The Columbus Crew continued its recent hot streak, downing Nashville SC at home 2-0 on Wednesday evening. Columbus collected a third straight win courtesy of Christian Ramirez and Diego Rossi, who bagged the two goals for the Black & Gold on the night. The Crew have now scored 11 goals in their last three games while allowing just one. They are hitting their stride at the right time, especially since the departure of Aidan Morris for Middlesbrough.
The tall task for Columbus was attempting to break down Nashville’s stingy defense. Luckily, they were able to exploit weaknesses, generate chances, and pester the visitors with pressure. Let’s dive into all the tactics that went into the Black & Gold’s win over Nashville.
Attacking the Nashville backline
Nashville has been known around the league since its inception for having one of the strongest defensive lines in MLS. On Wednesday, the Crew faced the always-tough task of taking that backline down.
True to form, Wilfried Nancy had a few tricks to give Columbus an advantage. The Black & Gold did a very good job at manipulating the Nashville defense to create spaces for attackers to find.
The first way they did this was by attacking the width of Nashville’s defense. The visitors opted to play a very narrow backline, allowing nearly 15-20 yards of space between the outside backs and the sideline. This gave the wingbacks and other filling players acres of pitch to exploit and advance the ball.
Another caveat of this narrowness was that it forced Nashville’s outside defenders to go one-on-one against whichever player the Crew had out wide. Because the centerbacks were so close together, it was harder to double the wide attackers. This left the outside backs on an island with players the likes of Max Arfsten and Mo Farsi, which is a matchup Columbus and Nancy will take all day.
The second thing they did was offset their formation at times to make overload easier. In the first half, this was very prevalent. The Black & Gold opted to play a 2-3-5 on offense, but they skewed it towards the right side of the pitch.
This means that Malte Amundsen and Rudy Camacho were the two centerbacks, and Sean Zawadzki, Darlington Nagbe, and Steven Moreira were in front of them. Moreira is the key to this offset. The two other midfielders stayed central, but the Cape Verde international played on the right, like a pivot between Camacho and Farsi.
This did a few huge things for the Crew. First, it gave Farsi more support to keep possession and combine passes with. Second, it created natural triangles with Farsi, Moreira, and any dropping attacker that came back into the midfield. These triangles overloaded the opposition and created a numbers disadvantage. Lastly, it allowed Arfsten to have more space on the opposite wing. By overloading the right side, the Nashville defense had to shift to compensate for the overload. This meant Arfsten had more room to operate, and more time to settle the ball and gain ground before the nearest defender got to him.
Finally, the last thing Columbus did was draw Nashville’s defenders out of their natural position. Not only did this create space for the Black & Gold to exploit, but it also took the visitors’ best defenders completely out of the game.
The Crew did this by having their wingbacks stay high, and the three central attackers drop into the midfield at different times. Nashville had to decide whether they wanted to chase the attackers off the ball, or sit back, let them turn into space, and then run at the defense.
They opted to go with the first choice, which meant they tried to press the Columbus attacking trio on their first touch as they dropped back into the midfield. This opened a whole can of worms for Nashville.
Once a Nashville defender was pulled out of position, the defense either had to let that space stay vacated or pinch to fill it. If they pinched, the Black & Gold could go wide and attack from there. If they left the space vacated, one of the remaining central attackers could run into the open space and get through on goal.
It was another strong performance from the Crew, Nancy, and his coaching staff. They had a plan for whatever Nashville’s defense decided to do, and it paid off with three points.
Columbus’ pressure on Nashville’s defense
On the other side of the ball, the Black & Gold were trying to cause havoc by pressing Nashville’s backline. Often it worked, keeping the visitors bottled in their own half.
The first key to the Crew’s press was pressuring the defenders on the ball. If the player in possession had too much time, they could pick out a pass and play through the press. So it was on Rossi, Ramirez, and Cucho Hernandez to put in the work and get pressure on the defenders.
Sometimes Farsi and Arfsten would venture forward to provide some additional pressure as well. It is tough for a front three to run the entire game and pressure and entire backline, so the wingbacks were the reinforcements to keep Nashville uneasy.
The second key rested on the shoulders of Zawadzki and Nagbe. Their job was to mark the midfielders and make sure Nashville could not just play through the middle and break the press. That meant both midfielders man-marked Nashville’s defensive midfielders, with an additional defender like Amundsen or Moreira coming up to help at times.
The visitors liked to play with two defensive midfielders and Hany Mukhtar at the no. 10 spot. So, if Nagbe and Zawadzki had taken away the defensive midfielders, Amundsen or Moreira had to step up and man-mark Mukhtar.
The third key was all about having a high backline. Columbus’ defensive DNA is to play a high backline to restrict how much space the opponent must keep possession. There is a risk of long balls in behind, but with a veteran defense like the Black & Gold’s, they can afford to take that risk.
By having the high backline, it cut down the space Nashville had to keep the ball. It also restricted the space where they could play passes without it being cut out by the Crew. Of course, there were the chances where Nashville would break the press on a moment of brilliance or a long ball in behind, but Columbus did a really good job of making sure their defense was airtight.
This three-levelled pressure kept Nashville from scoring on the night and secured another win for Nancy and his Black & Gold squad.
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