator moves to the advanced area, he gets further forward and often finds a good position to hit a deadly pass to his teammates
In many quick counter attacks, a deep creator makes many great vertical movements and impacts to the opponent defensive line. As shown on the above picture, deep creator pushes up and picks up the RDW by releasing a killer ball
As you can see, it’s all quite close to what Football Manager 2015 new player role Roaming Playmaker manual says ;). Of course, it’s very not fair to judge this Roaming Playmaker role, without trying it out first. I know it. To justify my own opinion, I of course got to play the 2015 version.
But, if you see how my deep creator drops deep to offer passing option, you see my deep creator moves up to pick the attacking option, and you also see how my deep creator drives forward with ball to spearhead the attack, he roams to the area where he exactly needed there. He becomes the main creator of the team. He roams every place to control the play. The typical play which can be categorized as a roaming deep creator or you can name it as roaming playmaker. Fair enough, right?
By trying to generate it in the previous game version, it becomes more interesting to see how the Football Manager 2015 Roaming Playmaker performs in the next version of this game. More interesting to see, how SI distinguish Roaming Playmaker with other deep creator roles. And, more (or the most?) interesting to find out, how Roaming Playmaker betters our tactical management.
On the other side, in my opinion, it might be more challenging, if Sport Interactive (SI) creates these new roles, as the “hidden ones”. I mean, the user can adjust/tweak (for the simple example) the combination of Role-Duty, Individual Instruction, Team Mentality, and Team Instruction, to generate them, instead of choosing them from the drop down option.
So, guys. Andrea Pirlo amazing performance in the match of Italy 1-1 Spain in Euro 2012, how Xavi Hernandez controlled the game when Barcelona trashed Madrid 5-0, and the energetic runs and range of passes offered by Ilkay Gundogan and Nuri Sahin, have been the symbolization of roaming playmakers. To re-create and succeed with these world-class players style of play in FM has been a privilege from an era to another era. A perpetual hunt which fun, passion, and pride take huge part in it. An achievement which seems to be simple but it’s actually been a special one for us, the virtual manager in Football Manager.
Cheers.
I’m waiting for you, Roaming Playmaker.
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