The Columbus Crew hit the road again this past Saturday, faced with a matchup against former coach Caleb Porter and the New England Revolution. The Black & Gold took this matchup in stride, and after a tough first 15 minutes, blitzed the Revs on the way to a 5-1 win. This is the Crew’s second straight win in which they scored four or more goals, scoring nine total in the past two matches.
Despite going down a goal in the first ten minutes, Columbus adjusted to New England’s tactics and rattled off five unanswered goals. Let’s dive into the tactics that won this match for the Black & Gold.
Exploiting New England’s gameplan
In the first ten minutes, the Revs’ game plan worked to perfection. The Crew were flustered, barely touched the ball and found themselves down a goal. Porter’s system seemed to be working, that was until Columbus figured it out.
There were a few areas that the Black & Gold could exploit to turn the game on its head. The first was beating New England’s press. Crew fans understand Porter likes to employ a high counter-press system to try and win the ball back. Once they have the ball back, a Porter-led team enjoys having the ball with passive possession until the opposition makes a mistake or the right combination can be found.
At first, the Revolution pressure got to Columbus and caused them to be uncomfortable. There were lots of turnovers high up the pitch that led to good chances for the home side, but once the Black & Gold learned the press, they were off and running.
New England’s pressure was a man-marking based press, focusing on isolating players and taking away short passing options. For a team that likes to play out of the back like the Crew, this became a problem very early.
There was a downside to this kind of press though. The Revolution committed six to seven players forward in this pressure, leaving major gaps behind the midfield and even in behind the backline.
There are two ways to beat this kind of press. The first way is to suck the defense in and then switch the field. New England tried to press Columbus towards the sideline, slowly closing space until there was nowhere to go. This is called a compartmental press toward the boundary, trying to overwhelm and lock out all the short-passing options.
This left the far side wide open, with numerous Revolution players overshifting to try and press the Black & Gold. If the Crew were able to get a switch out to the far side, they were off and running at an undermanned New England defense.
This is exactly what happened on the first goal of the night for Columbus. Cucho Hernandez drifted out to the left wing and drew a single defender out with him. The Black & Gold broke the press and found him in behind an undermanned defense, leading to the equalizer.
The second way to beat the press is to play a longer pass into the feet of an attacker and have them hold up the play. This allows the other players who were pinned deep to move up the pitch and be dangerous secondary runners. This unlocks a few different passing combinations that are hard for defenders to track, with numerous new runners coming at them as the offensive team advances.
Once Columbus figured out how to beat the New England press, the floodgates opened. Time after time the Black & Gold poured forward and pounded the ball into the back of the net. This led Porter to change tactics, dropping the Revolution back further into a resisted press. This tactical change gave the Revs more defensive stability but sacrificed the sheer number of pressing players to turn the Crew over.
At this point, Columbus shifted their tactics too. Now they began to possess the ball more in the attacking third, rather than going purely on the counterattack.
This is when Steven Moreira and Malte Amundsen began moving into the midfield, leaving Rudy Camacho back as the lone defender for the Black & Gold. With the outside center backs up, the Crew’s shape looked like a 1-4-1-4, with Diego Rossi playing the floating no. 10 position.
As more goals poured in, Columbus shifted to a 2-3-1-4 for more defensive stability in the final third. Only one outside center back moved up into the midfield now, depending on where the ball was. If the ball was on the right side, Moreira would move up. If it was on the left, Amundsen would move forward.
The Black & Gold won this match by adapting in game, learning what the other team was doing, and making sure they attacked the weaknesses. Going down a goal in the first ten minutes is not a recipe for success, but the way this team responded was impressive and yielded three points.
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