Tactics Revisited .. just because

Back in the day, my high school coach employed a 2-3-5 formation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_(association_football)

 

It might be a little rigid, but it got a league leading 66 points. It actually worked particularly well against Salt Lake, which is somewhat counter to what one might expect. Of course, that isn't to say it's perfect, by any means. We saw a few shifts to the diamond midfield, which weren't so successful, but variety and the ability to change up the basic midfield structure is going to be very important going forward.

There were a few games where the go ahead game plan was not good enough as the opposition just clogged up the middle, and didn't allow any space for the forwards. The relative lack of attacking threat from the outside midfielders means that the Quakes had to overwhelmingly rely on their forwards to score goals. I think the most important thing going forward is to get Salinas and Chavez (or anyone playing wide midfield) to shoot more from outside and force the defense to focus on that possibility.

 

Offensively we were almost unstoppable. Only shut out twice in 34 games.

 

this is the kind of stupid trendy article that got TFC to think they could revolutionize MLS with sexy 4-3-3 soccer and hire Aron Winter.

No thanks.

full of stupid misinformation as well.

dying out? then how did we just find Rafael Baca, who is a classic box to box mid, straight out of some no-name D1 ncaa soccer program? I thought those players don't exist anymore?

think that's just an MLS example? what about Newcastle United and French international Yohan Cabaye? Where did he come from?

what about Michael Bradley over at Roma?

this is one of the dumbest articles I have ever read. the number 8 box to box CM is alive and well, as is the 4-4-2, thank you very much.

 

Great thread! Let's try to keep it going all season.

In my view, which might be completely bogus, Frank is always going to play a 4-4-2, whether I like it or not. Also, we are built to play a 4-4-2, and any wild variations from that will not be very successful, because we don't have the personnel for it, and we don't practice those formations. That said ...

In our 4-4-2, we attack up the wings and cross into the center for the target forwards. Once in a while, we use longball (too much of this late in the season), and once in a while, Simon or Chavez cut inside and either shoot or pass into the mixer. We suffer from a lack of long-range shooting. (I liked Khari's long-range shooting, but that was a season where we mostly played long-ball, and we sucked.)

I'd like to see us practice a either a 3-5-2 or a 3-4-3 (which we actually played a little, so we must have practiced it too), better yet, both.

In a 3-4-3, we assume that we are behind and need to score. So we pull a defender for another striker. This should give us more targets up front, but it's still important to work the ball forward on the ground. Presumably the other team are in some state of bunker or other. This enables our speedy outside backs to get forward and make crosses, as well as our outside middies. The risk here is getting nailed on a fast break, or getting the center of the pitch totally clogged (probably by the enemy).

I see the 3-5-2 as either a starting formation, against a team that has a good midfield, or as an adjustment against a team that are bunkering from the get. (Perhaps because they took an early red card, or because they scored early and are just cowardly wankers.) In this plan (your 3-5-2 may be different), we use two defensive mids to win possession higher up the pitch, and we have three mids focused on attacking, plus the two forwards. The risk here is that the center of the pitch gets clogged and the game becomes really fugly with lots of long balls from both teams.

GO QUAKES!!
F#$% el-lay!!

- Mark

 

Are you suggesting that you played in the 1880's or '90's? Or that your coach was hopelessly antiquated. (My high school coach thought that 4-3-3 meant four forwards and only three defenders. He also mostly had us try to play in straight lines across the pitch. Really sad.)

GO QUAKES!!

- Mark

 

I'm old, but not so old as Goodsport feels. I played high school soccer in the late 1970s.

My coach, so he ruefully and repeatedly told us, came into high school soccer because a leg injury ruined his career as a major league baseball player. The circuitousness of that journey was never fully disclosed, but it is conceivable that his soccer coaching manual was decades out of date. Our heavy knit uniforms more suited to rugby were certainly quite old; we were not allowed to keep them as they were recycled for subsequent teams and plainly had been for many years by the time mine was handed down to me.

The irony is that we were a perennial power and in my day champions of our league (the NFL -- for Niagara Frontier League), and our star striker went on to play professionally in the dark years between the NASL and MLS. I, on the other hand, warmed the bench, which was further indication that, notwithstanding his preferred formation, the coach had at least some soccer savvy.

 

Wow! This makes me feel like I was involved in a privileged high school program (Monta Vista) where I was coached by San Francisco Don graduated players all four years. (of course attending assorted soccer camps with Quakes players like Paul Child, the Demling bros, Davy Kemp, Julie Vee, Manny Hernadez and others didn't hurt either.)

 

I really don't think the 442 has to be so rigid as it is often looked on. It should be able to change into a 4-4-1-1, a 6-4-0, a 3-5-2 as we have seen (for example Beitashour going forward and defenders changing position to cover).

Frank will still do a 4-4-2, I'm sure, but the players should be able to deal with things like a withdrawn forward. I think Frank's tactics against LA were decent in terms of dealing with their type of play.

Back in high school, the field we played on was partly baseball infield. We generally just avoided that area. It was a tiny school and we had to recruit non-soccer players sometimes just to get a full team, and play against some teams that rank at the top statewide.
I just applied to a coaching job too...

 

I like the idea of a 3-5-2 but have a question. Is the CD expected to stay further back to protect against the counter attack than he otherwise would? I love Bernardez, but his speed is average at best and it would seem that with fewer numbers back you need speed to make up the difference and quickly close down on the attacker with the ball.

 

The flipside of this is that the Quakes only had a couple of shutouts as well. Emphasis on attack can lead to holes in the defense. LA exploited them ruthlessly, too. While the team was much improved from the year before, they still aren't nearly as stingy as a team like Kansas City. It's a hard thing to balance. I think that's where the diamond formation could possible help, putting an extra man between the opponent's offense and the Quakes defense. I love the side by side going forward but there's a reason you create triangles on the field instead of just straight lines.

I'm curious to see if Yallop will change anything in terms of how the team defends as a whole. At their best, the midfielders swarmed after the ball so that the other team couldn't make a pass forward. At their worst they were caught flat footed and the gap from offense to defense was exploited heavily.

 

Oh c'mon. Anybody who's ever played knows that the starting alignment only lasts until the whistle for the kickoff...

 

For me, the idea that we can morph the guy on the pitch into some other formation is OK, but not optimal. I'm a big Beta fan, but what I want for a 3-5-2 is this:

- - - - - - - Lenny
- - - - - - - - - - - - - Wondo
Shea - - Dawkins - - Chavez
- - - - Baca - - - - - Cronin
Morrow - - Victor - - - Beta
- - - - - - TheBusch


And this answers mangerson 's question also. Yes, the defenders, all three of them have to stay home more. So we'd get less attacking out of Morrow and Beta, but Shea, Simon, and Chavez would all be attacking most of the time. This means that Baca and Croninja both play as d-mids and work the transition to offense, but mostly, they don't get too far forward into the attack. Also, JM and Beta's speed is there to help compensate for Victor's lack of pace. Usually, the outside defenders pinch in a little in this formation. You don't want to allow too much space in the back.

At least, this is my view of a 3-5-2, and it might be a bit antiquated.

I big part of our problems in the playoffs were that we were tired. Baca in particular was just not as energetic, less willing to tackle, less willing to get forward and cover lots of ground. He was just much more conservative, and a bit slower at the end of the season and in the playoffs. If we had played the playoffs the way we did in the beginning of the season, we'd have crushed the filth. I Baca just ran out of gas. Then Cronin tried to compensate for that, and we got caught out with Sam too far forward (and Baca not doing a good enough job on defense).

don gagliardi, cool story. My highschool soccer days were mid 70's, and we had a few girls on the team, because there wasn't a girl's soccer team.

GO QUAKES!!!
F#$% el-lay!!

- Mark

 

Personally, I would prefer that the Quakes continue to utilize defenders into the attack whenever possible. If you spell out who gets attacking duties and who gets defensive duties, it makes you pretty easy to defend against. If the other team knows that only the forwards and outside mids are going to attack, you only have to worry about four or five guys on the field.

My hope is that the defense becomes more dynamic in its getting forward. It will mean a huge commitment from the offensive players to fill in and defend, but being able to spring an attack from basically any position is a huge asset, and few teams in MLS, from what I could see this year, have that going for them.

 

I think this is the key. The team made a commitment to get back to pressing in defense and attacking with numbers. This kept teams on their heels which helped our defense. I think the only challenge is making sure that the team has depth and a certain level of fitness. Otherwise, it would be difficult to continue this strategy throughtout a full season.

I do agreed with the season comment in the original post that the team would struggle with Keane or other forwards who would check back into the upper midfield and later make runs into the defense. The team seemed more committed to keeping shape in defense rather than closing gaps. Frankly, this is a weakness of Jason and Opara (altough Opara is somewhat justified with his experience level)...

 

The center backs don't get a whole lot of protection in Frank's 4-4-2, either. It's wonderful for the team when they've got the ball, but not so great when they don't, especially when players are tired. There's going to have to be some kind of shift that takes place when they can't get their offense going that I don't think the team was doing all that well this year. It would be great if they could just switch back and forth between two schemes (one all out attack, one based in defending and collecting the ball), but the reality of a fluid game like soccer make that great to talk about in theory but hard to translate into reality on the field.

I think we'll see some more diamond midfield experiments in the future, and it might be when Baca isn't playing, if the Quakes end up adding a central midfielder to their roster.

 

I liked that the team tried a diamond defense (with some success) last year. It give them more options to match up against teams like RSL who flood the middle of the field with players.

I agree that the central defenders are more exposed with a 4-4-2. While Cronin had a good season, he had trouble at times showing for the ball to maintain posession while maintaining space in front of the CBs.

 

That's exactly it. There is just so much space between the midfield and the defense when they've been on the attack that if the Quakes lose possession in the midfield, it's open field for the other team to make runs into. Continued work on fitness and making timely subs is going to go a long way to keep the whole team defending, which I think worked best. But a more systematic defensive shape might help save on effort, as well.

 

You can have the best tactical approach in the world and still fall flat on your face if your execution has been poor. Our execution has been poor this year. The why of that is an important question, but the tactics were shown to be sound last year.

Watson has been given the rest of the year to basically try to salvage the thinking that governed the Frank Yallop era. If he fails, then we will see a new approach brought in. It may be similar tactics with different personnel, different tactics with similar personnel, or something altogether different. I actually think the team is actually boring to talk about right now. Lets see how Watson does trying to get the team to start executing along the old plan, and evaluate at the end of the season.

 

Um, no. Try this:

- - - - - Lenny
- - - - - - - - - - - Wondo
Shea - - Mehdi - - Chavez
- - - - Baca - - Cronin
- - JM - - Muma - - Beita
- - - - - The Busch

In a 3-5-2, your outside mids are UP, they are part of the attacking part of your team, not way back where you have them in your formation. You have two d-mids, in this case, Baca and Cronin. They cover a lot of ground and try to slow down or kill enemy attacks before they get to the defenders. This is not to say that the wide mids have no defensive responsibilities, just less than they do in a standard 4-4-2.

And we don't really have an attacking central mid, so Mehdi or Martinez would have to fill that role, and I don't think either of them would up to the task. Oh well, it's way too late to be thinking about this now. We're well and truly screwed and none of this will change significantly until we get a new coach.

go quakes!

- Mark

 

So, can Attakora play an outside back? I'm still of the mindset that MAYBE Goodson will be a replacement for Muma (whose play is down from last season). If Beita does try Europe (perhaps less likely now) and if we find no viable reinforcements in the off-season, then a 3-5-2 could be in the cards, just because of the lack of depth across the back (Jason will have to take a paycut to resign, assuming his contract is up). OTH, Gargan could be a viable, not great, RB and Attakora provides depth at CB. Or course, that assumes we solve the lack of depth in the central mid-field.

I won't hold my breath on that.