AMAZING Razvan Lucescu Tactic

This is one of the best tactics I have ever used in FM.

What is it that look for in a Football Manager tactic?

Is it conceding few goals? Is it dominating your opposition? Is it playing on the counter? Or just having fun?

Whatever it is, this man has got you covered. His tactic has been off the charts for me and the opposition we faced couldn’t cope with us.

But first, a few words about our man.

Razvan Lucescu is the son of the great Romanian football manager, Mircea Lucescu. He is currently the manager of PAOK Thessaloniki, in Greece.

But during his managerial career, he has also managed the now extinct Romanian club, FC Brasov, Rapid Bucharest and Xanthi among others.

He had great success with Rapid, Xanthi and now PAOK. And with PAOK, he has even managed to go unbeaten for a season, winning the title out of the great trio’s hands.

As a player, he did have senior appearances for a few clubs, but nothing to outshine his managerial career.

At PAOK, recently, he managed to take the opposition by surprise using a simple, but very effective tactical setup.

The 4-2-3-1 Gegenpress…I am, I am not joking. Razvan Lucescu has found success using this tactic. Imagine.

This system has caused problems even for the mighty Fatih Terim, the current manager of Panathinaikos.

As mentioned, this is a simple, but effective tactical setup, using central midfielders instead of defensive ones.

In goal, a sweeper keeper on attack duty. If your keeper is good in possession, the better. As your team will need him to pass around the back and unlock the opposition’s pressing game.

In front of him, two wing backs on support and two ball playing defenders. I noticed that the wing backs go up in the attack gradually and participate in the passing game, they don’t rush forward.

However, we should keep in mind that outliers on the flanks are needed, as PAOK tend to congest the midfield and release the ball on the flanks, to catch their opposition off guard.

One ball winning midfielder and one centra midfielder on support make up the central area. A ball winning midfielder was preferred, as we need balance in our tactic. And a defensive midfielder can’t be selected here, a box to box one goes forward too often and a deep lying playmaker is focused on the passing game rather than the defensive one.

A central midfielder role was preferred, as we need this player to gradually go up in the attacking third, congesting the central area. Thus, get further forward as player instruction is assigned.

One inside forward on attack duty and one inverted winger on support duty are chosen as wingers.

The right-sided player makes runs in the box on a regular basis, while the left-sided one chooses the moments when cuts inside and when he does, he does it to score.

The right-sided winger is told to sit narrower, so he would drag his direct opponent onto him, creating space on the flank.

An attacking midfielder on attack duty is chosen then. He must link-up play between the midfield, the wings and the striker. But also take up scoring positions when the opportunity arises.

This role is usually assigned to Giannis Konstantelias in PAOK’s setup. There are instances when he played as a left winger, so the inverted winger role is also chosen to emulate his movement. A very talented player, in my opinion.

And an advanced forward makes up the formation.

As mentality, positive can be used. However, if you have the chance to use the attacking one and you dominate the game, you run the risk of destroying your opponent.

Just ask Athletic Bilbao (in my save we won 8-1 against them, in the UEFA Champions league).

In possession, fairly narrow attacking width, pass into space, shorter passing directness and slightly higher tempo.

I noticed that if you pass it shorter and you use this tempo, in the match engine, the opposition give you quite a few fouls, as your players move faster than the defenders. So, it would be worth keeping that in mind.

In transition counter-press, counter and distribute the ball quickly, to the defence and through short kicks.

Out of possession high press, a higher defensive line, trigger press more often and prevent the goalkeeper short distribution.

Pretty straight forward out of possession, as PAOK is currently the second-best team in Greece and they do dominate most of their matches.

As results, there is a reason I mentioned that this is one of the best tactics I have used so far in FM.

In my building a nation save in Romania, with FC Voluntari, we broke the domestic competitions. We won the treble, winning the league 19 points in the regular season and by 16 points in the playoff.

We scored 125 goals and conceded 32 in the league.

While in the UEFA Champions League, we have qualified as a top 8 team for the first time in this save. Winning against teams like Juventus, Sevilla or Atletico Madrid. And drawing against AC Milan, Chelsea and Bayer Leverkusen.

However, we were eventually knocked-out in the Round of 16 by Benfica, but not without going down with a fight.

This was a very fun tactic to use. And I followed Razvan Lucescu’s career so far since he was managing in Romania. And what he did in Greece with teams which were not top ones at the time of his appointment is amazing.