Tactical trend taking shape in MLS
The Carlos de los Cobos reign started
with a whimper.
Chicago’s new boss surely hoped for
better than two losses and a tie to begin his days in Bridgeview. But he kept
tinkering with personnel and formations, tuning the instruments while listening
hard for the perfect pitch.
Three games back, he may just have
nailed it; the Fire are unbeaten since with a draw and two wins, including three
important points on the road. What, exactly, was the light bulb that switched
on for de los Cobos?
A five-man midfield. And there’s a lot
of that going around these days in MLS.
The 4-4-2 may retain its long-held
sovereignty as the base system, the “starting point” for most clubs in their
initial strategic planning. But at least half the MLS sides have employed a
five-man midfield at some point this year, for one reason or another.
(This should always be said before
discussing formations: There’s a lot of splitting hairs here. The difference
between a 4-5-1 and a 4-3-3 for instance, in some set-ups, may be as little as
10 to 15 yards of initial starting position on defense for the wide players. So,
keep that in mind.)
Why the lean toward five in the
midfield? It’s generally about
personnel, about finding a system that squeezes the most quality from the
roster, one that gets the best players on the field and into comfortable
roles. The Fire have two strikers, Brian
McBride and Collins John, who essentially play the same way. So it doesn’t make
much sense to partner them in the lineup.
Meanwhile, no one had quite figured out
how to get the best from forward Patrick Nyarko’s pace and audacity. And it was
increasingly difficult to get Justin Mapp on the field as young slasher Marco
Pappa had clearly lapped the American midfielder.
Voila!
Now Nyarko is a wide attacker on the
right, Mapp is patrolling left and Pappa is set up behind McBride, ahead of two
holding midfielders in a 4-5-1 or a 4-2-3-1 (take your pick). Nyarko is the
ideal candidate in a lot of ways to attack from the wings; he really doesn’t
lose much speed, if any at all, with the ball at his feet.
The two holding midfielders aren’t
necessarily consigned entirely to screening duty. Baggio Husidic has been
stationed lately as one of the Fire’s two defensive midfielders—and he has two
goals in the team’s last two matches.
Chicago’s opponent on Saturday, Chivas
USA, have used two different versions of the five-man midfield. Earlier this
year, Martin Vasquez’s team lined up in a conservative 4-5-1, with a lone
striker and lots of defending in the midfield. Lately, the Goats have tested a
less defensive 3-5-2.
Occasionally, teams in a 4-4-2 will add
a midfielder mid-stream to match the man-advantage in the middle. Twice this
year, for instance, that has happened against Dallas.
FC Dallas line up in a 4-1-4-1, with
Daniel Hernandez sitting deep behind Dax McCarty and David Ferreira in the
middle. It’s essentially a five-man midfield. The bottom line is a fairly well-linked three-man central triangle that
has the ability to dominate matches, even on the road. It happened earlier this
year at New York and again over the weekend at New England. In both cases, FCD ran
roughshod over the home team for a half. (The finishing, in both cases, was
another issue—but let’s stay on topic here.)
In both cases, managers for the home side
added a midfielder at the half to help stanch the one-way traffic in midfield. Red
Bull’s Hans Backe and New England’s Steve Nicol did it the same way,
subtracting a forward in favor of a wide midfielder and sliding an extra man
into the middle. Nicol said he had no choice but to negate the 3-vs.-2
advantage in the middle of the field.
“We were getting totally out-played
through the middle of the park,” he said. “They were just rolling balls in
between us through the middle of the field. It was only a matter of time before
they scored if we continued to let them do that.”
Kansas City play a dynamic 4-3-3 this
year. Real Salt Lake toyed with the three-forward alignment last year. And
Seattle lined up that way over the weekend against Columbus, as manager Sigi
Schmid probed for ways to punch up scoring production—which is curiously light
considering the trio of peppy, high-profile attackers on site in Freddie
Ljungberg, Fredy Montero and Steve Zakuani.
There’s also the example of where a
4-3-3 looks quite like a 4-5-1. The three-man central triangle is essentially
the same. In the middle, it looks just like the 4-5-1 (the triangle could
“point” either way.) The difference more
or less is where the wide guys start defending. Do they pressure the fullbacks
as Zakuani and Brad Evans did Saturday against Columbus? Or do they retreat
further back, connecting with the men in the middle to form a most substantial
block of five?
There’s also a “tweener” state in which
some teams dwell. Columbus deploy an
alleged 4-4-2. One of the “forwards,” former league MVP Guillermo Barros
Schelotto roams, well, pretty much wherever he wants. He’s somewhere behind a
striker and ahead of central midfielders Brian Carroll and Adam Moffat, using
his veteran wile to find the spaces available on the day. A lot of times,
that’s back in the midfield. So, is that a 4-5-1?
Who cares? Again, the difference is
academic. And it gets results: The Crew are still undefeated.
