MLS Playoffs: Fire, Red Bulls set for intriguing tactical battle
The Chicago Fire play the New York Red Bulls in the knockout round of the MLS Playoffs on Wednesday. Here’s what to expect.
The Chicago Fire couldn’t get the job done at Houston on Decision Day, so in spite of favorable Eastern Conference results, they’ll have to host the New York Red Bulls on Wednesday in a winner-take-all knockout round playoff game. As scripted in the MLS storybooks, captain and star defensive midfielder Dax McCarty will get to play against his former team in the first round, adding more compelling storylines to an already-intriguing tactical matchup.
Lineups
Chicago Fire:
It’ll be a 4-2-3-1 from Chicago, with McCarty anchoring the midfield next to either 18-year-old Djordje Mihailovic or the questionable Bastian Schweinsteiger, who said before Sunday that he hopes to play in the Fire’s first playoff game. With Michael de Leeuw out for the season, Arturo Alvarez plays behind Golden Boot-winner Nemanja Nikolic in between wingers David Accam and Luis Solignac.
Joao Meira and Johan Kappelhof will pair in central defense, although we did see Jonathan Campbell get a start on Sunday, while star full-backs Matt Polster and Brandon Vincent flank them. Despite sitting on Decision Day, Matt Lampson is likely to start in goal.
New York Red Bulls:
The Red Bulls will put out their regular 3-3-3-1, which includes a lot of interchanging and is much less rigid than the Fire’s 4-2-3-1. Ironman keeper Luis Robles will backstop an injury-hit backline of Damien Perrinelle, Aaron Long and Michael Amir Murillo — Aurelien Collin, Gideon Baah and Connor Lade are out. Don’t be surprised if it’s Fidel Escobar instead of Perrinelle.
Tyler Adams and Kemar Lawrence will likely play wing-back on either side of lone defensive midfielder and grinder extraordinaire Felipe, with Sacha Kljestan leading a line of Sean Davis and Daniel Royer. Bradley Wright-Phillips will start at striker by himself, although Gonzalo Veron could get into the game as soon as the 60th minute as a super-sub.
How the Fire will play
Chicago will keep the ball a lot and try to move it horizontally, pushing and pulling the opposition with the ultimate goal of giving David Accam room to run at guys and Nemanja Nikolic optimal chances to score high-percentage goals.
They’ll try their best to play pretty soccer, constantly moving the ball and earnestly battling to win the possession stat. They do this through the central midfield rather than the central defense, which contradicts the “building from the back” narrative and places a ton of responsibility on McCarty and Schweinsteiger; you will see those two on the ball a lot.
According to American Soccer Analysis, Schweinsteiger is fifth in the league in touch percentage (the percentage of the team’s touches taken by the player while he was on the field) with 13.1 percent and McCarty is sixth with 13.0 percent. They form the only pair of teammates in the top 15, let alone the top six. More than any duo in the league, these two monopolize the ball.
Perhaps even more tellingly, this is how the Fire create their goals. Schweinsteiger and McCarty are third and fourth in Expected Goal Chains. The stat is explained by ASA’s Kevin Shank, who compiled it:
"“For those who are not familiar with Expected Goal Chains (xGC), the metric looks at all passing sequences that lead to a shot and credits each player involved with the xG. Instead of just looking at expected goals and expected assists, which primarily benefits strikers and attacking midfielders, xG Chains is beneficial to every player involved in a sequence. Most importantly xGC credits those defensive or two-way players who are integral to a play’s build-up but don’t necessarily serve that final key pass.”"
The stat referenced in the tweet above is a variation of xGC. It measures only the buildups the player was involved in — that is, it subtracts the value of shots they took themselves or directly assisted. While Nikolic (who obviously has a high xG) was second in the league in xGC, he’s taken out of the equation in xBuildup GC because he mainly finished chances. The fact McCarty and Schweinsteiger were so high on the xBuildup GC leaderboard speaks to two important themes for Chicago:
1. They’re extremely involved in the Fire’s build-up play, much more than any other Chicago players.
2. Much of the Fire’s total xG is a result of extensive build-up play rather than shorter sequences less likely to involve the central midfield. It wouldn’t be possible for two players — especially Schweinsteiger, considering this is not a percentage stat and he has played over 500 minutes less than the rest of that leaderboard — to accumulate this much xBuildup GC without being involved in an inordinate amount of slow, successful buildups.
Chicago’s full-backs, often finding the ball from the midfield, will be hyper-aggressive and will be a central part of the Fire’s attack, which will try and spread the field out and methodically poke holes in the Red Bulls, with the ultimate goal of opening a big one and sending Nikolic through it.
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How the Red Bulls will play
They’ll press and play aggressively, which is what makes this game interesting. It’s not the gegenpress of years past, but it’s not exactly passive, and the Red Bulls haven’t stopped building their team on consistent defensive actions high up the field. They led the league in tackles per game and interceptions per game, which aren’t great stats but still seem telling. If you’re looking for more proof, have a gander at their crowded defensive actions chart against Atlanta:
Their 3-3-3-1, based around heavy rotation and ground-covering, relies on three specific personnel factors:
1. Tyler Adams and the left wing-back (likely Kemar Lawrence) getting up and down the flank and helping with deep midfield distribution while also playing shutdown corner.
2. Felipe running the show as the lone defensive midfielder, with minimal help from elsewhere.
3. Sacha Kljestan receiving adequate support as the attacking lynchpin, usually from Daniel Royer, whose absence was badly felt in August and September.
Kljestan is the league’s highest-volume chance-creator, with 17 assists, the league lead in key passes (passes leading to a shot) per game, and the highest Expected Assists in MLS. He is remarkably important for them, and he’s the number-one danger man for Chicago. They’ll also, of course, have to keep an eye on Wright-Phillips, the striker who will feed off Kljestan and try to prove himself as a postseason star as well as a regular season one.
What to expect
An entertaining battle between a possession team and pressing team, the basic blueprint for a 21st-century tactical ideology war. Maybe NYCFC vs. NYRB would have been better for those purposes (their 1-1 draw on Aug. 25 was the most entertaining game of the regular season for me), but we can be confident in this turning out to be an interesting one.
Both clubs’ main weakness is central defense, so Nikolic and Wright-Phillips — the two best goal poachers in the league — should find themselves with scoring opportunities. The pushing and pulling of the full-backs down the flanks, given both teams’ affinities for blasting them forward, could be the most crucial position battle.
Prediction: I’ll go with a Red Bulls win on the road, 2-1 in extra time on a Gonzalo Veron super-sub goal.