Crew tactical review: Columbus starts off 2025 with a win over Chicago

The Columbus Crew grabbed its first win of the season with a 4-2 victory over the Chicago Fire at Lower.com Field. The visitors got out to an early lead, but Columbus responded shortly after courtesy of Jacen Russell-Rowe. Yet again, Chicago pushed out in front just minutes later to give Gregg Berhalter a lead against his former team. From there, it was all Black & Gold. A Fire own goal and a brace from Diego Rossi sealed all three points for the Crew on the first matchday of the season.

After the departures of Cucho Hernandez and Christian Ramirez this offseason, the Black & Gold held their own in the first match of the new year. Let’s dive into all the tactics that went into the opening-day victory.

Early struggles and tactical setups

The first 30 minutes of the match did not go the way the Crew wanted it to. Chicago took the lead inside 15 minutes and then regained the advantage another time after Columbus landed a counter punch.

Wilfried Nancy’s team looked rusty. The Black & Gold misplaced passes, took poor touches and could not stop turning the ball over to the Fire’s press. It was a first 30 minutes that resembled a team in its first MLS match since November.

Some of that sloppiness is due to this game being the first meaningful match that Columbus played in three months. The other mistakes were due to both the Fire and Black & Gold’s tactical setups.

Let’s start off with the Crew. Columbus lined up in the typical 3-4-3/5-2-3 formation that has become commonplace under Nancy. Yevhen Cheberko anchored the center of the back three alongside Steven Moreira and Malte Amundsen. Mo Farsi and Max Arfsten flanked the defense, with Darlington Nagbe and Sean Zawadzki in the center of the midfield. The front three was rounded out by Dylan Chambost, Russell-Rowe and Rossi.

On defense, Columbus defended in a 5-3-2 with Chambost dropping into midfield alongside Nagbe and Zawadzki. That formation was the standard Black & Gold defensive setup throughout Nancy’s tenure in Columbus.

On offense, the Crew had an altered look from the prior season. They stuck with the 3-4-3 base formation, but it changed quickly. The first altered shape was a 3-3-4. The back three remained the same, but the wingbacks pushed up high as wingers.

In this shape, Chambost often dropped into the half-space between Moreira and Farsi to play as a half-pivot. The objective of this offensive formation was to hit the wingbacks on diagonal runs in behind Chicago’s center backs. Relying on long balls is not usually Columbus’ style, but it was the main avenue of attack in this formation.

When Chambost moved into the half-pivot space and Amundsen did the same on the left, the Black & Gold would shift into a 2-4-4. Moreira and Cheberko would stay as a back two, with Amundsen and Chambost making a cupped midfield with Nagbe and Zawadzki. The front four would stay in the same positions.

The offensive approach did not change much when the formations were tweaked, with the long balls to the wingbacks remaining as the Crew’s path of choice. While this long ball strategy took place in both formations, it was the Fire’s defensive approach that caused Columbus to play the aerial game.

Chicago lined up in Berhalter’s classic 4-2-3-1 and employed a press with six of their 11 players. The Fire’s attack and midfielders used a man-mark press to get after the Black & Gold, with the back four playing a higher line.

Wherever the Crew tried to create an overload, Chicago would match the numbers. This made it incredibly hard for Columbus to combine and build out of the back, leading to the long balls over the top.

The worst part was the Black & Gold’s transition defense. With one of the three center backs high up the field, Chicago routinely got wide mismatches on the counter which sprang Jonathan Bamba down the left side time and time again.

This led to a difficult first half hour of the match, resulting in the Black & Gold going down 2-1. The tides would soon change though, with Nancy unlocking Berhalter’s defensive enigma.

Nancy’s answer to the Fire’s defensive tactics

The Crew’s French manager unlocked Chicago’s defensive structure around the half-hour mark. His answer to the Fire’s press would flip the game on its head and give Columbus the foothold it needed to grab all three points.

It started with the attack. Rossi, Russell-Rowe and Chambost were not getting the ball played into their feet because they were not dropping into midfield. For much of the first half they just stayed high on the backline and fought for those aerial balls.

The Black & Gold began to break Chicago’s press when they could get the ball into one of the attackers’ feet and combine quickly on one-twos. This put the Fire’s press on its heels and opened up space in behind to run into.

This is the area of the game where Rossi became absolutely immense. The Uruguayan became the focal point of the team, dropping into midfield and spraying out first-time passes to spring the Crew out of the press.

His ability to do this freed up the second key for Columbus getting back into the game – Moreira getting higher up the pitch. During the first part of the opening half he often stayed back alongside Cheberko, but Nancy convinced him to be bold and attack.

Once Rossi began breaking the Black & Gold out, the right side of the field became Moreira and Farsi’s playground. The two defenders-turned-attackers combined to put Chicago’s left back in a blender on multiple occasions, with two goals coming directly from Moreira’s foot.

Once Moreira was able to get into the attack and Rossi put the buildup on his back, the Crew turned into a completely different team. There were still times when the Fire had chances on the counter, but that is to be expected in Columbus’ system. The difference in the offensive approach for the Black and Gold was night and day though.

Those in-game adjustments are what make Nancy one of – if not the best – managers in MLS. Crew fans will want to see more of the Columbus squad that showed up for the last 60 minutes of the match as the season gets rolling.