Decided early on to play this formation because of the capacity of the wide players and the number of players that was or had potenial to become effective in a center forward positon. Got rid of full backs Pfertel and Ernst, winger Conteh and striker Beck, as well as sending Sliskovic out on loan, and cancelling the loanee Frantzke. These players didn't really fit the system or had to much competion. I prefer having a smaller team, no more than 23-24 players, as it is way easier to hold this group happy and sharp. I also consider it a must if you are to develop your younger players. Magdeburg doesn't have that many talents, but this gives me a chance to farm from the academy early on.

As I always do with three at the back, I set their defensive work to aggresive. FIFA21 doesn't really give you anyting for free in the defensive areas, but I belive this helps me a bit. I also tell the two CMs to cover center instead of the default because they are slow, and it doesn't really suit them chasing a winger, and it's better that they cover the centre area, leaving the wide centre backs to cover for the wingers. When Im playing with LM and RM instead of regular wing backs, I want them to come back in defence, making it a back five. With three up front I also tell the wingers to stay at the edge of the box, making me less vulnerable to counter attacks. Gjasula in the middle is the quarterback and is told not to make forward runs. This way he will almost always stay a bit behind the others, making him able to switch the play either through the wide centre backs or directly to the opposite winger with a cross ball. The leading striker is usually a target man and holds off the ball to link up with the quick players right off him. One of the centre forwards are also told to come back in defence, making the formation when off the ball more like a 5-3-2. Interestingly enough the LF will take up a positon on the left of the middle three, but the RF will drop in between the two central midfielders if told to come back. Taking up the deep position while defending makes the CF able to attack from the deep on the counter (telling him to get in behind will make thes runs even better), making him more of a box-to-box midfielder then an attacker in that phase. This is kind of the reason behind making CDM Müller a CF and it works great. Jacobsen also played left wing back at Werder Bremen II a couple of seasons ago, and has good crossing at this level, so for that reason he became left midfield. When Gjasula isn't playing, Jacobsen is often deployed in the the deep playmaker role with Bell Bell taking to the left. Granatowski is a real bundle of energy with his pace and stamina, and because his defending is decent for a offensive winger he can play as a right winger/wing back aswell. I prefer having right footed players on the right and left footed players on the left in this system, so he and Obermair were moved to the right. I really don't like changing my centre backs to often in any career, so because of that I only have 4 at the moment. It can look a bit scarce tbh, especially with the aggressive mentality, but if the games are coming with only two or three days in between, I just change the training sessions to a double recovery or tripple rest respectively.

Regarding the sliders and tactical team instructions I just use balanced in both attack and defence, but with it being very narrow in defense (medium height) and very wide in attack. By "very" I mean like there are just two or three steps left to go in the respective direction, meaning that it is so narrow or so wide that the descripton changes to being kind of a warning.