MOUKOKO! (an attacking tactic)

I've called this tactic Moukoko! because it favours whoever sits in the attacking midfield position behind the front two. Tonton Zola Moukoko, Derby's young Swedish/Ghanaian midfielder, is my favourite exponent in this role, and indeed this is my favourite tactic.

So what's so good about it? Well, it obeys the commonly held belief that football is all about gaining control of the midfield. Here, all the bases are covered, with a dedicated DM, AM and three midfielders who can stretch to the flanks. The DM and AM obviously have to be dominant characters as they have the most to do, covering such a wide area of the pitch.

The one major flaw with this tactic is that you will concede goals when using it. How can you not with a three-man defence? For it to work properly, you should have the left and right-sided defenders on man-marking and the central defender left to mop up any further attacks. Clearly though, it won't always work out for you. The tactic worked best in older versions of the game, where wingers were more or less nullified as threats. In the latest edition, you can be more vulnerable against decent flankers (Giggs treats the defence like his very own sweetshop) but not to any enormous detriment.

Your DM has to be da man, a player with enormous influence and tremendous defensive and passing characteristics. You can see from the picture that it doesn't get much better than Mr Vieira, but others who've worked well range from Emmanuel Petit, Gennaro Gattuso and Alessio Tacchinardi to Jari Ilola, Tommi Gronlund and Gonzalo Sorondo. You can leave your DM on zonal marking unless your scout warns you of an influential midfielder within the ranks of the opposition.

As you can see the three-man midfield involves the wide players instructed to move out to the flanks (make sure they're good crossers). It doesn't matter if you use two wingers (ML, MR, etc) for these roles as they will be more effective in their wider roles. I usually use an AMC in the central midfield role, but not an AM/FC, as these are usually caught too far forward. Ideal candidates for the position are Pablo Aimar, Andreas D'Alessandro, and everyone's best mate, Mark Kerr.

Onto the all-important attacking midfielder. Tonton is almost custom-built to play here, but so to are the likes of Samuel Eto'o, Kim Kallstrom, Dennis Bergkamp, or most AM/FCs. Remember the England win over Tunisia at France 98, when Paul Scholes scored a double? It was argued that he had his success because the African defence was too busy looking after the strikers, leaving the route to goal exposed for a nippy attacker 'in the hole' to exploit. Such is the philosophy behind this position, and it works too! Tonton regularly scores 20+ goals for me, and his value has risen accordingly, though so has his gobshitery ("how dare you sub me", etc). Finally the strikers do what strikers do, and they do it well. As long as you don't have Nicolas Anelka on your books - grrr....

To sum up your honour, this tactic did for me. As it is balanced in favour of the attackers, there were no complaints over my team's goal count. I did leak a few, and there's no debate over whether this system would give you the league's meanest defence (it wouldn't). But what it will do is give you a good chance of ruling the centre of the park, Brazil style, and that is a major, major bonus.