Copa America 2015 - A Series

COPA AMERICA 2015

South America’s premier national competition comes to us live this year from Chile, and promises to be entirely spectacular – with several big names such as Neymar, Messi, Aguero and James Rodriguez taking part. Even though Luis Suarez’ dietary escapades in the 2014 World Cup sees him suspended, there’s still plenty to be excited about this time around.

It is often an overlooked tournament in Football Manager – so throughout these series of articles I’m going to play through the Copa America with my favourite South American team – Argentina. After that, we’re going to take a look at some of the key players to look out for in this years tournament, both in real life and hopefully we’ll unearth some bargains for you to have a look at in your own personal Football Manager save. Let’s get started!
I’ve loaded all 6 available South American nations to start my game off, and I will holiday until the squad selection date, which is 13th May 2015 if my memory serves correct. I have been messing around lately with an asymmetrical 4-4-2 formation recently, however it may need some small adjustments and an injection of some flair to work in a coherent manner throughout the tournament – which of course I am aiming to win. A country with such rich footballing heritage such as Argentina should always be looking to win these competitions in my opinion, and we certainly have the players to do it – with the firepower of Messi and Aguero and defensive solidity of Javier Mascherano we can be confident of being responsible at the back whilst inflicting damage on our opposition.

Looking at the Argentina squad – I think a 4-3-3 formation would be more advisable than a 4-4-2, as a distinct lack of quality wingers coupled with a generous portion of attacking talent means we will not be able to keep our key players happy, and won’t be able to inflict as much damage on the opposition as we’d like to. First and foremost I appoint my captain – Javier Mascherano. Roy Hodgson’s pick as the best player in the world last time around – but I’d be more confident giving that accolade to his team mate – Lionel Messi. We only have 2 warm up friendlies against Zambia and Chile booked in – so we must be confident in our tactical approach and team selection going into the tournament. Judging on the players we have and the style of play I wish to implement – this is the starting XI and formation that I will be running with for the majority of the tournament – injuries, performance and suspension will obviously change some of the participants but the majority of our backup players are like for like with our first team players (Tevez for Aguero, Banega for Biglia, Peruzzi for Zabaleta). We will obviously be relying on Lionel Messi and Sergio Aguero to provide our main goalscoring threats, with Di Maria and Pastore offering creative outlets in order to pull our oppositions defensive line around, and allowing enough space for our main attacking talent to do the damage that we know they are capable of.



I have used a lot of team instructions, in order to implement a short passing, possession based game that I believe these players are capable of playing – we will play a high defensive block due to the pace of our backline and the stamina of our full backs and midfielders in order to press the opposition into making a mistake and gifting the ball back to us. I believe in very little player instructions, especially with a team as talented as this as I believe it is important to allow the players to express their individual skill whilst remaining responsible. I have however told the full backs to stay wide and support the attack, and I have told the two central midfielders to ‘Close down much more’ and ‘Pass it shorter’ – hopefully this will recreate the high pressing, possession-orientated style of play I wish to implement.

Next up is our first warm up game vs Zambia.

Is this continuing?