"There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie." -- Franz Kafka
I hope you enjoyed the games this weekend. Truth lies yonder, in the scoreboard. Numbers will set you free...
Interstate Love Song
RSL gave up another late goal, but who cares? They got a win at Sporting, which is their most favorite thing to do. And -- cherry on top time, folks -- they managed it despite missing almost half their roster due to injuries or suspension. Javier Morales is still working through a broken rib, Kyle Beckerman was out with a red card, Burrito Martinez got DisCo fever, and… well it’s a long list.
With that much missing, and with the Claret-and-Cobalt traveling to the league’s only perfect team, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a safe bet that they’d lose. But this is MLS, and there are no safe bets, and the much-maligned Jeff Cassar has continued his evolution as a head coach. He hasn’t dispensed with the 4-3-3 and he hasn’t dispensed with some of his preferred lineup choices, all the while doubling down on pragmatism and giving his team an identity.
Pragmatism is this passing map from the central defense and goalkeeper:
Jeff Attinella’s not Nick Rimando, and 19-year-old Justen Glad was taking no chances. Same for Aaron Maund.
Boot. It. Long.
That ethos plays directly into RSL’s identity. They really, truly no longer give a single damn about possession, and are determined to play the game in transition. The idea is to let the defense collapse and stay compact, inviting the opponent forward. Once the ball is turned over, then it’s off to the races.
Everybody in the attacking third has a role in this scheme, a niche that they’re supposed to fill. Yura Movsisyan generally stays in the center-left or center-right channel, while Martinez hugs the touchline in order to bring the defense to him. Send a central midfielder out there to help a stranded fullback and Burrito’s liable to skin ‘em both, then turn it into a chance. Fail to send help, and he’s almost certainly beating your fullback off the dribble then heading directly into the 18, forcing the central defense to scramble.
Even Morales, when he’s available, now has a somewhat circumscribed role. He’s getting fewer touches in his preferred left-central channel, and has been a little bit disconnected from the front line. He no longer has free rein.
The one outlier is Joao Plata, who can go wherever he pleases:
Plata was everywhere in Saturday’s 2-1 win, and that’s by design. While he generally starts his runs as a left winger, he’s clearly been encouraged to cut inside with the ball on his more dangerous right foot and have a go. He can also combine through the middle, pinging passes off a checking Movsisyan or a lurking Morales. He gets support from whoever the left back happens to be, though to be perfectly clear: Chris Wingert and Demar Phillips play the position quite differently.
Through four games – six if you count their “almost!” against Tigres in CCL – it’s working. The Claret-and-Cobalt are unbeaten in league play, and have proved capable of going toe-to-toe with, quite literally, the region’s very best team.
We’ve seen that type of quality from them before, back when the squad was built around Morales’s vision and god-like chance generating ability from possession. In 2016 it’s a different team, a different focal point and a different way of trying to tell the same story.
Perhaps this time it'll have a happy ending.
Between The Lines
There's opportunism, there's intelligence, and there's discipline. On Kaká's goal against Portland in Sunday night's 4-1 romp by Orlando City SC, there was all three:
Win the ball in midfield
— Major League Soccer (@MLS) April 4, 2016
Finish off the counter @KAKA scores his first goal of 2016. #ORLvPORhttps://t.co/DfMsFVD4v8
Notice how, after helping win the ball at midfield, Kaká stays wide and hides himself in Alvas Powell's blind spot. It's only after the rest of the defense has been sucked over to the right side of the pitch that Kaká makes his move, streaking across the area for the one-time finish. It really is a matter of doing the simple things right with machine-like regularity that makes the best players.
The question now is what Orlando City will build around their superstar, who made his season debut in this one. They were able to get out on the run almost constantly in this one, pulling Portland apart by never letting them rest. That in turn allowed both fullbacks, Brek Shea and Rafael Ramos, to overlap into the attack and find space to make problems.
This is all very nice from the home team's point of view, but here is an uncomfortable fact: Last year, teams that eliminated OCSC's wide play shut them down even when Kaká was on the pitch. Partially they did that by keeping their wingers wider, and partially they did it by having attackers shoot the gaps -- the space between the overlapping fullback and the central defender on that side -- whenever an OCSC overlap happened. Just the threat was enough to keep the fullbacks deep.
When your attacking outlets get limited like that, the offense can go into hiding. Portland knew this, and Lucas Melano had some very promising early attacks that didn't quite come to fruition. The idea was right, however,
That'll be something for Adrian Heath & Co. to ponder in the weeks ahead. For now, they'll be happy to enjoy three more points and a perch at the top of the Eastern Conference.
Big Empty
The Sounders finally got their first win of the season, taking a 1-0 result from the Impact at CenturyLink Field on Saturday night. It wasn’t pretty – not much has been this year – and it wasn’t particularly convincing. Once again their only goal came off a set piece, and once again it was veteran midfielder(!!!) Clint Dempsey who found the net.
Let’s go back to that “midfielder” part regarding Dempsey, because Sigi Schmid made a change in this one. His team had been dying on the vine in terms of chance creation from the central midfield, so the Sounders flipped from a 4-3-3 with Andreas Ivanschitz central and Dempsey on the left wing to more of a 4-2-3-1 with Dempsey just underneath lone center forward Nelson Valdez and Ivanschitz sprayed wide to the left.
Ivanschitz has by no means been bad, but he’s not a central midfielder. Early in this season he’s been far too prone to drifting out wide to the left where Dempsey already is, and where Joevin Jones is trying to overlap. That’s fine in moderation, but if it happens on the regular then teams are able to plan against the overload and cut off any sort of dangerous service. Seattle has often been reduced to low-percentage crosses against a packed-in defense or Dempsey trying to pull some 1-v-3 wizardry on the dribble.
Saturday wasn’t the antidote, but at least it shows that Schmid is thinking through the problem. Getting Dempsey central put his most talented player on the ball and gave the Sounders a little bit more creativity in the middle of the field. The problem was that he played too high, because he really is a forward or an inverted winger, not a No. 10:
That’s a network passing graph using Opta data. The circles represent each player’s aggregate position, while the thickness of the lines between them indicates the number of passes exchanged.
As you can see, Dempsey got plenty of the ball. But he wasn’t able to do much with it in terms of chance generation (just one key pass) or creating danger for himself – all three shots he took were from well outside the box against Montreal’s packed-in backline.
There’s more than one way to skin this particular cat, of course. Not every great or even good team plays with a traditional No. 10 – the Sounders have never really had one, and that hasn’t stopped them from adding a whole bunch of silverware to their trophy cabinet over the last seven years.
But there’s a reason we venerate midfield wizards, and there’s a reason the Sounders are looking for one of their own. Expect them to find one sooner rather than later.
A few more things to ponder…
6. Shea Salinas has, somehow, played only 135 minutes this year. I don’t really get that.
A lot of San Jose’s offense comes down to accurate, early crosses and nobody in the league is better at crossing on the run than Salinas. Plus just putting him out on the right touchline drags defenders out of the middle, opening things up underneath for the rest of the attackers. And it also allows for crucial goals like Adam Jahn's in San Jose's 1-1 draw against D.C. United on Saturday.
5. Face of the Week goes to Jesse Marsch after Felipe was sent off in RBNY's 1-0 loss at New England:
4. On Saturday I wrote about the Fire, who got their first win of the Veljko Paunovic era by the score of 1-0 over the Philadelphia Union.
For a Union fan there are two ways to look at it: Either you’re bummed that you got shut out and lost a winnable game, or you’re encouraged that C.J. Sapong keeps finding good spots and making life difficult on opposing defenders.
3. The Vancouver Whitecaps got a point against LA despite going a man down 30 minutes in, holding on for a scoreless draw.
The point is good, and they're in a fine spot in the standings, but right now their attack is not working and it looks like everything's going to get worse with Kekuta Manneh and Pedro Morales coming off injured. The defense is going to have to keep pitching shutouts because, in their last 16 games across all competitions, Vancouver forwards have scored one goal -- courtesy of since-retired Robert Earnshaw.
2. Marco Pappa continues his incisive play for the Rapids. His assist in Colorado's 1-0 win over Toronto FC was almost enough to win Pass of the Week...
1. But not quite! Our Pass of the Week is Federico Higuain’s lob to Ethan Finlay in Columbus's 1-1 draw at FC Dallas:
Everything about that play -- including Chris Seitz's save -- was beautiful. The thing I want you to notice, though, is Higuain's patience. So often in that part of the field we see players trying to rush the ball into the attacking third and failing to let runs develop. In this instance, Higuain actually slows down his own team's momentum and then draws Dallas to him in order to open up the back door for Finlay.
It was a bit of subtle artistry.
