After the Red Bulls fell short of Toronto in their home opener, they now travel to Montreal, who started their season with a win in Vancouver.
The start of the season is always an interesting time. We’re invited to see how teams have changed from last season and how the coaches have developed their game plans during the offseason.
Within this feature, we’ll break down the opposition’s game plan and highlight areas which could be key for a Red Bulls win come Saturday.
Contain Piatti
One of the Impact’s key players in their victory against Vancouver was Ignacio Piatti. The forward played as an attacking midfielder and played a role in all three goals, scoring twice and assisting Dominic Oduro.
In some ways a stereotypical South American player, Piatti displayed strong technical abilities, primarily shown in his dribbling and combinations through the Montreal attack. The dribbling in particular took center stage in his opening goal as he beat three players inside the box to open space for a finish.
The attacking midfielder was a key influence in attacks down the left side where he would frequently drift over through the left half-space. In these moments it was common to see him rotate positions with the inside-moving Harry Shipp who would then play behind Oduro.
Piatti’s dribbling ability is a vital tool in his arsenal as it allows him to maintain possession in tight spaces against defensive pressure. This poses a difficult problem for the Red Bulls’ defense as such players can negate the effects a compact defense through their ability in tight spaces. As a result, the Red Bulls may have to take special measures to restrict Piatti’s influence.
One way in which they may look to do this is through depriving him possession of the ball to begin with. Through covering Piatti, they may try to restrict the Impact’s ability to find him with a pass. If the Argentine cannot receive the ball in dangerous areas, he may find it more difficult to establish attacking rhythm.
One way in which this can be achieved is through an individual man-marking of the forward. However, due to the movements and rotation between him and Shipp, a zonal marking scheme would theoretically be better for defending him. The use of cover shadows could be important, as the likes of Felipe and McCarty would cover any passing lanes into the midfielder.
A byproduct of this would potentially be to force him into wider areas. Despite his strong dribbling ability, Piatti was much less of a threat closer to the touchline. One of the key factors in this was simply that he was further away from the goal. He only had 180’ of space to move through and could not utilize the opposite half of the pitch due to his position.
He also struggled to combine with teammates in wider areas. This is partly because there weren’t as many, as a central position generally results in a player being surrounded by more teammates as opposed to a more isolated wide position.
Exploit man-orientations
In the attack, the Red Bulls could look to take advantage of the man-marking in the Montreal midfield. Both Marco Donadel and Eric Alexander were dragged out of position in a number of scenes on Saturday to cover a man, leaving open space in behind.
Although they marked zonally, both midfielders would move out of their zones to mark a Vancouver player in an attempt to make sure they had no free players in the center. However, this was counter-intuitive, as it resulted in players being open in larger spaces behind the midfield in the position they had just left.
In the scene above, Alexander moves up to cover the Vancouver midfielder and leaves space behind to move the ball into.
Through the use of strong off-the-ball movement, Marsch’s side could look to take advantage of this facet of Montreal’s defensive system. Particularly with the inside movements of the two wingers, we may see the, “3,” of New York’s 4-2-3-1 overloading the space in behind and creating free players within Montreal’s defense.
Break the Press
With the being said, the Red Bulls’ build-up could be the most important feature of tomorrow’s clash. Against Vancouver, Montreal showed some fundamental flaws in their pressing game that could be the key to Felipe and co. dominating the ball.
During the Whitecaps’ build-up, Piatti would move up onto the same line as Oduro and Montreal would defend in a 4-4-2 shape. However, they were far too un-compact to press effectively which made it rather ineffective for long periods of the game.
The distances between the lines of players were far too big as open spaces began emerging between the forwards, midfielders and then defenders. Because of this, they lacked the necessary control over space and the press wasn’t connected enough with players being too far apart to effectively support each other.
This leaves some potential for the Red Bulls to work with, as they could potentially look to invite a Montreal press with the intention of opening up the spaces within the 4-4-2. Through circulating the ball in slightly deeper spaces during build-up, the Red Bulls could force Montreal further up and we could see the same gaps opening up.
Exploiting these spaces is something which came almost second-nature to the attack of the Red Bulls last year as their centrally-oriented front four move well between the lines.
Jesse Marsch’s team will be looking to record their first win after the loss to Toronto late-on at Red Bull Arena. Although their opponents tomorrow won their opener, they showed some flaws in their game, which gives Marsch enough food for thought coming into the clash.
