Since I started writing on PESMastery, I have received several queries such as
- I want to attack in numbers. How do I get my defenders to join in during attacks?
- My defence is weak. How cam I pull my strikers back to defend?
- Barcelona is a great attacking team, but it is prone to counter-attacks. How can I restrain my defenders from joining the attacks?
My advice had always been
- Under Set Pieces, in the ‘Players To Join Attack’, select those defenders to attack.
- Activate CB Overlap to push defenders up.
- Pull the whole backline down for a more defensive formation
- Avoid using defenders to make forward runs, either by L1 or R2.
Player Awareness
I have always believed that we players have little control over the movement of players, and the above suggestions were the best alternatives. That is until I realised a player characteristic in PES 2011 – Attack/ Defence Awareness
Image credit: Konami
No More Adjustable Awareness
In PES 2010, we have the option of adjusting the awareness level, between Offence, Balance, or Defence. I guess players complained that that was pretty ridiculous, which made Konami removed the feature and made it a special characteristic of each player. The awareness of each player will affect his individual style of play in every match. An Offence awareness will encourage the player to make frequent forward runs, while a Defence setting makes a player stay back. As in the case of Clichy above, he has an OFFENCE Awareness, which makes him an ideal attacking leftback who loves to charge up the field.
On the other hand, if you wishes to play with a more defensive formation without an attacking sideback, you may want to play Sagna, who has a Balanced Awareness level.
Image credit: Konami
In the case of Barcelona in PES 2011, their default central defenders of Pique and Puyol have an awareness of Neutral, and their sidebacks of Daniel Alves and Maxwell possess Offensive Awareness, pushing both sidebacks to make attacking runs throughout the game.
For players who wish to play a more defensive Barcelona, perhaps you guys could play Milito in CB, with a DEF awareness, and Abidal, with BAL awareness, instead of Maxwell. Mascherano (DEF) can replace the default Sergio Busquets (BAL), to add more defensive steel to the whole team.
Strikers’ Awareness
Do not expect strikers to defend. I have done a check on PES 2011 Center Forwards and almost all of them have an OFF Awareness, thus we have to manually control them to make runs back into their own half. A small number of them possess the BAL awareness, however they are not well-known and their ratings are poor, so there is no point in signing them. That isn’t really a big concern since a striker’s job is to attack and score.
And after this post, I hope you will have more control over how you want to structure your team. Let me know what you think!
Main image credit: Konami