Armchair Analyst: TFC's shape looks good because of Bradley's No. 6 role

Matthew Doyle

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Over a quarter of the 2016 regular season is in the books. I've been putting this moment off for a long, long time, but after two months, I'm finally ready to start picking some non-home team wins.

First, though, a breakdown of where we are. Home teams went unbeaten last weekend at 5-0-5, following three draws midweek. That puts them at 45 wins in 87 outings so far this year, or 51.7% -- right in line with historical averages. Only a fool would deviate from the "pick all home teams!" plan.

Yet here I am. My picks for the weekend:

Orlando City defeat RBNY
Portland travel up to Vancouver and win
Toronto top FC Dallas
Columbus best Montreal
Houston beat Sporting
Colorado top RSL in a rivalry match
Seattle dispatch San Jose
LA make it look easy against the Revs
D.C. United beat NYCFC

So, all home team wins except for one: Portland's trip to Vancouver on Saturday (5 pm ET; TSN1 in Canada; MLS LIVE in the US). I just think the Timbers have become too effective at punishing bad turnovers, which is what the 'Caps' springtime of discontent is built upon.

And a quick word about the Red Bulls, as they travel to Orlando City on Friday night (7 pm ET; UniMas): The video preview above is mostly focused on Cyle Larin, but Carlos Rivas is actually the man to watch. He gave RBNY fits last year, and the aggressive, overlapping fullbacks Jesse Marsch employs can leave acres of space for a speedy winger to counterattack into.

I expect OCSC to do good things on the break.

UPDATE: Rivas didn't come off the bench and Larin played the role of helper once again, setting up Kevin Molino's equalizer in a chippy 1-1 draw.

Now for the rest of the slate:

Everything In Its Right Place

Greg Vanney's had to work with a mix-and-match, erector-set roster over his nearly two years in charge with Toronto FC. As did the manager before him, and the manager before him, and the manager before him, etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Things have finally changed. The stability afforded by the front office since summer of 2014 has led to a methodical retool of everything Red, and a roster that's balanced, functional and dynamic (though still not necessarily as deep as it could be). And that has allowed for Vanney to play, over the past few weeks, what looks to me like this team's best look: a 4-3-1-2 that revolves around Michael Bradley's ability to protect the backline; two tireless shuttlers in Will Johnson and Marky Delgado; and Jozy Altidore's ability to play off of the all-around brilliance of Sebastian Giovinco.

This is the network passing graph from last week's 2-1 loss at Portland, a game that the Reds probably should have won:

It's made using data collected by Opta. The location of the circles represents each player's aggregate spot on the field, while the thickness of the lines connecting them represents the number of passes they strung back and forth. As you can see, it was quite a few.

The one thing that probably shocks folks is that Giovinco (#10) is pushed higher up the field than Altidore (#17). This isn't to say that Altidore is deployed as some sort of midfielder in this set-up; rather that by compressing -- coming back to the play with his back to the goal, and receiving a pass -- he forces the defense to react to his movement, which in turn frees up Giovinco to play off the shoulder or flare out to the wings.

FC Dallas, who are in town on Saturday night to help open the newly renovated BMO Field (7:30 pm ET; TSN4 in Canada | MLS LIVE in the US) have to do a better job of dealing with that sort of trickery than they've shown lately. Their struggle without captain Matt Hedges has been all too real.

I'll also be watching: What's Fabian Castillo going to do when he gets into the final third? He's found a lot of touches so far, but hasn't turned them into chances.

No Surprises

Have you been watching the LA Galaxy lately? Because they've been putting on quite a show, and -- as with Toronto FC -- it's largely come from finding the right homes for various personnel, rather than some sort of overhaul of tactical approach. This is a good example of why I think formations matter. They're not a substitution for tactical thought and application, but they are the general platform upon which your tactics are presented, and if you get the platform wrong you're probably gonna have a bad time.

Bruce Arena, when he moved Gyasi Zardes up top as a pure No. 9 and switched the look to a 4-2-3-1, got the platform right. Zardes is on fire, as is Giovani Dos Santos; Ema Boateng was the Player of the Week a couple of weeks back; Mike Magee's doing Mike Magee things; and Sebastian Lletget had a very good 60 minutes coming back from a slight injury last week.

The idea of the 4-2-3-1 is to have Zardes occupy central defenders who, earlier in the season, had been free to sneak up the field and crowd the half-spaces where Dos Santos and Robbie Keane (still out injured) love to work.

Watch how Zardes drags the Houston central defense just far enough away from Dos Santos on this goal from last month:

Who's shocked that a team with this much talent and Bruce Arena as head coach ended up figuring it out? No surprises here.

The Revs will have to bear that in mind when they head to the Stubhub Center on Sunday (3:30 pm ET; ESPN).

I'll also be watching: Juan Agudelo's movement in the final third. He was amazing for his 20-minute cameo last week, as aggressive and incisive as I've ever seen him. If he plays like that off the ball, he'll be one of the two or three best forwards in the league.

That is a gigantic "if," of course. And the same one that's been attached to Agudelo since he burst onto the scene in 2010 with the Red Bulls.

I Might Be Wrong

I am so, so tempted to pick NYCFC for a win on Sunday at RFK against D.C. United (7:30 pm ET; FS1), mostly because this is the kind of wild result that MLS is so good at churning up. But partially because NYCFC have shown some signs of being a real team in recent weeks, and can do some damn good work when given space in the midfield.

This is one of my favorite goals of the year, by anyone:

Ten of the 11 Pigeons got a touch, and the only one who didn't was David Villa (!!!). It was just a beautifully worked goal, and my guess is it's emblematic of the kind of game Patrick Vieira wants his team to play.

Can they play it on the road, though? And against a D.C. team that's conceded just three times in their last five games?

Honestly, NYCFC will probably have to. They've already dropped so many home points that there's no room for error anymore when an opportunity presents itself.

I'll also be watching: In order to play that sort of free-flowing soccer you see above, NYCFC have to push their fullbacks up into the attack. That is dangerous against any team, but especially against this United team with Patrick Nyarko in such good form and Fabian Espindola so able to drift out to the flanks and create.

One more thing: