It’s been a long time since I started a save outside England. I’ve tried Borussia Dortmund in FM16, Bayern Munich in FM18, Juventus, Barcelona and Real Madrid in FM19. Then I realised that I’ve never managed a team in the Ligue 1 because I always thought French league was just an easy league to play.
Choosing the team
However, I still created a French manager and named him after using a random name generator. Matthew Hennequin, a 31 years old manager who was born in Nice, and currently holding a Continental B Licence. I scrolled through the list of teams and one team caught my attention – Olympique Lyonnais. I still remember OL used to be so dominant in the French league back in the 00s. Juninho, Gregory Coupet, Cris, Eric Abidal, Florent Malouda – these are some of the names that I heard back in the days. After looking through their squad, I decided to take the challenge and bring them back to their glory days.
Club vision
The vision of the club isn’t too difficult to achieve. The only thing that you might want to take note is ‘signing players based in France’. Lyon is a club that has many good young local players, so it might be a challenge to sign some other young players in the same league because ‘sign young players’ is also another plan. However, it is pretty good that the board doesn’t put too much pressure on the Champions League.
Knowing the squad and build a suitable tactic
I never know Lyon are having such an amazing squad. At the first glance, most of the players’ in-game attributes are just insane. Memphis Depay, Houssem Aouar, Moussa Dembele and Anthony Lopes are the players that stand out. Moreover, Lyon have a bunch of high potential youngsters such as Rayan Cherki, Melvin Bard, Maxence Caqueret, Titouan Thomas, Anthony Racioppi and Oumar Solet which I immediately promote them into the senior team so I can train them individually and develop them into the player that I want.
Lyon’s players are very attacking minded, even the central defenders. As a result, I created an attacking tactic, using 4-2-3-1 as the formation. I call it – 4231 Flying Fox.
4231 Flying Fox
Some minor changes will be made in the game for sure, but this is the base of the tactics. The idea is to fully utilise the flanks as Lyon have players that can play really well at the wider area. I’ve always loved the Play Out Of Defence instruction with shorter passing and lower tempo, so players will have more time to look for better passing option. In this tactic, I decide to add Pass Into Space because the attackers are quite pacey and at the same time, I’m looking forward to play some entertaining football. In terms of the transition play, I always use Counter-Press and Counter. Lyon is one of the top teams in Ligue 1 so I’m not too worried of my players going out of their position. I keep the line of engagement and defensive line in standard, and I add the instruction of Use Offside Trap. I want my players to press the opponent quickly, but not extremely urgent, and I want them to press the opposition keeper as well. I love to add Stay On Feet as well so my players won’t dive into tackles and collect unnecessary booking.
Some of the changes I will make in the game are Hit Early Crosses, Run At Defence and the Defensive Width. Hit Early Crosses is an interesting option and I usually add this instruction when I see my players fail to create chances in the game. Early crosses is a more risky option, however, the more risk you take, the more shots you make. I tend to use Run At Defence when I see my players are losing possession in passing the ball around. Run At Defence also benefits your team while the opponent has collected yellow card. Last but not least, I will adjust the Defensive Width according to the opposition playing style. If the opponent is good at crossing or have strong players at the wider area, I will immediately adjust the instruction to defend wider. On the other hand, if the opponent is good in exploiting the middle, I will change the width to narrow.
Transfer
I enabled the summer transfer window at the start of the game. Unfortunately, I forgot to change the staff responsibilities. The Director of Football is kind of dumb as he accepted an offer for Rayan Cherki, one of the best wonderkid in FM20, from Man City. The Citizens only spent £850K to get Rayan Cherki. I then sold Rafael to Flamengo for £6.5M which I think it is a pretty decent deal for a 28 years old right back. I did not bring any player into the team because I was pretty satisfied with the current squad.
In conclusion, I’m looking forward to managing Lyon in the Ligue 1 and I can’t wait for the season to start. Join me in the Lyon Journey and let’s aim for the title in the league!
ABT Football Manager 