MAGIC Luciano Spalletti's Napoli 2022/23

Hello guys,

This is my attempt to emulate Luciano Spalletti's 4-3-3 at Napoli.

Spalletti's Napoli

Napoli has won the Serie A championship with 5 matches to spare with 27 games won (one game left), 6 draws and 4 losses, scoring 75 goals and conceding only 28 goals in 37 games.

The Napoli team played spectacular and entertaining football throughout the majority of the season (although in the final matches, the players might have been a bit tired).

They outperformed rivals such as Milan and Inter, who were inconsistent. Spalletti's team also impressed in the Champions League, scoring 6 goals against Ajax and 4 against Liverpool in the group stage, and then defeating Eintracht in the round of 16.

It was unfortunate that they arrived at the decisive quarter-final match against Milan tired and without their top player, Osimhen. His absence was evident in the first leg, which they lost, but he managed to equalize the match in the return leg.

The FM23 Tactics

I tried to replicate this tactical approach in Football Manager 2023 by creating three different versions with modified player positions and roles.

Here I am going to analyze the first version of the tactic I created.

MENTALITY: ATTACKING

IN POSSESSION: shorter passing, higher tempo, play out of defense, width: wide, underlap left and right, run at defense, mixed crosses, be more expressive.

IN TRANSITION: counter-press, counter, take short kicks, distribute to center backs

OUT OF POSSESSION: Higher defensive line, high press, trigger press: more often, prevent short gk distribution, drop off more

PLAYERS ROLES AND INSTRUCTIONS

GK: Sweeper Keeper- Defend: pass it shorter, tackle harder, take fewer risks Alex Meret
FB (R): Inverted Wing-Back- Support: dribble more, shoot less often Giovanni Di Lorenzo
CD (R): Ball Playing Defender- Defend: dribble less, shoot less often, mark tighter Amir Rrahmani
CD (L): Ball Playing Defender-Defend: dribble more (he can move forward with the ball), Shoot less often, Mark Tigther Kim Min-Jae
FB (L): Full-Back-Support: Cross More often, cross aim far post, run wide with ball, get further forward, stay wider, mark tigther Mario Rui
DM: Deep Lying Playmaker- Support: Pass it shorter, dribble less S. Lobotka
CM (R); Box to box midfielder: pass it shorter, take more risks, dribble more,cross more often, get further forward, move into channels F. Zambo- Anguissa
shoot more often, tackle harder, mark tigther
CM (L): Mezzala-Attack: pass it shorter, cross more often, dribble more, run wide with the ball, shoot more often, tackle harder, mark tigther Piotr Zielinski
Advanced Midfielder (R): Winger-support: get further forward, pass it shorter M. Politano
Advanced Midfielder (L): Inside Forward-Attack: sit narrower, pass it shorter K. Kvaraskhelia
CF: Advanced Forward-Attack : pass it shorter V. Osimhen

Results

With this tactic I won the Italian Serie A with 96 points (more than the real Spalletti's Napoli) scoring 86 goals and conceeding only 25. Osimhen scored 34 goals in 40 games in the whole season (28 goals in 33 games in Serie A).

We got knocked out by Liverpool in the quarter finals of UEFA Champions League after defeating Barcelona, and by AC Milan in the semi-finals of Italian Cup (Coppa Italia).

When the tactic struggled during some games, I tried to switch to version 2 or version 3 to change my game style to a faster or slower style, according to the circumstances.

I hope you can achieve great results with this tactic! thanks to everyone!