Sacramento vs Phoenix Rising: Tactical Analysis - Out Coached and Out Played
05/30: Sacramento’s line up, the good, the bad, and what stood out
The Lineup:
On a warm Phoenix night, Republic were played off the pitch both tactically and physically. Phoenix, to their credit, came in with a well-scouted and efficient plan: using Ihsan Sacko as a focal point, punish Sacramento’s often over-extended left side. And Republic, again and again, had no answer. Coupled with this emphasis on the right side of the field, Phoenix pressed high into Republic’s midfield and backline, forcing the Quails to play either over the top or through the midfield, which they were completely unsuccessful in.
It worked wonders the entire match. Republic appeared completely helpless as Rising threw numbers down the right wing; I mean, just look at Phoenix’s attacking map:
The arrows indicate the number of attacks into that zone, while brighter greens indicate a higher concentration of play in that area. Phoenix would bat the ball around the midfield, find a way to ping it to the right side, and then drive in at goal from there. And this is where Republic appears to have been out-coached or, at the very least, out-scouted. Republic’s tactic heavily relies on their wing play. So, often this season, that has involved relying on the wing backs, Gurr or Spaulding on the Republic right and Benítez on the left, to get forward, create attacking chances, and overload the opposing defense.
But Phoenix took that tendency and turned it on its head. Taking advantage of Benítez’s oft seen forward progression, they simply pressed Republic into the midfield, won the ball, and then countered down the right side where Benítez was out of defensive position and Republic’s defense was outnumbered. To make this worse, Malango, who plays in front of Benítez on the Republic left, went 5/15 on duals, lost possession 14 times, and went 3/7 on dribble attempts. So not only was Benitez pushed forward, but Malango’s inability to hold on to or win the ball meant that Phoenix far too easily gained possession and were able to counter. As soon as Phoenix won a turnover, they were off to the races—and the Republic midfield duo of Kaye and Crisostomo were unable to slow down the Phoenix attackers before they reached an increasingly disorganized Republic backline. John Morrissey with USL tactics highlighted this over on twitter:
Ideally, in Neill Collins’ system, the 2 CDM’s function as forward “sweepers,” able to push towards attacking players to slow down the opposing attack. But Kaye and Crisostomo are just completely unable to do so, not helped by a subpar performance on duels, where they went a combined 5/12. This goal was called offside, but it’s a great example of what happened over and over throughout the match.
When not in possession, Phoenix pressed Republic fairly high. But because Republic was too slow on the ground and terrible in the air (more on that later), they just couldn’t get out of the press. Look at the 2 clubs’ average positioning:
Not only is most of the Republic attack mired in the midfield, but the one player who plays higher is Malango… which further opens up space for Phoenix to attack that side of the pitch.
Republic came into this match against a Phoenix team who appeared well prepared to tactically counter a Collins system that has become stale and predictable, and Republic showed a complete inability to adapt and deal with it.
The Good:
A Few Individual Performances
We’re not going to spend long in the “Good” section here—this match doesn’t deserve it. But, I still think there are a few individual performances to shout out if you want something good to look at. Collins himself had the same sentiment post-match:
“I think Danny is like the only player that comes out with a “pass” mark. A couple lads that came on definitely injected a bit of energy and enthusiasm, but still I think Danny kept it respectable.”
And, post-match emotions aside, I mostly agree with that sentiment. Danny Vitiello single handily kept this to a 2-goal affair. Without his performance, Republic easily give up 3 or 4 goals. It’s why he has a match rating of 9.2, tied for the highest of all players on the pitch. A keeper getting a 9.2 despite giving up 2 goals is a bit insane, but it’s because both goals were from penalties, and Vitiello had 7 saves total, 5 of which were from shots inside the box, was 2 for 2 on run outs, and had some real save-of-the-week type theatrics. One save is nominated for that by the way, go vote for him here.
I will say though that Gurr and Memo at least had respectable showings of their own. Gurr created Republic’s best chance on the night and had 2 passes that directly led to a teammate’s shot. And Memo returned to the pitch for the first time since late April and played well—he had 6 of the Republic attack’s 19 duel wins despite playing only one half, and was the second highest rated Republic player on the night.
The Bad:
Defensive Chaos:
Republic’s defense was in chaos all night—the match ending 2-0 is something of a Vitiello-caused miracle. But much of this chaos was a result of the Republic attack and midfield getting beat, which overexposed the backline.
Let’s take a closer look at that play from above. When Phoenix have possession here, Republic is lined up in some sort of… weird 3-2-4-1? 4-1-4-1? We haven’t seen this look from a Collins’ side before, and frankly, it doesn’t make much sense. Look at this snapshot:
Crisostomo (right circle) is traditionally the other CDM with Kaye, so I’m not sure why he’s sitting in a line of 4 with the other 3 Republic forward midfielders and why all of them are just sort of… watching. There is one player pressing, none of the 4 are really marking anyone at all, and this is less than 15 minutes into the game so it’s not like anyone has tired legs yet.
Behind this bizarre line of 4, Kaye is giving chase to a Phoenix player running free, which leaves the entire back right side of the Republic formation completely open (see: the large red circle of empty space). What this means is that Jack Gurr (off screen) is forced to stay more to the right side than he normally should—which will become important in a minute. The only other movement going on is Benítez (arrow) making the decision to crash the free man on the outside that, arguably, Malango should be guarding. And that leads to this:
In between these 2 shots, Kaye is too slow to guard his man, who receives and then lays off the ball to the man Benítez is crashing… but Benítez gets beat. The entire right sideline becomes free real estate. This causes Desmond to have to step in (top defender), but this leaves his man unmarked, so Essel (middle arrow) now gets caught between the runner behind him and the free man in front. But the snowball gets even bigger; remember that we said that Gurr had to stay more to the right side to cover all that open space? Well, because of that, he’s now too far out of the play to catch up. Even if he does get there in time, Phoenix’s #20 is wide open on the far side from the ball.
Ironically, Essel’s stutter step of hesitation is what makes this offside, saving Republic from giving up an early goal, but this pattern of bizarre positioning, poor tracking, and just straight up getting beat on the dribble continues all game.
Now, let’s take a look at this play 7 minutes into the second half:
Again, Benítez is pushed up, so when Phoenix win the ball back, they can just send it down the right side of the pitch. No one pressures this pass either, which is shocking with 4 Republic players in the area. Someone has to step into this. And then, neither center back is fast enough to get to the ball, and Phoenix is through on goal. Danny is, again, the hero here but this is just far too easy. And this is 7 minutes into the second half - after the half-time adjustments should have taken place.
Bad Decision Making
Both goals that Republic did concede were, somehow, not from open play but rather from terrible defensive decision making in the box. In neither case is the attack a direct threat on goal that calls for a do-or-die attempt at the ball. Let’s look at the first one:
Republic lose the ball in the midfield far too easily due to Phoenix’s high press, that same high press gives Phoenix the numbers going forward, and then Desmond makes a poor decision to go in hard for the ball, and there’s no reason for it. The attacking player has his back to goal, has no way to turn, and is isolated because of Gurr’s positioning. You can certainly argue it’s a soft pen, but you can’t risk this sort of foul in the goal box.
Whenever penalties are called, I always find it’s worth checking the reaction of the other players who didn’t commit the foul… and nearly every Republic player has no argument with the referee on this one. Now let’s look at the second, where Phoenix again very clearly target the right side of the field and Benítez gets beat:
I have no idea what Benítez is thinking here. Not only does he commit the foul from behind, but Desmond is right there in front of the attacker! Again using the “how do the other players react” test, no Republic player complains about this call. Crisostomo even starts yelling at the Republic forwards for not closing down the cross, and he’s absolutely right—the Republic front 4 are just walking and watching the game, without much urgency or intent, something that happened time and time again.
Duels
One major factor I want to look at is Republic’s inability to win the ball in the air in this match, something they are usually very good at. To do that, we’re going to look at the “duel” stat, which tracks how often a player or team wins a 50/50 ball - the term “aerial” and “ground” being self-explanatory. Over the first 12 matches of the year (all competitions), the Quails have averaged out to winning 21.8 aerial duels a game out of an average of 37.1—for an average win rate of 58.9%. That’s pretty damn good—they’re winning the majority of 50/50 balls in the air, allowing them to clear dangerous balls defensively and advance the ball offensively.
But that number has slowly started to fall off a cliff. Over the last 3 matches, which includes a narrow 1-0 win over Oakland and last week’s loss to San Antonio, that number has dropped to an average of 10 won a game on only 22 contested attempts, for an average of 45.5%... with this Phoenix match being by far the worst performance of the season. Republic went 9/24 (38%) tonight—that’s terrible. And the lower number of contested aerial duels is not a sign of the ball being in the air less. Phoenix played 55 long balls and both clubs combined for 22 crosses; Republic just often didn’t challenge them. And their rate on the ground wasn’t much better—just 47.7%. That’s just a touch below the season average, but doing slightly below average on the ground while failing in the air means Republic hardly ever won those 50/50 balls, making it difficult for them to move out of Phoenix’s press or stop the counter.
The Entire Offense
The offense continues to struggle, with just 2 goals in the last 3 games. But what’s more shocking is the underlying numbers. Republic managed just 7 shots against Phoenix; only 2 were on target. The other 5? Complete misses. Not a single Republic shot was blocked by a Rising player. Phoenix had more shots on target than Republic had total shots, even in the second half when Republic started to gain more possession!
Over the season, Republic’s shot on target rate is 31%. That’s not… great, but it’s further compounded when you have the lowest number of shots you’ve had in a game all season. A further issue is that the shots that have been on target haven’t been good. Over the season, Republic has 23 goals on 57 shots on target, good for 40.4%. The last 3 games? Two goals on 10 shots on target for 20%. And look, I hate calling specific guys out, but the entire reason we signed Ajago in the offseason was to have him be a tall physical body—he just can’t miss this chance at this level:
It’s a great ball from Gurr that beats everyone, but like so many Republic sequences, the chances are there and the finish is not.
The even more concerning thing is that the offense has no idea what to do when they have the ball in possession. Republic had 20 more final 3rd entries than Phoenix, over 30 more passes in the final third, and… were out-shot 23 to 7. This is largely because Republic just pass the ball around and can’t do anything with it. There’s no offensive creativity. Malango, over the last 5 league matches, is averaging a 6.08 player rating with 0 goals. He’s only played well in USL Cup matches. Ajago has only been slightly better, with 1 goal and a 6.52 player rating over the last 5 matches. Wolf hasn’t helped at all either —in 3 league matches with Republic, he has 0 goals and a 6.25 player rating. None of the 3 have any assists over that time period. That’s not even close to good enough, and one has to wonder what Kyle Edwards has to do to get a start.
What Stood Out:
Republic, for a long while now, have regularly entered matches in a sort of “my way or the highway” tactical approach. That is, they have their way of playing, and they’re going to force that way of playing on the opponent, whatever the opponent is doing be damned! What Collins has then tended to do is to then adjust at halftime to what the opponent is doing, when needed.
And to be fair to Collins, he has been fairly good at these mid-game adjustments. ~65% of Republic’s goals this season have come after half time, largely due to those tactical adjustments that are made at half. And what about defensively? Yup, same pattern, where Republic have only conceded 2 total goals after half:
It’s a shocking contrast, and it very much seems that Republic’s game plan coming into games just doesn’t work. And as brilliant as many of the mid-game adjustments can be, Republic is not going to be able to overcome a one or two goal deficit in the second half every single match.
I don’t know what sort of scouting Republic does going into games; whatever it is they do, it needs to change. The team is regularly exposed and beaten in the first 45 minutes and it’s not good enough. It becomes even worse when those second half adjustments don’t work, like tonight—Republic may have avoided giving up a 2nd-half goal, but that’s only because of Vitiello. Instead, you went from a stale and stiff first half to a disjointed and chaotic 2nd half, which didn’t exactly solve the tactical problems as much as it made new ones.
And, as if Republic wasn’t stiff enough, at least 2 of the 5 subs tonight were pre-planned—Timmer on for Desmond and Memo on for Arturo. Both Timmer and Memo are returning for injury and are on limited minutes, but the substitutions did not meet the state of the game. Arturo was the best rated of the 4 offensive players, why bring him off instead of Malango or Ajago?
I also suspect that the subbing off of Kaye and Crisostomo were pre-planned; both are also returning from injury. Neither was playing amazing as we discussed before, but getting Kyle Edwards and Ryan Spaulding on to the pitch for Ajago and Malango, the 2 worst-performing players on the pitch on either side, would have likely been preferable. The team needs goals, and you’re going to leave Edwards on the bench? To me, this has to have been pre-planned. If it wasn’t, then I’d argue this was negligent game management.
Collins, to his credit, acknowledges that it wasn’t good enough. Post-match he says:
“I think we were just totally second-best all over the pitch. It was so self-inflicted. Both penalty decisions were just poor decisions. Our defending was poor all over the pitch, and even though we had opportunities at times to get back into the game, we didn’t take them, and we could have given up more goals. So it was a severe, massive off-night for everybody.”
I’m assuming that “poor decision” comment is about Republic players, not the officiating crew. But the real question is, what is Collins going to do about it? Republic now faces a Monterey Bay team in the USL Cup that has largely been the 2nd-worst team in all of USL thus far—but who are now on a 2-match winning streak where they outscored their opponents 6 to 1. And let’s not forget that Monterey’s first point of the season was a 1-1 draw at Heart Health Park.
Whether Collins sticks with his guns this coming week or not is going to be a massive tell on where Collins thinks the problem is. If he keeps with the same starting XI, then one can assume that he thinks tonight was just an “off-night.” If he switches things up... we’ll have to see if the “next man up” mentality can apply to guys trying to win starting spots. Let’s just hope for a better showing next week, because the Republic fan base is getting impatient. I don’t blame them.
Strong analysis as usual. Let's hope this one falls into the "teachable moments" category and we see better going forward. That was one of the worst SRFC games I've seen and the sooner forgotten the better.