Seattle and their defense.

After reading several websites with comment sections to recaps to the Jul 25, 2013 match against Chicago and the blame Kaylyn Kyle received for the lone goal that Chicago scored. I wanted to come here and look more deeply at the problems that the Reign have had at keeping clean sheets. For one that goal scored by Jenn Hoy wasn't the fault of Kaylyn Kyle. Am I being a contrarian, maybe, but I do want to look at the tactics that the Reign employ and the backline that defend as well.

Lets look at Kaylyn Kyle and how she became the starting center back for Seattle. With Kate Deines out with injury and Jennifer Ruiz suspended due to a red card infraction. Holes in the backline were opened up. One would of expected Emily Zurrer to return to the starting line up after she was benched, but instead Kaylyn Kyle was slotted in as a center back which caught many people off guard. With Kyle holding one spot, Lauren Barnes took the other. The first few matches, I think its safe to say it was a learning experience for Kyle and Barnes since both do not play this position normally. They need to learn to communicate with not only themselves but with their keeper that will direct them.

Over the span of 10 games, Kaylyn Kyle has really become a very good center back, in fact I would go out to say she is the Reign's best defender. Kyle is mobile, technical with the ball at her feet and gets good passes off which you need if you want to build from the back for possession. And handles pressure when under duress by another player well. What I like about Kyle a lot is she can man mark a player very closely and move up and force turn overs because of this. In the Chicago match, whenever Chalupny or Grings were near her, she marked them and cut off service to them. Its why Grings and Chalupny didn't have many good looks on goal.

Now here is where the break downs on defense happened. And part of that was on Stephanie Cox, she had a pretty bad game and blew several coverages, especially against Adriana Leon who she was marking by herself. But she wasn't alone in that department, Lauren Barnes had a very bad game in general. How does a player have a bad game? Well as a center back you have to be the rock in the back line. Your outside backs need to know they can make attacks on the wing without worrying about the center. Where Barnes had problems was she quite frequently pinching too deeply into making a tackle and put herself in a bad position to recover if her tackle failed. And that was happening during the match.

Some of the mistakes that Barnes committed. In the 29.48 minute Lori Chalupny takes a pass and moves towards the box. Barnes is marking her, Chalupny turns and changes direction and Barnes gets turned around showing her back to Chalupny who then goes around her and gets a dangerous shot off on Hope Solo. Barnes should of stayed facing Chalupny, but over committed when she tried to tackle Chalupny and allowed her to turn and get around her for the good shot on goal.

48:19 minute Leon beats Cox to a ball that didn't go over the byline, Leon was able to turn and then attack the box. At this point Barnes is just outside the box facing Leon and Cox is being shielded off the ball, Barnes waited for Leon to make it into the box before attempting a tackle and Leon dribbles through both defenders and falls down in the box with no call made.(which I thought was a good no call) Barnes gave a lot room for Leon to make it to the box, maybe 8 yards of space, really too much space, Barnes should of closed in and shielded Leon away from goal, but Leon blew by both Cox and Barnes.

54:30 minute Grings is getting marked by Cox, passes off to Leon and gets around Cox and gets to the 6yard line. Barnes who is facing Leon doesn't close in on Leon as she moves into the box and gets the pass off to Grings for a 6 yard shot on goal with Kaylyn Kyle coming back and blocking the shot before it gets to goal. Both Cox and Barnes played this pretty badly but Kyle was covering the near post and blocked it out of bounds.

73:15 minute Chicago is on a counter attack, Leon does a back heel flick to Chalupny who sees Barnes closing in and flicks the ball forward. Barnes is now a good 10 yards out of position and because the ball is flicked into the space once occupied by Barnes, Jenn Hoy has loads of space to run onto and with Kyle now on her back, Hoy is free to attack the box and shoot a well placed shot that beats Solo. As a center back this is really the worst decision that Barnes could of made, she needed to keep Hoy onside and not allow a chip shot over her and even if Chalupny attempted a chip shot, both She and Kyle could of covered either wing. But instead she committed to a tackle deep into the midfield, opening her side of the field up for a chip shot that Hoy could run onto. There wasn't much that Kyle could do unless she wanted to risk taking down Hoy in the box. This is where I disagree with people blaming Kyle for the goal, your job as a center back isn't to take risks like Barnes did, its much safer to mark the forward trying to receive the pass instead of pinching in because two things then will happen. Either Barnes succeeds and tackles Chalupny or Barnes gets through balled or chip shotted. And we know what happened. Even if Chalupny makes it to the box, your still facing Chalupny and now you've taken the forward out of the equation, Kyle could of stayed on the forward and Barnes then could face Chalupny and either forced her to make a pass or take a shot outside the box which would of been preferable. What Barnes did was an all in maneuver and that is just too risky for a center back to take.

Kaylyn Kyle on the other hand does take some risks when she marks players closely, but she is smarter how she goes about it, she keeps them marked and closes in when they are about to receive a pass not when they have the ball and can turn. Because she is literally on their back, they can't turn and are either forced to pass back to their midfield or Kyle forces a turn over which she did several times in the Chicago game. Kyle's impressed me with her tactical thinking on the pitch. Understands her position, keeps dangerous forward players marked and is able to pressure ball carriers by making smart tackles.

Those examples I showed could easily result in goals especially against a team like Chicago who don't score a lot of goals on the run of play. Against a team like Kansas City who are leathal on the counter attack, the Seattle backline was getting pierced with through balls all game long.

Next up I am going to focus on the midfield and why I think its dysfunctional, not withstanding the great players there, but tactically the way they play is unsound and leads to way too many attacks on the defense for the Reign.

 

Technically you could call the Seattle Reign's formation a 4-3-3. Its what they have used all season long. But that is a technical point. Their shape really changes as they attack and defend. This is their line up for the Chicago match and more then likely will be their line up going forward.

Eli Reed(OB)---Kaylyn Kyle(CB)---Lauren Barnes(CB)---Stephanie Cox(OB)
Jessica Fishlock(Holding)---Keelin Winters(Holding)---Emily Van Egmond(AM)
Christine Nairn(F)---Jessica McDonald(F)---Megan Rapinoe(F)

Tactically this is how the Reign play. They use two holding midfielders, but really they should be considered box-to-box midfielders. What are they? They play from one penalty box to the other. So they play all over the field, attacking, defending, ball winning and linking up with the forwards. Nairn and Rapinoe whose natural position are midfielders but play forward will shift all over the field because the nature of Fishlock and Winters playing all over the pitch. Nairn could be in the midfield playmaking or Rapinoe springing Fishlock with a pass. Lets not even talk about the outside backs and their ability to move forward. The Reign have a lot of moving pieces in their system, but their system breaks down when they get counter attacked. Kansas City completely broke Seattle down and were able to counter attack freely for most of the match. This Chicago game, Chicago put several dangerous counter attacks together and one of them resulted in a goal. And for a team like Chicago that has a hard time scoring goals in the first place, this is very disturbing that Seattle couldn't shut down Chicago.

The problem the way I see it is how Seattle use Fishlock and Winters. Both are excellent players with good technical skills, its why they do what they do, but the problem lies with how they work together. Because they both have the freedom to attack and defend all down the field, quite frequently both of them would be up the pitch attacking the opponents box and thus leaving large gaps in the midfield so a team like Chicago who normally have a difficult time building up in the midfield, had a good day there, making run after run into the Seattle backline.

Normally you would want either Fishlock or Winters to rotate when one of them moves forward on the attack. They both have the holding midfielder role. Kansas City uses two holding midfielders as well in Desiree Scott and Jenn Buczkowski. When one moves forward on the attack, the other stays behind, in fact Scott is so adept at protecting her backline, both Saurbrunn and Sesselmann have been given the green light to make attacking runs if the situation allows for it. Scott in turn then stays behind and takes over on the backline.

This doesn't happen with Seattle. You can say, Nairn or Van Egmond should be defending, but they don't, its not their role, that role goes to Fishlock and Winters, who do a very good job defending. But the break down happens when both of them are joining the attack and this happens quite frequently and large spaces open up in the midfield. This is where a team like Chicago who are not known as a counter attacking team is able to counter attack and put immense pressure on the Seattle backline. Hope Solo made a great save off Chalupny, again off the counter attack and if Grings scored on her PK attempt, the Chicago game would of been a lot closer then it was. The Kansas City game, if Solo didn't play out of her mind, the score could of been 5-0 or worse. Solo made 4 hard saves that could of blown the game wide open.

I'm not advocating the use of a box-to-box midfielder. But you don't see many teams use these type of players and only Skyblue has used Sophie Schmidt that way who played that role before she moved to forward in the last few matches. No other team in the NWSL uses a midfielder like that but Seattle uses two of them. And that is where I think the problem is. Its fine if Fishlock plays that role, but you cannot have two midfielders like that because invariably you will have break downs and the Chicago game just illustrates the difficulty of keeping a clean sheet against a team that supposedly is a low scoring team that has a weak midfield. They played Seattle tough for stretches in the match.

For Seattle to cut down on the quality scoring attempts being made against Solo, they need a deep holding midfielder that can defend and ball win on their side and link up with the other forward players. They have to cut down on leaving so much space in the midfield because right now it allows teams to run into that space with passes and that then creates the counter attack. Seattle just can't keep giving teams so many good chances against the run of play like they did against Chicago and Kansas City.