LA Galaxy seems to have transformed, Red Bulls are promising, and more from round 3
Before I get into the column, I would like to talk a little bit about my rare Sunday morning trades. As first reported by Pat Brennan, Inter Miami will trade starting defenseman DeAndre Yedlin to FC Cincinnati for $172,000 in General Allocation Money (GAM). .
Cincy’s motives here are clear. This team is a trophy-level team that suffered a major blow in the off-season with relegation and as a result is without a starting right midfielder.
Moreover, because of this, you have enough space to make the most of your salary. And while Yedlin isn’t at Santi Arias’ level in terms of securing the final ball, he’s a good two-way player who extends his defense into the outfield, and he’s proven to be durable and a winner.
There is. It should be easy for Gary, who beat Chicago 2-1 on Saturday night and has four points from two games. For them, this is a very easy trade and not just a short-term one. Now they probably won’t have to worry about a right-back until 2027.
From Miami’s perspective, I have even more doubts. Yedlin probably wasn’t ideal for the Herons in many ways, but his line-to-line coverage was close to what was needed in my opinion, and Saturday’s 5-0 win over Orlando showed that. . On the other hand, he will go step-by-step with Ivan Angulo to neutralize the Lions’ fastest threat on the field. On the other hand, he moved forward and stayed on the wing, and staying on the wing freed up a lot of space for Julian Gressel, and Gressel had the spirit of Andres Iniesta in all that space, and, well. ..5-0 in a derby doesn’t happen very often. Additionally, Miami currently lacks a natural right guard on the roster. Gressel can play there, but 1) he’s performed very well in midfield in two of Miami’s three games this season, and 2) he probably has two super-aggressive defenders (one more (Jordi Alba) would be unwise. And one more thing:
Gressel played a key role in the destruction of Orlando City. He was by far the best midfielder on the pitch! Is Auntie really going to call him into her office for this conversation? MLS SuperDraft first-round pick Yannick Bright could fill that position, but he has not yet signed a contract. Local product David Luiz will likely play there and has made some appearances in the past, but even the youngest player, Tyler Hall, may be more of a running back than the centerback he played in the youth ranks. do not have.
But Miami doesn’t seem like a team that would open the cap door to get rookies or extra minutes locally. “Win Now” is the most successful club in history, and “win now” means “bringing in more veterans.” Someone was making a joke about Sergi Roberto on social media and it made me laugh for a second. And I didn’t do that. That makes a lot of sense, as it confirms that Miami has an international roster spot they can use against him if they wish. Either way, this is one of the most interesting things to watch in MLS right now.
Additionally, this could herald a move to a 3-5-2, which, in my opinion, doesn’t suit the staff as well as the 4-3-3 we’ve seen so far. I won’t go into details about the match as I have already written a long article summarizing the MLS Season Pass. Miami was great in the ways you would expect a team with this level of talent to be great (I still can’t believe people overestimated their preseason friendlies). Season), Orlando also received the same rating as me. By mulliganing. (Although I’m starting to worry about the possibilities they create).
“Is the Galaxy back?” was the question asked backstage Saturday night when they burst through the gates of PayPal Park and bludgeoned the Quakes to death. The 3-1 score was misleading, as Los Angeles led 1-0 at halftime, 2-0 before intermission, and 3-0 shortly thereafter. The only question was whether the shutout could be maintained, but with about 20 minutes remaining, former Galaxy forward Preston Judd scored the team’s repechage goal. Therefore, there are no blank pages. And even if they save one goal, and even if they score six instead of three, the Galaxy are still not “back.” “Return” to the galaxy means spoils. It means control.
That means being the biggest team in the Western Conference and the league. They’re not even the biggest team in Los Angeles right now. But what they’re doing for the first time in a while is playing good football on both sides of the ball. His head coach Greg Vanney deserves a lot of praise. Because I think Vanney in any game he plays with 70% possession and prefers to play his team at the top of the backfield. However, LA’s players are better suited to the bottom block, allowing Riqui Puig to pass and the new winger to run into space.
That’s what the Galaxy did last weekend against Miami (a great performance but disappointing result) and for part of this weekend. San Jose. The difference between the weeks (other than the score) is that the 1-1 against Miami was a pure counter-attack gamble, whereas the 3-1 scoreline was the methodical and fluid ball handling that Vanney always preached. It was a combination of moving forward in a straight line. Seems like a great choice to have in his team’s space. look:
In the moment it looked like a counterattack, but the truth is that there was no more patient or more beautiful team goal in MLS this weekend. These are his two parts of Los Angeles’ offensive brain that together he functions as one. “The good thing is that we played well last week at home against a good team in Miami, and we performed well tonight, and we performed well on the road,” Vanney said after the game. .
“What I got there was the consistency that I was able to achieve in a very short period of time this season. I played at a consistent level, home games, away games, and I had consistent performances.” A threat from the attacking side. »
Now, there’s an even more noticeable difference in Los Angeles this year. That’s the rest of the defense. Did you see that in the clip above? Here, in case you missed them, we’ve circled the notable ones.
It’s Miki Yamane again. He’s not the right-back that many expect him to be, and he’s not going to push his ceiling. Instead, he sits where he would be most useful if the Galaxy turned the ball over. And he stays there for most of the rest of the scene. This becomes even more obvious in rehearsal.
Do you know how to scan? We usually associate this with a player looking for space to hold the ball. In this case, Yamane would analyze how San Jose’s defenders are positioned to best assess where he should position himself to prevent a possible counterattack.
He stays in the center circle and does so while the other Galaxy midfielders eventually filter into his area, and as Joseph Paintsil dives inside to complete the attacking sequence, Yamane realizes that Los Angeles is the terrain step back to fully cover the area. From what I’ve seen so far, Yamane isn’t the only one paying attention to the team’s defensive form during possession. Three deep midfielders (Mark Delgado, Edwin Cerillo and Gaston Brugmann) were blocked, as was the central defender. Ricky pays more attention to that too.
And it shows in the numbers. Of course, be aware of the small sample size, but Opta says the Galaxy only allows 0.073 xG per shot. Last year, this number was 0.104 xG per shot. Yes, the eye test showed that Los Angeles has improved significantly on defense in two games.
They aren’t back yet and won’t be back officially until they add some material. This is standard at Carson.
But hey, they play really good football. The pieces fit perfectly and Vanny uses them very well.
Quakes, on the other hand…not so good. We talk more about them and the need for midweek creator opportunities on This is MLS.
nightmares and dreams
I’ll hand this over to Karen Carr, who was behind the microphone during RBNY’s 2-1 win over Houston on Saturday night. The Red Bulls have picked up four points from two roadies to start this season, and Emil Forsberg looks like the high-end creator they have been missing for half a century.
But another Swede is attracting attention. It’s all connected and a big part of why the Red Bulls entered the season as a second tier team (Elite Contenders tier). They’re still good at turning every game into a 50-50 nightmare, but Forsberg is taking it to the next level offensively. He turns that chaos into an opportunity, and even RBNY strikers can turn that opportunity into a goal.
But Ale adds an unexpected dimension and is perhaps an even bigger reason for the team’s evolution from pure killers to something more beautiful. It’s reflected in the numbers. In two games, he completed 7.56% more passes than expected, which is the best in the league among center backs, according to American Soccer Analysis.
Given that RBNY’s center backs are never asked to play safe, simple, high-probability passes (as Armando Kafai expertly pointed out last week on Backheeled.com), that kid You’ll understand how quickly and to what extent you can influence your team. whole project. Red Bull’s reaction immediately after losing 0-1 is as follows.
I know this is a very long clip. But look at this. Watching the number of times Yale had the ball, watching how patient he was moving the ball from side to side, watching him come out at the end when he tied Houston up and created space in a 4-4-2. Look at the path you made. shape.
This is an elite item. He’s not at Robin Jansson’s level when it comes to ball-handling, but it’s his distribution and game management that earned the 21-year-old Jansson just under $1 million. And remember last year I named Jansson Defensive Player of the Year.
The Red Bulls still have work to do. Manoel’s goal was good, but the club swapped places in the squad for some reason two weeks ago, and club officials say they are still considering signing a new No.9. If he takes this big step, it will be time for Harrison fans to dream big again.
Houston’s dreams are far from dashed, and those close to the team say they expect several signings in the near future, including a young general manager. As mentioned this winter, the Fire was 24th in xA last year and 29th (last) in key passes. And they spent a club-record transfer fee on a No. 9 player who absolutely, unequivocally needs 100% of his services to be effective.
Therefore, at half-time Wilfried Nancy brought on center forward Cristian Ramirez for midfielder Alex Matan. The idea was that Ramirez would move so far away from the backline that the Loons’ central defenders would not follow him, but that the midfielders would be too busy to catch him. They literally started the first half with this play.
Twelve minutes later, Cucho Hernández entered the box and created the break that led to the opening goal.
I love watching this team make decisions on the fly and I still love their courage with the ball. I consider this entire play pattern to be the “pass of the week.” This is because repeating movements with and without the ball to create high-level chances is the basis of good soccer.
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