There is a persistent fiction about LA Galaxy head coach Bruce Arena, one that's been around at least since his first spin at the head of the US national team.
Bruce, the kids say, is married to the 4-4-2. He is king of the 1-0 result, a cautious and dour master of futebol de resultados at the expense of pretty much anything resembling aesthetic achievement. He is regressive, reactionary and refuses to experiment. "BunkerBall" is a pejorative that many in US soccer fandom instead call "BruceBall."
I've never, ever understood that. Arena's carved a path over the last four decades based upon tactical flexibility and talent identification, not some rigid, dogmatic approach to formation. The fact that he's tended to drift toward the 4-4-2 more often than not can be traced to two underlying tenets of the game, which I consider to be Coaching 101:
- "Banks of Four" gives you the best defensive coverage
- Build around the strengths of your best weapons
The beauty of "Banks of Four" is the fact that those banks create in-line partnerships at almost every zone of the field. If the goal is to trap the opposition against the sideline, the wide midfielder will apply pressure, the fullback on that side positions himself to cut out the immediate forward pass and the central midfield and central defense both slide over, a simple lateral move.
Depending upon who's closest to the play and the coach's overall mandate – "force a bad, hopeful pass toward Omar" is the usual method these days, though occasionally we'll see "Marcelo, be the second man in and win the ball at the stripe" – the rest of the team's movement unfolds naturally.
It's simple and effective, and oh by the way, every World Cup winner since 1994 has played some variation on Banks of Four at points during their run. Even Germany this past summer, when out of possession and not pressing, would snap back to the tried-and-true.
It's a little harder to describe Arena's teams in attack, and that's because not all 4-4-2s are created equal. This year's Galaxy team were among the league leaders in possession and passing accuracy and blew the rest of the league away in virtually every chance-creation statistic:
Those numbers are vastly different than what we saw in 2011 from the Galaxy team that won the Supporters' Shield/MLS Cup double:
The big difference? The 2011 Galaxy team was built, in large part, around David Beckham's ability to hit field-opening long-balls (please watch this freaking pass). Juninho's facility for the same made it a simple choice for Arena to have that team sit deeper, absorb a bit more pressure and then get out on the run. It was also a choice based upon the physical reality that Beckham couldn't push high up into attack with regularity and 1) be as effective as needed close to goal or 2) recover defensively.
So that team was built to highlight Beckham's strengths and limit his weaknesses.
Fast forward to this Galaxy team, which is similar along the backline, still has Robbie Keane and Landon Donovan in attack, and still has Juninho at d-mid. Where do they operate?
Right here:
That's Marcelo Sarvas – Beckham's replacement – operating in and around the 18 and getting himself a goal. The strength of this team is the clever passing and movement of Keane, Donovan, Sarvas and Gyasi Zardes, and thus, that's what Arena has chosen as his group's tactical identity.
So it's still a "4-4-2," but it's a very different one.
This type of flexibility and understanding of your roster is how you stay in coaching for 40 years. Arena's won with the diamond (his old D.C. United teams), he's won with the 3-5-2 (vs. Mexico in the 2002 World Cup), he's won with the 4-4-2. In the end, the numbers don't matter all that much.
What does is the guiding principle that is "give your best players their best chance to succeed, and let them drag the team along with them."
That's BruceBall.
