Despite having somewhat of a disastrous start to the season, which seems them 3rd from bottom in the Eastern Conference, the Union picked up just their second win of the season against DC United last weekend. This came following a streak of 5 games in which they attained only 1 point, since their other win which came against a certain New York City FC.
Albeit they emerged victorious against DC, the Union were only marginally better in a game which lacked quality in both technical and tactical aspects. The key factor in the match in fact, was DC’s inability to exploit certain issues in the opposition’s game.
A Lack of Pressing Resistance
One of these features was their pressing resistance, or more lack of it. Pressing resistance can come in the form of individual players (through abilities such as dribbling and close control) or as a team (through aspects such as combination play and overloads) yet Union displayed neither.
Perhaps the most important part of their lack of pressing resistance was the positional support for the ball-carrier. In early possession, the player on the ball had few teammates in close support who could offer for a pass to relieve the pressure. Consequently, DC could close the ball-carrier down easily and he didn’t have any options to move the ball out through.
Especially in the first half, DC caused issues and made numerous regains in the centre of the pitch through their narrow shape, which allowed them to overload the midfield and enforce good pressure on the ball. As they lacked the ability to suppress any pressing attempts Union had little reply to the high pressure, especially in the centre of the pitch.
As you can see in the above scene, DC’s narrow shape allowed a 5v3 overload to occur, eventually resulting in a turnover and consequential counter-attack from the pressure. DC had issues in capitalising on such situations however as they failed to gain momentum in counter-attacks, though this problem was of their own accord and little of Union’s doing.
Exploiting Man-Marking
Another feature of Union’s game showed in their defensive organisation – that both wingers have a strict man-marking role on the respective opposition full-backs. Although this could be perceived as quite an isolated aspect of their collective defending the consequences, if exploited effectively, are much more widespread and can result in key issues in the midfield.
Because the wingers are marking the full-backs so tightly, multiple measures can be taken to manipulate their positioning and disrupt the balance of the overall defensive shape.
One possible route would be to force them into a back 5, or potentially even a 6-man defensive line. This would be achievable through the high positioning of the full-backs, forcing the wingers deep to close by their teammates in full-back. Through doing so, Union’s midfield control would be weakened significantly and would be open to exploitation.
A similar situation occurred in the DC game as shown above, yet the poor positioning of the highlighted players meant that it was impossible for DC to take advantage.
An alternative option would be to simply stretch the midfield as wide as possible through positioning both full-backs on their touchlines. This would achieve the same goal in opening up the centre of midfield.
Again DC did this, probably unintentionally, in last week’s game yet they failed to exploit again largely down to poor positional play in the centre.
Although DC didn’t manage to take advantage of this feature, RBNY may find better success in doing so. In Marsch’s 4-2-3-1, the full-backs take on advanced positions which allows the two wide players in the ‘3’ to come inside, into the half-spaces (between the wing and the centre). From stretching the Union midfield, or forcing a 5/6 man defensive line, the likes of Lloyd Sam could prosper from such a position.
DC Fail to Exploit
As I have touched on above, a feature of their loss to Union was DC United’s inability to take advantage over some key defensive weaknesses from the opposition.
One maladaptive feature of their attacking strategy was their focus on wing-play. Because DC were so oriented on playing through the wide areas of the pitch, they rarely had an opportunity to take advantage of the centre, where Union were at their weakest.
Lacking Defensive Access in the Press
Although they attempted to press throughout the game, at times Union suffered due to a lack of defensive access. By this, I mean that there were some situations where Philadelphia weren’t in a position to press effectively with any chance of winning the ball, usually because of some intelligent positioning from the DC ball-carrier.
This often happened in deep midfield during early possession where the DC central midfielders dropped slightly to receive the ball from the centre-backs. In these moments they often had copious time on the ball as Union were in a poor shape to press, so if they had have done then they would likely have been easily passed through.
Perhaps mainly, this occurred in the deep half-spaces – where no Union player really looked to press as their organisation seemed rather uncoordinated, such as in the shot below.
As a result, the DC midfielder had enough time to pick out a good pass and progress the ball upfield.
Felipe and McCarty may relish this opportunity, as if they position themselves accordingly then they may have the time to maximise their strong passing abilities.
The Front Two
One thing which the RBNY defence will have to look out for is the movements of both Casey and Maidana. The striker often makes movements to wide positions, especially towards the right half-space. From here he would then support the wide attacks whilst attempt to drag a central defending player out of position.
In reaction, Maidana would then move up and occupy the role of striker. He didn’t impact the game much from this position but potentially could indirectly combine with his teammate in attack should Casey succeed in dragging his defender away.
The Game
For this afternoon’s game, the pressing of Marsch’s team could be key, as Philadelphia may well be more susceptible to the pressure than the average team. The way RBNY set up in possession could be interesting, as they could use their shape to exploit the orientation of the Union wingers in defence as I discussed earlier. Should they do such a thing, we could well see the likes of Lloyd Sam wreaking havoc from his position on the right.
Tom Payne is an analyst and writer for Spielverlagerung.com (@spielvercom) - a football tactics website focusing on match and team analysis. You can follow him on Twitter at @tompayneftbl.
