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Posted by
Dominic Sikora,
March 28, 2011 |
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For all the talk of Toronto FC showing their fans their much talked about possession oriented 4-3-3 formation for the first time at home Aron Winter sprung a surprise lining his side up in a 4-2-3-1 shape. Alan Gordon came in for Nick Soolsma and Mikael Yourassowsky played left back replacing the injured Nana Attakora as Adrian Cann moved into the middle. John Spencer kept the same eleven that lost last week to Colorado and Toronto faced a rigid 4-4-2 for the second week in a row.
Why the change in formation?
Against Vancouver Winter played a 4-3-3 formation with Nathan Sturgis behind Dwayne De Rosario and Jacob Peterson. In this match Sturgis played on the same axis as Peterson with De Rosario moving to the left wing, Maicon Santos dropping deep in an attacking midfield role and Alan Gordon starting up front. Maybe Winter wanted to accommodate both Santos and Gordon, maybe he doesn’t feel comfortable playing a 4-3-3 without a true defensive midfielder such as Julian de Guzman or possible Elbekay Bouchiba, or maybe he doesn’t think it fits his players the best. Whatever the reason, and it might be a combination of all three, Winter not only changed the nominal line up of the players but he also changed the way they played.
Toronto more willing to play direct, less predictable
Toronto enjoyed less possession than last week but that was mainly because they were more willing to get the ball forward quickly. This made them less predictable and helped hide the deficiencies of Cann and Ty Harden distributing from the back. Consider this: the number of passes leading to Toronto’s first goal was four (Gargan to Peterson, Peterson to Santos, Santos to De Rosario, De Rosario to Martina) and only one pass led to the second goal (Frei to Martina). In the opening game of the season Toronto would not have been so willing to strike forward quickly and it is much more likely that Winter let them play this way rather than them simply ignoring instructions. Aron Winter may have been stubborn against the Whitecaps in keeping Cann at left back when it clearly wasn’t working but in just two matches he has already shown a willingness to adapt.
Gordon shows better movement than Cooper and Perlaza
An advantage Toronto enjoyed over Portland was the movement of their forward players. Gordon’s willingness to drop deep directly led to Toronto’s first goal. As Peterson laid the ball into Santos, Gordon dropped into space and both of Portland’s centre backs followed. De Rosario made a diagonal run from the left wing and Santos hit him with a similar diagonal ball to the one that led to De Rosario’s goal against Vancouver. This time the captain had to hold it up and Javier Martina swooped in to claim his first ever MLS goal. When you have a striker who drops deep back into midfield you need someone to fill that space he created. Playing De Rosario on his off wing meant he could constantly cut in on his favoured right foot. This in turn creates space on the left wing which Yourassowsky filled admirably.
At the other end Kenny Cooper and Jorge Perlaza were not as willing to engage in the midfield and so even though Portland enjoyed spells where they dominated the ball most of their attacks were easily neutralized. In fact, the only times Portland really looked to threaten were the rare instances where Cooper did drop deep and either earn a free kick or hit a patented long range pile driver as he did near the end of the half, or when Toronto needlessly gave the ball away which is what led to Perlaza’s header.
Winter aggressive with the lead
At half time Winter introduced new signing Alen Stevanovic into the game for Sturgis and Toronto’s shape became less rigid. They played a sort of lopsided 4-2-3-1 similar to how they ended against Vancouver with Stevanovic dovetailing often from midfield and Santos dropping even deeper. This meant that Peterson was tasked with holding the midfield himself, a curious decision for a player who throughout his career was an attacking winger. Winter seems to favour Peterson, playing him for the full 90 minutes in both matches so far. Pace is usually cited as Peterson’s best attribute and it may be that Winter wants Peterson’s speed in the middle to break up counter attacks as he did effectively in the first half after Toronto committed men forward on a long throw in.
This made the game much more open, Portland had more space in the middle of the field but Toronto also enjoyed more options countering with a plethora of attacking options. A combination of poor finishing and decision making meant Toronto didn’t score more than one goal and while Portland came closer to scoring after half time the trade off was that Toronto was more likely to score as well. The second goal itself was not inherently tactical, it was an incredible ball by Stefan Frei met by an equally delightful volley by Martina but it bears repeating that that type of play is something that Toronto may not have been willing to make against Vancouver
last week.
Conclusion
Aron Winter showed a willingness to change things and while there a number of possible explanations as to why he did the answer is probably an amalgamation of all of them. Whether the formation will continue to change week to week or depending on the personnel available remains to be seen but Winter has shown that he is not pigeon holing players into certain positions and that he is not limiting himself either as to what kind of game he wants his team to play. From a Portland point of view their fans must be disappointed to lose by multiple goals for the second week in a row and John Spencer must instill some sort of structure or idea to his team. Although players returning from injury will help him Portland looked like an unimaginative and ill-equipped Vancouver.
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