eFootball PES 2020: Squad Builders for EURO Matchday in PES

UEFA EURO 2020™ themed Matchday and Featured players are finally starting to make an appearance in eFootball PES 2020 since last week. Konami introduced the EURO 2020™ Datapack on 4th June, but as there was no EURO content for mobile players, they were hoping for MyClub content and themed Matchdays since then. Finally, one month later, PES is bringing some of the content we hoped for.

While Konami is finally bringing us some MyClub content including National featured players and National Legends, and also Euro themed Matchdays, feel free to check our article about some fun and exciting features that could have been added in the Euro Mode in PES.

Which teams will be coming on the next EURO 2020 Matchday in PES?

All the teams that already qualified for the Euro or are still contenders to gain a potential Euro spot can make an appearance in the next EURO Matchday in PES 2020.

You can choose any of the teams for playing the Matchday. While many PES players might find some Matchdays boring because of the absence of heavyweight teams, we find this challenging. Playing with these lower-rated squads and finding a way to win games on rather close margins can be fun and exciting too, at times. Also, big teams like France, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, England will make an appearance in the Euro Matchday in the future, and we’ll build their Matchday Squads too. So, stay tuned!

Euro 2020 Matchday in PES — EURO 2020 Matchday Home Screen in PES

We have picked two teams from the teams available for now. These teams seemed fun and exciting to play with, and we hope you feel similar about them. In case you don’t, we are here to guide you through the Matchday Squad Builders of both these teams, along with the tactical analysis as well. The teams we picked:

Norway
Serbia

Now, let’s get into these squads without any further ado.

Norway

Norway might not be a famous international team but they possess two huge young prospects of European football in E.Haaland and M.Odegaard. Interestingly, Norway is one of two teams in World football who have never lost a match to Brazil having faced them. That’s a great record for sure!

Manager & Formation

Swedish manager Lans Lagerback is the head coach of the Norway national team. He previously led Iceland to the Euro 2016 Quarter Finals, beating England in the way. He uses a 4-2-2-2 lineup in the Norway team with a Possession style of play.

PES Euro Matchday Lagerback tactics — Lagerback’s Offensive & Defensive tactics

Starting XI

Our Norway Starting XI looks like this:

Forwards: 2CFs (J.King, E.Haaland).
Midfielders: AMF (M.Odegaard), 2CMFs (S.Johansen, O.Selnaes), DMF (S.Berge).
Defenders: LB(M.Linnes), 2CBs (K.Ajer, H.Nordtveit), RB (O.Elabdellao).
Goalkeeper: R.Jarstein.

PES Euro Matchday Norway XI — Our preferred Norway XI

Tactical Analysis

Lagerback’s formation works as a 4-2-4 in the offensive phase and a 4-4-2 in the defensive phase. All of the Norwegian midfielders are good pressing agents, so you need to utilise them well for pressing the opposition higher up the pitch. Let’s look at our preferred tactics in the offensive and defensive phase.

Offensive phase

The offensive phase basically means when you are trying to build an attack. Let’s see how you can shape the attack for Norway:

The forwards, King and Haaland, are both very good on the ball and they can hold the up in the final third due to their strong physicality. They can play one-touch passes between them, involving others as well if needed. They are both good at finishing as well. Haaland is a good header of the ball, so set him as your set-piece attacker.
AMF Odegaard is a good orchestrator, though he pushes forward and mainly stays wide during an attack, his passes and crosses into the box can be useful. He can great ball control and dribbling abilities. He can shoot from long-range too.
Among the 2 CMFs, Selnaes is box-to-box and he likes to push forward at every opportunity. Johansen is more like an orchestrator, he doesn’t push forward as much. Both of them have the “Long-ball expert” trait which you can use for supplying long balls to King and Haaland, they are great receivers of long-balls in fact.
Both full-backs are offensive and have a good pace but from our playing experience, RB O.Elabdellaoui seemed more natural for pushing forward. He also has good crossing abilities, which will be helpful to send the ball in for the forwards.

Norway offensive tactic — Visual representation of Norway’s offensive tactic

Defensive phase

The defensive phase is basically when the opposition is attacking. You have to tighten the spaces and snatch away possession from the opposition attackers.

The full-backs have good pace and they can trackback quickly.
DMF S.Berge has great physicality to stop the opposition forwards in his tracks, and due to his Anchor Man role, he shields the defence well. He can also work as a good pressing agent.
Ajer is a CB with good pace and physical contact. Use him to stop pacy attackers and snatch the ball away. He has the ‘long-ball expert‘ trait so you can try to immediately pass the ball directly to the forwards after winning the ball, initiating a counter. On the other hand, Nordveit is originally a DMF but he is decent as a CB too.
After winning the ball, you can also try to start a counter by quickly passing the ball out with players who have the one-touch passing ability like Berge and Selnaes. But as the forwards don’t push down, probably long-ball passing is a better idea for a counter.
However, if you face a 1v1 situation with only Jarstein, don’t push forward as he is a defensive goalkeeper and will be more comfortable staying in position.

Norway defensive tactic — Visual representation of Norway’s defensive tactic

Now you should be good to play the EURO 2020 Matchday in PES with Norway. We hope that you have fun playing with this squad!

Serbia

Serbia is a national team with a lot of history, but most of that came when they used to play under the Yugoslavia union. They previously had great players like N.Vidic and D.Stankovic and currently, they have a very talented bunch of players as well. The talented Serbian lads make it an exciting squad to play with in PES 2020 as well for the upcoming EURO Matchday.