It’s been a while. I’ve been busy developing curriculum for
my club and all the things that come with my new position as director of
coaching for the summer rec season. But, I’ve found some time this week to look
at the tactics of one game: Seattle vs. Dallas.
Seattle’s speed beats
Dallas’ too-high line
Dallas didn’t play the highest line that I’ve seen against
Seattle, but it was high enough for Seattle’s forwards to get in behind. Given
the speed of both Eddie Johnson and Obafemi Martins, you’d think Schellas
Hyndman would know not to give Seattle the opportunity to let them try to
collect a ball running at pace at goal. There have been several other times a
team has played a high line against the Sounders and Seattle has simply
demolished it (most notably against Toronto in 2012). Seattle didn’t abuse the
high line of Dallas, just used it often enough to mix up the method of attack.
Seattle’s second goal, by Eddie Johnson, was a perfect
example of a-step-too-slow Dallas backline getting caught too far up field with
their defensive midfielders sitting too deep and essentially right on top of
the backline. First, there was a routine turnover and distribution to a central
midfielder – nothing unusual at all. What happened from here was two key
things. First, Dallas’ midfielders drop off the ball and leave Brad Evans
completely in control of the situation. Ferreira does absolutely nothing but
lazily jog and Jacobson drops deep when he should step up and force Evans to do
something – anything – so he can’t pick his pass. At the time of the turnover,
Watson was practically playing as a center-back for some reason unknown to me
and was too far away from Evans to apply pressure.
Second, Eddie Johnson shows Brad Evans which run he’s going
to make by positioning his body sideways to signal for a through-ball. EJ’s
body positioning as soon as the ball is passed to Evans is something subtle
that most people will miss as a key component to the speed of Evans’ decision.
Evans’ drops a perfectly weighted ball over the top so EJ could get there and
force Fernandez to make a decision to risk coming out or hope to make a save.
He chooses to hold on his six (probably the wrong choice as he had a chance to beat EJ to the ball) and EJ slots it home.
Seattle’s fluid
movement in attack
The problems for Dallas’ defensive midfield pairing weren’t just
on EJ’s goal. The movement of Seattle’s attacking five (at times attacking
eight) gave Dallas fits all night. Lamar Neagle and Mauro Rosales both tucked
far inside throughout the night, especially when the ball was wide on the other
side of the field. Martins and Johnson were both dropping deep at times to
collect the ball. Brad Evans and occasionally Osvaldo Alonso were making runs
through the middle. All of this resulted in Seattle actually having more
players in the area of the field where Dallas’s two holding mids sat and zero
Sounders players originally lined up in the 4-4-2 empty-bucket that Seattle
plays. The movement between all of those players was absolutely brilliant and
the understanding of positioning was surprisingly good considering how few
minutes they have all played together.
Not only were Seattle creating and exploiting space through
the middle of the field by virtue of players moving out of their lineup
position, but they were also creating space on the wings by doing so. This
meant both Yedlin and Gonzalez were able to push up into the attack with acres
of space ahead of them. This was probably Gonzalez’s most-attacking game and
Yedlin’s least-attacking game so far this season. I’m not sure if it was Sigi
or Yedlin that recognized it, but Castillo got the better of Yedlin a couple
times early. After that, it seemed like Yedlin was more reluctant to get
forward than usual.
Ferreira unable to impact
the game
It’s no secret that Dallas’s offense tends to play only as
well as Ferreira plays. And Ferraira just didn’t have an impact on this game.
Osvaldo Alonso and Brad Evans were able to successfully keep Ferreira under
control and deny him the time and space to operate as efficiently as he
normally does. In fact, Ferreira’s heat map shows very few touches in the
attacking half and in the middle of the field. (For more information about this
phenomenon, check out Matt Doyle’s between the lines series about playmakers).
The majority of his touches were on the left as the closest thing Dallas found
to success was combination between Castillo and Ferreira. Ferreira had 12
unsuccessful passes and was tackled and lost the ball 14 times. Both of those
stats are much higher than normal for Ferreira. Seattle effectively broke up
Ferreira’s rhythm and didn’t allow Dallas to hold possession. This presented a
problem because Dallas’ wingers were forced to play some defense as Seattle’s attack
and movement was very positive with the Sounders’ outside backs getting forward
often.
Ianni frees up Traore
Admittedly, this one is far more my own opinion than all the
other stuff I wrote so far. Patrick Ianni is the best center-back partner for
Djimi Traore. Djimi is a bit of a flair defender (is that even a thing outside
of Brazil?) and likes to roam a bit outside of the center of the defensive
line. Other partners in the past haven’t had the skill-set and positional sense
to set Traore free. Hurtado is also a roaming center-back and the two of them
together often just found themselves out of position. Scott holds his position
a bit more, but he isn’t nearly as good as Ianni at defending while running
back toward his own goal. Ianni is good at picking the correct angle of
approach and is a solid last-ditch tackler.
In this particular game with Gonzalez getting forward so
often, Traore had to shift left to cover some attacks coming down the left
side. Ianni was capable of marking Perez in the middle while still providing
proper covering positions for Traore’s forays wide.
Dallas’ half-time sub
Hyndman realized his side was struggling and that something
had to change tactically. He decided to take of Watson, who just didn’t know
how to work with either the centerbacks or with Jacobson, and bring on Mauro
Diaz. Diaz played much further up the field and allowed for Ferreira and Perez
to have an additional body to pass to in the attack, something they were sorely
missing in the first half. However, this also solidified the defense a bit more
as Jacobson now had full responsibility of patrolling the midfield. He couldn’t
rely on someone else and just applied the pressure in his area when it needed
to be applied (unlike what happened on EJ’s goal). Seattle didn’t mount much
threat in the second half, but that is partially attributable to Sigi slowly
deciding to drop off a bit and protect the lead.
Conclusion
Seattle’s speed up top is going to punish high defensive
lines unless the defense is playing a high-pressure system designed to
eliminate time to make good, quick passes forward. Watson and Jacobson simply
had no idea how to deal with Seattle’s off-ball movement and will continue to
struggle against teams like Portland and RSL with lots of moving parts. Where
the heck is Clint Dempsey going to fit into a Seattle attack that seems to
finally have an understanding of each other?
