I don’t care that the standings record that game as a loss. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the heart-pumping joy I got from watching this unburdened Quakes team negate and outplay Atlanta for 70 minutes before, as Rob Usry memorably put it, they became the first team to blow a 4-1 lead en route to losing 4-3. Basically, it was awesome, the Quakes are awesome, and we’re going to win the league.
So what gives? How is this the same team that hasn’t just been bad, but righteously pathetic for the entire season? The psychic weight of a failing coach is hard to overstate, but there were a few clever tactical tweaks that managed both to fit the personnel better and successfully counter and contain the ultra-lethal Five Stripes attack for the large majority of the game. Interim coach Steve Ralston deserves a lot of credit for his gameplan. It doesn’t mean he’s the next Pep Guardiola, but it does put in extremely sharp relief how tactically clueless the now-fired Mikael Stahre was.
Here are some particular nuances I noticed:
Swapping the flanks
I can’t recall more than sporadic periods throughout the season where Vako played wide right and Magnus Eriksson stayed on the left flank, the opposite of where they’ve spent most of their respective careers, but this may have been the most brilliant insight Ralston had on this game. Eriksson, deeply left-footed, and Vako, mostly right-footed, tend to work from the flanks opposite their strong foot in order to cut in, take players on, and combine with short passing. Clearly, that wasn’t working in the context of the broader system.
By forcing them to play on the flank closest to their strong foot, they naturally stayed much wider, which immediately improved the defensive shape. It also put Magnus in front of Salinas, giving the out-of-position left back more defensive cover than the Georgian would offer. Offensively, it restricted the mazy runs through the middle that either could make, and instead put them in better positions to play passes more vertically, which plays to Eriksson’s strengths in particular. Add that up, and it reorients the team from building through the middle (which frequently exposed the team defensively upon ball-loss) to much more counter-oriented, which suits both of the team’s strikers (Wondo and Hoesen) better anyway.
There are absolutely ways to design effective systems for these guys to play inverted (that is, Magnus on the right and Vako on the left), but what Stahre had tried thus far hadn’t done the job. Simply flipping them put them in positions where, without too much advanced tactical instruction, their natural instincts suited the team’s approach much better. Truly, a stroke of genius.
Single Pivot, Three Midfielders
Be still my beating heart. Luis Felipe is truly a superlative single-pivot stopper, reminding me a bit of Watford’s Etienne Capoue, who is also basically an impassable wall in the middle. Putting him as the lone man deep was a good call.
Perhaps even better, however, was deploying Anibal Godoy and Jackson Yueill in front of him, both players who would prefer not to be leashed back defensively, but who can exert a lot of influence over the middle of the park in all phases.
Not only did that suit those three players better for their own purposes, but it was the perfect counter-move to an Atlanta team that deeply prefers to build through the middle. The center of the park was clogged defensively, and any counter-press was of limited value since there were release valves for San Jose in close proximity. Atlanta looked nothing like the world-beaters they usually do, with sclerotic ball movement. In fact, three of their four goals came as a result of crosses from wide areas, indicating how effectively their preferred option was taken off the table.
Of note is that the closest that Stahre ever got to playing three central midfielders were the times when Vako played as a second striker and would sometimes drop a bit to receive the ball. That doesn’t even slightly serve the defensive purposes I described above. Even a traditional #10 in addition to the double pivot would’ve been more limited in its impact. Ralston dialed up two #8s in front of a single-pivot #6, which is an extremely defensive look (not dissimilar from the USMNT lately), but it was perfect for the particular matchup, and may actually be a solid base for the future if he can find ways to make it more proactive.
Structure, Structure, Structure
Avante-garde, fluid positioning is a hallmark of many of the world’s elite teams, and the deepest desire of a certain kind of footballing purist, hell-bent on replicating totaalvoetbal concepts no matter the level of play. Mika Stahre basically asked each of his wide midfielders to roam free through the middle, and gave his central midfielders an incredibly long leash, all in a bid to get them closer together to create combinations. Bobby Warshaw gave Stahre credit for this in his early-season article, back when the Quakes looked like a plausibly competent team, that now reads like a backhanded compliment and warning of things to come.
The problem is, that shit doesn’t work when your team sucks, or when you don’t have a genius tactician drilling them in what is a much more complicated, improvisational system. Going back to basics in this instance was essential. Every professional player on earth knows how to play in a structured system that sits on the counter. You just hold your position when you don’t have the ball. You only press in the most obvious scenarios. Nothing crazy.
Luis Felipe sat in front of the back four all night, and rarely got pulled too far out of position. Godoy and Yueill, although given just about the freest roles on the night, were consistent with their pressing responsibilities and covered for each other well. Eriksson and Vako, who were oriented heavily toward offensive roles under Stahre, stayed remarkably disciplined in holding the line on the advanced bank of four, rarely leaving their touchline. After how out-of-control the positioning of certain players was under Stahre (particularly Flo Jungwirth when he played in midfield), I’m honestly just impressed that Ralston managed to convince the players to stay structured.
When you’re up against a team with the attacking quality of Atlanta, that’s really important. Guys for the first time this season looked like they knew who would be behind them in defense, and when to press after ball-loss. The result was general defensive solidity until the very last moments of the game.
While I’m sure some of you might point out that I’ve given quite a lot of credit to the defensive shape of a team that conceded 4 goals, keep this context in mind: San Jose has the second-worst defense in the league and Atlanta has the best offense in the league (in both cases, by both advanced metrics and simple goals/goals allowed). Atlanta, in fact, might end up with the best offense in league history, with Josef Martinez already having sealed the top single-season goalscoring total record. Besides all that, I think the total of four goals was harsh, and the fact three poured in late-on I think could easily speak to things besides tactics, such as, I don’t know, a massive psychological blow to an already fragile team via a bizarre VAR sequence that fundamentally changed the momentum of the game.
Conclusion
I’d like to emphasize again I’m not suggesting Steve Ralston is the savior, or that this qualifies him to take on the job permanently. Mark Watson dramatically improved the team when he took over for Frank Yallop, only for massive regression to occur once he had a full season to work with.
It just suggests that 1) Mika Stahre was exactly as bad as I’ve said he was for months now 2) the personnel is not last-place caliber. Both of those things are reassuring, because they point to better times ahead if the right coach can be found, and modest improvements (rather than a wholesale teardown) are made to the roster.
Or so I hope.
