3 defenders with one acting like a sweeper and the other 2 tall & strong defenders who play with passion e.g. Kyrgiakos who plays for Liverpool this season
2 wing backs with their role being more defensive than support
2 midfielders one of them plays as ball winning mid with defensive duties and the other probably as a standard midfielder who can do a bit of everything on the pitch.
The trick her Otto uses is the 3 upfront
The AMR+AML+FC are all strikers who doesn't possess much of technical attributes but have strength and passion to help in all areas of the game!
The result of playing this tactic we saw them not only in the miracle of 2004 but also in the recent win over Ukraine to get a ticket for the forthcoming mundial in South Africa.

I started with a controlling match strategy and at halftime it was 1-1. I scored out of a counterattack and my opponent scored from the penalty spot. The second half I changed my Match strategy to counter, in the 66th minute I scored the 2-1 with a shot from distance, where my centre attacker played around a central defender and palced a shot on goal. At half-time the possesion was about 48-52% and at the end of the match that was almost the same at 49-51%.

With 3 clearcut chances for me and only one for my opponent it was quite a good game with a fair result. When I looked at the head to head overview, I noticed that out of the 18 encounters between our two, he won 11 games, we drawn 5 games and I only won 2 games. Although this tactic wont be the key to every opponent his tactic it has worked in this game.

Also my Sweepers is Pable Valenzuela, with the following stats:
First Touch 16
Heading 14
Marking 14
Passing 13
Tackling 18
Technique 13
Anticipation 15
Bravery 16
Composure 13
Concentration 16
Decisions 15
Determination 10
Influence 17
Off the ball 9
Positioning 16
Teamwork 9
Work rate 13
Acceleration 10
Jumping 17
Pace 12
Stamine 13
Strength 17

21 years old and right footed.

http://i593.photobucket.com/albums/tt16/neilmck/Moreno.jpg 

Couldnt very well have Gentile trying to follow Neeskens or Rep around the park to the Halfway line! It relies more – well totally pretty much – on Zonal than Man Marking, which was the staple of the traditional Catenaccio

Its a good read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catenaccio

Im inclined to believe that unless the ME is changed wer’re not likely to get a sweeper in the Beckenbauer, Sammer, Blanc mould….

Basically we’d need something in there that would allow it to treat the Sweeper like a FullBack – but without the crossing. Knowing when to “bomb forward” when to “tackle back”

As an iamusing sidenote, talking of FBs and bombing on – Steve McManaman in his time at Real Madrid says of Michel Salgado, the attack minded RB, that he only ever learned two words of English … “Cover me”

I’d be interested to hear some more on the 80s Italy side, if you’ve got any links?

I will attempt to get some kind of update on the site at the end of this Fowler year on how the season’s gone with this catenaccio system. There’s a lot of tactical articles I want to get out in the mean time, though, so it may have to be posted as an “extra” installment on a Sunday or something.

The style they and some south americans used in the 60s and 70s, was more 1-4-4-1.

This formation i tried. The inability for the sweeper (i used ignacio camacho) to get beyond even the midfielders made it a very very defensive formation.

So i suppose it was mission accomplished. Certainly not pretty – but defeinitely a defensive formation that can work.

Be interesting to see how your formation based on the italian ‘82 team (bergomi and gentile etc) will work out

The ME deals with it pretty well – my defence has conceded very few goals. But going forward it’s not so effective. That’s to be expected, I guess.

You play 4 at the back, right? You might be better off playing a “cover” defender (shorter but quicker) and a “stopper” defender (brick s*** house). But if you could get a libero sweeper to work (the “cover” defender), you might be able to play the ball well out of defence. It’s worth a go!