The MLS Discovers the Beautiful Game

Over the years I have been largely disappointed with the quality of play in Major League Soccer. My main complaint was the preponderance of direct attacking play that was pervasive throughout the early years of the league. It was much like watching a typical high school game on steroids. No imagination. No creativity. Brute force single mindedness,  U-G-L-Y soccer. Then along came the 2015 edition of the Columbus Crew Soccer Club.

I have no problem admitting my excitement over the Crew's play is based in large part in the fact Gregg Berhalter has them playing "my" system.  Of course, I do not actually claim ownership of the system of play the Crew are utilizing. I am merely acknowledging the fact I have been using the same system of play for the last five years. From a 1-4-2-3-1 alignment the Crew SC are combining disciplined defending with a free flowing varied attack. 

At the heart of the system is a conscious commitment to purposefully manipulate the opponents defense through both player movement and ball movement. Side to side. Forward and backward. A defense that must move with varied player and ball movement will lose its shape eventually.  This is when the Crew pounce on the seams created in the opponents defense.  Then, just as they lull you into defending their patient probing style the Crew changes pace of play and hits with a blitzkrieg direct attack.  I hate to constantly refer to Sun Tzu, but what the Crew SC is doing on the attack is utilizing fundamental principles from The Art of War.  

Gregg Berhalter has a deep understanding that the ball can and should be used to shape the game. In this system the ball is often used as bait to manipulate the defense before the defense is actually attacked. Possession is valued and viewed as a tool to be used to prepare the way to a goal scoring opportunity. The system being employed is a thinking players system and this is what sets it apart from the standard fare of direct play that has dominated soccer in the United States. 

It is no secret a steady diet of direct play is easily defended with organized defense.  Denying the negative space between backs and the goalkeeper is a relatively easy thing to do when that is all a defense is required to do. The typical response to being denying direct play is to play in the outside channels and cross the ball to the face of the goal.  Is it any wonder that scoring from crosses and corner kicks has been in steady decline?

Let's look at this from another angle.  The lack of creativity has long been lamented in this country's soccer play.  Is there really anything creative about playing direct soccer?  There simply are not many opportunities when play is direct and at a pace of as fast as you can go to goal. This is what happens when reliance on big, fast, strong persists. A king consideration to stimulating creativity is to provide opportunities to be creative. This is what Berhalter and "our" system is bringing to the crew.

I have taken to calling the system Space and Pace. 

When we think of direct soccer we visualize a ball being played through or chipped over the backs and into (negative) space.  This is the space the attack seeks to utilize. On those rare occasions when a breakaway to goal occurs everyone gets excited. Worse, everyone becomes convinced that if it worked once, it will surely work again.  And so a steady diet of through balls is the staple for the attack. 

Consider this; one of the designs of a good zonal defense is to bait the opponents into attempting to play through balls. This is a primary reason the zonal defense came into being in soccer - to combat direct play via through balls.  Why attack the strength of the defense?  The answer is in part because with the growing prevalence of zonal defenses many of them are not played properly.  I see this on the local high school and club scene all the time. A minimum of instruction is giving to the backs and usually early in the seasonal process. For the rest of the season, the backs are expected to know how to play in the defense.  The teams that play zonal defense well work on it every day. Not many high school or club teams devote the necessary time to honing their zonal defense.

Space and Pace is about using what the defense gives the attack. Zonal defenses are designed to keep the ball in front of the defenders. What's given to the attack is ... possession.  Watch the Crew move the ball side to side back and forth across the pitch before seemingly exploding towards goal.  They use target play to engage the backs and drop passes to create space behind the opponents backs.  Once again, the ball is the bait to draw attention away from the space that will be used and the player movement taking place to both open and utilize that space.  Their is an intentional engaging of defenders and the defense as a whole followed by intentional disengaging and switching of the point of attack. This places a zonal defense whose strength is in numbers supporting pressure on the ball under far more stress than a steady diet of direct play, It forces the entire defense to move as a collective. When the breakdown of a single defender within the team system occurs, this is where the attackers pounce.  It might well be a different defender each possession hence the varied and unpredictable attack generated by Space and Pace. 

My apologies for rambling on a bit in today's writing. As you can tell, I am both excited and passionate about what I have seen from the Crew SC thus far in the 2015 season.  I have seen first hand the effectiveness of Space and Pace from the high school and club teams I have coached. I knew it would work on the professional level and am ecstatic to see it happening with the Columbus Crew SC.  This is what our Pace of Play team camps are all about. Interested in learning more?  Contact us at tbrown@wcoil.com or by calling 567-204-6083 to set up a camp for your team.

Timothy J Brown
Founder and Director
Conceive Believe Achieve Soccer