The Back Four: direct styles and the Vegas midfield
The Back Four: direct styles and the Vegas midfield
Tactics, stats, and other developments that defined the week for Indy, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, and Knoxville
Welcome to The Back Four, where I’m analyzing four things that drew my eye from across the USL. If you haven’t already for some insane reason, head to Backheeled. I’ve got power rankings every week and a special Open Cup sit-down with Bob Lilley, Mark Briggs, and Dom Casciato hot off the presses.
Now, let’s get to it.
Jack of all trades
Don’t look now, but the Indy Eleven are up to sixth in the East, and their underlying numbers are better than solid results would indicate. The Eleven are unbeaten in their last four matches on an expected basis, averaging a +0.4 xG margin over Monterey, North Carolina, Colorado Springs, and Charleston.
The latest away win in California saw Indy hold just 41% of the ball, whike goalkeeper Hunter Sulte went long on 91% percent of his passing attempts. On paper, you’d think that hints at a rudderless performance, but that wasn’t the case. Pretty possession isn’t the only formula for victory; the Eleven more than doubled Monterey’s shot count.
It’s been a winding road to achieve this form. Sean McAuley actively maneuvered in the market to form a roster in-season. Striker Tega Ikoba was a late loanee, while Ben Mines and Ben Ofeimu - who both started in Monterey - were acquired via trade in April. The latter pair seem crucial to the back three system McAuley is starting to deploy.
Still, the formula from opening day until this past Saturday was a variant on a 4-3-3 or 4-4-2, and Jack Blake has been the crucial driver for Indy no matter the shape. Even at the nadirs, the Englishman has performed at an all-USL caliber. What makes Blake so valuable, and why is he so vital in McAuley’s tactical project?
Blake has long been a favorite of mine dating back to his NASL days in Minnesota and Jacksonville. He’s always been a smart mover with excellent technique. Amongst all USL midfielders in 2024, #8 rates in the 91st percentile for xG, the 95th for forward passing share, and the 73rd for defensive actions this season. No matter what you want from a midfielder, Blake is doing it.
The contributions usually come in a center-left position, as evidenced above in a sequence from the Charleston match. With the Eleven in a pure 4-3-3, Ikoba drops low from the front line to take a touch and continue the play with Blake roving nearby.
As the two other attackers lingerin the box, Blake snakes his run and carves into the left channel. In doing so, he forces the Battery’s back four to stretch. Simultaneously, Blake offers an outlet for left back Aedan Stanley. While Indy doesn’t get a window to cross, the flurry of activity is designed to give their forwards room to breathe in the box and ask questions of the opposition.
With their direct attack and physical strikers, Indy is more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel. Blake, then, is a point of differentiation in the final third. He has the softer skills this team needs when the direct-from-the-back play yields useful possession.
Against North Carolina, McAuley removed a striker and put the Eleven in a 4-4-2 at kick-off. Blake was on the left, Sebastian Guenzatti was on the right, and the Cam Lindley-Max Schneider pivot split the difference in the center. Schneider could sit low or press up into a 4-1-3-2.
If the game started typically, it developed into a forum for experimentation. Indy adopted a back three late in the affair, which is illustrated above.
There were a few benefits to the shape. For one, it let Indy match up evenly against North Carolina, a known back three side. For another, it liberated Blake with more freedom between the lines; you see it as he roves beneath the strikers for a shot off of a knockdown.
The back three was the order of the day in Monterey from the jump, and Blake continued to exert himself admirably. He took seven(!) shots and 75 touches; that’s 18 more than any of his teammates. His gravity as a passer in the left half space was crucial to earning a late win.
In many ways, the back three is purpose-built to maximize Blake and support McAuley’s burgeoning philosophy.
For one, it ramps up Blake and Stanley’s interaction on the left. Stanley can bomb much higher up the flank while used as a wing back. He played the position in prior stops, and he knows full well that he’s protected with an extra central defender low in coverage.
Stanley is as lethal as they come as a crosser in this league. He’s got three assists to his name already this year and served up the winner in California. When he stretches wide, he gives Blake more room to work and provides a point of connection.
The new 3-5-2 also feeds into McAuley’s preferred manner of territorial control. The formula is simple: have Sulte hoof it long, let your strikers contest the pass, and push two center mids - Blake and Guenzatti - up high to fight for the second ball. No matter what, you’re keeping action away from your net and asking questions of the opposition.
The two strands feed one another. When Indy gets possession in dangerous areas by recovering knockdowns, they instantly activate #8 to do the skillful work needed to generate chances. It isn’t the prettiest style in a general sense, but Jack Blake’s brilliance comes in his ability to carve out moments of beauty within the maelstrom of McAuley-ball.
Lost Vegas?
Two weeks back, Las Vegas got played off the pitch in Charleston. They conceded a bawdy 3.48 xG in a 6-0 loss to the Battery, and the errors that resulted in those six allowances were comical in nature. Frankly, it’s what you’d expect from a team that built its roster starting in late January.
For Dennis Sanchez, finding a nailed-on lineup is the big question. When Las Vegas tore off three consecutive wins early in 2024, they did so in a 4-4-1-1 shape that featured Valentin Noel and JC Ngando in the pivot. The twosome seemed to play a stunning through ball every five minutes, and their give-and-go chemistry powered the Lights to wins.
Yes, that duo was defense-light, but there was coverage to make up for it. Coleman Gannon sat in front of the pivot, taking turns pressing up like a striker or applying backpressure with demonic ferocity.
Behind the pivot, an aggressive center back pairing also made up for the gaps. It’s not like Noel and Ngando were poor out of possession, either. Both continue to rate in the middle third of USL center mids for defensive actions in 2024.
The wins were coming, but then Charlie Adams got healthy.
Adams was the first player signed by the club after the Jose Bautista purchase, and he made my personal USL Team of the Year in 2023. Still, that excellence came in San Diego, where Adams created in the half spaces with Collin Martin as a shield behind him. Given his primacy to the re-build, the Englishman had to play, but using him in a deeper role hasn’t clicked as hoped.
You see how the system changed to accommodate Adams in the screencap above. Sanchez kept his 4-4-1-1, but he moved Noel to the left wing to fit Adams centrally. However, the Frenchman hugged extremely narrow and took up central positions like a proper No. 8.
With #27 cutting inside, full back Gaoussou Samake was require to offer all of Las Vegas’ leftward width. At the same time, the former DC United man also had to recover into his own zone defensively. That’s where the trouble began. Samake struggled to get back, and Adams never made the supporting rotations to fill low into the defensive line.
The falcon could not hear the falconer, the center could not hold, and the Lights made a meal out of what should’ve been a fairly simple shape change.
Naturally, adjustments came a week later against New Mexico. Though the Lights lost again, their ability to find solutions on the fly was promising.
Sanchez’s innovation was to use Noel as the second striker and start two proper wingers. Admittedly, the look didn’t work from the jump. However, an early change saw Gannon enter on the right wing, and that made a massive difference. Suddenly, Las Vegas had a winger who regularly dropped low to do the dirty work
Gannon had four takeaways and eight ball recoveries, and his energy balanced out the offense-minded Ngando-Adams pivot. Meanwhile, Noel flourished in that upfield position. You see the result above: #27 gets a touch in the hole, turns with the confidence of an elite No. 10, fires a through ball to Samake, and it’s a goal for Las Vegas.
Yes, the start was bad enough to yield a loss, but the process is worth trusting. Sanchez knows what’s needed to make this team tick. Now, it’s a matter of giving the right players reps together and letting it rip.
Etou’s evolution
I typically set this column up midway through my Sunday, and I decided it was high time to praise the Riverhounds. How they’ve employed Junior Etou on the left has been remarkable, and it’s powered an upswing in form. Lo and behold, Colton Coreschi and the wonderful folks at Pittsburgh Soccer Now made my job a whole lot easier. Says Bob Lilley on his breakout wide man:
He’s fast, he’s a problem. Even the one he mishit with his right foot in the second-half ended up being a scramble because he got high, he cut inside and caused panic in defenders…he’s done a good job of learning a new position, or adjusting to it. He knows what we want, and it’s not a surprise.
Preach.
Funnily enough, if you compare Etou to other full backs and wing backs, he’s below par in terms of xG, xA, total passes, and defensive actions. The numbers paint the picture of someone who isn’t doing much of anything, but the eye test would tell you Etou is Pittsburgh’s best player so far in 2024.
You get examples of Etou giving defenses the business twice above. In the first case, Etou is the left winger in a rare 4-2-3-1 that Lilley broke out against Phoenix Rising. The change worked: Pittsburgh ultimately won and scored three goals on the road.
Etou did all sorts of damage hugging wide and making life miserable for Rising. Most of his brightest moments came when he got behind the opposing right back, but look how narrow he sticks in the transitional example. Etou’s interchange with the No. 10 puts Phoenix in a tailspin and allows the Sterling-Kizza strike pair to cleanly go at net.
In the second case, a clip from the win against Miami, Pittsburgh is in their typical back three. #8 is shown serving in from the left wing back spot, stretching the back line and creating a crucial goal.
This sequence is typical Riverhounds ball. They’re ensconced in the attacking half, and both Robbie Mertz and Kenardo Forbes are making runs out of the central midfield into the box. Those two actively push high with and without the ball, and it often forces the opposition to get too narrow. Here, it’s an especially potent mix because Etou has the skill and speed to round a defender one-on-one and serve in a low cross towards the overloaded center.
While the 29-year-old may not jump off the stat sheet, few players have his penchant for moments of brilliance. That’s a huge point of growth for Etou this season, and it’s changing his club’s fortunes. After a slow start to the year, the Riverhounds have a top ten offense (1.57 xG per game) and defense (1.27 xG against per game) heading into Week 10.
The style is familiar. This team is playing long from the back and immediately going hard at opponents to regain the ball when they lose it. By possession-weighted defensive numbers, Pittsburgh is above average in terms of tackles and interceptions, and their tally becomes more impressive when you consider that they’re keeping the ball in the air a lot.
I was guilty of doubting Bob Lilley yet again, as I’m wont to do each and every season. That was dumb. This team is executing to a tee, and Lilley’s ability to get the best out of unexpected sources is powering the Riverhounds’ rise. That Junior Etou has been so good has diversified the system and could mean big things come playoff time.
Route One Knox
In their Jagermeister Cup opener, Knoxville got a 1-0 win against Chattanooga. Business as usual, yeah? Mark McKeever and his squad have been a top-five team by xG margin, and they sit fourth in the League One table.
Still, the match against the Red Wolves marked an interesting point in One Knox’s evolution. In their three season-opening wins, the Tennesseans played just under 1400 passes, 14% of which went long. In a 3-4-3 shape featuring Angelo Kelly-Rosales as a withdrawn winger, Knoxville used a short-tilted offense to get the job done.
Against their in-state rivals in the Cup, that changed. Knoxville barely surpassed the a measly 200 pass completions and held a minority of possession. The same trend continued in a 1-1 draw against Richmond this weekend, a second game where McKeever’s side had a long pass share in excess of 20%.
The change in profile has come alongside a change in shape. Knoxville has turned to a 4-3-3 featuring two higher No. 8s in recent weeks, using them as magnets to second balls. It worked against the Kickers, with Kelly-Rosales and Callum Johnson combining for 15 ball recoveries out of the midfield; they were the top two collectors in the entire match.
You see the shape modeled against Chattanooga in the screenshot above. The dual No. 8s made 11 recoveries in that win, and they did so by lurking beneath striker Kempes Tekiela. The 6’2” forward was signed this offseason to be a target, and he contested 12 aerial duels - as in he’s about to do in the example - to help anchor play within the offensive half.
Note the movement off of Tekiela: the striker drops in, so winger Richie Ballard streaks over the top in case of a flick on.
That pump-and-run style has defined the attack in recent weeks, and it came in reaction to consecutive losses against Omaha and Greenville in which Knoxville sputtered. By contrast, they looked all the more assured in their stylistically distinct follow-ups. Against Richmond, McKeever and co. didn’t even allow a shot until the 34th minute. Yes, the Kickers came alive as One Knox ceded the impetus, but the system clicked on even footing.
The clip above evidences the other key plank of the new approach: high pressure out of the midfield. McKeever’s 4-3-3 is designed to addle any back four, especially one that plays out from deep.
You’ve got Tekiela pressing the goalkeeper, the No. 8s man marking in the pivot, and the Gio Calixtro-Ballard winger duo addressing the center backs. The closedown from Johnson and jump up from Calixtro are perfectly executed to wreak havoc.
The system is doing what it was intended to do. Can it repeat the trick against League One’s best? Time will tell. Still, Mark McKeever and One Knox deserve their flowers for re-inventing themselves on the fly and making it look seamless.
Threads!
I post too much, so here’s a backlog of my bigger game recaps. Looking for analysis of the shared malaise of Rhode Island and North Carolina? Check out this week’s USL Tactics Show.
Final Thoughts
Some other stray items on my mind…
I didn’t mean to mostly write about three teams that play long and press hard, but that’s what happened?
Since I’m publishing a day late, some Open Cup notes! Loved seeing Detroit in a very classic 5-4-1, and loved Carlos Saldana - who always comes up big - get a moment in the sun. Oakland lost, but their new shape and their use of Neveal Hackshaw in the midfield was exactly what the doctor ordered. Pittsburgh’s rotated lineup…I mean, classic Lilley stuff.
In “John rambles about entertainment” corner, MoMA is doing a retrospective series on the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger starting next month, and I literally couldn’t be more excited. They’re the kings of classic British film and were groundbreakingly innovative and earnest visual artists. I legit might take time off of work to go see some ‘50s movies.
Be sure to check out The USL Show. I don’t plug the podcast enough, but I like to think we’re the best audio content out there covering the USL (with all due respect to Mike Watts and Devon Kerr on USL All Access, of course).
I finally learned that the “your Substack post is too long” thing is because I’m embedding too many links, so…uh…expect less of that? That said, read Nicholas Murray’s profile of Nighte Pickering and Ray Serrano relative to meaningful Open Cup appearances.
See you soon!