Armchair Analyst: Seattle’s slide, RBNY run riot & more from Week 10

May 7, 2018 admin US MLS 0

Sometimes it’s good to give a full run-through of all the weekend’s games rather than the usual pull-outs of two big ones and then a briefer review of the others. Since we’ve just rounded the quarter pole on the 2018 MLS season, now’s as good a time as any to give a look at everything that happened over the previous 48 hours.

Let’s go chronologically:

Toronto FC 3, Philadelphia Union 0

In the lead-up to this game there were actual people on social media offering actual takes that Toronto are/were not one of the five best teams in the league, which kind of blew my mind. At some point you have to be able to distinguish between the standings and just simple common sense, right?

I’m not sure if a dominant home win over a foundering Union team will convince them. It impressed me, though – TFC pretty seamlessly switched into a 4-1-4-1 with Sebastian Giovinco as a false 9, Michael Bradley at CB and Marky Delgado at d-mid, and it worked on both sides of the ball. They were able to just deny Philly’s attackers entry into the box:

As the Reds get healthy over the next two weeks they’re going to start burying folks. Good luck.

With Philly, they just keep doing what they’ve been doing, it seems. At some point their luck may even out (Alejandro Bedoya hit the crossbar when this one was still scoreless), but… there’s really not much else left to say.

Montreal Impact 4, New England Revolution 2

Do you remember at the start of last season, when the Orlando City defense was making incredible, last-ditch tackles and Joe Bendik was standing on his head every weekend and they just kept finding lucky, unlikely goals week after week? They rode that to a hot start but I kept waiting for things to regress to the mean and, right around the start of May, they did.

I’m not sure the exact same thing just happened to the Revs this weekend, but Matt Turner wasn’t going to keep playing like God every time out, right? By the reckoning of the guys over at AmericanSoccerAnalysis the kid had saved New England five goals over two months, which is unsustainable for any ‘keeper in the world outside of De Gea.

But still, the Revs were getting results, going 4-1-2 in their previous seven before heading up to Stade Saputo. They’d been slowly pushing their backline higher as well, taking more risks with their positioning and trying to get on the ball more. Playing like that risks leaving space in behind and, well, Ignacio Piatti obliged himself and others:

Yeah, part of that is the defense being pulled out. But part of Diego Fagundez‘s evolution as a No. 10 has to be the ability to sense those moments and understand where he can and – especially – can’t give his teammates the ball. 

The Impact still looked very flimsy on the backline, but their attack and midfield can ball. It was good to see Anthony Jackson-Hamel and Raheem Edwards both make a big claim on a starting job.

New York Red Bulls 4, NYCFC 0

I suspect that Patrick Vieira is going to grind his guys into dust during training this week. He was livid after the match, citing a lack of competitiveness (it was evident) and energy.

I’d also suggest there was a certain naiveté and arrogance in NYCFC’s approach. They were determined to possess the ball and try to build right up the middle, and when you do that against RBNY you die quick and ugly:

I am certain that these are two of the four best teams in the league, and entering the game I thought RBNY were probably a little closer to four and NYCFC a little closer to one. Coming out I’ve no choice but to reverse that.

In part, that’s the result talking. You don’t get drubbed like that – and yeah, this was worse than the Red Wedding in a lot of ways – and leave the stadium with anybody thinking you’re the better team. But in part it’s because in Kaku Gamarra and Florian Valot, RBNY have tertiary attacking weapons (beyond Bradley Wright-Phillips, who’s been sensational) that haven’t necessarily existed for them in the recent past.

We know about Kaku, right? Of all the young, Latin American imports this offseason, he’s been the best.

But it’s Valot who’s the best story. The 25-year-old Frenchman, who spent time in the academies of both PSG and Monaco before flying under the radar at little Rider University a few years back, could’ve been signed by 22 other MLS teams after college. But RBNY, because they invest in their USL side and player development overall, got him for free and turned him into a starting-caliber player within two seasons.

If you care about talent then you will develop that talent, and there is plenty of underappreciated talent around the US and Canada to develop. The Red Bulls are winning games because they’re ahead of the curve in that philosophy.

Minnesota United 1, Vancouver 0

Credit to the Loons: 10 days ago they were riding a four-game losing streak and needed to get well fast with a pair of intra-conference games at home. They got it done, beating a profligate Houston team 2-1 last week and then fighting past Vancouver despite playing 10-v-11 for basically the entire second half.

This was not a “classic” performance by any stretch, but it was A) a battling performance, and B) a mostly encouraging defensive performance en route to their first shutout of the season. And there was also a “bleed for the shirt” aspect to Miguel Ibarra‘s game-winner:

Vancouver, after a promising start, have won one of their last five and have been shut out in three of four. They’re still playing without a true central creator, which makes the task of chance creation something close to Herculean if they’re not allowed to get out on the counter.

To that point: Against a packed-in MNUFC defense set up to defend against crosses, Vancouver crossed the ball 37 (!!!!) times.

LAFC 1, FC Dallas 1

This is weirdly the most disappointing result of the season for the Black-and-Gold thus far, which is a weird thing to say given that earlier this season they’ve 1) become just the second team in MLS history to blow a three-goal lead and lose (and did so in their first-ever derby), and 2) got embarrassed 5-0 on national TV.

So the thing is: yes, those were disappointing, but you’re kind of supposed to lose on the road. On some level there’s a “so be it, onto the next one” aspect to both those results.

Not so on Saturday. They were at home, and it was a six-pointer, and they had chances myriad and sundry to bury FCD. They’ll be looking at it as two points dropped.

Dallas will be looking at it as a point won thanks to some heroic last-ditch defending and wayward LAFC attackers:

That said, this wasn’t a one-sided game. Dallas were mostly organized and purposeful for the duration, and Oscar Pareja finally deciding to encourage some internal competition for spots with squad rotation over the past month seems to have lit a fire under certain players – most notably Maxi Urruti. 

Dallas aren’t a favorite, but they’re better than they were in March and eons better than they were during the second half of last season.

Seattle 0, Columbus 0

One of the fun mantras of modern soccer is “the press is the best playmaker,” which means, essentially, that a good and organized and vicious front-foot press can and will, by virtue of where on the field they cause turnovers, over time generate more and better chances than any pure playmaker in the world.

So if you’re going into a game without your playmaker (Nicolas Lodeiro missed this one for foggy reasons), and you’re lucky enough to go up a man inside 20 minutes (Pedro Santos was kung-fu fighting), and you’re at home… you’re gonna sit in a zone press all game? You’re going to give the Crew a 70-minute passing drill?

Apparently the answer is “yes.”

If you don’t have your playmaker you have to have some idea of how to turn defense into offense. Seattle lacked that idea, and everybody – including and especially the players – knew it.

“We didn’t even try to play through the final third,” is what Will Bruin (who’s not normally a great quote, by any stretch) said after the game. “I think everybody in the stadium knew we were going to try and push it wide and try to cross it. You’ve got to find other ways try create chances. We just haven’t been able to do it. We’ve got to be willing to take chances. We’ve got to get some creativity, some flair, we’ve got to move the ball quicker, we’ve got to pass and move, we’ve got to try things.

“I think we’re too caught up with playing the simple pass and [saying] ‘Oh, I’m not going to make the mistake, I’m just going to move it to the next guy,’” he added. “You’re not going to score like that. It’s so easy to defend. That was a prime example today. We need to find a solution to this because if you can’t tell, I’m pretty frustrated right now.”

Seattle have five goals and have been shut out five times in seven games.

Columbus haven’t been finding goals, either, despite their attack generating chances no matter how many men they’ve got on the field. One of the wingers is going to have to step up and start carrying part of the load.

Chicago Fire 1, Atlanta United 2

I actually spent most of this game being really impressed by the Fire. They actually took a page from Chivas’ book and man-marked Atlanta all over the field, which mostly stopped the Five Stripes from building any rhythm and made it very tough to combine through the middle. It also kind of limited Chicago’s ability to go forward as well, which was an understandable trade-off even at home.

There are dangers to man-marking, though:

1) The opposing coach can change the scheme somewhat and present your guys with unexpected, on-the-fly problems to solve. Tata Martino did this by having center forward Josef Martinez (who usually rides the defender’s back shoulder) drop into midfield and play between the lines.

There were good chunks of time where Chicago didn’t know how to counter this. At the same time, Martino had his wingbacks play higher upfield. This had the effect of pinning the Fire’s fullbacks deep entirely, as well as either dragging a winger back or (even better) a central midfielder out to help from time to time.

It was a really good adjustment.

2) If you’re man-marking on one side, you’re probably going to have times when you’re in isolation on the other side of the ball with the ball. In those moments you have to be better than the guy next to you in the other colors.

On the game’s deciding play, Miguel Almiron was better than Mo Adams. The kid got a lesson from the guy who’s been the league MVP thus far, and that kind of broke the game.

Still, I’m feeling way better about the Fire than I was in March. They’re not going to collect as many points as last year but they might be a better team come October.

Houston Dynamo 3, LA Galaxy 2

Here’s our Pass of the Week, courtesy of Zlatan Ibrahimovic:

The man is spectacular, and I’m sure it’s nice for the Galaxy to see Gio Dos Santos suddenly involved in the attack again after a dormant year. But yeah, the Galaxy were outplayed and they lost. They generally struggled to build through midfield and they still can’t defend anywhere on the pitch.

This was an “okay, exhale” win for the Dynamo. They’d come into this game with only two wins on the season despite being the better team in the vast majority of the games they’ve played, and then they tried like hell to give this one away. Both Galaxy goals came after Darwin Ceren turnovers (they miss Juan David Cabezas so much), and once again they squandered multiple good looks in front of goal.

But this time they found a winner. I still like what I see from Houston, week-to-week, more than what I see from almost anyone else in the West. The ideas are there and the pieces seem to fit together. Now they need to cut out the mental mistakes and execute.

Sporting KC 1, Colorado Rapids 0

Sporting are now 4-1-1 with four shutouts and only three goals allowed in their last six games. The defense was porous to start the season, and while it’s still not where it’s been most of this decade – they have to thank Dom Badji for his breakaway miss – it’s inching closer toward that stratosphere.

Truth be told, this one could’ve been a lot worse than it was as SKC dominated pretty much the full 90, but couldn’t put their chances away. Given how well they’ve finished to start this season that feels like an anomaly, but also they’re still starting, in Khiry Shelton, a center forward who has zero goals in 750 minutes and while he does all those wonderful Marcos Ureña-esque things to open up space and create chances for the guys around him… I mean, at some point lack of production from that spot is going to hurt.

The Rapids, for what it’s worth, have real issues. The big defenders they signed this offseason have had trouble defending in space and when/if the wingbacks drop back to help them, Colorado get no sustained forward thrust. So for much of the season it’s largely been left to Badji to carry the team – think about that sentence for a minute – and while he’s put in real work (5g/1a in 700 minutes is a good haul), this is not 2003 and he is not Carlos Ruiz.

San Jose 0, Portland 1

The purpose of the 4-4-2 “box” midfield that San Jose play is to get the wide midfield attackers, Vako Qazaishvili and Magnus Eriksson, into the gaps between the lines and on the ball in unusual spots while still leaving a pair of forwards up top. Each is supposed to play as a hybridized attacker/playmaker, and the ability to slip into and out of roles on the fly is supposed to be a trump card used to unbalance opposing defenses.

It is a complex system that the Quakes have not executed at even a bare minimum level. Eriksson seems mostly lost off the ball and thus doesn’t get on it enough. Vako is more active, but when he gets on it his decisions (pass? dribble? shoot? To be honest it’s almost always “dribble”) come two or three beats after they should. He has tunnel vision.

There are other problems elsewhere. Chris Wondolowski should really be a super-sub, and Danny Hoesen continues to be a maddeningly poor finisher. Nobody’s looked good in deep-central midfield (though Jackson Yueill has, at times, looked close to it) and the backline has been mostly catastrophic in big moments.

When those big moments have come, other teams have had guys like Diego Valeri:

The Quakes have had only sadness, and the league’s worst record.

Orlando City 3, RSL 1

Give the Purple Lions credit: After starting the year 0-2-1, they faced what was essentially a series of must-win games, and responded by ripping off a club-record six-match winning streak. They’ve done it on the strength of their attack, which has come together – as expected – and turned into something of a juggernaut.

During this six-game streak they’ve scored four goals, three goals, two goals, three goals, two goals and three goals. Dom Dwyer got healthy and has six goals in this stretch; Sacha Kljestan has 2g/4a; rookie Chris Mueller has 3g/1a and some much needed 1v1 drive and speed; Justin Meram‘s not getting on the board, but he’s passing well and has 3a; Yoshi Yotun is the best player you’re not paying attention to, and has 2g/5a since this team started winning. These guys are clicking, especially since Cristian Higuita is cleaning up the midfield behind them.

But the defense remains a wreck. Bendik is doing what he did at this time last year and bailing them out in big moments, but Orlando City fans should know by now that goes away eventually. If Bendik regresses to the mean by, like, five percent, down rain the Ls.

They have to figure it all out now. Their six wins came against RSL, Colorado, San Jose, Philly, Portland and RBNY’s USL team. Their next four are vs. Atlanta, at Toronto, vs. Chicago and at NYCFC. Over their next 13 I think they’ll be outright favored in only two – Chicago and Montreal at home. And if OCSC give those two teams the kind of breakaways the Claret-and-Cobalt spurned on Sunday night, there will be suffering in Central Florida.

To be clear: I think Orlando City are a much better team than the one that was so hot at the start of last season. But they’ve got to defend a lot better than they did on Sunday or the Eastern Conference meat grinder will ruin them.

As for RSL, here’s Kyle Beckerman with our Face of the Week, brought to you by the Walking Dead:

They did look good at times, and Homegrown rookie striker Corey Baird‘s got something. The defense, however, remains error-prone (left back especially), and it’s just far too easy to pass right through their central midfield.

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