This is the eighth 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, we headed uptown on the 4...
Who's going to be Kyle Beckerman?
That's the question I've asked any and all comers who, over the past year, have sworn up and down that New York City FC would enter 2015 playing a diamond midfield. Jason Kreis, they point out, played the diamond almost exclusively in his years with Real Salt Lake. Other coaches – notably Bruce Arena with D.C. United and Dom Kinnear with the Houston Dynamo – had also trotted their teams out in that formation to great effect, but it's Kreis who's most firmly associated with it in the minds of MLS fans.
And thus the assumption among many is that when NYCFC hired Kreis, they weren't just hiring a coach. They were hiring a philosophy, a strategy and a formation.
It is, quite honestly, the exact move I would have made had I been calling the shots at Yankee Stadium. Jason Kreis is available? Ok, back up a dumptruck full of money and get his signature. You can't do better than that if you want to build a consistent, winning team.
But a coach, a philosophy, a strategy and a formation all require the same thing in order to achieve success: the right players.
I'm not sure NYCFC have the right players to run a diamond. From what I've seen, there is no Beckerman.
Focus on one crucial thing: stopping combo play up the middle:
There were obviously a few things wrong on this play from a NYCFC perspective, but the most concerning one was the poor reaction of Andrew Jacobson, who dove to the right then froze, failing to realize Kaka would keep his run going across the middle.
If Jacobson is going to play the Beckerman role – and early indications are that it's his spot to lose – he can't do that.
Forget, for a moment, Beckerman's brilliant, rhythmic passing; his almost preternatural ability to get the ball onto the feet of the guys around him in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time. Forget the positional nous, his ability to shift and rotate, to make sure the midfield stays compact and able to work in pairs.
And remember this: Beckerman has played as a lone d-mid for almost a decade because he doesn't let stuff like Kaka's goal happen. It is the first law of being a No. 6, and it's a large part of how the diamond works.
I'm excited to see Jacobson – an underrated talent – get his shot at the job. I've always felt, however, that he's more of a No. 8, suited best to working with a partner instead of being the man who protects Zone 14 and runs the whole damn show. A formation change at the half against OCSC yielded positive results (both aesthetic and on the scoreboard), which is, perhaps, a sign of things to come.
Kreis, though, says that the diamond's not done yet. And so, neither is my question: who's Kyle Beckerman?
It's Jacobson's job to provide an answer.
