Los Angeles FC’s second goal against Philadelphia Union on Saturday offers a chance to highlight some key attacking concepts while pointing to areas Philly can improve against teams they will face in the near future — like NYCFC — that employ positional play principles.
Pass and move and create space for others
The Union often speak about creating “man-more” situations in which they obtain a numerical advantage over an opponent in a specific area of the pitch. The buildup to LAFC’s second goal of the match Saturday was, unfortunately, a wonderful example of why man-more situations are such an important concept in soccer.
Off of a LAFC throw-in, Adama Diomande, at this point just one goal into his eventual hat trick, checks short on the touchline with Marcus Epps on his back (see the yellow circle in the image below). It’s important to note that Diomande is the short, wide option because that means the near-side winger is pushed high (off-screen to the right) and that the Union center backs are currently not tracking Diomande. It’s a subtle thing, but by pulling Diomande away from Philly’s defenders, LA caused quite a bit of havoc throughout the game. Even when the striker did not get the ball, he made himself difficult to zero in on.
Mark-Anthony Kaye is the option close to Joao Moutinho, the thrower. Before the ball is thrown in, the Union have even numbers with LA, but once Kaye returns the ball to Moutinho, the home side has a 3v2. Ale Bedoya attempts to negate this advantage by using a cover shadow, which simply means he tries to put his body into the passing lane between Moutinho and Kaye. Moutinho overcomes this cover shadow by playing to Diomande who holds off Epps and gives the ball to Kaye in space. And that’s the moment where a troubling situation waterfalls into a full-blown crisis for Philly.
In the image above, the Union midfield is marked with orange rings and important aspects of LAFC’s shape are noted with spotlights. Now LA has taken Bedoya out of the play with a quick triangle and nobody from the Union has rotated over in anticipation of this outcome. Ilsinho is marking Eduard Atuesta (20) and hasn’t recognized that when Bedoya steps to the touchline, he needs to rotate into the zone in the channel; Kaye is able to dribble cleanly at the Union defense. Note that CJ Sapong is also trying to get back to help, but like Ilsinho he has not anticipated LAFC’s ability to take Bedoya out of the play. When tactics get complicated, remember that simple triangles remain an extremely powerful attacking tool in nearly any attacking scenario.
Importantly, the Union’s midfield is now poorly positioned to slow down Kaye because Creavalle is still responsible for the center of the pitch and Ilsinho has been slow to rotate so now he is behind the play. Meanwhile, using Diomande as the touchline option on the throw-in — a seemingly minor wrinkle — begins to have huge benefits for LAFC. Diomande takes off upfield once he sees Kaye has room to advance the ball. Epps is unsure if he needs to turn and run with Diomande or hand him off to Keegan Rosenberry or a centerback. Meanwhile, since Diomande was deep, LA has been able to keep a winger high to pin Rosenberry wide and prevent him from offering quick help to Epps (or stepping to Kaye).
Now Kaye has moved into the Union’s attacking third with Ilsinho doing a recovery sprint to catch him. Lee Nguyen has drifted over to occupy Warren Creavalle and provide an option for a quick combination if Kaye is looking to hand the ball off.
The key aspect of this moment is that it points to all of the decision-making LAFC is forcing Philly’s defenders to do. Mark McKenzie is in the process of halting his drop to stand up Kaye outside the box because he sees Rosenberry moving inside to track Diomande’s run, which has by this point left Epps behind.
However, Rosenberry still has half a mind on Latif Blessing wide left. As the image below makes clear, this confusion — all caused by Diomande’s excellent driving run — precipitates the simple tap in that will soon follow.
Kaye’s ball wide to Blessing pulls Rosenberry off of Diomande, so now McKenzie must turn and sprint after the striker. But since Ilsinho thought he was handing Kaye off to McKenzie once the center back stopped and squared his body, the Brazilian is halting his recovery sprint. So even though the Union currently have even numbers on the play, they soon won’t. An important additional note is that LA has a central run which keeps Auston Trusty from angling across the pitch to cover Diomande; Trusty and Ray Gaddis have not worked out who will take the run, so it keeps them both honest and allows LA to create another man-more situation, but this one deep in the Union box.
Blessing returns the ball to Kaye, now free from Ilsinho’s tracking. The pass is in front of the midfielder, but it falls to Benny Feilhaber.
At this moment, Diomande’s simple run creates even more confusion — now he has Trusty’s attention so Feilhaber is free to take his time and let Kaye bypass McKenzie as the center back tries to step to the ball in what he perceives to be a shooting situation.
Once Kaye is past McKenzie, Feilhaber slips him the ball forcing Trusty to leave Diomande, and before Gaddis can recover to the big striker LAFC is up 2-0.
The entire sequence highlights how one small breakdown by the Union — and one tweak by LAFC, using Diomande short on the throw rather than Blessing, the more obvious choice — can cascade into a goalscoring opportunity.
There are a number of things the Union defense can do differently in the future to prevent such a scenario from developing. Although McKenzie ends up looking like he’s the primary offender when the play takes place at full speed, Philly’s midfield leaves him woefully exposed throughout the play, forcing the teenager into a number of problems that even a veteran would struggle to solve. That said, McKenzie and Rosenberry both zero in on the ball when defending rather than adjusting their positioning to cut out passing lanes. When Rosenberry attacks Blessing and when McKenzie steps to Feilhaber they take very direct paths instead of curving their approaches to shadow the lane to an open man.
Overall, this is a good example of how defense is about defending spaces as much as it is about defending the ball or opposing players. The Union midfield left a huge lane through the right channel and once Kaye recognized it, Philly’s defense could not decision-make with enough speed to prevent LAFC from entering the box.
This is also a good example of how a striker dropping off a defense can create confusion, and how a hard decoy run can become a chance to score by creating difficult decision-making moments for defenders. Diomande’s run is direct, but he creates confusion at multiple levels, much like an angled road such as Passyunk passing through Philadelphia’s otherwise gridded streets.
