NYCFC 2020 Season Review, Pt. 3: The Turning Point
August to September
By Kevin Nelson
“There were a lot of things said internally that really got us on the right track.”
That’s all Sean Johnson had to say about the team meeting NYCFC held in the aftermath of Ronny Deila’s first Hudson River Derby. A sloppy 1-0 loss to the Red Bulls was the lowest point of an already low season for NYCFC, but the locker room huddle afterward was the turning point, Deila’s come-to-Jesus moment.
The players’ message to their coach was simple: stop worrying so much about what opponents might do and focus on playing NYCFC’s game. After a string of failed tactical experiments, they wanted clarity, and Deila gave it to them by committing to a 4-2-3-1 that hardly changed for the rest of the year. In the 8 MLS games before that team meeting, NYCFC was averaging less than a point a game with one of the worst goal differences in MLS. In the 17 games since, pick your metric, they’ve been among the two or three best teams in the league.
So what exactly went wrong in the Hudson River Derby to spark Deila’s epiphany?
The 19 days between NYCFC’s quarterfinal loss at MLS is Back and the return to in-market play gave the coach more than enough time to overthink tactics for the biggest game of his tenure. The Red Bulls’ chaotic, uptempo style spooked Deila into switching to a 5-3-2 not unlike the experimental formation that had imploded against Orlando at the tournament.
NYCFC toned down their own press in favor of a passive mid block that lay in wait for the Red Bulls’ rapid moves towards goal. The defense held strong, corralling the hosts’ 14 shots into low-percentage areas where they were worth a measly 0.6 expected goals, but the midfield struggled in possession. Alex Ring and Jesús Medina played in front and to the right of Keaton Parks, giving the midfield an unbalanced hockey stick look with little connectivity. The losing goal only counted because MLS is the last civilized league on the planet to get goalline tech, but NYCFC’s play showed something had to change.
Enter the permashape. Call it a 4-2-3-1 when the defensive midfielders play on the same line or a 4-1-4-1 when one moves up a line in possession; the name doesn’t matter as much as the familiar patterns Deila wants his players to learn to recognize through experience. Settling on a single formation also sorted out the depth chart, leading to consistent lineups and a clear hierarchy at almost every position. But who on this roster was suited to play as the 4-2-3-1’s narrow, box-crashing wingers?
Thus was born the legend of Alex Wing.
It seemed circumstantial at the time, but there was a moment in the next match against a wounded Columbus Crew when Ring interchanged positions with Alexandru Mitriţǎ, a moment that implanted an idea in Deila’s brain, an idea that would take another week or two to reach full flower. In that weekend’s game against Chicago, Mitri was yanked at the break after an end-to-end first half that Deila called a “basketball game.” Maxi Moralez came on in the middle, Ring moved out left, and the entire right side of Chicago’s attack emptied out as they tried to find a way around NYCFC’s captain. Deila liked what he saw.
Though NYCFC was getting better at defending in the opponents’ half, they still had a hard time playing through pressure. Against Columbus and Chicago, Deila leaned on James Sands’ versatility to drop between the center backs in the buildup, buying Chanot and Callens room to work on the outside, but it took Moralez’s second-half appearance against the Fire to stitch NYCFC’s midfield together. The Argentine roamed all over to dictate possession while his teammates filled positional roles around him. NYCFC scored two second-half goals to win and finished with a healthy 2.3 expected goals, only the second time they’d top 2.0 between opening day and October.
Against New England, NYCFC tried a more direct style, attempting 133 passes of more than 30 yards in another pressy game from both sides. The goal that broke the deadlock came on a direct transition that released Anton Tinnerholm up the right wing, where the right back mercilessly nutmegged Andrew Buttner and laid in the low cross that Michael Mancienne knocked into his own goal. It was an individual effort so impressive that it inspired The Outfield’s Chris Campbell to coin a phrase that’s taken on a life of its own.
Dates with D.C. and Cincinnati finally brought a reprieve from the high press. Ben Olsen pretty much installed an invisible fence and zap collars to keep his players from crossing the halfway line. Parking the bus worked—D.C. snuck away with a scoreless draw despite NYCFC’s 1.9 xG and 70% possession—but NYCFC’s defense deserves credit for not allowing a single shot attempt, only the second time that’s ever been done in MLS.
The passive opponent did at least give Deila’s team time to work on some attacking patterns, as they repeatedly overloaded the halfspace then looked for a quick switch to the weak side for a push to goal. It helped that Héber could drop in to link play and show back up in the box in time for the final ball. But this was also the game where the Alex Wing Experiment reached full flower, and he and Héber tended to congest the same spaces and make the same runs. Only Maxi Moralez’s roving creative force provided a spark to an attack that otherwise lacked chemistry.
Cincinnati was more of the same, but with Gudi Thorarinsson joining Ring on the left flank in place of a hurt Rónald Matarrita. As if losing the starting left back during maybe his best season in New York wasn’t enough, Maxi Moralez limped off in the 30th minute, an ominous sign for the midfield’s future. Medical losses would keep mounting as the hypercompressed back end of the MLS schedule wore on.
Yet despite the missing players and a very shaky finish, NYCFC pulled out a 2-1 win to make it 13 points out of 15 since the post-Red Bull team meeting. It was their best run of results all year. Once again, the 4-2-3-1 combined down the flanks to release the fullbacks into the attacking third at speed. Once again, Tinnerholm led the way, topping the team in progressive passes, key passes, passes into the box, and progressive distance carried. Oh, he also scored an absolute screamer of a goal on his not-at-all-weak left foot to give NYCFC the lead they’d need to hang on.
Once again, Anton Tinnerholm is good at soccer. ❧
Image: Edouard Manet, The Dead Christ with Angels