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Posted by
Dominic Sikora,
April 11, 2011 |
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Toronto FC earned a respectable away draw and debuted an intense style of pressing. For the first time in his TFC career, Aron Winter named an unchanged line up for two matches in a row as Toronto lined up in their now familiar 4-2-3-1. Meanwhile, San Jose coach Frank Yallop lined up his side in a 4-1-4-1/4-3-3 formation with former Toronto midfielder Sam Cronin staying back. This allowed the rest of the San Jose midfield to get forward and support reigning Golden Boot champion, Chris Wondolowski.
Mirrored formations
As often happens when a 4-2-3-1 meets a 4-1-4-1/4-3-3, the two formations mirrored, each other giving everyone a ‘natural’ opponent. Cronin picked up Maicon Santos, leaving the two central midfielders from each team to battle each other, while both sets of wingers and fullbacks found themselves near each other. Cronin did well in his deep position denying Santos. As remarked in the previous article, Santos provides an interesting set of problems for an opponen when playing in the hole (but not all of them are good for Toronto). Today his difficulty in find space and getting on the ball meant that he couldn’t use any of his strength to impact the game. Clearly, he needs to work on his movement between the lines. If he can learn that, his unique abilities as an attacking midfielder could result in a greater impact on the pitch.
Inverted wingers on same side
As has been the case in every single match so far, Winter played an inverted winger on the left (even when Joao Plata and Gianlucz Zavarise came on in the second half Plata played on the left with Zavarise in the middle). And, judging by his performance, Alen Stevanovic should be a regular on that side. According to OptaStats Toronto have the highest proportion of attacks on the left side of the pitch in the MLS. Many people remark that Javier Martina did not see much of the ball and this is starting to look like a trend. This is probably a combination of a lack of full back support (Danleigh Borman and Mikael Yourassowky continually get forward more than Ty Harden and Dan Gargan) and instruction from Winter. In this match, a ball won in the middle of the pitch was quickly swung to the left wing where Stevanovic and Borman linked to create a fortunate chance that Alan Gordon finished.
Meanwhile San Jose had influential winger Bobby Convey on the right wandering all over the pitch to find space. He created many chances, but continuously let down Jason Hernandez. Attacking San Jose’s right made sense for a couple of reasons: when the Earthquakes lost possession Convey was often out of position, and Ramiro Corrales is a much stronger defender than Hernandez.
TFC fail to pick up midfield runners
Playing a dedicated holding midfielder behind two central midfielders often gives the two midfielders more license to attack, and both Simon Dawkins and Khari Stephenson got forward often. San Jose’s goal was an example of midfielders bombing forward and Toronto being unable to track them – Dawkins played a simple one-two with Wondolowski as TFC were slow to react while the hosts tied the game. It was perhaps because both Jacob Peterson and Tony Tchani had trouble tracking their counterparts that Winter introduced Julian de Guzman at half, but the main effect of Winter’s half time adjustments was that Toronto came out and pressed like we haven’t seen yet this season.
Second half pressing by Toronto dictates game
At the start of the second half, Toronto’s entire team pressed San Jose high up the pitch. It took a bit of time for Toronto to get used to this new tactic, and a high line was exposed once or twice, but, once Toronto got into their groove, the Quakes had an extremely difficult time breaking the first line of pressing. Against Chivas, Gordon was very pedestrian when Toronto were out of possession, but on Saturday he worked hard to close down passing lanes and harry the opposition centre backs. Stand in captain de Guzman led the charge, closing down anything that was in his general area, and Tchani followed suit with a much better second half. Both midfielders seem apt to such a style, de Guzman is a decent tackler but is great at reading passing lanes, and Tchani is a very athletic player who can cover a lot of ground.
However, there were still a few kinks that Toronto need to work out with their intense pressing. Santos looked lost as the rest of the team were closing people down, and Adrian Cann, although he had an exceptional second half overall, sometimes got caught too high up the pitch closing players down. That being said, it was encouraging to see Toronto apply systematic pressure, which is something many people expected would be a hallmark of their game this season. It is important that everyone is on the same page when Winter decides to press as it only takes a couple of players not doing their job for the side to be ripped apart.
Conclusion
This was a match where both sides had chances and a draw was probably a fair result. San Jose kept possession well in the first half, with Cronin constantly finding open space and spraying passes, while Toronto continued to work down the left whenever they attacked. In the second half, Toronto looked to press high and win the ball in a good position and counter quickly. This was definitely the most interesting tactical aspect of the match and will be the thing to look for when Toronto play Los Angeles on Wednesday. A high octane pressing team needs to be very fit and a couple of niggling injuries and a mid week game might mean that it will be difficult for Toronto to do the same against the Galaxy at BMO Field.
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