Matt Miazga has started four games for the New York Red Bulls since returning from the Youth World Cup. RBNY have gone 3-1-0 in that time, having outscored their opposition 9-4.
And that opposition – the forwards Miazga has gone against, more than the teams themselves – has been pretty damn good. Sebastian Jaime, who's recently turned into a goal machine for RSL, was first; for NYCFC it was some guy named David Villa, who Miazga dominated for the full 90 minutes; a week later in a controversial loss against Columbus, it was current Golden Boot leader Kei Kamara; and in today's 4-1 win over the death-spiraling New England Revolution, it was Charlie Davies.
The results obviously say more than my words will. But it's important to understand that these are four very different types of forwards, each of them savvy veterans and each preferring to operate in vastly different ways.
Jaime is a false 9 who loves to pull off the front line, but still stay central. Villa is a creature of the left channel, who delights in small combination play around the box. Kamara is a bulldozer, a true target forward who will bludgeon you into submission physically, while Davies is an off-the-shoulder field-stretcher.
Miazga, who is still just 19, has thrived against that crucible, hardly putting a foot wrong. On the few occasions when he has, he's shown both top-tier athleticism and the ability to keep his cool under pressure, like so:
Obviously he takes the wrong angle at the start of the play. Just as obvious is his pace to run Davies down and prevent the breakaway.
The best part, though, is that he instantly reads Davies' intent – he wants to pull it back and let Miazga run by – and has the balance to stay on the play. Speed is an asset, but balance and agility are more important athletic traits in our game. Miazga checks all three boxes.
He's also calmer than his years suggest he should be, and simply won't be baited into an all-or-nothing slide tackle. He's already showing to be the type of cerebral defender who doesn't compound his own mistakes, which is a characteristic that translates up a level to international play.
Because the thing is, everybody makes mistakes. The best players know how to avoid making them worse.
If Miazga keeps playing like this expect to see him play a lead role in Olympic qualifying for the US this coming winter. And a full national team call-up shouldn't be far behind.
On the other side of the field in this one, Miazga got a lesson in what not to do from New England's Jose Goncalves, who was burned on the first goal and bad for the rest of the day before conceding a penalty, earning a red card, and hitting the showers early.
THISis Bradley Wright-Phillips' opener, and a quick perusal offers a million things the Revs did wrong. But it was Goncalves' mistake that allowed for all the others:
The defender's job in that situation is to get tight to the attacker who's on the ball, and keep them facing away from the goal. Ride them all the way out to the touchline if you have to.
I don't know why Goncalves allowed Sam to turn. It's Defense 101.
One last thing:
All due respect to Miazga and BWP, but Dax McCarty was the best player on the field in this one, doing a ton of what you saw above. The crucial part isn't that he closed down an attacker, won the ball and turned the field the other way with quick, precise distribution; it's that he'd already taken two steps toward said attacker before the initial pass was even played.
When coaches talk about "making the field smaller" and "being compact," stuff like this is a huge part of it. McCarty's been superb, and the Red Bulls are starting to once again look like a team that contend for the Eastern Conference crown.
