Route One football has a very negative perception, and for good reason. You give up control of the ball and let your opponent dictate the play, and your goal isn’t even to win – just to survive. That being said, you don’t need to dominate possession to get away with points. Sometimes you know you are up against the better opposition, and accordingly decide to play this conservative brand of football. This is what this Football Manager 2023 Route One Tactics guide will teach you to do.
If you want more Football Manager 2023, check out our other guides, including these:
- Football Manager 2023: Midfield Roles Guide
- Football Manager 2023: Defensive Roles Guide
- Football Manager 2023: Best Tactics for Possession
- Football Manager 2023: Best Tactics for Counterattacking
- 5 Best Challenges on Football Manager 2023
- 7 Best Football Manager 2023 Tactics for All Kinds of Teams
- 15 Best Teams to Manage in Football Manager 2023
- Football Manager 2023: Best Tactics for Pressing
Tactical Style
Let’s first discuss what tactical style you should employ for your setup. There is only one right answer here and it is quite obvious – Route One. This will encourage your players to hoof the ball to the player who is furthest forward, hoping to alleviate pressure from their own half and get a bonus counterattack. Remember that the emphasis here is to survive rather than constructing intricate passing patterns to get the opposition out of shape. We’ll make several tactical tweaks to this basic Route One setup in the following sections.
Go ahead and select the Route One playstyle.
Formation
Next in this Football Manager 2023 Route One Tactics guide let’s consider the formation. You will need a lot of men behind the ball but also 1 or 2 strong, fast forwards who provide you outlets for clearances and crosses. I feel that the traditional 4-4-2 works perfectly for this goal. It gives you two lines of 4 in your defense and midfield, but also two central forwards. The four in midfield will look to shield the four in defense by crowding the opposition midfield and not giving them any room to construct dangerous plays.
For the roles I recommend you assign the No Nonsense Role to both center backs as well as the fullbacks. This will ensure that they take no risks at all and quickly clear the ball upfield. Your fullbacks will not look to charge up field and provide an outlet in attack, rather they will sit back and deal with the opposition wingers. In midfield you should have at least 1 Half Back. This player will drop deeper into the pocket between midfield and defense and intercept dangerous passes in this area, and can also create counterattacking opportunities.
4-4-2 is the way to go.
In-Possession Tactics
Now let’s take a look at the different tactics to apply depending on whether you are in possession, in transition, or out of possession. In the rare occurrence that you find yourself with the ball, you will want to keep your attacking width to Fairly Wide to ensure your players always have an outlet when clearing the ball upfield. Turn on the Pass into Space setting and set Tempo to Slightly Higher so your players aim for quick transitions and fast movement of the ball to exploit space left exposed by high pressing teams.
In addition, you will want your players to waste as much time as possible to break the opponent’s tempo and run down the clock. Encourage your team to Play for Set Pieces as these will probably represent your best opportunities in the game to score goals. Furthermore, look to play early floated crosses for your big strong strikers to head towards goal. Finally, ask your players to be very disciplined and follow instructions to the very last detail – play for the team not for individual glory.
You may get possession sometimes.
In-Transition Tactics
When in transition, get your players to immediately regroup and get back behind the ball to prevent counterattacking opportunities. Compare this to if you instructed them to initiate the counter-press. It would leave large holes in your tactical setup and leave your penalty area extremely vulnerable. Instruct your goalkeeper to kick the ball long towards the target man upfront instead of taking risks by playing it short. This will ensure that you don’t get stuck into the pressing trap laid by your opponent’s forwards and midfield.
Regroup in transition.
Out of Possession Tactics
Next up are the tactics to employ when out of possession. In general, you will want to maintain an extremely low defensive line to crowd your players in and around your penalty area and leave very little space for the opposition to utilize. The instruction to drop off more also goes in line with this explanation. Set the pressing trap to trap inside as you will have greater numbers centrally to deal with the opposition attackers. I have also asked my players to stop the danger at the source by preventing crosses from reaching the box.
Get your players behind the ball and defend with their lives!
Mentality
Finally in this Football Manager 2023 Route One Tactics guide let’s consider the mentality of the team. Usually you will be playing route one football against teams which have better players than you. You are not expecting to win, rather you are playing to not lose. Hence, I recommend you to set the mentality to Defensive so that your players stay behind the ball. You could also go for Very Defensive, but I feel that it is too extreme – you should at least play for some pride!
Conclusion
That concludes this Football Manager 2023 Route One Tactics guide. It’s always nice to experiment with different styles. Sometimes you find yourself up against teams with a lot of star players who are clearly better than your squad, and even if you can’t outplay them, you can outsmart them by a strategy such as this. There is nothing more satisfying than to win a match in FM23 while having hilariously low possession. As Jose Mourinho once famously said: “You can have the ball, I will have the three points”.
