Sacramento at Birmingham and Rhode Island: Tactical Analysis - A Tale of Two Matches
06/18 & 06/21: Sacramento’s line up, the good, the bad, and what stood out
The Lineup:
Republic played on the road twice this week, suffering an extra time heart-break in Alabama before finally finding their scoring boots in Rhode Island. Collins rolled out two different looks:
In Alabama, he used his typical 3-4-3 that we’ve seen for much of the season, but opted to rest Freddy Kleemann and started Chibi Ukaegbu on the backline. The midfield remained unchanged, but up top saw a front three of Cicerone, Wanner, and Willey. While this look was defensively sound (until the last minute of the match...), the front three were largely useless; we’ll look at that a bit more later on.
After the loss in Birmingham, and after the club had gone 328 minutes without a goal, Collins switched things up against Rhode Island, moving the formation from a 3-4-3 to a 3-4-2-1. While Cicerone still started up top, Parano and Roro took up the two Center Attacking Midfielder (CAM) positions behind him. Meanwhile, a midfield shakeup saw Luis Felipe return to the starting XI for just the second time in a month while Benitez moved out to the left wing-back role.
So a scoreless road loss against a Birmingham team that has allowed a goal in every USL match this season, and then a road win against a Rhode Island team that has won just a single game at home. Before we get into the “why” here, let’s look at the stats of both of these games; before I reveal which game is which, try and guess which of these games was a win, and which was a loss:
In Match #1, Republic was under considerably more pressure; they only held onto the ball for 36% of the match. They had 40 clearances. They had fewer shots. Despite this, Match #1 is actually the match they won against Rhode Island. There are fewer shots, but there are more shots on target. Way less possession… yet nearly double the amount of entries into the opposition's final third. The trend continues to hold: when the Republic dominate the possession, they do not know what to do with it. Match #2 is the loss against Birmingham and is a perfect example; even if Republic does not let in the last gasp goal, they still only get a draw here. When Sacramento holds the ball, they simply do not know what to do.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at why that is…
The Good:
When Republic does not retain possession of the ball, they are able to stage quick counters against opposing defenses. Look at this first shot on target Gurr has against Rhode Island:
This is a quick counter out of the back from Vitiello, and this is where Republic excels. They can use their speed to pull in multiple defenders and then find space in between the opposition's lines. Ideally, Gurr does not shoot here; he pulls the ball back and finds a wide open Roro in the center of the box, having done his job pulling in the center back. However, when Republic does score from open play later in the match, you can see Cicerone do exactly that:
Same situation here - Cicerone gets a quick counter from the midfield and pulls in the center back, except this time he pulls the ball back to a wide open Parano in the box who can put a clean finish on it.
And that’s where a 3-4-2-1 can be so effective. The striker up top, in this case Cicerone, is not necessarily the one scoring the goals. In fact, Cicerone had *0 shots* the entire game—because that’s not his role in this formation. Instead, the striker is supposed to draw attention, run at the defense, and then lay the ball off to one of the CAM’s who are (hopefully) in a space that has been vacated by the defenders the striker pulls in. Cicerone did a fantastic job of this; he had a 95% passing accuracy, won three out of five ground duals on the press, and created two “big chances.” That second big chance (outside of Parano’s goal) was this ball to Gurr:
You can really see here how the striker operates in this formation; if either CAM moves forward, the striker can drop into space to provide an outlet option to move the attack to the opposite side of the pitch. He becomes a chance creator instead of a chance finisher, and I really think this is the role and formation Cicerone can excel in.
Republic held strong defensively over these two games as well; yes, they gave up a late late goal in Birmingham, but it was on the counter at a time where Republic was pushing for the winner. In the 179 other minutes Republic played, the defense looked very solid. And, as seen clearly in the Rhode Island game, Republic’s counter-press just works when they are ok with giving up possession. We’ve talked about this all year in games where Republic has played well, but look again at how far up the field Republic presses:
They essentially pin Rhode Island into their own corner; the only thing the player with the ball can do here is boot it over the top, where Republic won 15/31 aerial duels. That may not seem great, being just around 50%, but it also means that every time the Republic forced their opposition to go over the top, they had a 50/50 chance of taking that possession away.
The Bad:
Now let’s look at the flip side of what can happen when the Republic are not able to run a counter attack on their opponent. First of all, the press just did not really happen in the Birmingham game:
A Legion player is just completely unmarked or pressed at the top of Republic’s attacking third, and no one is going to the ball. Republic’s midfield is way dropped back, and that lets the Legion just stand around on the ball. Yes, it was muggy and warm, but this is 10 minutes into the match. This led directly to an easy shot for the Legion, which really didn’t miss by much. And here’s another one in the 20th minute:
Where is everyone? In the matches where Republic have been successful, this situation has called for the left wing (Willey in this case) charging the ball, Cicerone being higher up the pitch to take out the option of passing to another defender, and then one of the midfielders moving up to cover the extra man, which forces the defender to play the ball over the top where Republic have a good chance to win it. That just… does not happen, and it leads to a very dangerous pass that the Republic has to deal with at the last minute. So far this season, Republic’s best chances on goal have come from turnovers from the press so its no surprise that a lack of press led to fewer chances on goal.
On the other side of things, Sacramento just does not know what to do with the ball when they have it. When they do go forward, the Legion are already entirely behind the ball, so there is nowhere for Sacramento to break:
This chance at the end of the game is a good example. Republic presses forward, but there’s no good outlet options; the Legion do a really good job closing this down. The only potentially positive pass is the red arrow, but even then the Legion center back would have an easy time cutting this out or slowing things down. Sacramento simply does not have the tools to deal with these offensive situations.
When the Republic does just hold possession, they have no forward movement. In the first half of the Birmingham game, Republic held 59% of the possession—which only led to two shots, one of which was blocked and the other was not even close to being on target. They only had 53 final third entries the entire game; in Rhode Island, they had 91, despite commanding 16% less possession. That tells me that, when Republic did have the ball against Birmingham, it was mostly around the center third of the field, where Republic aimlessly passed the ball around with no forward ideas.
What Stood Out:
All in all, this was not a convincing week for a Republic. Yes a road win against Rhode Island is great, and they almost got a point on the road midweek after heavy travel, but as stated earlier… they are the first team to not score on Birmingham in USL play this season, and Rhode Island picked up the nickname “Rhode (Road) Warriors” for a reason. The lack of scoring continues to be a problem. A switch to the 3-4-2-1, as we saw against Rhode Island, could provide some positive momentum but I still do not see it being the long-term solution. Republic desperately needs a mid-season signing that can anchor the attack. If Collins is going to stay at a 3-4-3, it likely needs to be a striker, while Cicerone plays on the left wing. If he is going to keep the look he utilized against Rhode Island, then a CAM who can consistently shoot on target needs to be prioritized.
Either way, this Republic team also needs to figure out its possession problem. We covered the details of that before:
Republic either need to figure out how to give up possession more consistently, or they need to figure out how to score when they have possession.
Teams are going to start to figure out real quick, if they have not already, that simply letting Sacramento have the ball completely neutralizes the Republic offense. Until Sacramento solves that, teams will continue to exploit it.
To leave things on a positive note though, let’s have another look at Roro’s goal. A free kick like this isn’t really something that you can tactically analyze; you just have to admire its brilliance:
