
As part of a 'Build A Nation' save, this strikerless tactic took Brann in Norway into the top 10 ranked teams in Europe and a Champions League final.
Video
The Tactic

Created by my friend Mats, who loves his strikerless formations playing with two Inverted Wing Backs. Down the left you have the aggressive and marauding runs from the Segundo Volate as well as the Inverted Winger creating movement with the Shadow Striker. On the right you have more width from the Winger, but movement is created through the combination of the Shadow Striker and the Mezzala.
Having back full backs playing inverted gives you the support in midfield and creates a four in the middle, but the SV gives you that extra dynamism through the middle. But the defence isn't overrun as they go back to a flat four defensively.
Out of possession the IWBs, SV and Mez can show as a flat four and with Counter Press selected, they are very good at chasing down the ball and winning it back quickly. Having the Shadow Strikers dropping back gives another layer of protection too and they will chase and harry the defence too.
Training
This is so key to your team understanding this tactic. Weekly Match prep, including teamwork and match tactics are needed to help the players understand what's going on, as well as Match Review after each fixture. Do this early and throughout the season and you will see the benefits.
For the individual players, train them for the position they are going to play and the tactic will benefit.
Set Pieces
For the testing, only corners aimed to the near post were set up.
Discussion: 4-2-4 Strikerless - Only 18 goals conceded
3 comments have been posted so far.
(https://discord.com/channels/805356336266477600/805362738464292884/879619497886101535)
Decently performed and 5th in Test Encyclopedia
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yN2gHwS95UTEbq8_eU7_xSsZ_kAkNaBS-fV7hnVDiVg/edit#gid=0
The issues were this rendered my best strikers useless as the AI will opt to start my CM/CAM's in the shadow striker positions due to better role suitability ratings while the strikers were left to play in the wings. The CAM shadow strikers did score a bootload of goals nevertheless as Isak Hanson-Aaroen finished with 22 goals and even Conor Gallagher bagged a couple of hat-tricks. It's a great setup and the movement provided by the team makes it difficult for the opposition defence to handle the shadow strikers who will get into great positions to score especially one-on-ones.
The other thing is most of my existing CMs were of the deep-lying playmaker type and did not really have the attributes to play the Segundo Volante role so maybe you need to recruit for this specific type of player that can better perform this role.
But I'm sure it should be better if you can properly manage the team instead of simulating and train your players for the specific roles. Will run another simulation but this time force the AI ass-man to pick my strikers in the shadow striker positions to see if they can perform over the season despite lacking role familiarity (I have set them trained for the roles before going on holiday).