The Columbus Crew snapped the team three-game win streak on Saturday with a 1-1 draw at New York City FC. The Black & Gold went up 1-0 courtesy of a Christian Ramirez finish but conceded in stoppage time to leave with just a point.
Columbus played without the team’s best player, Lucas Zelarayan, who was away on international duty with Armenia. However, the Crew still fielded a strong lineup without major changes.
Yet again, head coach Wilfried Nancy made minor adjustments based on the opponent but did not change a host of tactics. Let’s dive into what the Black & Gold did tactically against NYCFC
Pressing with a stacked midfield
Throughout the season, Columbus had the same overall game plan on offense and defense. Offensively, the Crew wanted to keep the ball but also went forward with purpose when the opportunity presented itself. Defensively, the Black & Gold wanted to force City to make quick decisions by pressing and staying sound at the back.
While this has been a constant, the fine points and nuances in how that game plan is carried changed in this game. The way Columbus pressed on Saturday had been done before, but not recently.
Like in other games, the Crew pressed in a 5-2-3 formation. The front three pressed the ball hard to force the defenders to make a mistake or give up possession with a bad pass. Behind the attackers, midfielders Aidan Morris and Darlington Nagbe had a different job to press to fill all the gaps. The idea is that wherever the ball went, there was a defensive player who can provide pressure on whoever receives the pass. This is why Nancy didn’t have his American midfield duo play next to each other. Instead, Morris and Nagbe played in front and behind each other.
Morris’ job was to take away NYCFC’s split option to advance the ball into the midfield. This meant that when the hosts dropped a defensive midfielder back to try and relieve the pressure, Morris simply followed that player. He man-marked the dropping midfielder so he had to pass the ball out wide where the wing backs could pounce.
Nagbe’s job was to win the ball when the Pigeons long. When the New York City defense came under pressure and there was no way to play through it, the home side resorted to launching the ball upfield. Whether Nagbe wonn a header himself or collected a second chance ball knocked down from the defense, he wanted to be the one to regain possession.
The downside to playing a stacked pressing midfield is the team ran the risk of leaving open space in the midfield that one player can’t handle alone. The Crew combated this problem by playing aggressively. If space opened to the right or left of Nagbe and an opposing player dropped into the space to receive a pass, the center back on that side stepped on his back to not allow a turn upfield. Outside center backs Malte Amundsen and Sean Zawadzki stepped higher, leaving the backline vulnerable. But if they force the attacker to play the ball backward, they could recover.
This press plugs all the gaps if it is executed perfectly, but there are times when it breaks down and leads to scoring chances for the opposition. On Saturday, the press didn’t yield any chances that ended its goals, but it was the defensive shell the Crew switched to late in the game that caused them to concede.
How Columbus breaks out of presses in the back
The Black & Gold are a team that thrives with the ball at their feet, regardless of where that possession is on the pitch. As the season has progressed, Columbus has become more comfortable on the ball and building out of the back, sometimes to the queasiness of their own fans.
Against NYCFC, this composure was on full display with the Crew beating New York City’s press with ease at times. The Black & Gold made this look easy based on passing triangles.
Soccer is a game that is played in triangles. Often, midfields set up in some form of a triangle, but formations are not the only use for the three-sided shape in the game. A coach will typically set up his team in a formation that has natural triangles, but because of players’ dynamic movement in games, these triangles often form themselves. This idea of creating a space where three players can form this shape is how Columbus is able to break presses calmly.
Oftentimes, triangles will form between the outside center back, the wing back and one of the central midfielders. The goal is to get a numerical overloads or to get the opponent to overstep and double-team a play in the triangle so one side will be wide open.
This is exactly what happened in the 23rd minute. The Crew played out of the back after winning the ball and two players pressed Amundsen. At that point, he had two options for a pass. The first option was to play that ball out wide to wing back Yaw Yeboah, but he had a defender less than five yards away from him. The second option was to play a split pass through to Morris, which was what the Dane did.
The split pass allowed the American midfielder to turn upfield and relieve pressure off the backline. A simple string of passes and options between three players broke a press quickly and effectively.
Triangles happen in other areas of the pitch as well. In the attacking half there was a natural triangle formed between strikers Cucho Hernandez, Ramirez and attacking midfielder Alexandru Matan. Granted, the shape of the triangle changed depending on how far Hernandez or Matan goes out of position to receive the ball, but it still is a triangle.
A simple geometric shape has been the key to Columbus’ success in building out of the back and turning defense into attack.
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