Photo: SJEarthquakes.com
Last Saturday, the Earthquakes headed out to Kansas City with hopes of putting the road woes of last season behind them. The home side ended up taking all three points in a 3-2 victory. Here are some observations that I had during the match.
San Jose’s Defensive Approach
Defensively, San Jose fielded a compact 4-4-2 aiming to control the space around the ball and deny attacking players and midfielders space in between the lines of defense. On the road against one of the best pressing/counter-pressing sides in MLS, this approach makes sense. It was a similar approach, along with the introduction of newly signed midfielder Anibal Godoy, that gave the Quakes a 5-0 victory at Sporting Park in 2015. This defensive approach is significantly different from how the Quakes approached the first 75 minutes of the home opener against Minnesota United.
Note that the numbers used in these diagrams are not actually player numbers, but rather numbers denoting the players positions.
Against Minnesota, there was more of an emphasis on pressing higher up the pitch and blocking passing lanes rather than controlling the space between the lines of defense. The defensive shape resembled more of a 4-2-3-1 with Hoesen on the front lines and Wondo dropping back with Eriksson and Vako. The goal of this was to deny Minnesota the opportunity to progress through their two central midfielders, Ibson and Schuller. If one of the central midfielders received the ball, a player would immediately close him down, and the front four players (Hoesen, Wondo, Vako, and Eriksson) would do their best to block any immediate passing lanes or mark surrounding opponents. This was effective against Minnesota, because often times the individual quality of Schuller and Ibson simply was not enough to bypass the Earthquakes defense. There were, however, some kinks that were occasionally exploited by Minnesota, which leads us to believe that this same approach likely would have gotten carved up away at Sporting Kansas City.
SKC switches of play
One downside to San Jose’s low pressure and their compactness was that it allowed SKC to circulate the ball in safe areas with ease at times. This often left the ball-far fullback wide open, and SKC regularly tried to take advantage of this. There were a number of instances where SKC switched the play from one half-space to the other, which allowed the fullbacks (Zusi or Sinovic) to combine with one of the central midfielders (Espinoza or Gutierrez) to overload San Jose’s defense on the flanks and penetrate the half-spaces. Here is one example:
43′ Sporting KC (light blue) 1-1 San Jose Earthquakes (dark blue)
Graham Zusi is wide open on the right wing when Gutierrez receives the ball. The ball to Zusi drags Shea Salinas out of position, and opens the door for Espinoza to make a dangerous, unmarked run down the right half-space. This ball played to Zusi also allowed SKC’s attacking players like Russell and Salloi to find more space between the lines of defense. Vako being somewhat out of position also helped SKC in this case because it allowed Espinoza to make his run completely unmarked. Here is another example of a similar scenario:
This time, Opara initiates the switch to Sinovic, who does a wall pass with Gutierrez to get behind San Jose’s defense.
San Jose’s first goal, Magnus Eriksson’s passing
Sporting KC have had their share of defensive problems this year, and the Quakes were able to exploit that thanks to some brilliant hold-up play from Danny Hoesen. Hoesen fought off Ike Opara and Ilie Sanchez for about 8 seconds prior to the first goal. He passed the ball to Magnus Eriksson, who successfully fought off the press and held up the ball for a bit longer.
When Eriksson received the ball and turned his back to goal, Ike Opara immediately pushed up thinking that SKC would win the ball back and push forward. Eriksson’s patience to find the right pass, Opara leaving his post early, and a great underlapping run from Nick Lima to take Ilie and Sinovic out of the play allowed San Jose to capitalize on one of their few opportunities in the first half.
