Columbus Crew SC head coach Gregg Berhalter has had a persistent presence in the U.S. men’s national team manager discussion, and a quick look at his team’s performance in a scoreless draw last weekend at FC Dallas shows why. Whether you agree with his team’s approach or not, Columbus’ performance at one of the league’s best teams showed an organized, highly-prepared team executing a clear game plan that played to their strengths. In a world where people are always going to disagree on how the game can be played, that may be the highest compliment you can give a coach.
We’ll go over some examples of that in today’s Know Your Opponent below, but that bottom line defines the tension around Wednesday’s match at Providence Park (7:30pm PT, FOX 12 PLUS | Presented by Daimler). Columbus will be doing the dreaded mid-week, travel-to-play-on-turf, across-multiple-time-zones trek – the type of challenge the Timbers have struggled to conquer this summer – but when the Crew take the field in Portland, they will at least be well-prepared. They will at least have targets within the Timbers team they’ll want to exploit. They will, at least, make the Timbers’ lives hard.
This is why so many people are high on Berhalter for the U.S. job. It’s also why, as Dallas was reminded early in the teams’ 0-0, Saturday draw, U.S. Soccer would be lucky if the 44-time American international decided the country’s top job was how he wanted to build on what he’s established in Columbus.
How the Crew pressed
The Timbers don’t build play the same way FC Dallas does. They play a different formation, one with more central midfielder, giving the team’s defenders more options through the middle to build out of the back.
Still, how Columbus approaches these situations is informative, as is the personnel with which they exert pressure. Here, in Saturday’s early minutes, they’re not pursuing the ball. Instead, they’re waiting for a trigger, one that happens after Dallas have pushed their fullbacks, dropped a midfielder into defense, and left their three deeper players isolated.
When left-center back Reto Zeigler plays this ball back toward the middle, Federico Higuain pounces. He’s the team’s attacking midfielder, ostensibly, but the Crew press out of a two-forward set – a two-front. Higuain, despite also being a player who drops deep in possession, is the Crew’s best presser.
That small snippet doesn’t do the Crew’s early pressing justice. The team almost never touches the ball over this minute-plus of pressure, but Dallas also never moves the ball close to midfield. At this point, below, Dallas have a chance to break pressure, but one bad touch from their left back allows Pedro Santos to catch up to the play, force the ball back and, without Dallas being set up to maintain possession, into a high turnover.
And, lest we think that’s an isolated example, here is the same setup and response minutes later, with Columbus nearly breaking into a dangerous chance on the counter.
As mentioned, above, the Timbers don’t build play like Dallas, so you shouldn’t look at these examples as predictions of what’s going to happen on Wednesday night. The philosophy underpinning it, though, matters. Columbus is not going to pursue the ball if that won’t work. They’re more than willing to wait and, based on your tendencies and Higuain’s tenacity, find the right opportunity to press.
Against Dallas, that meant one thing. Against Portland, that will likely mean something different.
When it doesn’t work
Now, when things don’t work? Well, we have an example of that, too – an example that might have more predictive power than what we’re seeing above.
In Zeigler, Dallas has a ball-playing left-center back who, imported from Europe, brings a fullback’s skills to a center-back’s position. If that sounds familiar, it’s because all of those labels apply equally to Liam Ridgewell, somebody the Timbers should expect to have back in their XI on Wednesday.
Look, here, at what happens when Columbus’s other presser, Gyasi Zardes, doesn’t act with enough urgency to get to Zeigler.
That two-level ball exposed an unorganized Columbus midfield, but it also revealed what the Crew have behind that: center back Jonathan Mensah. A Ghanian international, Mensah has both the speed and experience to cover for a number of evils, which might explain why center-back partner Lalas Abubakar can go on adventures like this …
… and why fellow Ghanian international Harrison Afful, the Crew’s right back, and get forward so early in this, that early-match counter attack (see the bottom of the screen):
Columbus loves going down their left, whether they’re up numbers there or not. Left back Milton Valenzuela and left wing Justin Meram, occasionally with help from midfielders Higuain and Artur, can take two-on-twos or three-on-threes and turn them into dangerous chances. Even above, you see a neutral situation turn into a near post cross, one where the Crew have three attackers in a dangerous spot. It’s all from their players’ willingness to read and run off each other.
That dynamic may mean who starts at left back for the Timbers is more important. Whomever of Zarek Valentin or Jorge Villafaña is better at reading, attacking, and clearing those types of crosses may be the difference between conceding a goal and not. And the dynamic further up the field, with Mensah? It shows that while you may be able to get to that level, you can’t count on winning an ensuing one-on-one battle.
Playing out of the back
One of the many other things to note about Columbus’ last game was another thing that emerged in the match’s opening minutes. As we alluded when talking about how the Timbers or, in the clips above, FC Dallas like to build play, most teams are risk averse in their third of the field. That makes perfect sense. Mistakes made closer to goal are more likely to be punished on the scoreboard.
However, look at Columbus’s choices here, …
… here …
… and, more successfully, here.
In each of these examples, Crew players are skipping a level or a player that most teams try to hit. Remember, in this part of the field, you want to rely on your safer options, even if you’re keeping your mind open to more aggressive ones. But Berhalter is having his team be more proactive in riskier places than you’d see from most, and in turn, Dallas has three chances to create dangerous turnovers.
Of course, in the third example, Columbus is able to reap their risks’ rewards, generating a good chance for Meram because they were able to move the ball with such purpose. Plus, given Dallas’s pressure features two fast forwards who can cover a lot of ground (Dominique Badji, Maxi Urruti), this choice may be better than playing wide to the fullbacks only to see them closed down. Against Portland, Columbus may be different.
But this is still a reflection of Berhalter’s approach. And, in his team’s execution, it’s a reflection of his ability to implement a plan at all levels. It may not have delivered three points for the Crew on Saturday, but in the cohesion we saw from Berhalter’s squad, you see why so many want him running the U.S.’ men’s national squad.
