The Columbus Crew picked up four points this week, slaughtering LAFC away from home before drawing against Charlotte FC in a midweek matchup at home. Columbus traveled to the West Coast ahead of an MLS Cup rematch against LAFC, in a game many thought would be highly competitive. It was for about the first half hour, and then the Black & Gold opened the floodgates and poured in five goals on the defending Western Conference champs. The Crew turned around and returned home for a Wednesday clash against Charlotte FC, looking to continue their win streak and move up the table. It was an off night for Columbus, dominating possession but not converting enough chances to grab the win. A Nicolas Hagen gaffe gifted Charlotte an equalizer; from there, the Black & Gold could not find the winner. Despite the rough game, the Crew are still unbeaten in their last six matches.
Wilfried Nancy had his squad firing on all cylinders in the LAFC game, but they faltered at home against Charlotte. Let’s dive into all the tactics that went into both games.
Offensive tactics against LAFC
The Crew exploded against LAFC, scoring five goals to secure their fifth straight win. In this match, Columbus seemed to do everything right on the offensive end. True to Nancy’s form, his game plan was not single-faceted.
The first key on offense for the Black & Gold revolved around the wingbacks and Steven Moreira. When the Crew retained the ball, Max Arfsten and Mo Farsi would do different things. On the right, Farsi would push up into the attack as a winger, while Arfsten pinched inside as a wider central midfielder.
Moreira evened out the midfield by vacating his spot as an outside center back to slide into a wider central midfield role on the right. This gave Columbus a familiar 2-4-4 look on offense that they have perfected over the past season.
The focal point of this tactical move was Moreira and Farsi. Both had a lot of responsibility on their shoulders but for completely different reasons.
For Farsi, his job was to aid the attack and cut open the LAFC defense. He often did this by joining the attacking interchange with the front three. This fluid front four made it hard for LA’s four defenders to track, even with the help of midfielders.
This attacking fluidity meant that the Canadian wingback had the freedom to cut inside and overload the middle as a striker or choose to stay out wide if necessary. In this game, Farsi should be considered as a right winger, rather than a right wing back because of how much attacking work he was doing.
On the other hand, Moreira had to figure out how to balance his attacking freedom, with defensive solidity. With Farsi so high up the field and sometimes out of position when he strayed inside, the Frenchman had to cover for him when LAFC retained the ball.
This meant at times Moreira had to be more conscious about going forward and even had to rely on Darlington Nagbe to help cover Farsi’s vacated spot. If Farsi could recover on defense, he would return to his natural wingback spot. But if not, it was Moreira’s job to hold down the fort. This shows the trust that Nancy has in both players, to give Farsi the freedom to attack, but also rely on Moreira to lock down that side at times on his own.
The second key to the Black & Gold attack was the plethora of runs and patterns of play the attackers did to confuse the LAFC defense.
One repeated pattern the Crew utilized was to play into the feet of an attacker, who would then lay it off for a secondary runner. This specific pattern of play paralyzed the defense and forced them to either back off the dropping attacker, or risk having the secondary runner blow past them.
Columbus did this repeatedly, and the defense could not figure it out. This is one of the main reasons why having Christian Ramirez in the lineup has yielded such good results. He is a forward who can drop back into space to lay the ball off, and then become the secondary runner himself and go poach goals in the box.
This offensive strategy worked for the Black & Gold to the tune of five goals and three points. Nancy will be hoping they can keep this high level of offensive play as the season draws on and Leagues Cup begins.
What went right, and wrong against Charlotte
The Crew had a strong showing against Charlotte for much of the game but was missing that killer touch they had in previous weeks. Multiple chances came and went without the ball hitting the back of the net, including a Ramirez free header at the back post that he should score 99 times out of 100.
We should start out with what went right for Columbus. For much of the game, almost everything was going right apart from the finishing. The Black & Gold were creating quality chances and having the lion’s share of possession while Charlotte struggled to string more than two passes together.
The way the Crew created those chances was by overloading the sides of the field, forcing Charlotte to overshift and then finding the short switch to change the focus of play. Often this meant absorbing the visitor’s gradual press and finding the extra open man. This typically ended up being one of the wider wingbacks on the opposite side, or Sean Zawadzki on the back side.
The way Columbus created these overshifts was by overloading their midfielders to one side of the field. In this matchup against Charlotte, it was usually the right side. Both Amundsen and Moreira would move up into the midfield and slide with Nagbe and Zawadzki, leaving the far side of the pitch wide open for a switch.
Once the ball was switched to the opposite side, now all those players were in the perfect position to make late-arriving runs into the box for a back post ball from Arfsten. These late-arriving runners make it hard for the defense to track, especially if they do not have enough players to cover.
The Black & Gold did this all game but could not find the killer blow to go two goals up. This left the door open for Charlotte, and the visitors took their chance.
If there is one thing that has killed the Crew all year, it is conceding stupid goals. We have not seen a lot of teams break down Columbus and score a well-worked, team-oriented goal, especially when the Black & Gold are at home.
The story on Wednesday was no different, with the mishap coming from Hagen in the back, making his first start in the absence of Patrick Shulte who is in France for the Olympics. A long pass over the top into the striker was misjudged by the goalkeeper, who swung and missed the ball. The Guatemalan goalkeeper recovered in time to ultimately face the shot, but it was slotted through his legs into the back of the net.
In all fairness to Hagen, he had an outstanding game outside of that one moment. But in that fleeting moment, the Crew saw three points turn into one. The goal was very similar to the mistake Shulte had last season down in Cincinnati, which shows how hard it is to be a goalkeeper in Nancy’s system.
Hagen’s mistake was not the only thing that sunk Columbus though. Poor finishing and uncharacteristic turnovers plagued the team at times and allowed Charlotte to get a foothold. It is a wake-up call for a team that has been unbeatable in the past few weeks, that they still have work to do.
Still a good week for the Black & Gold, but they will be hungry for better results heading into a Saturday matchup with Atlanta United.
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