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3-5-2
So you’ve taken your hot-seat at the club (or as national team manager) and after a look at your squad you can see that there’s plenty of players who can play in the centre but not much to write home about when it comes to those who can play on the flanks. What can you do? Well if that shortfall happen to consist of some tireless wing-backs or wide midfielders, then you might wish to consider playing something like a 3-5-2.
The 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 formation consists of three centre-backs in front of the goalkeeper with a centre-back on the left, in the middle and on the right (DCL, DC and DCR respectively).
Moving on up the pitch, you will find three central midfielders, once again with one on the left, in the middle and on the right (MCL, MC and MCR). That extra body around the centre circle can prove invaluable when you risk getting over-run otherwise playing a system such as the 3-4-3.
The wide players either play as left and right midfielders in a 3-5-2 (ML and MR) or play as wing-backs in a 5-3-2 (WBL and WBR).
Finally you have two forwards with one on the left and one on the right as a STCL and STCR.
3-5-2
GK
DCL
DC
DCR
ML
MCL
MC
MCR
MR
STCL
STCR
Goalkeeper
Left Centre-Back
Centre-Back
Right Centre-Back
Left Midfielder
Left Central Midfielder
Central Midfielder
Right Central Midfielder
Right Midfielder
Left Striker
Right Striker
As you can see, 5-3-2 is almost the twin-brother of the 3-5-2.
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Teams playing 3-5-2 typically try and defend with a 5-3-2 anyway as the ML and MR (left and right midfielder) muster up all their team ethic and energy to cover the spaces either sides of the centre-backs.
You might want to make a more definitive change to 5-3-2 - either during a game or over the course of a season - if the enemy are targeting the spaces behind the wide midfielders and getting joy out of it. Pegging those wide midfielders back with a move to wing-back or a defend duty might just be the thing to get them back into the game.
Bear in mind that a 5-3-2 means that central midfielders and strikers have to work even harder to make up for the offensive short-fall on the flanks.
The strength in numbers is obvious with this system and allows teams using 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 to clog up the middle like cholesterol to an artery. This has a great two-fold benefit in allowing teams to keep the ball as well as providing solid numbers in the centre when defending and hopefully force frustrated opponents out wide.
Try and make sure you have players with plentiful amounts of ability in the first touch, passing, technique, anticipation, composure, decisions, off-the-ball and vision attributes, ready to string multiple amounts of short passes together, in order to make the most of this formation. Playing the ball gradually forward and going slower also gives the wing-backs or midfielders time to get forward while keeping more energy reserves in the tank.
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If your centre-backs and central midfielders are rather basic with their ability to use the ball, then you can simply focus passing down the flanks and create simple passing combinations between the wide players and the central players on the outside (DCL, DCR, MCL, MCR etc).
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Going direct with 3-5-2 or 5-3-2. Make sure your strikers are capable of getting out to the wings and encourage them to do so while giving your MCL and MCR an attack duty with forward running instructions.
​You can still go with something more direct when playing 3-5-2, but make sure your strikers – both of them! - are full of running with lots of teamwork, work rate, acceleration, pace and stamina to work the channels and even the wings if necessary. They should be supported by two outside central midfielders with similar running capabilities who can get forward to the flanks or come inside to take advantage of gaps left by any strikers departing for the sidelines.
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Where there’s a surplus of numbers providing strength in one area, there's an under-staffed weakness elsewhere and nowhere is this more obvious than down the flanks. Those poor wing-backs or wide midfielders have to run their legs into the ground in order to cover the wings, getting up to support the attack and getting back to defend. Whether you have players who can carry out all this work is an essential question to ask yourself if you want to play 3-5-2 or 5-3-2. If you find you don’t have players with the anticipation, determination, positioning, work rate, acceleration, agility, natural fitness, pace and stamina to carry out this demanding and multi-faceted role, then playing this system on a regular basis could be just wishful thinking.
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Having said that, you might be able to get away with it if you have one of the wide players do all the attacking while the other one stays back and defends. As the more offensive of the two goes forward, the rest of the defence would come across to make a back-four. A centre-back who’s happy to cover the wing-back or wide midfielder on his side is going to help.
HISTORY OF 3-5-2
Who started 3-5-2 is unknown and there seems to be a number of origins to its emergence; two candidates for being the first to try it out include Bosnian manager Miroslav "Ćiro" Blažević and his Dinamo Zagreb side of the early 1980s and Carlos Bilardo in Argentina with his country’s national team (more on Carl Billy later).
Over the course of the 1970s, the 4-4-2 became arguably the most popular formation as the 1970s turned to the 1980s thanks to the dominance of English clubs on the European stage, especially Liverpool. Managers and coaches like Ćiro clearly thought that there was no point in having full-backs seeing as wingers had gone out of fashion, victims of winger-slayers like Alf Ramsey. Without a neo-Stanley Matthews or B-Tech Garrincha to worry about, the full-backs could become wing-backs or wide midfielders and yet still leave the three centre-backs with a man spare against two strikers.
Three central midfielders could out-number the 4-4-2’s numerically inferior centre-circle duo while the two strikers up front could partly nullify the 4-4-2’s wing advantage so that only one full-back at a time could go forward.
You can also see 3-5-2’s roots in the Italian game, in particular the Zona Mista system that emerged in the land of pasta and Bolognese during the 1970s.
Essentially a 4-4-2 based on two Nike ticks and looking like dishes piled on top of each other destined for the washing up (try seeing it for yourself), with Zona Mista you'd have had your three at the back with a sweeper behind two centre-backs but further up the pitch is where things would get a bit topsy-turvy because the defence would be lop-sided favouring the left side with a wing-back on the left.
In midfield, there would be a defensive midfielder behind two central midfielders and what would be classed as an AMR on the right, called a returning winger or tornante (defensive winger role in Football Manager terms). Up front you would have two strikers.
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The Argentina team that won the World Cup in 1986 could be considered as the first successful exponents of the 3-5-2. Obviously it clearly helps when you have one of the greatest footballers who ever lived in your side. Carlos Bilardo’s efforts to understandably accommodate Diego Maradona – and his god-like hand (as well as his equally blessed feet) – would provide opposition managers with nightmares but also clues as to how this formation – or any system with three centre-backs – could be defeated. After-all, the emergence of three central defenders came about to nullify teams playing with two up front; Maradona played just behind a striker which would leave an excess of three dealing with one. It is perhaps this “mistake” by Bilardo that helped lead to the increasing popularity of the modern 4-3-3 and the 4-5-1 over the coming years.
Argentina 1986
Germany took up Argentina's mantle in the 1990s with a 5-3-2. Funnily enough, one of their successes was by beating Argentina in the final on the way to World Cup triumph in 1990; the other being success at the 1996 European Championships.
Germany 1990 and 1996
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