The match engine heavily favors:
The Diamond gives you four central midfielders while still maintaining width via your full-backs. It’s defensively solid and offensively devastating.
Go to Manager -> Add Manager. Take control of every other team in your league. Release their best players on free transfers, then resign. Your tactic will now win the league by 50 points. (Cheesy, but effective.)
Here is the secret the old-guard CM players know: the best tactic in CM96/97 is to buy the right players for the roles above. The engine has broken "hidden" stats. championship manager 96 97 best tactic
The Wonderkids who break the 4-1-2-1-2:
The Ultimate AI Exploit: Search for any player with Pace 19+ and Dribbling 19+. Put them on the wing in the 4-1-2-1-2. They will average an 8.5 rating. It doesn't matter if their Passing is 5. The engine does not care.
In the annals of CM 97/98, there was the "Diablo" tactic. In CM 96/97, there is no single named cheat tactic, but there is a player role exploit: The Attacking Midfielder (AMC) with "Free Role." The match engine heavily favors:
If you put a player like Alessandro Del Piero, Dennis Bergkamp, or Pavel Nedvěd at AMC with:
...the AI marking algorithm simply cannot track him. He will drift into zones that no defender occupies. This individual instruction is, by itself, the single most broken element in CM 96/97. Build your entire formation around a free-roaming #10, and you will win trophies.
Do not use this if you like clean sheets. Use this if you are losing 1-0 at half time and you want to win 5-4. The Diamond gives you four central midfielders while
The Setup:
Player Roles:
Why it works: The AI’s marking logic breaks in a 3-4-3. Their defenders get dragged out wide by your wide forwards, leaving your lone central striker 1-on-1 with the keeper 6 times a game. The downside? Your three defenders are constantly isolated against counter-attacks. It’s a carnage machine.
Regardless of formation, you must set these individual instructions, or your tactic will fail.