MLS week 21: Vancouver are not easy to play against

The Vancouver Whitecaps’ compactness and organized deep pressing has helped them get results, but they need Yordy Reyna to play creator. That and more from MLS week 21.

The rampant parity in MLS makes for a lot of “how did this happen?” results. Week 21 saw some of that, but there felt like more of a rhyme to the reason for the six 3-0 or 4-0 games — bad teams getting rude awakenings and better teams making a statement to the league on how good they can be on their day.

FC Dallas’s 4-0 home loss to Vancouver on Saturday night was not that. It was random, weird and without immediate explanation. Dallas, one of the league’s best teams, was playing a full-strength lineup and didn’t even play that bad. Vancouver left multiple key contributors — Jordan Harvey, Alphonso Davies, Andrew Jacobson —  at home and yet still blew the defending Supporters’ Shield champs out of the water.

Carlos Gruezo did pick up a red card in the 58th-minute, so FCD played the last 30 minutes down a man, but the score was already 2-0 to the visitors by that point. That final is simply bizarre, just like Dallas’ 5-0 loss in Houston early last season, or their 4-0 loss against Colorado in April 2015, or their 5-0 B team result in Seattle in 2016. For whatever reason, this is something FCD have to get out of their system every once in a while.

So the primary takeaways from this match should focus more on the Whitecaps, who may not be close to Dallas’s level but, despite the flukey nature of this game, made some sort of an important statement this weekend. 

Vancouver are hard to play against, but need Yordy Reyna the creator

The reason the Caps’ dominance at Toyota Stadium sparks this kind of focus — uncharacteristic, considering the British Columbian club rarely find themselves in the spotlight — is that it was the starting debut of offseason addition Yordy Reyna, the 23-year-old Peruvian who spent the first half of the season injured.

Reyna is a skillful, free-roaming attacker with an international pedigree. He has caps for the Peruvian national team, helped Red Bull Leipzig earn promotion to the Bundesliga in 2015-16 and last year played for Austrian champions Red Bull Salzburg. Unlike other Vancouver attackers, he has elite passing touch in the final third and is willing to play distributor from the center of the field. The fact the Caps are in a playoff position despite going months without him is a testament to their deep-sitting forest of defenders.

His role on Saturday was to drift around behind center forward Fredy Montero. Vancouver’s 4-4-1-1 relied on speedy counter attacks, wide running from the wingers and early crosses into Montero, making Reyna the distribution hub in the middle. His skill was on display at various times in attack, but he struggled to find the ball and drive it forward, as his passing map shows:

That’s not enough. The Whitecaps won’t push the ball in high volume and aren’t a team that will rely on pure No. 10s, but Reyna needs to be able to be a guy they can count on to connect with Montero and draw defenders away from the flank, where whoever is playing there is tasked with sending in constant balls into the penalty spot. Intricate channel movement is not something they’ll do, so a through-ball artist like a Mauro Diaz is not necessary; rather, they need someone who can be a force of gravity through the middle of the field.

If they’re going to be this year’s “bunker-hard, counter-harder” surprise playoff team and postseason spoiler, they’ll need Reyna to fill that role.

Their main strength, though, and the reason they could keep San Jose, RSL and Sigi Schmid’s LA Galaxy out of November soccer is their scrappy, defy-advanced-stats style of picking up results. That 4-4-1-1, or 4-1-4-1, if you prefer, allows them to play two compact blocks of four, keeping star defensive midfielder Matias Laba tightly connected to the tall, aerially-dominant center-back pairing of Kendall Waston and Tim Parker.

The wingers and full-backs are pinned into this shape except when a counter opportunity arises, making outside-in combination plays hard. Tony Tchani acts as the press No. 8, stepping to opposing midfielders and letting Laba be the second defender. The layers teams have to break through is what makes them hard to break down.

Crossing is no easy task against Waston and Parker, who probably form the most physically intimidating center-back pair in the league outside of Dallas’s Matt Hedges and Walker Zimmerman, as FCD learned the hard way, sending the ball in 25 times and connecting on exactly zero of those crosses.

For most of the season, Vancouver have combined their physical ball-stopping and compact shape with scrappy counter goals and set pieces, which they score at a rate unmatched in MLS. They have the most non-penalty dead-ball goals of any team in the league, with 12 of their 30 goals coming via that route. For comparison, 11 of Houston’s 39 goals and nine of LA’s 37 came on set pieces.

That has been what has got them to this point. But if they’re going to fend off runs from a young attacking team (RSL), a star-infused sleeping giant (LA) and a reinvigorated San Jose, they’re going to need to add attacking elements, and that starts with Reyna.

Weekly awards

The best team in the league: Toronto FC. TFC flew right by NYCFC on Sunday in a huge matchup of Supporters’ Shield contenders. They added their names to the 4-0 winners list, and reaffirmed their place as the rightful MLS leaders.

The worst team in the league: D.C. United, and it’s not close. Minnesota were their closest competitors going into this week, but after the Loons creamed the Black and Red on Saturday, the choice is now clear.

The (D.C.) United front office must be fully committed to coach Ben Olsen, because it’s unusual to see teams play this badly for this long and keep their coach. In fairness to him, though, their issue is not that they’re lesser than the sum of their parts — it’s that they have no parts to begin with.

It’s time for a rebuild. It’s not often you see MLS teams with rosters this much worse than their peers.

Random result of the week: Vancouver 4-0 over FC Dallas. We talked about this earlier in depth, obviously. But this is such a weird result that I can’t in good conscience pick a different game.

Dallas will be just fine, if any FCD fans are moderately worried. As history tells us, when this team loses, it does it in style.

It doesn’t lose much, though.

Predictable result of the week: Portland draw 2-2 with Houston. Two high-scoring teams with average-to-below-average defenses usually make goal-filled games. That’s what happened in Houston, as the Dynamo saved a draw near the death with a Juan David Cabezas header.

Diego Valeri didn’t win Attacker of the Week, but he was masterful in this game:

Biggest result of the week: TFC dominate NYCFC.

Toronto are now five points ahead of Chicago in the Shield race, and six ahead of NYC. They’re pulling away.

Attacker of the week: Daniel Royer, New York Red Bulls. The former mediocre NYRB winger apparently heard footsteps and has absolutely caught fire, scoring six goals in four games, including two more this week in the Red Bulls’ 4-0 demolition of the Impact.

A third capable attacker on the field has completely revitalized this team, along with their new free-flowing back three. Don’t look now, but Jesse Marsch has his team two points back of their New York rivals with a game in hand.

It was a good week for attackers, so here are some honorable mentions: Kevin Molino, Sebastian Giovinco, Kei Kamara, Teal Bunbury and Valeri.

Goalkeeper howler of the week: Bill Hamid against Minnesota. Just returning from USMNT duty, Hamid had a shaky match for D.C. First, he gave up a bad near-post goal to Abu Danladi, then, in second half stoppage time, he gave up a howler of a goal to Miguel Ibarra. 

Inconsistency has always been Hamid’s biggest issue. He never misses a highlight-reel save, but sometimes his concentration lapses on easier shots. 

Final thoughts

— Atlanta saved a draw at the death against Orlando with a Hector Villalba score. That’s the second straight week Tito’s saved a point or three, and while ATL walked out of two straight games with their new rival holding four points, they continue to struggle creating goals against deeper-sitting teams. Orlando weren’t interested in pressing Miguel Almiron until he got no farther than 25 yards from the goal, and while that’s not great for the Purple Lions, it doesn’t speak well of Atlanta that they failed to take advantage of their rival’s passiveness.

— NYCFC and Toronto was not the only major top-tier matchup of the week. Sporting KC hosted Chicago and overcame an incredible own goal from Matt Besler to beat the Fire 3-2.

David Accam again came off the bench following a reported dispute with coach Veljko Paunovic. A selling could be on the horizon, not ideal for a team in serious contention for the Supporters’ Shield and MLS Cup.

— The LA Galaxy picked up a 0-0 home draw with the Seattle Sounders in Sigi Schmid’s debut. Clean sheet = good, but the cohesion and simplicity they only briefly experienced under Curt Onalfo is not there. Jonathan dos Santos will be very welcome addition to their disjointed central midfield.

For the fifth-place Sounders, they won’t need a late season run to make the playoffs but they are reportedly prepared to sign a DP anyway. I find it hard to believe they finish any lower than fourth.

— San Jose used a Nick Lima golazo to beat Colorado 1-0. A game they should win, for sure, but grabbing their first clean sheet under Chris Leitch should be a relief.

Next: The best under-20 player on every MLS team

— New England beat Philadelphia 3-0, playing Bunbury up top with Kei Kamara and Lee Nguyen underneath them. The Revs still have a lot of trouble defensively, especially when the ball is put into their box, but they appear to have found some sort of breakthrough in attack by playing Bunbury up top. Having a channel-runner and field-stretcher at forward rather than a pair of center forwards or Kamara and a No. 10 (Nguyen) diversifies their attacking patterns and puts Nguyen in a better, more comfortable position.

Now if they could only start Juan Agudelo at striker.