This is the matchup I always look forward to most in the league. Both teams try to play attacking soccer and neither team is overly physical (except against Morales in this one). It often brings out some high quality games from both teams on both sides of the ball. There’s plenty of talent on both teams and solid role-players to complement their teammates. Unfortunately, Saborio was out and Dempsey and EJ were on the bench after returning from their national-team triumph.
Final score: Seattle 2 - RSL 0
Seattle’s forwards
check deep to receive the ball and beat RSL’s pressure
The big story of the first half was Obafemi Martins and
Lamar Neagle both checking back into the midfield to receive the ball from
Seattle’s defensive third. Beckerman wasn’t able to cut off the angles to both
forwards and the center backs for RSL could only hope to keep Seattle’s
forwards facing their own goal.
This allowed Seattle to completely bypass half of RSL’s team
and put them ahead of the ball on defense with a single pass – not a good thing
for a defense. Seattle then sent their wide men streaming forward to exploit
the space left by RSL’s wide midfielders would pinch in to pressure the ball.
Seattle’s second goal
is a perfect example of these points where Seattle’s forwards check back, RSL’s
midfielder pinches in, and Seattle exploits the space on the wing.
Morales marked (and
mauled) out of the game
From the start of the game, Seattle basically played to
force someone other than Morales (and to a lesser extent, Plata) to beat them.
Osvaldo Alonso and Andy Rose took it in shifts to always make sure Morales was
pressured by two people any time the ball was played to him. Seattle’s holding
mids chased him around the field, making sure he didn’t have time to pick out
his passes. Even when he would drift wide to the side the ball was on, one, or
often both, of Seattle’s defensive midfielders would go with him. That left a
huge hole in front of Seattle’s defenders that RSL could have exploited, but
failed to send the weak side midfielder or Beckerman high enough into that
space to be dangerous.
Seattle basically dared Gil, Grabavoy, and Findley to try to
beat their defenders 1v1 as Seattle paid close attention to Plata and Morales.
RSL’s wide midfielders aren’t known for their speed or exceptional dribbling
skills to take people on, and Seattle’s outside backs were able to not only
stop them, but also win the ball and play out from the back for the vast majority
of the match.
Seattle finds easy
outlets wide
RSL’s diamond midfield tends to play very narrow. That means
there is usually some space out wide for their opponent’s midfielders to
collect the ball and start attacks. Seattle was able to immediately relieve
pressure after winning the ball by finding easy outlets to wide midfielders, in
addition to their forwards checking deep to receive the ball as highlighted
above. Having two outlets for Seattle was a problem for RSL during the first
half. Seattle was able to easily and quickly transition from defense to attack
and let Obafemi Martins welcome Carlos Salcedo to the league by losing him on
counter-attacks on multiple occasions.
RSL switch to 4-3-3
Credit to Jason Kreis for recognizing that Seattle’s success
on the wings was due in large part to their success in finding the feet of the
forwards checking back to collect the ball and cause RSL’s defense to be pulled
out of shape. He decided to switch formations to a 4-3-3 to push Grabavoy
central and help Beckerman limit the service to Neagle and Martins in between
the defensive and midfield lines. Switching from four midfielders to three was
Kreis basically saying, “fine, we’ll concede the space to your wide players to
make sure we can maintain our shape.” The tactic worked as Seattle was unable
to find Neagle and Martins as first options. Seattle were still able to utilize
their wide midfielders as outlets, but a player is far less dangerous with the
ball out there than where Seattle’s forwards were collecting the ball in the
first half. Sure, Seattle’s wide mids were able to find more time on the ball
out there following outlets from the defense, but at least RSL was able to
transition to defense and get men behind the ball – something they weren’t able
to do consistently in the first half.
A side benefit of switching to 4-3-3 was having another man
in the attack. This caused Seattle to change two things offensively. The first
is the outside backs couldn’t get forward as often or as far. RSL’s outside
backs were no longer regularly facing 2v1 or 3v2 situations. The second is Andy
Rose wasn’t able to get forward into the attack as often and provide support or
a late run into the box on counter attacks.
Conclusion
In the end, Seattle’s defenders were just individually
better than RSL’s attackers on the day and prevented RSL from digging
themselves out of the hole Seattle dug for them in the first half. Seattle’s
movement up top in the first half was the key point to this game and RSL’s
formation switch at halftime was too late, as the damage was already done.
No comments:
Post a Comment