Long shots
| Tactics |
|---|
| Pressing |
| Counter-attacks |
| Attack in the middle |
| Attack on wings |
| Play creatively |
| Long shots |
The long shots (LS) is a tactic used to trade attacks through the middle and on the wing for long shots. This can be useful if you have a hard time scoring using your middle/wing attacks, and have decent shooters. LS could also be a tactical option for any team facing a really strong defense.
All long shots are reported in the match report, including any missed or saved opportunities.
Effectiveness
When playing long shots your players are instructed to rather go for a long shot than playing the whole attacking sequence through. A long shot then pits the shooter against the goalkeeper. Relevant skills are your outfielders' scoring and set pieces skills determine the LS tactical skill (Scoring is three times more important than set pieces).
You'll get a limited number of long shots (usually 3, in exceptional cases 5 or even 6) and the first condition to avoid losing a match is to not have conceded goals, so a very good defence is necessary. The Playmaking skill is also important, as the possession of the ball has almost the same importance as the LS tactical level has, in order to get a higher number of long shots (more chances for you, so more chances to convert a regular chance into a long shot).
Benefits and drawbacks
Advantage: The long shots tactic converts up to around 30% of side and middle attacks. The long shots are ordinary chances that don't use the usual criteria we know (comparison between the attack of the team who gets the chance and the defence of the team who wants to block it) in order to come to a result (goal or missed chance). To establish the number of the ordinary chances converted into long shots, the tactical level is an important factor. In order to decide if the long shot will be scored as a goal the match engine compares the shooter's Scoring and Set Pieces skills with the opponent goalkeeper's Goalkeeping and Set Pieces skills.
The probability to receive a LS is higher for an Inner Midfielder and a Winger rather than for a Defender or Forward, but the highest scoring rate of a LS is met on the Forwards (better Scoring skill). Some recent studies show that a long shot was received by an Inner Midfielder in 19.44% of the cases, by a Winger in 17.00%, by a Forward in 8.17%, by a Wing Back in 9.23% and by a Central Defender in 8.82% of the cases a long shot was offered.
Disadvantage: Your wing and middle attack, as well as your midfield, get a little bit worse. The LS tactic add a penalty of ~2.7% in attack ratings and ~5% in midfield rating. But the main disadvantage of this tactic is that it's quite hard to obtain a good tactical level and in order to score the long shots you get you have to have a team made for LS tactic.
Counters
Usually when you play against a LS team you can neglect your defence ratings, focusing on better midfield and attack ratings.
When an attack has been converted to a long shot, any defending team using the pressing tactic has a chance to steer off the shooting opportunity. If the shot is not steered off, an outfielder (inners and wingers are twice as likely) takes the shot. The quality of the shot depends on the appointed shooter's scoring and set pieces skills, and then the goalkeeper can attempt to save the shot using his goalkeeping and set pieces skills. For both shooter and keeper: a bit of both skills is needed, and it's better to have some of both skills than much of one.
How can I fight a Long Shots team? A good Goalkeeper with high skills in Goalkeeping and Set Pieces is a must, he could block the long shots.
Considering that the long shots are ordinary chances and they could result in counter-attacks if they are blocked, playing CA may be an idea.
Another solution may be playing Pressing. Pressing acts different against a long shot, having the opportunity to block the chance twice: once when the opponent team gets the chance and once when your opponent succeed to convert the chance into a long shot.
Players
An empiric formula to calculate the LS tactic skill level was discovered, but it works accurately on high levels, with the low ones is not quite good.
LS level = 1,66*Sc + 0,55*SP – 7.6
Sc = the average of the outfielders' Scoring skill
SP = the average of the outfielders' Set Pieces skill
7.6 = the constant
Revamping your entire team just to create a Long Shot team definitively changes your training schedule. LS primarily require scoring and set pieces on your midfielders, but the tactic level increases by having scoring on your defenders too. Ideally you want to have some scoring on all of your players, since it determines the probability of scoring a goal from LS chance. Midfielders are more likely to get a long shot though, so it's better to have higher scoring on them. The most indicated coach is the defensive coach.
Also, all your team force is used for defence and midfield. Therefore the best secondary skill for a Defender is the Playmaking skill and for an Inner Midfielder is the Defending skill. On Wingers the most important skill is the Playmaking (and of course, a decent skill of Scoring and Set Pieces, to help in the LS tactic level). You might need 10 outfield players lined up in a 5-5-0, all proficient in playmaking, defending, scoring and set pieces. This is true on the most basic level, but you become very predictable (so the best LS teams are also capable of playing 2-5-3 or 3-5-2 with strong attacks to avoid that).
Following up on that, how would you build a training schedule for a team like that? Would you train five IMs in scoring first, then buy defenders and training all ten players in defending, playmaking and set pieces equally?
Also, LS teams play 4-5-1, which utilize a powerful neutral forward for the rebound special event from long shots and miss chances.
Specialty
Both for the Inner Midfielders and Defenders the best specialty is Head (for Corner+Head SE), followed by distance by Powerful (Powerful players gain Defending and Playmaking in the rain and they lose only Scoring and Stamina in the sun).
The best speciality for Wingers is Quick to get the Quick SE and score it. You can play an Inner Midfielder as a Winger Towards Middle. As usually you'll give up on attack ratings, Passing skill is not important, but it would be nice to have some Defending skill. The Scoring skill is also important in order to score the Quick SEs.
Training
No matter if the formations you can use are quite a few, you'll have loads of options in training:
- Defending - All your team needs that.
- Defensive positions - in 5-5-0 we can train at maximum, 22 players/week, but less effective than the Defending training, where we can use the Inner Midfielders as Defenders in the friendly matches.
- Shooting - you'll train the Scoring and Set Pieces skills, very important for a good LS tactical level.
- Set Pieces - the most used training by a LS team.
- Playmaking - in the official matches you can train your IMs and in the friendly matches your Defenders.
- Through passes - 100% efficiency, 20 trainees/week in 5-5-0.
- Crossing (Winger), Goalkeeping - not the very best options, but definitely you can do that if you want.
Hattrick Announcements
LS became available to the public in the beginning of global season 38.
| Long shots tactic ready for use | 2009-01-13 |
| The long shots tactics are now ready to test in friendlies. We're including it this week already as a last beta test on this new feature. When the new season starts in two weeks you can use this tactic in all your games. Long shots is an attacking option for teams who have problems scoring on regular side/middle attacks, but it could also be a tactical option for any team facing a really strong defense. How the long shots tactic works can be found in the manual.
There are currently no teams in Hattrick which can take full advantage of this new tactic right away (and deliberately so), even though teams with good set pieces skills are in a better starting position than other teams. With time, we hope to see managers build their teams with good shooters. | |
See also
- Long shot special event
