Supporters' Shield Showdown - LA vs. Seattle

Well the MLS scheduler got their wish. The two best teams of the season are playing a home and home series to decide who wins the supporters shield. Seattle and LA have undeniably been the two best teams over the course of the season (honorary mention to New England since signing Jermaine Jones). Both teams are counter-attacking teams first, but have the quality to be a possession team when it is called for. Both play a 4-4-2 with an empty-bucket midfield. But the similarities generally end there.

Key points to watch for:

1.       How deep do Sarvas and Juninho sit to frustrate Dempsey and Martins in transition?

2.       How deep does Evans stay to frustrate Donovan in transition?

3.       Can Seattle avoid playing crosses in the air for Gonzalez to easily clear?

4.       Can LA’s central attacking three slip their defenders on through runs?

Here's a look at each team's tactics. Now with plenty of gifs of examples!

Seattle’s attack in transition

Seattle wants to transition immediately after winning the ball. They try to find a player facing forward or able to turn and find the feet of either Dempsey or Martins as early as possible. There’s been a lot of talk about how Seattle combines up the gut, but that isn’t necessarily true. They want to get the ball in the half-spaces. Half-spaces are the areas between the middle and the wings when you divide the field into fifths (here’s a greatarticle about their tactical relevance). Seattle’s plan in transition is for the two forwards to get into the gaps where it isn’t clear who is supposed to be marking them – the centerbacks, fullbacks, or holding mids. When they receive the ball in these areas it causes the defenders to pick their poison – one of the back four step high and leave a seam for the other forward or run of a wide midfielder to exploit, the holding mid slide over and allow the other forward a giant hole to sit in for combination play, or drop off and give them time to shoot.

Vancouver gave us yet another example of how to frustrate Seattle’s attack. Sit two holding mids deep to plug the gaps where Deuce and Oba try to find the ball. Another team did that quite effectively already this season – LA. Other teams have tried this tactic, to make someone other than the pair of forwards win the game for Seattle.

LA’s defense in transition

LA has probably the best defensive transition team in the league. Juninho and Sarvas have extremely high positional IQ and allow other players (Donovan and Ishizaki) to apply ball-pressure without worrying as much about what happens if they get beat. Last time the two teams met, Juninho and Sarvas limited the service Martins and Dempsey got in transition and more importantly, didn’t allow them to turn when they did receive the ball. That resulted in pushing Seattle’s attack wide and pitting Rogers and Gargan against Neagle and Pappa. The fullbacks for LA don’t heavily press forward in attack, which allows them to already be in defensively sound positions in transition.

Seattle’s attack in possession

This is where the nickname of “Hydra” for Seattle’s attack comes into play. There’s a lot of positional flow with everyone but the centerbacks making appearances in the final third. The majority of possession comes on the right side as Seattle try to create overloads by sending Yedlin to join whoever happens to be occupying the space of right mid at the time. Usually Martins, but sometimes Dempsey, pushes over and creates an attacking triangle on the right channel. What the left mid and center mids do depend on who the left mid is at the time. Pappa drifts central and sits in zone 14 with Alonso and Pineda sitting a bit deeper. Neagle pushes high as a second striker and one of the center mids steps higher into the area Pappa likes to camp in.

Plan ‘A’ is to get to the endline and send a ball back toward the penalty mark or across the six. Plan ‘B’ is to switch to the weak side and then send an early ball into the box in hopes that the defenders lost sight of their marks.

LA’s defense out of possession

The Galaxy have conceded the fewest goals of anyone in the league. A big part of that is down to their collective discipline not to dive in and try to win the ball. Again, Juninho and Sarvas play a big role in shaping the defense to force opposition wide and allow Gonzalez to play to his strengths - winning defensive headers. The wide midfielders drop to maintain shape and help minimize seams for passes to penetrate their lines. It isn’t full-on parking the bus, just solid defending in patient blocks.

LA’s attack in transition

Like most transition teams in MLS, the Galaxy like to transition to the flanks first. Everyone knows Landon Donovan is deadly in transition, especially as a midfielder. The development of Zardes as a target forward allows Donovan to play as that transition shuttling player. It also allows Keane to drop into the same half-spaces where Martins and Dempsey live. Something not a lot of people appreciate about Zardes and new this season to his game is Zardes making dummy runs to purposefully open space for other players.

Seattle’s Defense in transition

This is Seattle’s great weakness. Yedlin’s propensity to bomb forward means he gets caught out of position and cause the rest of the line to shift over. Whether this is an issue is largely dependent on who the right midfielder is in front of him. The right flank has been absolutely abused several times this season; most notably away at Portland, away at New England, and home against LA. The common thread? No Brad Evans. Evans provides that same positional awareness that Juninho and Sarvas do for LA. He simply goes about being in the right places to prevent clear exploitation of the right flank and doesn’t get enough credit for it. Alonso does a lot of the dirty work making tackles and fouling high up the field when necessary and gets a lot of recognition because he makes those flashy plays. But Evans is every bit as important to Seattle’s defense in transition.

LA’s attack in possession

I’m going to take a second here to say how completely flabbergasted I am that opposition haven’t figured out “Galaxy attacking 101”. In possession, they get the ball high on the wing (usually right), stack two forwards in line with the ball, and play a ball on the ground to them. The first forward dummies the ball and peels off on a thru run while the second forward plays a one-touch pass to the first forward who is in on goal. Donovan and Keane have been doing this for years and teams still fall for it and don’t track the runner. What’s scary is that Zardes is now in on the choreographed play as well.

LA have scored some great goals after long sequences of possession this season. They’re comfortable cycling the ball from side to side, front to back, until they can get the ball to the feet of Donovan or Keane in zone 14. They're comfortable shooting from distance and crossing in the air, but their main goal is, like Seattle, to get to the endline and send a ball across the six.

The signing of Alan Gordon now gives LA a completely different look up top to switch up their tactics. He can be that target forward that is just going to body up on Chad Marshall and perhaps allow the Galaxy to play a little more direct. He can finish on crosses and has the ability to knock down balls for players sitting underneath him. Don’t expect him to start in either game, but him subbing on might allow for the tactical change needed to break through.

Seattle's defense out of possession

Seattle's main objective is to invite the opposition to play the ball in the air so Chad Marshall can clean it up. Similar to Dempsey's mostly free role in attack, Alonso has a mostly free role in defense. He roams wherever he sees fit to make tackles and interceptions while others, mainly Pineda and Evans, fill spaces to keep some semblance of shape. Dempsey and Martins don't have a lot of defensive responsibilities when out of possession, so LA should be able to keep the ball by utilizing their backs.

Other notables

This year’s MVP will likely be decided by who has a better series – Robbie Keane (who I think had the best season of any MLS player ever) or Obafemi Martins (who is probably more important to his team’s style of play than any player in the league). Sigi has been bested by The Bruce time and again over the last five years in matchups between Seattle and LA. This year’s Sounders side operates much differently than teams in the past, so I’m not sure there’s much we can take away from past meetings between the two teams. Even in their lone meeting this season in Seattle, the result won’t tell us much since Seattle was missing 4 regular starters. The two key takeaways from that meeting are how tight LA’s outside backs played to Seattle’s wingers and how much Alonso was roaming from his usual anchored spot in front of the back four.

Conclusions

Ultimately, I think this series is going to come down to how disciplined a central pair on each side can be over 180 minutes. Juninho and Sarvas or Marshall and whoever ends up lining up beside him. Seattle has the tiebreaker so they can afford one more mistake than LA can. There's always the chance to see the spectacular when either of these teams are involved. With the shield on the line, I think we're more likely to see some chippy games and a lot of frustration from the big names.