Strategy guide
In POACH you raid blind, but you are not raiding in the dark. You can see the opponent's real formation, the shape and the positions, even if the names are hidden. That shape carries more information than most players use. Learn to read it and your steals stop being guesses.
Shape tells you where a team lives
No formation is set up by accident. A side built to sit in and defend spends its money on the spine, a good keeper, a pair of proper centre-backs and a midfielder who does the dirty work. A side built to go for the throat loads up further forward instead. So before you even pick a name, work out what kind of team you are staring at, because that is half the answer to where its best players are hiding.
Raid a flashy, front-foot side and the gold is usually up the pitch. Raid a stubborn, low-block side and it tends to sit at the back. You are never really guessing a player out of thin air, you are guessing where a manager chose to spend his strength.
The positions that hide the most value
Some roles pay off a blind raid more than others. The middle of the pitch is where most teams keep their best men, so a steal through the centre is where the big upgrades tend to come from. After the main striker, a side's best centre-back or central midfielder is usually the most valuable player on the park.
The flanks are a lottery. One team hides a rampaging attacking full-back out there, the next has a steady defender who will never trouble you. Treat wide raids as a punt rather than a banker. As for the striker, he is the obvious name everyone reaches for, which is exactly why it is so often the one spot you already have sorted.
Use the table, not just the team
Your best clue is league position. The side at the top is a real champion, and champions tend to be strong all over, so even a cautious raid on them brings back a player worth having. A team scrapping near the bottom is the reverse, mostly honest journeymen with the odd hidden gem. Read the table before you read the formation.
So against the best sides you can happily raid the position you most need and trust the quality to be there. Against the strugglers you are fishing for the one or two spots where they punch above their station, and taking your chances that the rest of them are beatable as they stand.
Match the raid to your own gaps
Reading the opponent only gets you so far. You also have to know your own team, because the cleverest read in the world is wasted if you raid a position you were already strong in. Line the two up, where they are likely strong against where you are actually weak, and raid where those overlap. That is where one steal does a full day's work.
For the discipline of auditing your own XI first, see raid your weaknesses. For the wider art of when to gamble at all, see the blind steal. And to understand why a team's rating sits where it does, the how we rate players page explains the model behind the numbers.
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