Super League Tactical Takeaways, Week 14
Luana Grabias, rising Sun, and more from the last week in the USL Super League
There are only 11 matches left before the Super League’s winter break, which seems borderline impossible. As we race toward that hiatus, the table is calcifying with Brooklyn on top, three teams - including an ascendant Tampa Bay - pushing behind them, and the rest of the league fighting to keep pace.
How did things shape up in Week 14 to change that calculus? Let’s dig in.
DC Power (0) - Brooklyn FC (3)
Back at the end of September, I wrote a bit about Luana Grabias after a match where Brooklyn FC got a dominant shutout win and used Grabias as a late-game option off the bench:
Luana Grabias has all the makings of a vicious super sub. The Brazilian youth international forward manufactured breakaways with her speed and slaloming dribbling…and she showed flashes of tighter control to beat defenders to the endline.
Since then, Grabias has shown that she’s much, much more than a role player. After a hat trick against DC Power, the Brazilian forward looks like a budding star. She’s got four goals and an assist in just over 450 minutes, and her 2.2 successful dribbles per 90 projects as a 95th percentile mark.1
Grabias’ guile was undeniable against DC Power at midweek, maximizing her team’s threat in transitional moments. The Brooklyn press, which was as relentless as ever and featured clever depth on the flanks to negate DC’s wing backs, deeply frustrated held the three Power central defenders.
DC’s defensive trio posted a cumulative 78% passing accuracy, almost 4% below their season average. That number may seem small, but every incompletion at the back is costly, especially against a team with Luana Grabias as their No. 9.
Brooklyn’s pressing tenets bear out as a play in two acts above.
In the first frame, their 4-1-4-1 is tilted toward the right. DC builds with three center backs and two center mids, but Brooklyn builds a fence around their shape. Winger Mackenzie George, center mid Mackenzie Pluck, and Grabias deny a press-relieving pass to the right, put the heat on one of the No. 6s for DC, and are supported by a man mark of the other No. 6 toward the far side of the screencap.
Presented with few good options, ball-handling center back Madison Wolfbauer tries to shoot the gap, passing toward Katie Duong - the further No. 6 - closer to halfway.
You see the result in the second frame. Brooklyn’s Jessica Garziano steps up to tighten the screws, pairing with Pluck to intercept. Meanwhile, Grabias - marked in black - has already begun a run into an open gap. Defensive structure turns into offensive joy in an instant.
It’s a similar concept here, but with the trap being sprung at the sideline. DC tries to work into wing back Anna Bagley on the drop, but she’s tightly pursued by Brooklyn right back Sasha Pickard. Pickard’s step creates that triangular trap again, once more denying a pressure-relieving pass.
Bagley’s escape ball is errant, Grabias fields it, and the rest is history. It’s a terrifically agile dribbling move from there to work past a recovering Wolfbaeur, and the Brazilian No. 9 is able to slide inside to seal her hat trick.
DC generated a few half-chances by playing somewhat directly over Brooklyn, but they weren’t up to the task in general. Out of halftime, Frederic Brillant brought on two teenagers to up the energy and provide some valuable game minutes. Left-central midfielder Riley Cross was solid in a tactically demanding deployment, while recent breakout attacker Allie Flanagan (three shots, three interceptions) continued to sizzle.
Flanagan continues to contribute beyond the level her 17 years might portend. She ought to earn real starting minutes sooner rather than later. In hindsight, though, saving her from the sharp edge of the Brooklyn buzzsaw was probably wise.
Jessica Silva has this team in tremendous form, as is obvious to see. No one in the USL can match Brooklyn FC’s top gear for my taste.
Lexington SC (1) - Spokane Zephyr (1)
My friends over at Protagonist’s The Super Show put out some power rankings last week in which Lexington and Spokane both fit into the bottom three. Based on results, I can’t really disagree.
That said, you watch these two teams play and come away impressed more often than not. Spokane has the makings of a varied, effective attacking team with strong flexibility in the midfield. Lexington always brings a sense of verve and aggression. It’s too early for a real playoff discussion at this point, but both of these clubs have a case to be part of the eventual field.
During Wednesday’s draw between the two sides, we saw the flashes. For Zephyr, rotation out of a defensive 4-2-3-1 into a more progressive attacking alignment helped to break down Lexington. Katie Murray, the No. 10, and Sophie Braun, a No. 8 starting in the stead of the reliable Marley Canales, were the key to pressing that advantage through the middle.
Lexington was also a 4-2-3-1 team on paper, but they lacked cohesion between fairly elevated wingers and a conservative defensive midfield. That disunion allowed Zephyr to pass into the channels and turn up toward the final third.
Whether bouncing off Taylor Aylmer (43 passes) at the No. 6 spot or skipping directly into Murray or Braun, Spokane had options to hit the second level. Both Braun and Murray did well to occupy the half spaces and make themselves available with a full field of vision amidst the Lexington defense.
When those passes hit, Lexington - as they’ve done - pushed their full backs up to close down in the half spaces. If those closing runs were mistimed, Jo Johnson’s side could easily hit a winger in behind and go to work; we saw a prime example of that around the 15th minute, when right back Julianne Vallerand received, drew Julie Mackin from the full back spot, and nearly hit Natalie Viggiano in behind on the right wing.
Amidst that success, Zephyr did a good job sliding Braun (four tackles, one interception) deeper while out of possession, sinking into a 4-2-3-1 anchored around a double pivot. That shapeliness afforded more aggression upfield in pressing situations, and it was a sideline takeaway off a Lexington throw-in that ultimately set up Emina Ekic penalty-earning dribble that would give Spokane a lead.
The other key aspect in the first half was Haley Thomas’ solid performance at left back against winger Amanda Allen. The Orlando Pride loanee has been a sparkplug this year in Kentucky, but she couldn’t quite beat Thomas with enough regularity while playing on the right.
That changed out of the halftime break.2 Allen moved to the left wing, where she could cut onto her right foot to find shooting angles. Meanwhile, the defensive structure leveled out. Lexington was caught out in that ‘tweener of a 4-2-1-3 early on, but leveled out with better rotations into low block and firmer full-team swarming in the press.
It’s not like Lexington was bad out of the gates. Hannah Richardson had a strong first half in particular, carving out room between the lines as Spokane re-balanced around the Braun/Murray midfield axis. She ended up with 26 touches between halfway and the 18-yard box in total, but Allen’s more refined final-third threat made the difference later on. Lexington felt sharper with Allen inverted.
The loanee finished with eight total shots, six of which came in the second half alone. You see that impact above, where three-quarters of the Zephyr back line commits against Allen (and an unmarked crossing run from forward MaryKate McGuire). Meanwhile, a dribble inside from Madi Parsons draws Spokane’s left back up, thereby opening a clear gap for Allen to hit the overlapping runner at the far side.
In that screencapped sequence, the cut inside from the left wing is key, but so is that run from Parsons. Michael Dickey allowed Parsons to drop deep more often as the match developed, knowing that the substitute McGuire could replace her at striker.
That’s the case in the example, and it fueled the equalizer. There, Parsons drifted toward the right to close down on the end of a long ball. Winger Kailey Utley would intercept from there, keeping her head up to find both Allen and McGuire functionally unmarked on the edge of the box.
The equalizer rewarded McGuire’s strikerly instincts and earned a valuable point for a Lexington team that feels ready to take a leap. That’s true of both parties, really; consistency will be the byword as the winter break fast approaches.
Tampa Bay Sun (2) - Carolina Ascent (1)
On matchday morning, I pointed out that Carolina’s 11-game unbeaten streak had come in spite of a negative expected goal difference. The underlying numbers don’t mean everything, but they’re a harbinger of regression to the mean in most cases. Tampa Bay - themselves no darling of the xG numbers - finally ended the streak on Saturday and did so in dominant fashion.
Denise Schilte-Brown3 has settled on a fairly consistent lineup as of late, and swapping Paige Almendariz in for Natalia Staude was her only big swing against the Ascent. Almendariz ended up with just four touches in the final third, but her vertical running and sideline speed were a key facet of the Tampa Bay setup.
The Sun defended in a 4-4-2ish shape (more on that momentarily) but tended to build with a single pivot. Typically, Jade Moore would push up from the central midfield with Jordyn Listro sitting low, but that could vary. When Tampa Bay also pushed their full backs high, the shape was more like a 2-1-4-3.
Variation out wide helped to break down Carolina’s 4-4-2. Tampa Bay often kept one or both of their full backs low, using the ball-side player to draw an Ascent winger out and open a quick pass into a third-man runner between the lines.
That’s the example mapped out above, and it was a formula for success when the Sun kept the ball on the ground. Tampa Bay did so the majority of the time; only 12% of their passes went long, even lower than a USL-minimum 12.3% rate on the season.
The rarity of passes over the made them all the more effective. If Tampa Bay went long, it meant that they’d forced Carolina to lose their stability.
If the Ascent’s midfield line overcommitted, Almendariz, Sydney Nasello, and a third player - think Listro or striker Natasha Flint - tended to bunch up to press the advantage. That formula set up the Sun opener, which was abetted by a drifting Carlee Giammona replacing Nasello to distract Carolina and free up Flint.
Giammona (three recoveries, two takeaways) was vitally important across phases of play. Her movement caught Carolina out, and her grit powered the press - as well as the go-ahead Sun goal. On that winner, Tampa Bay went direct once more, forcing a defender to mishandle the ball and allowing Giammona to find a touch in zone 14. A give-and-go with Nasello in the half space from there would set up the finish.
In the press, Giammona variously operated as the striker next to Flint in a 4-4-2 or as an added No. 8 in a shifted 4-1-4-1. In that latter alignment, Listro tended to step high to help deny bounce passes off of Carolina’s Taylor Porter. The Ascent really struggled to find their usual patterns through the middle, especially in the face of hard closing against outlets like Mia Corbin.
The Ascent only put two shots on target across the 90 minutes, and their lone goal came off an Ashley Orkus howler rather than any sort of composed passing. Neither Orkus nor Lauren Kozal has made a strong claim to the starting spot in recent weeks, though Tampa Bay’s defensive system - spotlighted above - didn’t put their goalkeeper under much pressure on Saturday.
In this case, Giammona has hedged deeper to help deny the Carolina pivot. This is actually a shakier example of midfield organization, but it’s the exception that proves the rule. Here, the Ascent can split through Giammona and Listro because of their staggered positioning, bouncing off Mia Corbin into an advancing runner.
At the next step, however, Tampa Bay holds. Their mid-high back line, anchored by Vivianne Bessette (three recoveries, four clearances) in central defense, stands Carolina up to force an error. From there, Bessette and Almendariz both swarm to clear the danger.
Even with a halftime change that saw Eli Beard enter for the uninvolved Ashlynn Serepca up top, the Ascent’s fortunes didn’t improve. They took just four shots in the entire back half, struggling to penetrate. Tampa Bay solidified to make it happen, often sitting into a low-block 4-4-2 that simplified schematically down the stretch.
That’s what you want to see if you’re a Sun fan. This team looks noticeably more confident in recent vintage, and knocking Carolina off their undefeated perch was a stellar way for Tampa Bay to make their progress manifest.
I say “projects” because I can’t get full leaguewide dribbling numbers to conduct an intra-Super League comparison. Grabias’ rate would be in the 95th percentile amongst USL Championship forwards, so roll with it.
So, Lexington made some tactical adjustments and switched up a few deployments. That’s nice. They were also blaring Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted” right before the second half kicked off, which is a pure banger that doesn’t get enough love. You tell me what sparked their improvement.
There was a brief cut to the sideline where I think I noted Schilte-Brown sipping on a Lacroix, which is a mood.