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| The Setup after the Red Card to Borchers |
Salt Lake welcomed Jamison Olave back into their defense after returning from an injury in the all-star match. Chivas USA was coming off a tough midweek loss in Portland and needed to take the home three points to push towards a playoff spot.
Two Early Defensive Errors
In the 11th minute, Jazic played a chipped, blind back pass that was intended for Junior Lopes. The ball ended up being directly between the two Chivas center backs and it seemed Lopes was not at full speed trying to recover the ball. Conversely, Saborio’s goal scoring instincts took over and the Costa Rican put Lopes under pressure causing him to misplay a last ditch clearance attempt. Then, Saborio collected the ball and rounded an on rushing Dan Kennedy and passed the ball into the back of the net.
Chivas USA quickly responded to being a goal down. Two minutes later, Flores tucked inside and forced Rimando to save. Then, in the 18th minute, Angel controlled a cross off his chest and ripped a left footed side volley off the cross bar. A minute later, Flores took a shot instead of playing Angel through to his left, and the veteran striker was furious at not being given the glorious chance.
Six minutes later, it was Real who committed the defensive error. Borchers failed to control a Beckerman back pass and LaBrocca quickly seized on the mistake and headed towards goal. Just outside the area, Borchers brought down LaBrocca and was shown a red card by Kevin Stott. There was little merit to the visitor’s argument that Borchers was not the last man and the red card was justified.
Chivas Strategy as a Man Up
A man up, Robin Fraser kept the diamond 4-4-2 shape. The strategy was to push the full backs up and use the overlap to swing in crosses. Jazic was more involved on the right than Umana, which is why Fraser brought in Trujillo at half time to try and create a threat on both wings. Instead of tucking inside like they did early in the match, Gavin and Flores stayed wide to link up with the full backs. However, the midfielders never tried to take on Salt Lake’s full backs to get inside the box, or play the ball early into the middle. The crosses were dealt with well by the towering center backs Olave and Schuler and the goalkeeper Rimando. As a result, Chivas swung in 26 unsuccessful crosses and only 6 successful (according to opta stats).
Chivas also failed to get Nick LaBrocca involved in the match. He has been operating and flourishing this season in the playmaker role. His play earned him a spot on the all-star squad, but on Saturday night he was a non-factor. The midfielder logged a full 90 minutes but only attempted 16 passes. Considering the Goats had 65% possession, this paltry number of passes explains why they had no creativity. LaBrocca has the inventiveness and the skill to unlock defenses, but Chivas never even tried to probe the ball into the middle which made defending easy for Salt Lake.
Another failure in the Goats attack was the slow ball movement and the nonexistent player movement. It seemed like they were out of ideas and did not understand how to play with an extra man.
Chivas had a couple of half chances in the remainder of the game but only heavily tested Rimando once. In the 78th minute, the ball was played across the top of the 18 and LaBrocca’s dummy left Angel with room to shoot. His shot dipped in front of the keeper but Rimando reacted well to push the effort wide.
Real Playing With Ten
Jason Kreis’ side played as well as they could have with 10 men. They dictated how the game would be played, which made it easy for them to defend. The strategy was to clog up the middle and force Chivas to play out wide. Schuler and Olave are huge, physical center backs and were easily able to deal with the aerial balls.
Real clogged the middle with a couple of slight adjustments. Kreis maintained his diamond midfield shape, with Espindola playing behind Beckerman and Johnson and Gil playing on the wings. Espindola did a good job of getting in front of Chivas’ holding player Elliott and forcing him to play the ball wide instead of to LaBrocca. Additionally, the value of Beckerman to RSL was on display Saturday night as he patrolled and controlled the middle of the pitch, totally eliminating the impact of LaBrocca. Furthermore, when the ball went wide, the opposite wide midfielder (Gil or Johnson) would tuck inside to help Beckerman. This left the switch open for Chivas, but Real was able to recover because Chivas passed the ball around too slow. As a result, Real kept a perfect defensive shape and was never stretched.
Going forward on the rare occasion, Real was able to create as many chances as Chivas. The counter attack would begin with a long ball to Saborio, who either took up a position in the left or right channel. One v one with a center back, he was usually able to win the aerial battle. RSL expertly used the wide space that was vacated by the advanced Chivas full backs. The lone striker would then look to Espindola for support. The Argentine would run to the same area as Saborio. Upon giving up the ball, Saborio would run centrally towards goal looking to latch onto a cross from Espindola. The work rate of essentially the only two RSL attacking players was fantastic and they came up with a few chances. They failed to add a second goal but Chivas had to respect their threat.
Conclusions
To borrow a term from commentator Mark Rogondino, Chivas USA’s ‘anti-speed’ attack and their overall old age has me worried for their playoff chances. The combination of Moreno and Angel brings experience and awareness, but the strikers now have too similar qualities to form a lethal partnership. Neither man has the ability to run behind the defense or dribble by defenders. Thus, defenses can mark them closely.
Also of note, Heath Pearce was subbed off with a right hamstring injury. This is a blow to Pearce because he will most likely miss the upcoming friendlies for the US national squad. If serious, this could further weaken a defense that has already lost Jimmy Conrad to retirement due to concussion problems and Zarek Valentin to a quad injury.
Real will be ecstatic with these three points. They still have a few games in hand on the West teams in front of them and have further separated themselves from fellow playoff aspirer Chivas. Jason Kreis should possibly consider using Schuler more often in place of Borchers. Borchers has not been as formidable as he was last season and his confidence seems to be low. Alternatively, maybe letting him play through his struggles will be more beneficial in the long run.
Finally, the play of Luis Gil looks better and better each week. In 25 minutes in the playmaker role, the youngster looked more comfortable and even tried a few bits of bold skill in tight spaces. Also, he displayed tactical awareness moving out to the wing to help secure the three points. It is great to see a young American player getting his chance and thriving in a position (#10) where foreigners have tended to dominate (I have no problems with foreigners but like to see Americans getting a chance to play a position where we have not produced many quality players in).
Thoughts on the match or how to best play with or against Ten men?
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