Brooklyn FC's home debut and Week 6 takeaways
Brooklyn FC's home debut and Week 6 takeaways
A New York first, plus tactical insights into the last week's worth of USL Super League action
Brooklyn FC has officially kicked off within the Five Boroughs - albeit not their titular neighborhood - and they did so in style with a massive 2-0 win over Dallas Trinity tonight. What went right for Brooklyn? Why did Dallas struggle?
I’ve got a starting XI of instant tactical takeaways.
Brooklyn’s press is terrific. It’s hard to quantify the height of their back line with limited public stats and with limited camera angles, but you really get the sense for it live. The 4-1-4-1 didn’t give inch to the as-to-date spectacular Hannah Davison at the right side of the Dallas back line, nor did it allow room for midfielder Sam Meza between the lines.
You often saw Brooklyn use a sort of piston action with Hope Breslin (a No. 8) pushing high and Jessica Garziano (the No. 9) dropping low in coverage behind her, and it gave Davison limited lanes to work through. Breslin ended up with nine ball recoveries, eight of which came in the middle third - exactly where Dallas tried (and failed) to access.
To that same end, Dallas was too accepting of the long game and insufficiently structured to chase second balls. Meza is their best ball-winning mid, yet she consistently dropped low to try and get touches. When the touches didn’t come…what was left?
Davison, meanwhile, tried 13 long balls. Her passing success rate on passes into the opposing half was 46% compared to a 63% mark in the 6-2 win against Lexington.
The Trinity midfield positioning was fascinating. As mentioned, Meza came low in build, and you often saw Gracie Brian - the other No. 8 - push up like a second striker in a sort of 4-2-4. Brian, actual starting striker Allie Thornton, and the nearest winger tried to run trips routes to overload Brooklyn to little attacking effect. Neither Brian nor Thornton attempted a shot until the 86th minute.
By contrast, the hosts had a major sense of flow and connectivity. Garziano and Mackenzie George kept up their constant striker-to-right wing rotation, crucially featuring as part of the run-up to Brooklyn’s second goal in the 38th minute.
It’s all about that right side for Brooklyn. The forward interchange is terrific, and it’s matched by an equally strong give-and-take between Mackenzie Pluck in the midfield and Samantha Rosette at right back. Pluck, who completed 14 passes in the attacking half, couldn’t have been better positionally. If Rosette overlapped, she covered deep and allowed Brooklyn to reset. If the forwards both made narrow runs, Pluck would fill the half space and serve a deeper cross. Heady stuff - and a key part of the lead-up to Garziano’s banging opening goal.
Dallas’ pressing scheme - or lack thereof - largely let the Brooklyn’s combination play develop unchallenged. Trinity dropped into a 4-2-3-1 without the ball, using either Meza or Brian as the No. 10 in that defensive shape.
Meanwhile, they didn’t attempt one single tackle in the attacking third. Pressure wasn’t the thing that set Dallas apart in the early going, and things improved in the second half with Jenny Danielsson rotating to the No. 9 spot, but you need to see more intensity in the weeks ahead.
Kelsey Hill and Leah Scarpelli didn’t put a foot wrong on the left side of the Brooklyn back four. Hill made nine ball recoveries, and she looked physically controlled while backing down Thornton to see the ball over the endline on multiple occasions. Ditto Scarpelli, who was nimble on the turn against that very vertical Trinity passing game.
Sam Kroeger may end up leading the Super League in miles covered as Brooklyn’s No. 6. She’s a clean passer, but plays like a nearly full-field recovery to slow a break in the 43rd minute are the contributions that are vitally important without showing up on the statsheet.
Sydney Martinez has a bit of sweeping in her back pocket from the Brooklyn net, and it’s crucial to the maintenance of their high line. She went fully into a tackle early into the second half while 35 yards out of her area, and the same thing happened in the 59th minute after Chioma Ubogagu played a centering ball on the counter. It might go wrong eventually, but Martinez has her timing down already - and she’s the vocal sort of communicator who’s on top of things already.
Luana Grabias has all the makings of a vicious super sub. The Brazilian youth international forward manufactured breakaways with her speed and slaloming dribbling at least three times after the 70th minute, and she showed flashes of tighter control to beat defenders to the endline. I was able to confirm that Grabias - the first-ever intra-league transfer in Super League history - cost $10,000 to pick up from Fort Lauderdale United.
I was able to confirm that because I was sitting mere feet away from Brooklyn owner Matt Rizzetta and his family. The club’s brass is clearly invested in this project, and they’re knowledgeable about the product on the field. I can’t speak to the broadcast angle, but the atmosphere at Rocco Commisso Stadium - which seemed to be about one-third full - was completely splendid. There’ve been some worries about this club, but being there in person sold me on Brooklyn FC, both on and off the pitch.
Oh, and being mere feet away from the elevated train line and getting that noise mid-game rocks.
What about the rest of the league’s action over the weekend?
Spokane Zephyr
Spokane is in the funny position of having hosted DC Power last weekend only to visit them in the nation’s capital next week. The opening salvo firmly favored the Zephyr, whose 4-1-2-3 press absolutely dominated the visitors. DC mustered just 0.36 xG and couldn’t break through with any modicum of control.
After a slightly disconnected performance a week prior, Jo Johnson made a few clever lineup changes to get the job done and shore things up. Emina Ekic moved to the left wing, pushing Taryn Ries to left back. After a bright substitute spell, Emma Jaskaniec started in the forward line and showed a real spark as a linking player and hold-up anchor across 34 pass attempts and six successful aerial duels.
A line below, the midfield group of Sophie Braun, Marley Canales, and Natalie Viggiano ran the game. DC built out in something like a 3-2-5 with minimal width, and Spokane’s central players denied everything they attempted down the middle. The trio combined for 12 tackles and five interceptions, even as Bryan and Viggiano both exited before the final whistle.
Zephyr’s defensive heatmap illustrates the shutdown performance. The Power got nothing where it counted in the final third and were largely forced to try and work around the edges.
Spokane understood that wider Plan B, and they gameplanned accordingly. Ries and right back Alyssa Bourgeois had license to step up quite high towards halfway when DC tried to circumvent the central midfield. Each put in two tackles while flexing up the sideline, and the pair combined for seven ball recoveries. Ries even had a terrific save off the goal line against DC’s best break of the game. It was a testament to the success of the Spokane changes.
DC Power
If you’ve read my stuff, you know that I throw around words like “flow” and “interchange” like I’m getting paid to do it. There’s a reason for that: the best attacking teams understand how movement can cause problems for the opposing defense.
DC Power is rigid. It’s very, very early in the Super League season, but they don’t have a sense of fluidity or an ability to force their foes to stretch out. Individual players have shone under Frederic Brillant at certain moments in 2024, but their isn’t an overriding sense of chemistry or connection quite yet.
We’ve discussed DC’s loss in Washington from the Spokane perspective, but it’s equally useful to analyze the Power side of things. Their shape in build-out was a stubborn 3-2-5 in which Susanna Friedrichs - who played as the right back in their defensive 4-4-2 - slid up as a center mid in possession. Plenty of good offensive teams start off with a similar looking base, but DC is unique in their tendency to push the wing backs rather high.
In doing so, the Power played into Spokane’s compact hand. If they had kept players like Katrina Guillou, the left winger and/or wing back, available in their own half, DC would stressed the front end of the Zephyr 4-1-2-3. Instead, Brillant’s side tended to vacate the wide areas. Even when a winger came low, there weren’t second-wave runs to work behind Spokane’s stepping-up full backs.
Moreover, Morgan Aquino went long on just 16% of her pass attempts, and only two of those seven punts even reached the opposing half of the field. Not only could Zephyr compress in a horizontal sense, but they could push their back line up and limit vertical room for DC without much consequence.
The result? Power put up just two shots in the box, only one of which was on net. They tried just five crosses and only attempted a single take-on in the final third. Spokane rarely felt threatened. There were a handful of half chances that ran through Yuuka Kurosaki as a counter-creating tackler or classic No. 10 between the lines, but those were few and far between. Something’s gotta give in the return fixture this upcoming weekend.
Fort Lauderdale United
Addie McCain is on a heater. After a hat trick against Lexington last Sunday, the former Texas A&M star is two up in the way-too-early Golden Boot race and giving Fort Lauderdale a real poacher’s instinct in the box.
Tyrone Mears didn’t stray from his usual 4-1-4-1 baseline, and the ultimate 3-1 scoreline belies a match in which Lexington started hot and the final xG margin was 1.2 for Fort Lauderdale and 1.1 for their opposition on a non-penalty basis. What set the Floridians apart and ultimately set up their win was the two-way effort of Sh’nia Gordan and Jasmine Hamid on either flank.
Early, the hosts showed a real capability for turning Fort Lauderdale over and finding options in the channels. That forced Gordan and Hamid to drop deep in transitional moments to shore up their shape. The twosome combined for a whopping 11 recoveries - seven of which came in the defensive half - in a testament to their successful rotations.
Once the game settled down, Fort Lauderdale could rely on Felicia Knox to dictate the terms in the No. 8 spot and push their wingers rather high to do damage. Nia Christopher would replace Hamid shortly into the second half, giving her side more offensive spark and setting up a spate of opportunities.
If you think about the goals McCain scored, all of them started with clever play in the wide areas. Going in order from goal to goal, you saw:
An overcooked cross from Gordan on the left sail over McCain’s head, only for Hamid to recover it at the far post and cut back to #17 for a soft right-footer past the goalkeeper.
Nia Christopher dribble to the endline from the right, Gordan crash to the near post and continue moving to distract Lexington, and McCain get open for another right-footed finish across the face of goal.
McCain connect on a spinning backheel into an Anele Komani overlap toward the right sideline, leading to a drawn penalty.
In each case, it was extremely offensive-minded wing play that caught the hosts out and allowed Fort Lauderdale to convert through their star forward. Future opponents can’t lose sight of Addie McCain amidst that flurry of activity on the flanks.
Lexington SC
It’s clear by now that Lexington is an unabashed pressing team, but their struggles to recover and shape up when the press is beaten is a problem. In their loss to Fort Lauderdale over the weekend, their 4-1-3-2 press was quite effective at disrupting the opposing rhythm and creating chances.
An early chance for striker Marykate McGuire was a case in point. Around the 15th minute, you saw Autumn Weeks (the right winger) chase down an opposing midfielder and force her back. Meanwhile, freshly loaned left winger Amanda Allen tucked in to the center of the park, denying a cutback to the middle for Fort Lauderdale. The only chance from there was a backpass, one that McGuire would intercept to put a dangerous shot attempt on the board.
That was the press and the Lexington system at its best. When the two forward, McGuire and Hannah Richardson, could push Fort Lauderdale back, good things happened. Still, the ability for Michael Dickey’s team to maintain that structure was too inconsistent.
Fort Lauderdale found it far too easy to work around that press when it narrowed out, find their full backs and wingers in ample space in the channels or down the sidelines. From there, the receivers could stick wide or pass into the middle against Lexington’s often lonely No. 6.
Madison Parsons tended to fill that holding role, but there was a problem: she didn’t attempt a single tackle in 90 minutes of action. Shea Moyer was more active, going three-for-five on such challenges, but the protection in front of the back line wasn’t up to snuff.
Finding a balance between the press and greater stability is key for this team. The unapologetic intensity is a bold identity to strive for, and it’s producing plenty of good chances. Making sure things stay solid on the back end is equally crucial, and Lexington isn’t there yet.
Cover Photo Credit: me