MLS Week 2: LAFC’s impressive front four, Vancouver’s bunkering

An in-depth look at MLS Week 2, starring Los Angeles FC’s statement win and why their attacking success is here to stay.

What happened in Week 2, featuring LAFC overreactions, Vancouver’s ideal game and Atlanta’s unheralded player of the week:

LAFC, passing and moving

Two in-conference away games, two big wins for LAFC. They followed up their 1-0 victory in Seattle on opening weekend with a 5-1 decimation of Real Salt Lake on Saturday, shocking the league as they jumped out to the best start in MLS expansion team history.

Carlos Vela and Benny Feilhaber had a goal and an assist. Steven Beitashour added two helpers from right-back. Latif Blessing scored and Marco Urena had a helper. Diego Rossi had, wait for it, two goals and three assists in his second MLS game, a week after scoring the first goal in club history. It was an outstanding liquidation of an RSL team projected to be a serious contender in the Western Conference.

LAFC’s front four is fast, direct and skilled, and the No. 10 Vela is the centerpiece of it. He’s comparable to Nicolas Lodeiro in his actions on the ball — the Mexican superstar drifts all over the field in an effort to get touches and control the tempo of the game — but unlike Lodeiro, he won’t have the ball an exorbitant amount. He’s a high-volume chance-creator, but he’s not a tempo-setter, and LAFC’s attacking style doesn’t need him to be.

Rather, the Angels (can we call them that?) attack with purpose and pace. They combine through the outside-central channels, meaning they focus on the space between the center-backs and the full-backs, and break lines with intricate pass-and-move plays. This style doesn’t necessarily require out-of-this-world skill — it requires a willingness to put numbers into the attack and the intelligence to run in the right gaps — but LA have it anyway:

That’s Rossi’s first goal against Real. Watch LA’s other four goals and you’ll see similar sequences.

Bob Bradley sets up his team in a way that’s beautifully conducive to this directness. He has Urena starting up top as a lone striker, adding a worker bee who can annoy opposing defenses and slip into quality scoring positions, even if he doesn’t always finish them. Urena won’t score 15 goals and he isn’t an obvious difference-maker on the ball, but he presses hard and can complete passes under pressure, qualities that are hugely important to the rest of the shape.

Rossi plays off the wing as a sort of a goal-dangerous second striker. He takes his spots on the flanks and has spacial responsibilities there, but he constantly drifts into the space where a striker would be, playing off of Urena and using the Costa Rican’s unheralded work on and off the ball to get in behind. According to WhoScored, Rossi’s average position on the field was up close to Urena.

The Uruguayan’s unique attacking role helps to scramble backlines during combination play, and having another runner in those channels gives Vela more options. Additionally, Latif Blessing lurks on the other wing, always ready to burst through (and under) defenders. LAFC’s attack already looks like a well-oiled machine.

Next: The 10 best teams in MLS history

Vancouver bunker-out Houston

The ‘Caps somehow pulled a 2-1 win out of Houston despite conceding 67 percent of possession and giving up a lot of on-goal opportunities. Vancouver headed the ball out of the area a considerable amount and spent a large portion of the game sitting on their own 18-yard-box, relying on a couple of counters to best a Dynamo team that ran out of ideas.

That’s how Carl Robinson has set his team up, and there should be no shame in it: they have two good wins to start the season and came very close to winning the Western Conference last year. In fact, the Whitecaps deserve credit for their commitment to a defined style of play that gets them road points and has shown to confound many an attacking side. They have the personnel to execute it.

But they got lucky in Houston to escape with a point, let alone three. Their opportunities on goal were few and far between compared to the Dynamo’s, and while that is partially by design, Vancouver did very, very little farther up the field, to the point that they can’t expect to score consistently at this rate.

Their opportunities came exclusively from set pieces and one or two man sprints down the field. They didn’t even get numbers on their counter attacks, more often relying on Alphonso Davies to beat Leonardo and DaMarcus Beasley in 70-yard footraces than they did on using passing (what a concept!) to take advantage of space. The latter method of counter-attacking is more effective.

They didn’t even utilize their favorite form of attack: the cross. Even with Kei Kamara winning aerial duels at the No. 9, they attempted just seven from open-play, and failed to complete a single one. Part of the reason for this was the Dynamo’s ability to keep the Whitecaps pinned in their own half, barely letting the visitors exit their defensive area in any significant number.

To prevent getting immobilized in such a dramatic fashion, Vancouver have to tighten the hatches in midfield, become more compact down the spine, and maybe even consider holding a higher line of defensive initiation. This would serve the duel purpose of eliminating some opposing touches close to the goal and allowing for easier and more fluid breakouts.

They can be happy with the result in Houston, but they can’t expect it to happen every time, just as we saw with the 2017 Rapids. It’s okay to adapt and adjust a little bit.

Awards

The best team in the league

With Toronto FC off this week, we’ll give this one to NYCFC, who clinically defeated the LA Galaxy at home. David Villa picked up a goal and Jesus Medina continued to show his worth as a Designated Player for a team that has be considered one of the most complete in MLS.

As for the Galaxy, everything is still okay. But they’re going to have to organize better on defense (start Tomas Hilliard-Arce!) and get something out of Giovani dos Santos. He seemed to tweak his hamstring a bit, but this isn’t great:

The worst team in the league

Minnesota beat Orlando, and New England beat Colorado, so we’ll go with our third option: the Rapids, who continue to have a weird inclination to not play their good attackers. In a game in which they struggled to get chances other than “oh look, Dominique Badji squandered a breakaway again,” neither Shkelzen Gashi nor Stefan Aigner made the 18. Good to see late-round SuperDraft pick Niki Jackson grab a goal, though.

New England picked up a nice late win! Narrowly winning at home against Colorado is a low bar, though.

Unheralded Player of the Week

For anchoring his team’s dominant victory, Jeff Larentowicz is this week’s Unheralded Player of the Week. Atlanta United returned home to a record-breaking crowd after last week’s disaster and beat D.C. United 3-1, with Larentowicz capably filling their desperate need for a No. 6.

Tata Martino introduced a 3-4-1-2 formation for the first time. Josef Martinez was joined by Hector Villalba up top and Miguel Almiron pulled strings behind them, overloading the center of D.C. United’s midfield with that insanely talented front three. Julian Gressel excelled as a right wing-back (he can truly do it all), and Darlington Nagbe was given the freedom to connect lines and do Nagbe things thanks to Larentowicz’s presence.

DCU, without defensive midfielder Russell Canouse, struggled to defend it.

Random result of the week

Who could have expected the New York Red Bulls’ youth-filled second team to assertively blow out the Portland Timbers? NYRB’s 4-0 home win takes the “random result” title this week.

Jesse Marsch put out a heavily-rested starting XI due to their CONCACAF Champions League commitments, mainly featuring academy players and USL products. Ben Mines, only 17 years old, scored the first goal, and the kids showed that they’re alright up in New Jersey.

Portland are struggling to put together attacking sequences without Nagbe. They haven’t been able to connect in any of the three phases of the game (defense, midfield, attack), looking disjointed with and without the ball. It hurts not having Diego Chara running the show in defensive midfield.

Predictable result of the week

Columbus beating Montreal was not too hard to predict. It was unexpected that they’d have to win it late, though, as they needed a stoppage time Gyasi Zardes penalty take three home points.

Montreal desperately need a central creator. If I were them I’d be on the phone 24/7 for Lee Nguyen.

Goalkeeper howler of the week

This one goes to Chicago’s Richard Sanchez, who had a bit of trouble with a rebound in the Fire’s 4-3 loss to Sporting KC:

Chicago also should be inquiring about Nguyen.