Arsenal's Invincibles

On 20/05/2024 0

Recreating Wenger's masterpiece

Introduction

Legendary team of the Premier League, 03-04 Arsenal left a deep mark in the English football, and has a solid claim to being the best squad in PL history. I present to you:

But did you now this famous lineup barely played together? This team sheet was only used twice: against Liverpool (4-2) and Leicester (2-1). That season saw the injuries of Vieira and Ljunberg, the suspension of Lauren, and rotations with Bergkamp, Wiltord, Kanu, Reyes among others...

Friendly disclaimer: It's almost impossible to precisely replicate a real-life tactic in a video game like eFootball. Please understand that some analysis and implementation will necessarily be simplified to capture the essence of the team. Additionally, the frequent rotation in the team sheet complicates exact replication. During my research, I found that even the sources sometimes slightly contradicted each other regarding the roles of certain players. At the end of the article, I mention the best visual sources that helped me create this recreation, along with a link to watch the game against Liverpool on Footballia, a free website that broadcasts old matches.

How did the Invincibles play ?

First, even if put on paper as a classic 4-4-2, the reality shows more 4-2-3-1: Dennis Bergkamp was dropping, linking the play between midfield and attack, and being a support player in his iconic duo with Thierry Henry.

Second, the main feature of the tactic is to create an overload on the left: the left winger, Robert Pirès was an amazing dribbler and used to cut inside, allowing proximity and combinations with the striker. The flank he left was then attacked by the offensive Ashley Cole. With Thierry Henry used to drift to the left to then attack the central area, all those movements made the left side of the pitch the main focus of attack. On the right side, the winger and fullback were more classic.

Finally, the right midfielder, Gilberto, comes centrally to offer a pass lane to the centrebacks during the build-up. This leads the other midfielder, P. Vieira, to also overload the left side of the pitch. In terms of verticality, Vieira was a typical box-to-box, supporting the attack until the final third, and was used as a last runner to attack this left side.

In defense, it was a standard 4-4-2.

How to implement it in eFootball?

Defense:

In defense, I will use an Attacking Fullback on the left: I want the LB to constantly attack the space behind my "inside winger", and by constantly I will give the Attacking Instruction. In my team, I opted for A. Davies.
On the right, I'll set Defensive Fullback: I don't need him to attack but to be a reliable player, especially when I'll suffer counters. The LB being high, I want him to compensate and not take unnecessary risks.

Midfield:

In the central midfield, Gilberto will be played by a DMF Anchor Man. To make him remain central despite being in a midfield duo, I will place him very centrally and give him the Instruction Anchoring.
My left midfield will also be a DMF Box-to-box. DMF because I want him available for the build-up, and to make sure he's not one of my first runners to attack the space: the winger, the striker and the LB should be the first to overload this area. I want him to be complete and with a good stamina as he's going to defend and attack. I noticed in-game that he'll also compensate for the LB position when A. Davies is not back in position yet. Other times he will drift to the right side to compensate during the attacks.

My left winger will be a LMF Roaming Flank. This playstyle is the one making the winger cut inside the most without the ball.
For my right winger, I do not need a specific playstyle. I will go back about his position in the Team's playstyle later, but I just need a winger comfortable on the ball. Being quite isolated, I want to be able to hold the ball or dribble a bit.

Because I need them to be in the midfield line in defense, please note that the wingers are LMF/RMF and not LWF/RWF.

Attack:

My left striker is a fast CF Goal Poacher. It's quite obvious I'm picking Kyllian M'Bappé, the natural heir of Henry.
Shortly, I use a SS Creative Playmaker for the right striker. This position gave me a lot of headaches. It was hard to replicate a false 9 in eFootball. After running multiple tests, no combination of playstyle/position gave me complete satisfaction. All the SS playstyles are way too offensives, even the Deep-Lying Forward who sounded ideal for that, and even the Classic N°10 make too much runs to be available to link the play. And if I fill the role with an AMF, I won't have the 4-4-2 in defense. I could use the Counter Target instruction, but if the player is in the midfield line of defense, it actually creates a gap in that line. I ultimately found the Creative Playmaker to be the closest role to replicate Bergkamp's play. Don't get me wrong, it's tactically efficient: the Creative Playmaker makes runs when the CF is lower (i.e used as a pivot), or will make runs on the right for the right winger to pass. It's just not as similar as the Dutchman role.

Team's Playstyle:

I use the Out Wide playstyle, but you can play it with your favorite manager. The reason i use this style is quite personal, there are too many runs in LBC/QC for me, and I find it difficult to slow the play when I need to. I also have enough difficulty replicating a false 9 for my second striker, so I don't want the team playstyle to make more incitations to run forwards. Also, because Out Wide (and Possession) tends to overwrite Player's Playstyle for the wingers, I can pick any kind of profile for the right winger.

Ingame:

The Anchor Man is very central and allows the other midfielder to participate in the overload.
The LMF will be wide until the ball switches to his side, triggering the LB attacking movement, hence forcing the LMF to cut inside.
In the screenshot, the formation looks a lot like the 4-2-3-1 expected, but in reality the SS tends to be closer to the CBs.

In defense, I have my 4-4-2:

What makes a player fast in eFootball?

I want to take the opportunity of this tactic to discuss about what make players fast in this game. This is both a beginner's tutorial and a discussion as I'm quite sure about the fondamentals, but not about the nuances. In my opinion, it can be resumed in 5 attributes:

Speed: the maximum speed of a players OFF the ball.
Acceleration: how quickly the player will reach his speed stat.
Dribbling: maximum speed of a players ON the ball. Players run slower with the ball, and this speed is indicated by this attributes. This is why players with incredible speed will be caught if they don't have a good stat here. If I'd to guess a code implementation, I would say that the speed on the ball is: Dribbling attribute as the percentage of Speed.
Tight Possession: how quickly the player can turn, stop, change direction ON the ball. Otherwise the player will be sluggish and their momentum will slow them when they change direction. You'll notice that we can decern a pattern in player's profiles: some of them are fast with good dribbling but "low" Tight Possession". Those players are like "ball carrier", they are good at running straight forward with it, but way less efficient when it comes to zigzag and eliminate defenders. Players with a good Tight Possession will have the ball glued to their feet and will avoid tackles.
Balance: This is for me the big mystery box, it looks like the most important attribute, but I don't know to which extend as it seams to cover a lot of things:
- Ability to resist physical contacts:
  - When shoulder to shoulder, this attributes will makes your player resists and remains on the ball.
  - In a shield situation, it's also the attributes for resisting. There is an excellent short video from LFFL about that here.
  - Ability to maintain other attributes in those situations.
- Ability to maintain other attributes in unusual body positions (think acrobatic or 360's shots)
- Enhancement of Tight Possession and Acceleration
- Ability to quickly change direction off the ball

As you can see, the extend of Balance is not really clear. And the game having regular patches also influences the correct understanding of attributes generally. Also, it's known than Height and Weight have an influence on some or all of the attributes mentionned above (is a player with -15kg and lower attributes quicker and more responsive?). Another question: Is a player with 99 dribbling but 60 Speed faster on the ball than a player with opposing attributes?

Recap:

Notes for twisting the team:
- Pick an Attacking Fullback on the right side
- Switch the Box-to-box from DMF to CMF
- The right striker's role
- The Team's playstyle

Shapes:

Build-up: 3+2 ( CBs and RB + 2DMF)
Offensive Shape: Considering how you count the DMF Box-to-Box that make runs into the final third: 3-1-6 or 3-2-5
Defensive Shape: 4-4-2

Conclusion

This weird looking formation shows you that terms like 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 are (necessary) simplifications when talking about teams. Movements have to be taken into account to describe animation, which is often overlooked to my taste. Systems creating an overload on a precise area of the pitch have an advantage in a card game like eFootball: it can nullify the cards difference between yours and your oppoent's. In simple words, he can have paid for the best defensive cards, a Bastoni or Tomiyasu cannot a resolve a 2vs4 simply by their overall level. As the overload is on a side, you still need to approach the center to have a good position to shoot but you get the idea.

It's quite similar to a tactic I posted a while ago, the "One Flank Overload", where two Classic n°10 being set on a side to liberate space for a winger. The main difference is that the Arsenal's tactic is way more fluid: the left side could be attack by the RB, the LMF and the left CF (and sometimes the DMF). The LMF and CF are expected to shoot and close the attack while the other tactic expects the winger to find a striker for tap-in or a header.

Despite being played in Out Wide (at least by me), it's really built for fast attacks with overloading an arear with pacey forwards. I'm a bit disappointed I could not exactly replicate Bergkamp's role, but that's probably for the best in terms of efficiency (in eFootball). It made the SS the second goal-scorer while IRL, the stat distribution of that unbeaten season was this: