This is the 17th in a series of 20 short columns focused on the things I'm thinking about as we approach the 20th season of Major League Soccer. I'm going to dig into mostly non-obvious questions here – the tertiary stuff that can become bigger over time – rather than the giant storylines (e.g., How do the Red Bulls replace Henry? What if Ozzie's injury lingers? Is this THE year for TFC?).
You can find previous installments in my story archive HERE. For this latest entry, we're off to the City of Fountains...
Sporting KC have done a couple of different things – newish things, in MLS terms – over the last five years, and in the process have built a mini-dynasty.
First is instituting a full-on, make-no-bones-about-it 4-3-3. There is no other way to describe the formation Peter Vermes' team has played over the last half-decade, and they will forever and always be the first team in the league who did that. Because coaches in every sport are great copy-cats, we've seen a number of modified 4-3-3s pop up since 2011, setting off a low-key tactical revolution.
It's been pretty cool to watch.
Second is instituting a full-on, make-no-bones-about-it high press. Sporting smothered teams into submission from mid-2011 through mid-2014, and got themselves a pair of trophies (2013 MLS Cup; 2012 US Open Cup) for their efforts. It wasn't always pretty. Often, I'd say that it was some of the least aesthetically pleasing soccer in the league, the sort that relied more upon brute force and endless crosses to the back post than to flair, vision or skill.
Pressure of that sort also relies upon an incredibly high level of trust among all 10 field players, and the ability to stay connected from back to front. When KC's press fell apart in 2014 – "fell apart" is putting it mildly, by the way – it wasn't because of any one particular absence or change, but rather an accumulation of absences that negatively effected the team's ability to apply pressure at every spot on the field.
Look at how easily Columbus shred Sporting here:
At that point, the high-pressing fullback is completely cut out of the play, and it's now the responsibility of the remaining backliners to engage in some emergency defense. Matt Besler (who played injured for most of the year) and Aurelien Collin (who's gone, and read into that whatever you want to) weren't as good at that sort of thing as they needed to be:
That's just one example. I also considered using this one, from later in the season once Sporting had given up on their pressure and become a back-foot defensive team:
You'll notice a similarity between those two GIFs: It's the gap between right back and right central defense that was most often the opposition's target. It was a particularly soft spot after Chance Myers went down with a torn Achilles tendon in early May, and Brazilian youngster Igor Juliao – who, like Collin, has not returned in 2015 – was unable to keep up.
Myers is still working his way back to full fitness, which has right back as a question mark. I think, in all honesty, that Sporting's identity as a high-pressure juggernaut is a question mark as well. Teams finally figured out how to make them vulnerable on the flanks, and on the flip side, Sporting finally figured out how to build an attack more out of skill and patience than pressure and opportunism.
Given all the new faces along the backline, the fact that there's still no clear-cut tempo-sitting replacement for Uri Rosell, and the addition of Krisztian Nemeth – a winger who does better starting with space from outside the box, as opposed to Kei Kamara, whose dominance inside the box is what gave the Sporting teams of yore their personality – I'm kind of expecting a new era at Sporting Park. They'll still have moments when they press the hell out of you, but there'll be a lot more of keeping the ball on the ground, slowing the tempo, and trying to draw the opposition defense forward in order to slip Nemeth and Dom Dwyer in behind.
That, of course, is a big thing. But it's born of a lot of little things, the sort that make for more of an evolution than a revolution.
That's what Sporting needs. Not a new way, but a plan to make their old way better.
