Off-Field – FM Lockdown Tournament (Season 4 – Group Stages)
Over on Twitter, there has been several Football Manager based competitions running over this lockdown period, and the FM Lockdown Tournament has now reached it’s 4th season (yes, that’s how long we’ve been in lockdown). It’s a great tournament which I was delighted to have been selected for last time, and enjoyed this time around even more.
In this tournament, 128 people were allocated an international side and face off in Football Manager 2021 matches with 1 eventual winner, with this seasons tournament starting off in the group stage format. The team draws are completely random, meaning it comes down to a bit of luck and your tactical know-how. Obviously, getting a good team drawn makes things a bit easier, but it’s all in the name of fun and entertainment. Personally, I have never really played the online mode of FM, meaning this is the first opportunity I’ve had to challenge other players, and it’s interesting to see how others’ chose to set their sides up with different tactical styles. Just from being in the discord, I saw a few formations and ideas that I will be trying out in the near future on some saves.
I believe they are planning on keeping this running a little longer and adding even more tweaks and developments to the tournaments, so I would highly recommend getting involved in the next season if you can. It’s tremendous fun and great to have chats and matches against actual other Football Manager addicts such as myself, and it’s a great setup in the discord chats.
Head over to @TheFMLT on Twitter to get involved and check out the work they are doing, and possibly get yourselves involved.
Without further ado, let’s go over my experience in the tournament…
My Team: Albania
To be honest, I was fairly content with my team allocation of Albania, as despite not being one of the bigger nations in football, they were more than capable of doing a decent job and possessed the potential of causing an upset in later stages. Additionally, I fell into the lower half of the rankings, meaning the sides I were to face in the group stages were much more favourable, and gave me much more of a chance of success through at least the groups.
What was a concern however, is that I had little/no idea about any of their players, meaning I couldn’t plan for an attacking or defensive mind-set from the beginning. I did do a little bit of research, and found that they possessed some decent talent up-front as they have 24 year old Rey Manaj, a player who has been at and made a few appearances for Inter at the start of his career, and recently joined Barcelona B where he has impressed since his arrival at the legendary B team. Additionally, I found that the side have Granit Xhaka’s brother Taulant Xhaka who plays a similar role to Granit and reassured me that I could have some decent cover in a more defensive role. The final player who caught my eye in the initial research was Elseid Hysaj, who has spent several years at Napoli playing primarily in the right-back role but can also do a decent enough job on the left. Overall then, my initial googling of the side was comforting in that I knew there were enough talented players in the squad to again put in a strong enough showing in the group-stages at a minimum.
I decided to limit my research into the actual side, as I couldn’t find much in the way of recent games for Albania, and instead made the decision to trial a few playing styles in the opening group games, starting in a ‘balanced’ tactic and formation, and then moving into ‘attacking’ when I felt the game was there to be won. As I set a minimum target for myself of qualifying from the group stage, I felt comfortable enough to test a few things out in the fixtures against some of the lower ranked nations of San Marino and Malaysia.
Match 1: Albania 0-1 Luxembourg
This opener was a tough match-up, as I faced one of the toughest teams in the group. Furthermore, I was still figuring out the right formation and squad selection, meaning that although disappointed to have lost the first game in the tournament, the stats and things I had picked up from my side were very beneficial later on.
I started the game with a fairly basic 4-2-3-1 balanced tactical style, and then towards the final stages pushed into a much more attacking 4-3-3 and went pretty much all guns blazing. It was in doing so, that I realised I probably should have been more attack-minded from the outset as Albania’s squad were more than capable of getting chances against these opposition. By being overly-cautious, I arguably cost myself a result in this one. Things needed to be changed, but with another 6 games to make amends, I knew that the rest of these fixtures should have been more positive.
Let’s hope this is the last time I have to watch the opposition team celebrate the win… It’s not (spoiler alert).
Match 2: Albania 3-2 Congo
The second game in the tournament was much more exciting and pleasing from my point of view. I set up more attacking, and played with 2 strikers up top, one of which, the aforementioned Manaj of Barcelona showed his talents as he got off the mark very early in the opening 2 minutes with the first chance of the match. He then doubled up in the next few minutes with his second, putting this game almost out of reach from the outset. Roshi then added the 3rd before half-time to make things comfortable at the break.
Straight after half-time, things got worse for the Congo side, as they had a man sent off, meaning that despite plans to switch to a more defensive playing style to see the game out, I pushed on with attacking to boost goal difference and see what my side were capable of. However, this backfired as we Albania conceded twice in the final few moments as the opposition went majorly attacking and I was too slow to adapt to this. With their all guns blazing approach, we showed that defensively there were weaknesses to be exploited, and conceding twice to a side with only 10-men was rather disappointing.
The game really had everything you could want however, as we took the early lead, Manaj had a disallowed overhead kick for what would have been his 3rd, Congo had a man sent off and almost had a Istanbul level comeback, and there were 10 yellow cards, again indicating that my side were willing to put up a fight when needed. A great result nonetheless and we were off the mark.
Match 3: Albania 5-1 Malaysia
This was one of the games I had admittedly been expecting to get a result from, and allowed me to go more attacking from the outset, and remain in ‘attack-mode’ throughout. It had gotten off to another great start, as Manaj again scored inside the first few minutes, with Uzuni of Hungarian side Ferencváros bagging the final 4 goals to really show dominance and show me that I had several solid attacking options.
This result will obviously help with any goal difference concerns, however I am still slightly annoyed to have conceded late into the game as it meant I was still yet to keep a clean sheet in the 3 games played thus far. However, aside from this, the stats from the game filled me with confidence, to have dominated almost every area of the pitch, I am happy with my side’s performance. Also 6 points from 9 gave us a real advantage, as I had played a lot of my games before others, meaning I was laying down a marker for the rest of the sides in the group.
Match 4: Albania 4-0 Madagascar
In the 4th game, we were arguably most dominant, as we once again managed 4 goals, and thankfully managed to keep a clean sheet for the first time. I think in this one, using game management in the final stages meant I was able to play less attacking and I could sit back more to protect goals against. While this hasn’t been too much of a concern thus yet, moving into later stages and coming up against much tougher opposition, being able to defend is going to be crucial.
The stats in this one again make great reading, dominating from the outset once again with Manaj for the 3rd game running scoring in the opening few minutes, he bagged another late on to keep up his scoring form, while having varied scorers also gave me much more confidence.
3 wins from 4, 9 points and plenty of goals, things were looking pretty good at this point, with fairly beatable opposition left to take on.
Match 5: Albania 4-1 Trinidad & Tobago
With qualification looking almost guaranteed, this result put it beyond any doubt, as we picked up a great result against what could have been tough opposition in Trinidad. We once again went attacking from the outset and maintained it throughout, allowing my attackers to dominate once again and continue their scoring form. In this one, Roshi went wild again with 2 goals and easily could have been much, much more. Manaj was again on the scoresheet, while Hysaj got involved as well at the end.
I keep referring back to it, however it’s irritating that once again we dominated but conceded late on, showing that I need to be really aware of the oppositions changes, as my opponents have often gone all-out attacking at the end with the game mainly out of sight, therefore by not reacting to this, I am left exposed and continue to let in goals and lose those clean sheet opportunities.
Match 6: Albania 0-2 Belarus
In what turned out to be my final played match, it was the worst performance of the lot, as we came up against a fantastic Belarus side that dominated the game. Having attempted to come out and attack, we were shown up as an example of better opposition really countered any attacks and controlled the whole game.
It was a bad result to have so close to the end, and put winning the group out of reach, however we had all-but secured the second spot in the table despite Belarus taking the points, and facing tougher opponents in the group will set us up much better for the step up in quality in the knockout matches.
Match 7: Albania 3-0 San Marino (Not Played)
The final of our group games never actually took place, with the San Marino manager pretty much accepting his fate early on and not getting round to playing the fixture, resulting in a 3-0 win for myself who had been available to play. It was a shame not to play the final game, particularly as my last actually played game was a 2-0 defeat going into the knockout rounds, but it’s understandable and we will happily take another 3 points to secure the 2nd placed spot in the group.
Final Group Standings
At the end of the 7 fixtures, we finished in a respectable 2nd place, with 15 points. Above us, Luxembourg went unbeaten and finished on 17 points with 5 wins and 2 draws, while just behind were Belarus on 12 points. The final team to qualify was Madagascar who finished with 11 points.
In these group games it had been great fun to come up against different teams and actual Football Manager players, and seeing how they set-up their sides and managed their teams in-game was really interesting, while it was great to see the community chatting over discord throughout the entire group stages.
As for the rest of the tournament, well we were flying into the knockout rounds, and had a pretty tasty match-up in-store for us in the final 32, but for more on that, you’re gonna have to check out part 2 of our journey coming later this week… who doesn’t love a good cliff-hanger?