The Columbus Crew advanced into the Leagues Cup semifinals following another come-from-behind victory, this time against NYCFC. The visitors went up only seconds into the game, following a bad giveaway by Rudy Camacho that left a New York attacker one-on-one with Patrick Schulte. From there, it was an uphill battle for the rest of the match. Columbus would eventually find the equalizer courtesy of Cucho Hernandez. Max Arfsten delivered an exquisite ball into the box, which Hernandez met with his head to tie the game. Both teams had chances but could not finish them en route to a penalty shootout. Newcomer DeJuan Jones dispatch the winning spot kick for the Black & Gold, sending them to a semifinal matchup with the Philadelphia Union.
Tactically, this game looked very similar to how the Crew played against Miami. They struggled at times to stick to their fast paced, fluid identity and it caused them problems. Let’s dive into all the tactical decisions that went into this Leagues Cup quarterfinal victory.
Columbus’ struggles
Out of the gate, it looked like it would be an unlucky night for the Black & Gold. Setting a Leagues Cup record of 12 seconds for the fastest goal conceded is not anyone’s idea of success, but that is exactly what happened to the Crew.
From that moment forward, Columbus looked better, but still slightly off. Much like in the first half of the Miami game, the Black & Gold looked disconnected, sloppy and contained, three things that would not normally be used to describe a Wilfried Nancy-coached team.
So, what was preventing the Crew from playing how they normally did? There were a few factors, both due to self-inflicted issues and opponent’s game planning.
First, the self-inflicted problems. From the start, there was a disconnect between the backline and the midfield on offense and defense. Columbus struggled to find Darlington Nagbe and Sean Zawadzki in the middle of the pitch, which made building out of the back more difficult than it had to be.
One reason for this was because Nagbe and Zawadzki were playing as two flat defensive midfielders. This is not a problem if an attack would have dropped into the attacking midfield space, but Diego Rossi and Hernandez were opting to come deeper in the channels, rather than the attacking midfield.
This meant that NYCFC was not having to stretch themselves defensively and commit to guarding Nagbe and Zawadzki one-on-one. They could help each other to form traps in the middle of the field while the backline stepped up to mark the other Black & Gold attackers. This is one of the many reasons why there were more turnovers than normal committed by the Crew.
On the other side of the ball, Columbus was having the same issue, but with an added wrinkle on the back end. Nagbe and Zawadzki were flat, which meant that the NYCFC defensive midfielders or defenders in possession could move up freely without being pressed. Typically, the Black & Gold like to commit one of their defensive midfielders to step forward and press the cutoff man for the opponents, but that was not happening often enough to set up the pressure for the Crew.
That was problem number one, but problem number two occurred at the same time along the defensive line. If Nagbe and Zawadzki were going to play flat during the press, the backline needed to step higher to draw the attackers offsides. If they had done this, it would have been much harder for NYCFC to pick out a pass.
The problem arose when the Columbus backline stayed deeper than normal, giving the attackers free reign to probe and run behind the backline with no pressure on the ball by the Black & Gold midfielders. This led to dangerous situations where the Crew had to defend one-on-one, something they do not love to do.
The last factor that contributed to this slow start to the game, was NYCFC’s game planning. The visitors had done their homework and devised a gameplan slowed Columbus down for the time being.
NYCFC decided to press with four, one striker and a line of three behind him. The striker would press Camacho, while the two outside midfielders would push up on the outside centerbacks. The attacking midfielder for NYCFC took care of the Black & Gold’s split, usually Nagbe.
It was more of a resisted pressure than what Miami did, allowing the Crew to commit the mistake themselves rather than trying to force the mistake by all-out pressure. Because the centerbacks and the split midfielder was cutoff, Columbus had to find new avenues around the pressure.
This often was resolved by the attackers dropping into a wide wingback space and receiving the ball, then combining with either Mo Farsi or Arfsten who had gone high up the field like a winger. Once the Black & Gold figured that out, the game opened much more for them.
NYCFC did a good job at slowing the Crew down, figuring out their passing patters to apply pressure and forcing mistakes, but they could not stop the Columbus machine. Once the Black & Gold figured out their identity and how NYCFC was combatting them, they looked dangerous as usual.
Finding a foothold
The Crew began finding success in this game when Hernandez dropped into that attacking midfield space and the team started to attack from wide areas. Both these little changes played a factor in Columbus getting on level terms and trying to push for a second goal.
When Hernandez began dropping into the midfield, he filled that space that either Zawadzki or Nagbe would usually take up if they were staggered. Typically, it was Aidan Morris who would go up into that attacking midfield vacancy when he was here, but Nancy opted to keep Zawadzki and Nagbe flat in the midfield in this game.
That meant the space was open for the attackers to exploit because NYCC was pushing their defensive midfielders higher to compete with Columbus two midfielders. Because they moved higher, now NYCFC had to decide to push one of their centerbacks up to press Hernandez or drop back and wait for the recovering midfielders to get back in transition.
This now gave the Black & Gold’s most dynamic and dangerous attacker the freedom to create and find passes from a deeper midfield spot. It also meant that he could make late-arriving runs and use the other attacker’s runs as decoys to create space for himself.
This is exactly what happened on the Crew’s goal. Hernandez started deep and after a failed combination, just hung out at the top of the box. Once the ball was recycled wide for Arfsten, he let Christian Ramirez and Yevhen Cheberko make darting runs towards the front post. This dragged the defense out of position and gave Hernandez the space to get a good jump and direct the ball into the back of the net.
After the goal and into the second half, Columbus began to figure out a pattern of play and an attack plan that worked well against NYCFC’s setup. The visitors had a balanced formation that was hard to poke holes in but were forced to rotate to compete with the Black & Gold’s front five, and even sometimes six attackers.
The Crew discovered that they had to most success when the ball would be switched quickly to a wing, and then played to the backside to catch the defense over-shifting. This constant sliding back and forth across the field is tough on a defense, and they are bound to lose track of runners after a while.
This has been in Columbus’ wheelhouse for the past few weeks. Many of their goals have come from the ball being played out wide from a central area, and then attacking a back post cross as the defense tries to shift.
The only way that teams can combat this is by playing with a back five or six, which would limit their ability to counter and get up in the attack. They would lose offensive power for defensive stability, and risk having a constant barrage of the Black & Gold attack on top of them, without an escape plan.
While the Crew did not grab a second goal to kill the game in regular time, their calmness on penalties saw them go through to the next round. Another up-and-down match for Columbus, but this team has figured out how to win games when things do not go their way from the first kick. That is a dangerous quality to have, especially in a sudden-death tournament like Leagues Cup.
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