Sacramento vs. FC Tulsa: Tactical Analysis—A Possession Problem
06/07: Sacramento’s line up, the good, the bad, and what stood out
The Lineup:
Well that was… something. On a warm Sacramento night, a Tulsa team that seemed to always play for a whistle gave Sacramento a second 1-0 loss to Tulsa on the season, this time at home. This drops Republic to eighth in the West, just barely in a playoff spot, though with a game in hand. I do not want to discuss the referee too much in this analysis—while he certainly slowed the game down and certainly caused some headaches, he did not exactly cause Republic to only put a single shot on target.
Republic rolled out a starting XI that was almost identical to last week’s USL Cup match against Las Vegas Lights, a starting XI that had a clean sheet and scored four goals. The lone exception was starting Herrera in place of Jamieson, which moved Cicerone to the left wing instead of up top. Tulsa is a good team, but after scoring nine goals and allowing none against in the last two matches, the offense dried up, the defensive focus dropped off, and we’re back to scratching our heads and wondering what this Republic team under Neill Collins is supposed to look like.
The Good:
Let’s start with looking at what went right this game, even if it’s only a few points. Tulsa is a decent offensive team, and have scored in every game this season outside a loss to North Carolina FC way back in March. Giving up one goal here, while not ideal, is still a manageable result and the defense had a stand out game outside of the one defensive breakdown. Republic also completely controlled the game; their 68% possession is Republic’s second highest on the season. We’ll look at why that could actually be a bad thing a little bit later.
The biggest positive to take away from this game though, is the effort that the boys put in until the very end of the game, and that hasn’t always been the case this season. Look at this play in 93rd minute:
It’s the end of the game, it’s warm, and frustration has been building all game with the officiating, Tulsa’s players, and the lack of successful chances. Still, seven outfield players rush back to stomp out Tulsa’s counterattack, with the remaining three staying up top to spring a counter of their own, so that…
…just 20 seconds later, Republic only has 2 outfield players in their own half, and even those 2 players are pressing up. The boys in Old Glory Red really did put in a solid effort, and probably deserved at least a point out of this match,
The Bad:
Let’s get into the meat of this, because there are a few stats in here that are painful to read. First off, Sacramento absolutely dominated the game. They held 68% possession, had 499 passes to Tulsa’s 238, and had 88 entries into the final third to Tulsa’s 55. They also had 21 free kicks, 8 corners, and 5 shots in Tulsa’s box. They had an average positioning chart that looked like this:
Similar to most of the rest of the season, Republic is averaging seven players in the opposition's half.
And yet… that resulted in nothing. Republic only had six total shots. Of those, five were taken in Tulsa’s box and only one was on target. Despite Tulsa only having 32% of the possession, they matched Republic in total shots and had two more shots on target. A few weeks ago, after a match against Indy XI, Lee Desmond had this to say:
“I think going forward we were probably a little bit toothless. We need to be more creative… We just need to get going.”
That same sentiment held true tonight, and the matches were remarkably similar; in that match against Indy, Republic had 70% of the possession. While they did manage to get a goal (in the 90th + 5 minute), Sacramento dominating the ball appears to do nothing for them offensively.
Those possession numbers in particular are very interesting, so I wanted to calculate the average possession rate this season for when Republic has won, drawn, and lost:
And a trend becomes clear immediately. The more Republic controls the ball, the less they score and the more they concede. Republic has won a single game against a professional team this season when they controlled more than 50% of the possession—and that was the 5-0 drubbing of Las Vegas Lights, a team in free fall who just fired their head coach this week. If you remove that game from the statistics, Republic averages just 46.75% of possession when they win.
Now, let’s take a look at the average possession of the teams Republic has faced in league play this season, through 10 games:
Another interesting trend appears here. seven out of the nine teams Republic has faced so far prefer not to hold on to the ball. Republic’s one win against a team in playoff contention was against New Mexico, who are among the league leaders in possession. The other team that has above 50% possession? A Colorado team that Republic was beating 2-0 until the 86th minute. The only other two wins this season come against Vegas and Oakland, two teams that are several games out of playoff contention.
The main problem appears to be that Republic has no offensive ability to break defenses down when they have possession. When Republic scores, it usually looks something like this:
There’s roughly six seconds from turn over to goal. Or this:
Roughly six seconds again. And one more:
Only three seconds here. What do you notice with all three goals?
Well, none of them are coming from play while Republic has the ball. For all three of these goals (and several others this season), Republic plays a high press that contains the opposition to their own half, without controlling the ball. They then rely on either a forced turnover or an opposing mistake to give them the ball in space to quickly counter.
The reason Republic struggles in games like this week's game against Tulsa is because they have no tools to break opposing defenses down. This high counter press Republic utilizes relies on quick, agile forwards to press players and then quickly break behind opposing lines before the slower defenders can react. But when a team has most of their defenders behind the ball and lets Republic control the game, Sacramento does not know what to do. They do not have a tall or strong forward that can win the ball over opposing defenders on crosses. They don’t have any dribbling maestros that can charge directly at opposing defenders and go through them. So they end up aimlessly passing the ball around without actually being able to do anything with it.
This team either needs to drastically change their tactical approach when playing against teams that force Republic to have possession, or they need a mid season signing who can be that target man or dribbling maestro to break defenses. And the thing is, that hypothetical signing does not even have to be the one that scores; just having that threat would allow players like Jamieson or Cicerone to find more space.
What Stood Out:
It’s hard to tell who is to blame for this slow start. Three wins in 10 games is among the worst in club history, and it’s hard not to put the blame on a new coach coming in with a new system. At the same time, new systems come with growing pains, and this team is not necessarily a team that Collins has constructed. Of the starting XI from this week's game, only two of them had been signed after Collins joined the club; the rest of them, Collins inherited. A few transfers, including the signing of Dominik Wanner and the departure of players like Shane Wiedt and Conor Donovan, occurred this offseason before Collins was even brought on. Much of this team is General Manager Todd Dunivant’s as much as it is Neill Collins’.
On the other hand, Collins signed on mostly knowing the squad he was going to have. He is responsible for utilizing the current players to get results, even if it means he needs to adjust his preferred tactics to better compliment the players he has available to him. Republic has to be able to adjust tactically when playing teams that will sit back like Tulsa; if the are not willing to do so, it’s going to be a long year.