Goals are the most important statistic in soccer. Whether scoring your own or preventing the opposition from doing so, the only definitive numbers are the ones on the scoreboard.
And MLS teams have gone about it all different ways for a decade. Some have relied on set pieces, like Dom Kinnear’s early-decade Houston Dynamo, while others have looked to high press their opponents into submission, like Peter Vermes with Sporting Kansas City.
More than a few teams have looked primarily to one position to create their offense: the attacking midfielder. When looking at the historic run of Real Salt Lake behind Javier Morales or Guillermo Barros Schelotto’s MLS Cup-winning Columbus Crew SC, it was clear that the team’s tactics were built around their playmakers.
Other teams tried to copy this formula with their Designated Player signings at the turn of the decade with some success (Mauro Rosales) but also of failure (Christian Tiffert, Jeferson, Alexander Lopez). In all, 29 attacking midfielders have been signed to Designated Player contracts since 2007, with 18 of those coming between 2011 and 2015. Strikers have dominated Designated Player signings all-time with a total of 54.
But the signings of attacking midfielders to Designated Player contracts has dropped off in recent years with just four since the middle of July 2014. Of course with one position declining, another has to rise, and that position also happens to be in the attack.
Since the start of the 2015 season, 16 wingers have been signed to Designated Player contracts with eight of those coming this offseason. A couple (Miguel Almiron, Maxi Moralez) are a bit fluid in their attacking positions, but both should see significant time on the wing.
For the Portland Timbers, who previously signed Lucas Melano and replaced him with Sebastian Blanco this offseason, the reason for this investment is obvious.
“For us it was a philosophy and a positional fit, and when you start to look at the wingers that are available in MLS and you start to look at where you expect your goals to come from, you start to label a position with a value,” Timbers general manager Gavin Wilkinson told MLSsoccer.com.
“For that value you need to make sure you’re getting a return on it. That’s where we’re going with wingers. It’s always been a position that we’ve valued. It’s just as the league has grown and as the talent has increased over time, we’re able to commit more resources to that position. In our system, the 4-2-3-1, the three has to produce.”
Of course, Melano did not produce for the Timbers last season, scoring just three goals in 31 games. Wilkinson and head coach Caleb Porter hoped to have solved that issue with the addition of Blanco, who is a very different type of player – despite playing the same position as his fellow Argentine.
“We probably looked at 50 wingers. We can find guys that have a lot of pace but they don’t score goals. We find guys that will beat guys 1-v-1, but they’re too predictable. They don’t come inside and ask questions of the back four,” Porter told MLSsoccer.com.
“We didn’t want a player that just brought pace [or] was too predictable. We didn’t want a guy that could just hit crosses but could never come inside. We needed a guy that could come inside, get in the box, play in pockets, needed a guy that would still flow wide and play in crosses. We thought he just checked all the boxes.”
The No. 10 that is on the roster for the Timbers, Diego Valeri, isn’t your typical center attacking midfielder. Valeri prefers to play in the channels rather than in between the midfield and defensive lines. Those kind of players who sit in the midfield and spray balls all over the field are rarely seen in MLS and in world soccer right now.
Just look at the top teams in the world: Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich. None play a traditional No. 10 in the form of Juan Riquelme or Carlos Valderrama.
Those kind of players tend to be a liability defensively, which many managers feel is too big a trade-off in the modern game. Having a player on the wing who can not only be your best chance-creator, but also has the ability to be a steady part of your team defensive shape is a major advantage.
The disappearance of players such as Riquelme or Valderrama could also be due to teams becoming smarter in shutting down any attack through the middle. This was even evident with the Timbers last year, as Valeri shifted out wide more often than in past years.
“Because teams are so organized these types of players are finding roles out wide and being more effective in those areas going forward," Montreal Impact head coach Mauro Biello told MLSsoccer.com. "It is a global trend where you see a lot of teams and their high-profile players out wide. You want to find that isolation with these types of players and you find it out wide easier than in the middle."
Biello made a slight tweak to his team’s tactics in 2016 and the resultant run took Montreal to the brink of an Eastern Conference Championship.
Ignacio Piatti played centrally in the No. 10 position for the Impact in 2014 and 2015, despite starting many of his attacking runs on the left side, but was too often rendered ineffective by teams packing the middle of the pitch. He was almost exclusively played on the wing in 2016, leading to a Best XI season in which he scored 17 goals.
“Putting players of [Piatti’s] stature out wide allows them to see the field, allows them to express themselves,” Biello said.
“It’s about [giving] these players the ability to find more space and to be able to operate in those areas.”
Are all these new big names on the wing going to be successes in MLS? Probably not. The success rate of marquee signings has never been 100 percent. If these new players aren’t productive enough in front of goal, all their other qualities won't be as important.
It also comes down to a simple numbers game: With many teams moving towards 4-2-3-1 and 4-3-3 formations, sometimes there aren't enough players in the most dangerous area of the field, the 18-yard box.
“In a 4-2-3-1 when you get a cross, if you don’t get the wingers [or the No. 10] in the box, you have one guy in the box,” Porter explained. "It’s not enough. A lot of times these guys that play true-footed in the channel, they’re never in the box when there’s a cross. [They can play] 1v1 but eventually teams take that away."
“You even saw it with [Fabian] Castillo before he left. He started to get figured out a little bit.”
Castillo, the former FC Dallas winger, was possibly the best player at his position in 2014 and 2015 before securing a move to Trabzonspor last summer. But he did not end his career with Dallas on a high note, registering just three goals and three assists in his last 15 games with the club. Two of those three assists came in his final game against the Chicago Fire.
Dallas did have a pretty good back-up plan without Castillo in the form of Mauro Diaz. The smooth No. 10 had an outstanding 2016 season before tearing his Achilles' tendon, collecting 13 assists and being named to the Best XI.
His season, along with the 20 assists Sacha Kljestan dished out, proved that the No. 10 remains a high-value position in MLS, even with much of the world moving away from it.
This year is one in which we could see some of the best MLS seasons ever produced by wingers, with Piatti, Blanco, Romain Alessandrini and Hector Villalba – among others – all looking like potential Best XI selections. Pay close to attention to how managers deploy these players compared to some attacking pieces they’ve had in the past. It could show a new tactical way forward for the league.
