THE MLS FROM THE TCS

By Pere Basc

Last Saturday morning, October 5th I was heading south towards New York City, not for tourism but quite close. I was going to the city of Harrison, New Jersey to enjoy my first MLS EXPERIENCE. Talking to different people around the stadium told me that I had chosen a good game to watch, New York Red Bulls versus New England Revolution. The weather couldnt have been more perfect to enjoy a soccer event, around 70s, with a clear sky and great seats: section 124, row 8.

3-D shot of my seat from 3dseat.com

Live shot before the kick-off, 25.000 spectators

I want to share with all of you my particular experience with MLS. To do it, I will split the document in different points: the Pre-game scene, the warm-up of New York Red Bulls and the game itself from my point of view in terms of quality of the game.

1. The Pre-game Scene

The hotel where I was located was about 25 minutes walking from the New York Red Bull Arena. I decided to arrive at the surroundings of the stadium pretty early to have a full view of what the MLS EXPERIENCE is and enjoy the most of it. The United States are known abroad for being great at organizing sports mass events. My experience supports this idea. First of all, security was present all around the neighborhood. Police officers were organizing traffic and directing the cars to the appropriate parking lots for the MLS Game. Another crew with a yellow reflective vest under the name of Pedestrian Safety was yielding pedestrians and stopping the cars giving preference to the crew that was going to the Red Bull Arena. Just before the entrance to our gate at the Arena, private security was checking the spectators before the entrance, looking into the bags cautiously and respectfully. Compared to other stadiums I have been to, that was the most pleasant time I spent in an entrance of a big sports event. There were lines for spectators without bags and lines for spectators with bags to be checked. Everything was so fast and easy. Once inside, there were people in every single entrance of the seat sections asking for your tickets and giving you directions to find your seats, with a nice and kind comment at the end such as enjoy the game. Another aspect that I dont want to forget to share is the recreational area that the Club locate d just in front of the Stadium. Riverbend Drive was full of people enjoying the freestyler jugglers, participating in a 3vs3 game in a cage while pumping-up music was on in huge speakers or having fun with other soccer-related attractions. All of these attractions were carried out by staff members of the New York Red Bulls.

Google Maps Caption of Red Bull Arena.

2. New York Red Bulls warm-up.

When seated my eyes were amazed by what they were seeing. The stadium was built with lots of intention to provide a great experience to the spectator: comfortable seats, separate from each other, close to the field reminding me of a similar construction to a Premier League stadium. There wasnt any unwanted seat in the Red Bull Arena. You could have a great view from everywhere which is nice because there are some seats in certain big Spanish stadiums that instead of players you see ants playing soccer. My location allowed me to focus on one of my favorite things to watch before the game: the warm-up. Francisco Seirullo, Futbol Club Barcelonas responsible of the physical preparation of the first team, affirms that Barcelonas warm-up is more a time to obtain sensations right before the game begins than anything else. Others understand this moment as a crucial time to prepare the players for a big physical activity and they spend a long time on it. In the case of the home team, the Red Bulls began with some joint mobility mixed with dynamic stretching the lowerbody muscles (1). Following this, the team split in 2 groups, each one inside one small square passing the ball to each other (2). After this, the line-up was located in their field positions moving the ball around the field with different kinds of passes in a sequence that ended with a cross (3). Next, midfielders and forwards placed themselves in front of the 18 yard box to pass the ball to a coaching staff and finish it and right after this go to finish one cross coming from the sides (4). To finish the warm-up the team split in two groups of 5 players and played for less than 10 minutes a possession ball game (5).

Figure 1: Joint mobility and lower-body dynamic stretching with an 8yd sprint.

Figure 2: Association square with 4 players open and one player in the middle passing the ball from inside to outside switching positions.

Figure 3: Ball movement around the field with a cross ball for the strikers inside the box.

Figure 4: Finishing drill focused for strikers. After a shot from out of the 18yd box, finish a cross sent from the side.

Figure 5: Ball possession game 5 versus 5 with unlimited contacts.

3. The Game
It was ten off six when both teams left to the locker room to get their jerseys on, receive their last instructions before the game starts and come back to the field with the referees and officially start the game. As many other leagues, following the FIFA standards, both teams went in to the field together with the referees. Usually after the crowd cheered for their teams the players proceed to shake hands, but not in the United States. As every mass event in the country the anthem is played or sing by a person or a choir before the show begins. All the players turn left facing the flag and all the spectators stand up and take off their hats or caps. After the anthem, players shake hands and the game begins. In this point I would like to express my feelings about the MLS game played by the New York Red Bulls and New England Revolution. New York was the leader and only needed a point to clinch the Playoff. However, New England needed 3 points to still having real chances to reach the Playoff places.

Starting formations provided by mlssoccer.com

Before the game, New York saw their winning streak put to an end but still made it five games without loss, coming back for a 1-1 draw with Seattle Sounders FC on Sunday evening at CenturyLink Field. The Red Bulls are in sole possession of first place in the Eastern Conference and the MLS overall table with 52 points from 31 matches. On the other hand, New England made it a win and a draw from their two-game homestand, the Houston Dynamo coming back for a 1-1 result on Saturday evening at Gillette Stadium. The Revolution is in a tie for fifth place in the Eastern Conference with 41 points from 30 matches.

Regarding on the games played in New York before, a total of 31 meetings, Red Bulls won 16 times against 8 of New England. Everything was set to be a great game to watch, both teams needed to win for different reasons although the first half was a little bit disappointing. Both teams played in a slow pace; ball circulation was slow and predictable. New York took the lead of the game but seemed kind of pushed to do it because he was at his house. The best moments of the first half were when Thierry Henry was showing some of their last great moves of his career although it was sad to see him play the way he played compared to when he was playing in Futbol Club Barcelona. Henry is slow and anarchic in the field, he barely respect his field position and he stays away of the defensive work, reminding the old stereotype of a star soccer player, always running in offense. Nowadays this is no longer applicable, players are involved in every phase on the game, need to work to built the game and must cooperate and coordinate with their teammates to recover the ball and have the possession back. Take a look at Neymars performance in Futbol Club Barcelona. The Brazilian knows that to fit in the system he needs to work when people doesnt expect his work and that is what makes him different from other forwards than passed from Barcelona, we all know the reasons (the technical reasons) why Ibrahimovic left FCB after a year, he wanted to implement his own system of play, which wasnt suitable with Messis best performance and he didnt involve himself in the pressure after loss that the forward line does in Futbol Club Barcelona when they lose the ball. But lets focus now on the overall technical skills of the players in the field of the Red Bull Arena. Despite the players that arrived from the European Leagues (Henry and Cahill) the players of both teams didnt represent very well the level of a top main division of a big country like United States. It is true that my perspective of the league is so small to make that kind of statement but the game didnt reach my soccer expectations knowing that there was some relevance on the game and that in the field the leader of the league was playing in their stadium. Here are some of the facts that I have noticed in the game that I watched:

Players are technically deficient Players barely associate with one touch which relates this point with the following one. Most of the players have difficulties in using controls towards the direction of the following play, which we call it directional control . There is a lack of coordination between passers and goal scorers in terms of finishing plays from the flanks.

Slow ball circulation In terms of tactical concepts I noticed that due to the lack of the use of the directional control between the associations of players produces that the ball circulation of the game is slow. In terms of the usage of the space, the players that play next to the side dont make the field wide. Another interesting fact was that the players didnt identify as fast other players from other European leagues where the free space to progress in the field was. It literally looks like the players started to think about their next play when they receive the ball.

Defensive lines The three goals in the game, before Cahills goal in minute 97 (90+7) were caused by individual mistakes. The first one was a bad decision of Cadwell, when he receives the ball in an inappropriate position that doesnt allow him to see the rest of the field besides what he has in front, his time of execution is so slow that when he passes the ball back Espindola read the whole play, anticipates and finished with lots of accuracy to the down corner of Reiss goal. The second goal of the night was because of a child defensive behavior by Jamison Olave (New York Red Bulls) with a hand ball in the penalty area. Looking at the replay seems that the ball never touched his arm, but as a defender the most common reaction would be to touch it with your head to kick the ball away from the box. In the third goal of the night, second of New England, David Carney try to keep the ball in their own in a unlikely situation that had to be cleared, he received the pressure of two New England players and Fagundez finished with lots of determination putting the ball in a corner of the goal. My main concern in this point is that it was hard to find fundamentals well performed in the defensive line. Besides what I explained below I saw that defenders tend to go for the ball instead of hold the attacker to see what is the movement that he is going to do or just to delay the attacking move and allow the team to come back and help to defend. Inside the box the chaos is more evident, players become confused and showed a lack of coordination in the marking phase, most of the defenders werent using the defensive triangle concept of marking in balls that were in the flanks ready to be crossed into the box.

Talking in a collective defensive way, I could notice that teams didnt take the initiative to recover the possession as soon as possible, both teams seemed to feel more comfortable defending than carrying the ball. The lines of pressure of both teams were so far from each other providing lots of spaces between them to be used, in favor to Henry, he was the only that identified them and used them.

Deciphering the MLS Game Leaving the Red Bull Arena walking back to the hotel gave me time to think about how that game was played and what is the dynamic of the game. As I mentioned earlier, it is really interesting how both teams optimized the width of the field with none of the players neither their full backs nor their wide midfielders. That really affect the performance of multiple plays because they were reducing the space of play making the field narrow having less time to think and forced to be more accurate in their controls, which as I said earlier, none of them were the best things that the players did in that game. In terms of how both teams used the space of play. I noticed to big differences comparing the Spanish League La Liga BBVA and MLS League. None of the MLS teams that I saw at the Red Bull Arena seemed comfortable using the first third of their field. Goalkeepers were kicking the ball directly to the second third to gain territory through the second plays of the midfielders. Once the ball was under the possession of one of the teams you could see that the idea of both teams was to get through the second third to the last one to finish the play. Unlike Futbol Club Barcelona midfielders, players that spend their game time in the second third of the field, New York and New England midfielders were using that third as a zone to carry the ball through. Below these lines we can see the heat map of Tim Cahill in the game and Xavi Hernandez in what we say that would be a standard of his performance in terms of movement. Take your own conclusions.

Xavis Heat Map in a game against RCD Espanyol

Tim Cahills Heat Map in NY Red Bulls against NE Revolution

Another important aspect of the game was the amount of passes that the midfielders were doing during the game. The fact that most of the passes were long reduced the use of this technical skill in a percentage really conclusive to have an idea of how was played the game. Tim Cahill and Dax Mc Carty both playing in the midfield of New York Red Bulls that day reach together 102 passes, 48 for Cahill, 54 for Mc Carty. Both with an 83,3 of effectiveness. Xavi by himself registered an overall of 140 passes per game with a 91% of effectiveness. Take a look at the graphic of the midfielders of the game compared to the Catalan midfielder.

140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Xavi Cahill Mc Carty Cadwell Rowe Nguyen Good passes Bad passes Effectiveness (%)

This was my experience in the MLS, that is my point of view, the point of view of The Catalan Secret. If you are interested in other articles you can find them in our website www.thecatalansecret.com by clicking in the tab articles.

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