Brian Schmetzer’s head coaching debut with the MLS Sounders against the LA Galaxy on Sunday was neither abject failure or overt success. Like so many things with Seattle this year, there were a million shades of gray.
In most other circumstances the 1-1 draw would’ve been fine. But the Sounders are under extraordinary circumstances, needing somewhere in the vicinity of eight or nine wins from their final dozen games to ensure playoff qualification. As those hopes dwindle, talk increasingly turns to what the Sounders can do in the interim to engender some kind of momentum headed into 2017.
And so the Sounders embark on their cross-country trip to Orlando on Sunday (4 p.m. PT; FS1; KIRO Radio 97.3 FM, El Rey 1360AM) in search not only of three points, but also a solid head of steam to prove the ship is officially turning. And in this they find a kindred spirit in the Southeast.
Orlando City’s table positioning is perhaps not quite as much a shock to the system as Seattle’s, but the two sides are undergoing similar midseason transformations. After ushering Orlando City into MLS in 2015, head coach Adrian Heath was let go in July in favor of former Real Salt Lake and NYCFC coach Jason Kreis.
Almost immediately, Kreis began assessing the side that had been built under previous leadership largely from the front back. Attacking luminaries like Kaka, Kevin Molino and Cyle Larin largely hid the deficiencies at the back, but only haphazardly. Orlando City surrendered 56 goals last year, the second-worst total in the league, and only one team in the league has given up more than the 36 goals Orlando City’s let in over its 21 games in 2016.
Kreis has already begun moving, and Orlando City’s tidy 3-1 win over New England - the first under Kreis - last weekend was a good place to start. Most notably, Kreis officially put an end to the Brek Shea-as-fullback experiment, and his halftime substitution into the midfield led to an assist.
Meanwhile, across the country, a similar transformation is underway. Only in reverse.
The Sounders’ defense was never the issue under Sigi Schmid, who gave way for Schmetzer as the interim not long after Kreis took over in Orlando. Seattle had one of the best defenses in the league in 2015, and its overall defensive record in 2016 wasn’t the problem. It was always in chance creation and quality shots.
Seattle’s conversion rate on its shots is still an anemic 10 percent, and the story was much the same on Sunday as chance after chance went begging. But it’s clear that, unlike Orlando City, the emphasis in Seattle under new management is to stoke the attack, find more chances and take advantage of the ones served up on a platter.
To that end, Schmetzer and Kreis will be after similar goals through vastly different means. Orlando City wants to show defensive improvement against Seattle. And the Sounders want to score. A lot.
Schmetzer’s 4-2-3-1 on Sunday was notably for a few reasons, the most obvious that it was the first time that formation had shown up on a team sheet this year. And at least defensively, the formation was a rousing success. In lieu of having three central midfielders step on one another as they often had in Schmid’s nominal 4-3-3, Cristian Roldan and Osvaldo Alonso mostly sat in front of the back line to shield and occasionally ventured into the build-up to contribute there.
In an attacking sense, though, this lineup is very much still a work in progress.
That’s not so much of a surprise considering the factors. For one, this was a new formational ethos, but it was also Nicolás Lodeiro’s first start for the team after having arrived in the country five days earlier. Hiccups are a natural byproduct.
But there was a sense of chaos in the attacking third against the Galaxy. Both Lodeiro and Jordan Morris were marshaled wide in this setup, but both are central players and so naturally collapsed the wings to combine. This led to some undoubtedly pleasing passages of play the likes we haven’t seen from Seattle this year. Lodeiro in particular was ever-present, dipping into the holes between the lines to connect players.
Still, there was position confusion. Here’s an average positioning map from that match.
Defensively this makes a lot of sense. Chad Marshall (14) and Brad Evans (3) slightly akimbo at center back, Alonso deeper and Roldan just a bit higher with the fullbacks pushing width. But what, if you were pressed, are the roles of the four attacking players? How would you delineate them? Because they certainly look pretty similarly positioned.
This will undoubtedly be Schmetzer’s biggest task over the final third of the MLS regular season. The defense is not perfect, but it’s good enough to begin turning the wheel on the attacking corps to figure out a way forward. Do you scoot Lodeiro inside and play Dempsey and Morris next to one another up top? Do you keep the 4-2-3-1 and essentially swap Dempsey and Lodeiro? Or do you simply keep the setup as is and work on more adequate spacing in training?
Schmetzer has a difficult job ahead in engendering quality play in the final third. The good news? The pressure is off, and the Sounders have a new Designated Player in Lodeiro to play with. That should make the matchup against an Orlando City team attempting its own redesign all the more interesting.
