You know the lay of the land heading into Sunday night's second leg of the Western Conference Championship (9:20 pm ET: ESPN | Watch ESPN | ESPN Deportes | RDS2 | TSN.ca | MLSsoccer.com in Canada): the LA Galaxy hold a slim 1-0 lead despite dominating leg 1.
Seattle, however, have scored but once in their last three games, so "1-0" may not be nearly as slim as it seems.
Ninety minutes to figure out who hosts the Cup:
Catch and Release
The main issue for Seattle's tepid attack lately is that they just don't put numbers forward like they did earlier in the season. It's hard to blame them, since they've given up just two goals in their last four and definitely carved out some top-notch looks at goal in each of those games, and oh by the way they've won a Supporters' Shield and moved within two goals of their first MLS Cup experience in that span. Defense wins silverware.
But still... they've been super defensive. DeAndre Yedlin barely crossed the midfield stripe against FC Dallas, completing 15 passes over the course of the two legs, while Micheal Azira – filling in for the injured Osvaldo Alonso at d-mid – completed only four passes in the attacking half at LA last weekend.
Simply put, there has been no versatility in attack for what looked like, as recently as mid-October, one of the greatest attacking teams in league history.
Ok, yeah. They're still pretty good. But they'll need to be elite to break through from the run of play against LA, who've yet to allow a playoff goal, and one way to do that is to drop Obafemi Martins deeper and get runners up the line early, a look Seattle have just about abandoned lately:
Oba hasn't gotten on the ball in this area much – at all, really – because he's been too busy trying to push the opposing backline deep, and because his team's wingers have been too busy staying deep themselves in a (largely effective) preemptive stab at shutting down opposing counters.
It's been cagey. Pretty much the exact opposite of what we saw in the Eastern Conference Championship.
With Lamar Neagle back, and Alonso expected to be ready to go (Sigi Schmid's not saying anything, but Ozzie has reportedly gone close to full-out in training), Seattle have both more speed on the wing and more coverage in central midfield to bottle up any LA counters should Neagle get caught out. If they both start, it'll be a much more attacking Sounders team than the one we've seen the last three weeks.
They can go forward. Not recklessly, and not really for the full 90 minutes, but Seattle have the pieces to do some of the things that got them 65 regular season goals. On Sunday, they'll need at least one.
Tactical Outlook: 4-4-2 with Neagle, at some point, getting minutes at right midfield.
X-factor: Seattle brutalized LA on set pieces in the first leg, and should have gotten at least one goal.
Interstellar Overdrive
LA were the league's best at using long strings of possession to carve out chances - and goals - during the regular season. Their preferred method of operation is to stack two players along the left flank, about 30 yards out, and two attackers along the 18, one in front of the other. When the low cross comes in, the first guy dummies it and rolls into space, while the second guy makes a simple wall pass into the roll:
This is it, man. This is how the Galaxy get goals:
The Sounders did a mostly excellent job of preventing those sorts of wing overloads in the first leg, and definitely did a job on the Galaxy's movement in the final third. Brad Evans, who started at right midfield, was a constant in passing lanes, while Azira drifted out of his central role and more into the left channel where Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane love to work.
LA countered by shifting play to the right, which led to some crazy crossing numbers from Stefan Ishizaki:
I don't expect things to be that lopsided again. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if Ishizaki – who's been close to excellent over the last 180 minutes – started this game on the bench with the more defensive-minded Baggio Husidic at right midfield instead. After all, the Galaxy don't have to go forward, since they're the ones protecting a lead. They may very well decide they want to draw Seattle up the field early in hopes of finding space in behind in transition, like this:
All but three Sounders are pulled wide to their right (LA's left) on this play, and that even happened with Keane in street clothes and Donovan as a withdrawn forward. Neither of those guys was even close to the left channel on that play, but so pronounced is LA's love of going down that side that Seattle – a well-drilled and disciplined defensive team – shaded it even when there was no reason to.
You can see the rest: because of the shading there was enough disconnect in the central defense and enough space in central midfield that a simple sideways pass and a ball over the top put LA in on goal.
That's the benefit of playing a little bit deeper and inviting Seattle forward. The risk, of course, is that you give Martins and Clint Dempsey more looks.
Tactical Outlook: slightly deeper 4-4-2 with Husidic starting at right midfield.
X-factor: If LA decide to sit deep, expect Keane to drop into more of a playmaker's role and try to spring Donovan into the gap between Yedlin and Chad Marshall.
One more reason to watch: It's the last time Donovan & Dempsey, the best in US history, will share a soccer field.
