Birmingham's high-octane defense
Breaking down the Legion's potentially game-changing 4-3-3 shape
By any most conventional standards, the Birmingham Legion are in poor form. They’ve won just once since April 20th, a 1-0 squeaker in Tampa Bay where the Legion generated only four shots. Yeah, Birmingham is sixth in the East, but their goal difference is negative five.
Why, then, am I so positive about their performances during the last few weeks? It starts with a switch into a high-pressing 4-3-3 that maximizes the Legion roster in a major way. Offense improvement is still a question mark, but I’m extremely bullish on Birmingham’s new defensive structure.
The numbers illustrate how Tommy Soehn has changed his team’s character. There were hints of the formation to come in Tampa Bay, especially relative to Jake Rufe’s role, but the full-bore 4-3-3 formalized against Charleston on May 15th.
Birmingham’s most aggressive pressing matches have come since the switch. The Legion are allowing more passes in a vacuum, but they’ve held a combined 49.5% of possession in the Battery and Republic games. The increase in opposing volume signifies more sideways and backwards attempts in the face of Soehn’s enhanced press.
Rufe has taken an emblematic role in the new system, standing out as a hard-closing central midfielder. He got the winning goal at Al Lang Stadium, but his sharp increase in duel attempts that is the more significant indicator of Birmingham’s overall re-work. Rufe, underpinning a tight marking system, attempted 14 duels against Sacramento. A week prior, he neared double-digit duels in a match where Charleston put up 1.1 xG, half of their season average.
There are a few key things to note about the formation:
The forward line takes on an unbalanced look by design
Midfield denial is key and is achieved via tight marking and active rotation
Increased aggression from the back line backstops upfield intensity
It’s a set of principles that you could use to describe many a defense, but Birmingham is applying them with the utmost fervor.
Take that flexible front line. Stefano Pinho tends to be the highest-placed attacker, holding down hybrid left wing-striker position. Tyler Pasher takes a more standard role on the right, but there are occasions where he can rotate centrally as need be. The Canadian is a more aggressive closer than Pinho and tends to cover more ground.
Enzo Martinez has started as the central striker, but he’s allowed to roam like a false nine. You’ll see the 33-year-old press up to the opposing goalkeeper at times, but he more regularly drops low to address opposing midfielders.
That ability to compress and deny the center of the park is Birmingham’s bread and butter. The system relies on Martinez and the central trio of Rufe, Dawson McCartney, and Kobe Hernandez-Foster knowing their assignments down the middle. Each has tended to take on a specific opponent (or zonal trigger area) during the last two matches.
Throw in tight coverage from the back line, especially via Alex Crognale and new man Derek Dodson, and you’ve got a Legion defense that won’t give you an inch of space at any level.
You see the Legion sitting in a mid-low block in the example here. There isn’t aggressive pressure given the field position, but a more conservative version of the man marking scheme is on show.
What are the assignments? Pinho and Pasher stay high to address the passing lanes between Charleston’s left- and right-sided defenders. Hernandez-Foster is marking the opposing No. 10, and he’s pushed rather high upfield to do so despite starting as Birmingham’s deepest midfielder.
The intrigue comes relative to Aaron Molloy, one of Charleston’s defensive midfielders. Molloy drops low, where he ought to trigger pressure from Enzo Martinez. However, since Birmingham is in their mid-block alignment, Martinez elects to sit in instead of tracking Molloy. This clogs central passing lanes and denies clean access to Chris Allan, the other member of the opposing pivot.
Charleston can’t advance through Molloy, so they work wide. Because Martinez has come low from the striker spot, the Legion have personnel available to rotate outward. McCartney slides over to address the receiver, and he does so without wrecking the structure. It all culminates in a risky pass and a Battery turnover.
This play from the same game illustrates the high press and the potential for breakdowns. To start, Birmingham has all three forwards high upfield. Meanwhile, Rufe has made a closing run ahead of both Pasher and Martinez and is caught in recovery to a deeper position.
Charleston is able to maintain possession and work the ball to the wing, and they’re crucially forcing Martinez to chase. Think about the first play from above, where #19 makes the choice to sit in and controls where the Battery can go. It’s the opposite dynamic here, and Martinez hustles to the wing to try and double-team in tandem with right back Mujeeb Murana.
However, Murana is beaten around the edge, and the structural conundrum becomes apparent. Pasher and Martinez are on the wrong side of the ball. McCartney and Hernandez-Foster both hedge to the carrier on the sideline. Rufe is caught amidst a triangle of Battery mids and doesn’t know where to commit.
The press is beaten, the recovery momentum is heading in a fruitless direction, and Charleston plays the Legion like a fiddle to work into the right channel. The lesson from the Battery game? Press hard, mark ticght, and deny the middle, but don’t sacrifice your ability to cover the width of the pitch in the process.
The heat maps make it clear that Soehn’s side learned that lesson well ahead of the Sacramento game. Right-sided exposure was the death knell against Charleston, and that showed up in the data.
In comparison, Sacramento’s inability to break down the 4-3-3 in the half spaces becomes all the more apparent. Between a more aggressive application of the back line and superior communication in the center of the park, Birmingham did a better job at denying such lethal sequences.
Sacramento’s 3-5-2 shape ran through a three-man midfield, but the Birmingham press nullified their progressive effect. Nick Ross, the deep-seated No. 6, combined with the higher-placed Luis Felipe and Rafael Jauregui to form that trio, but they only completed four passes from the defensive half into the attacking zone.
Ross, as the low man, was most often marked Enzo Martinez. The No. 8s took wider positions in the channels, and they were addressed by McCartney and Rufe. That left Hernandez-Foster free to cover ground and plug holes; he made seven ball recoveries (up from three in the Battery game) on top of a tackle and interception apiece.
Still, the Republic didn’t need explicit on-ball involvement down the middle to ask questions. If Sacramento could keep the opposing 4-3-3 narrow, they could chip over it.
That’s the case above, where a diamond-like Birmingham shape is played over in a wing back-to-wing back connection. In these sorts of match-ups, most teams would keep their wingers deep and drop into a 4-5-1. Because Pinho and Pasher are focused upfield instead, Sacramento can find room on the sidelines behind them.
However, note the angle of the ensuing switch. The pass is purely sideways. Jack Gurr, the right wing back can’t play a diagonal that and progresses the line of confrontation further into the attacking zone, and that’s because Birmingham aggressively used their four-man defensive line to cut out more adventurous attempts.
Derek Dodson debuted at right back on Saturday night, tying for the team lead in interceptions in the process. Dodson cut out 37 passes in 2023, the second most of any Charleston Battery player. He also ranked fourth in the entire USL with 400 duel attempts. Dodson, as evidenced in the clip, brings that level of aggression without ever lunging at an opponent. He’s the sort of defender who knows when to intervene or when to carefully corral an attacker into a trap; that latter talent ends Sacramento’s ostensible break.
When pressing high against goalkeeper-driven possession out of the back, the Legion weren’t afraid to push higher along their central axis. Martinez would go at the Republic net or at their centermost defender, while Hernandez-Foster would take up the mark against the Sacramento No. 6.
That’s the scenario above. There are two strands of defensive philosophy on show: (1) that aforementioned central elevation and (2) left-sided overloading. Since the Republic have the ball on the sideline, McCartney moves over to address the low wing back.
Meanwhile, Rufe provides a counterbalance by sitting much deeper on the opposite flank. #13 is ready to pounce on a pressure-relieving outlet pass to the near side, whether it targets a center mid or wing back.
The most important plank of the shift is Phanuel Kavita, who steps into the attacking half from central defense. In practical terms, Kavita is marking a run from one of Sacramento’s dual strikers. At the same time, he’s also plugging the hole left by Martinez and Hernandez-Foster.
Left with so few options against a perfect defensive rotation, the hosts try a risky diagonal over the entire midfield. Dodson heads it away, and the play comes to nothing. This was the story for much of the match, a scoreless draw in which Sacramento put just one shot on net.
I’ve been critical of Birmingham’s defensive approach on and off for the last few years. There have been flashes of inspiration when Tommy Soehn has adopted a higher-pressing 4-2-4. There have been just as many matches where the Legion have sat back and bled space in the channels behind their wider defenders.
This 4-3-3 system feels different than those prior styles. The Legion are controlling field position and maximizing their talent at every level. A two-game sample size doesn’t mean everything, but it’s enough to know that Birmingham has elite defensive potential if they stick to this script.