Alonso pushes high
Osvaldo Alonso pushed much higher up the field both offensively and defensively than he normally does. This left a giant gap between Seattle's center backs and center mids. Usually Alonso sits deep to protect against the counter until the other midfielders recover into defensive shape before he's given free license to roam and intercept passes.With Alonso high, it left too much space for a rather immobile Pineda to cover. Columbus frequently would find passes into the half-spaces behind Alonso and between Pineda and the wide midfielder, forcing Pineda to step to pressure the ball. This further opened up the gap at zone 14 for Higuain, Tchani, and the weakside winger to find the ball. Alonso and Pineda were so ineffective in this game defensively, they combined for just 15 defensive actions all game... a number which Alonso usually reaches on his own and half what they averaged over the two prior games.
This isn't the first time where Alonso's been pushed higher and it isn't the first time Seattle's been absolutely outplayed when that happens. ( I really wish I could remember the game (maybe vs. LA in July of last year?) sometime in the last two seasons where this happened and everyone was calling me crazy for blaming the Seattle loss on that).
This is where I compare Tchani to Busquets
Yes, really. Obviously he's not anywhere near that good, but there's a Del Bosque quote about Busquets that is extremely applicable to Tchani's role in this game - "You watch the game, you don't see Busquets. You watch Busquets, you see the whole game." The development of Tchani is a brilliant example to prove the point of why Berhalter was robbed of coach of the year last year.
It was obvious to me that Seattle didn't attack like they normally do, which is normally trying to find early outlet balls to Dempsey and Martins to break multiple lines of defense then either combining or bringing in the wide midfielders. On my second time watching through the game, I ended up watching only Tchani and noticed he was just sitting in space while checking his shoulders to make sure he was cutting off the passing lanes into the Seattle forwards. Simple, easy, effective. This is something vastly improved in his (and all of his teammates') game since Berhalter took over. The simple action of checking their shoulders gives Columbus players superior positional sense and allows them to be one of the most accurate passing teams in the league while still creating plenty of chances. Additionally, Tchani had several passes that broke several lines of Seattle defense and rarely gave away the ball.
His effective positioning defensively allowed Higuain and Kamara to put in minimal effort to channel the Seattle attack down one side of the field at a time. We all know Higuain is a wizard with the ball and picks out ridiculous passes that only Mauro Diaz and Pedro Morales can rival in this league, which is why Alonso and Pineda spent so much time worrying about him, even at midfield.
With the usual means of attack cut out by Tchani and Saeid, Seattle looked to (rather Columbus played to force them) use the wings more. Tyrone Mears and Dylan Remick got forward enough in this game to send in crosses but not many connected and Seattle was often forced to settle for outside shots or attempt a bit of magic like on Pineda's great chipped through ball. Columbus was patient defensively, choosing to generally keep their shape centrally and trying to force Seattle to play wide. They let some players have the ball, mainly Alonso, Rose, and Pappa, without much intent to win it off of them. Conversely, they had visual cues to step and pressure any time Seattle's fullbacks had the ball wide or when Pineda (but interestingly not often Alonso) had the ball facing his own goal.
Columbus' slow build forces Seattle's defenders into tough decisions
Everyone knows Columbus is a possession based team that wants to play out of the back. They do it by dropping their organizing midfielder (Saeid in this game) deep between the center backs to collect the ball before pressing forward. This allows the Columbus full backs to get up the field at a relatively leisurely pace while still having defensive coverage in the back. Pretty standard stuff in the modern game. With the wingers pinching inside, it often resulted in Seattle's outside backs marking space between Columbus' winger and wing backs and unable to deny service in to either.
Interestingly, Brad Evans was often the one to help out in this numbers imbalance by stepping into the midfield to mark whoever was trying to occupy zone 14. Seattle's midfielders were simply too slow to transition back to defense, even though there was ample time as Columbus rarely went route 1.
One video to sum up the entire match for Seattle defensively
Kei Kamara's second goal basically encapsulates everything I talked about above for Seattle's defense and Columbus' offense. Build out of the back, find someone in the half-space where Evans pulls high, Alonso and Pineda flat with a giant gap behind them where two Columbus players are sitting, Seattle's entire midfield and also Mears slowly transitioning back leaving players wide open in front of goal.
