There’s a reason why the MLS schedulers chose to pick this
game as the follow-up to the World Cup final. It is one of the top rivalries in
the league with two teams who were tipped as title challengers in pre-season.
This one lived up to expectations: plenty of quality attacking play, the usual
good atmosphere, and some great tactical battles.
The first half was a story about two teams who were very
well prepared defensively to stifle how their opponents prefer to attack. The
first half was described as “slow” by some. It was certainly slower than the
second half, but I think a lot of that was down to a combination of being
accustomed to the World Cup’s pace and also the defensive tactics employed by
each coach.
Seattle’s defense
Seattle’s key defensive point was how narrow the wide
midfielders played when Portland established possession. They simply cut off
passing lanes. Portland likes to combine through the middle and Seattle’s plan
was to force them to beat them 1v1 out wide. Zakuani was able to find a couple
moments to cut inside with the ball, particularly when Neagle was first
arriving as supporting defender, but ultimately only forced one save from Frei.
Portland was able to find Nagbe or Valeri in between the
lines on occasion, but they were immediately closed down. Nagbe never had the
opportunity to run with the ball to find the vein of success he had in the last
MLS match between the two sides. Interestingly, it seemed like Anibaba was
playing to protect width on defense and force Nagbe and Valeri back into
supporting defenders of Scott, Pineda, and Alonso.
Portland’s defense
Portland’s key defensive tactic was how they chose to mark
Pappa and Neagle out wide. When Seattle had established possession, the outside
backs would push high to mark Seattle’s wide players. As a result, Pappa
started to drift more and more centrally to collect the ball while Neagle
simply pushed high into the forward line when Seattle were in possession.
Typical behavior of both.
This differed from how Portland dealt with them in
transition. The wingers drifted out wide and attempted to cut off the passing
lanes and deny them service. That left Jewsbury and Johnson the task of marking
Dempsey as he dropped off the line to collect the ball in transition, which
they did adequately.
Martins comes into
the game
The first half’s key tactics were all about gumming up the
works for their opponent’s attack, the second half was all about Obafemi
Martins. He made a lot of the same movements as Chad Barrett, but has
additional technical ability to keep the ball where Barrett coughed it up. He
ran into the channels. He dropped off the center backs when Jewsbury and
Johnson were occupied with Deuce. His relative ability over Barrett was clearly
on display with his clean touches, holding off defenders, then combining with
the other attackers.
Seattle diversifies
attacking space in second half
The following two images are the combined passing chalkboards for Dempsey and Pineda in
the first half, then the second half. (Note: The general trend holds if you look at all of Seattle's attackers combined, but this image is just cleaner to make the point). Pretty obvious that Seattle’s plan in the
first half was to try to go at Villafana and McKenzie. That all changed in the
second half when Neagle and Pappa switched sides and continued in their usual
mold of Pappa drifting in and Neagle staying higher and wider. This allowed
Seattle to have width on both sides of the field with Neagle out left and
Yedlin out right. As a result, Dempsey and Pineda both started finding space to collect the ball on the left high in the midfield.
This also caused the space for Portland’s wingbacks to
switch from one side to the other. Marco Pappa isn’t exactly known for his
defensive prowess (especially in transition) and Portland’s outside backs were
clearly given the instruction to get forward if he was on their side. This is how
Portland found width on the left in the second half.
The Will Johnson
Problem
He’s been getting a lot of hate from my friends who are
Timbers fans, so I was paying particular attention to him in this game. He’s
moving fast instead of playing fast. He’s always in such a damn hurry to do
everything that his touches and passing precision are letting him down. And if
that wasn’t enough, he’s destroying Portland’s defensive shape. There were
several times in the second half in particular where he didn’t recognize that
his team shifted out of the “we’re in transition so pressure the ball” mode and
he continued to step out of position to go pressure a ball and left gaps for
the likes of Dempsey, Martins, and Pappa to exploit. The Timbers’ captain is
clearly feeling the pressure of sitting out of the playoff places and he’s
making mistakes trying to force things that aren’t on.
Conclusion
Seattle’s offensive rotations are the most interesting,
intricate, and fluid of any MLS team that I can remember… when everyone is on
the field together. If they can stay healthy, there is surely at least one
trophy that will end up in Seattle. Portland, on the other hand, are making
mistakes they don’t need to be making. They have the talent to still snag a
playoff spot, especially if Ridgewell can help sort out the defensive
positioning of everyone else.