Diving Deep: Birmingham Legion 1-0 The Miami FC

I cannot recall the Legion ever previously using the so-called “Christmas Tree” formation. But in a season that has become an exercise in not just experimentation but also in maximizing depleted resources out it came against Miami. It sorta worked and sorta didn’t.

The big news in this game was in who was not on the field. Phanuel Kavita was in the stands with his family and Preston Tabort Etaka was limping around in a walking cast in the premium seating area. AJ Paterson was on the bench and ultimately didn’t play. Tommy Soehn in a presser this week said he has two centerbacks out, which with a huge game coming up is not good. And on the Miami side of things Frank Lopez was not in the squad. Which pretty much meant that there would be no attack worth speaking of from the visitors.

Indeed, the Legion defense – even in a gimpy condition – was hardly tested. Miami took just 11 shots all game. Most of them went high and wide. 8 were from outside the Legion 18. Only 2 were on target and only one of those resulted in what could truly be considered a save. So the good guys were able to focus primarily on the attack.

The formation – which gets its name from the 4-3-2-1 arrangement – is not, as one might think, an adapted 4-3-3. Instead it is an adapted 4-5-1. Notable teams that have used it include Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan and Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea. The major difference from its parent is that it gives up much of the wide options in favor of ramming the ball up the gut. The key players are the two attacking mids, who are expected to be versatile and dynamic. In this case it was Enzo Martinez and Rida Zouhir. Enzo of course is the avatar of versatility. Rida is supposed to be along the same lines but has hardly demonstrated that so far for the Three Sparks. I would have expected Tyler Pasher to be the second attacking mid with Stefano Pinho up top, but Tommy Soehn went with another plan.

In the early going this looked like a perfect strategy. The Legion had two really good scoring chances in the first 10 minutes, including Enzo rattling the goalpost, and a few other opportunities as well. After about 15 minutes, however, the home side fell back into a play-it-out-of-the-back-slowly approach. We have seen this happen altogether too often this season. It was never going to work.

Miami, under its incessantly screaming coach Antonio Nocerino, were in a very defensive 5-4-1 formation. The Legion has had ongoing difficulties in penetrating back lines with three centerbacks – most especially against Pittsburgh, who are coming up this weekend – and this game was no different. Worse, if you have a slow build-up into the attacking third that compresses the opponent and takes most of your scoring lanes away. Here is Miami’s heatmap for the game:

Miami is playing right to left, of course. Virtually nothing in the final third, but completely jammed up in their own 18 and just in front of it too. Tough to get around all of that.

As a result, the Legion more or less gave up on the initial plan of attacking through the middle. Here’s the Legion heatmap:

The Three Sparks shifted their entire focus to the right wing. That would be Enzo’s side and thus the evident stronger side. The team also had Derek Dodson playing extremely high as the right fullback and also – for the first 62 minutes – Dawson McCartney as the right defensive mid who has proven to be a pretty reliable server of the ball from out wide (ironically, his long-distance assist was from the left).

Consider also the Legion average positions in the game:

Dawson McCartney (#11) is a tad deceptive because he switched wings. For the first two thirds of the game he was even wider right. What it looks like is that the Legion took the Christmas Tree and reverted it back to a 4-5-1. Note also that of field players only the Legion centerbacks Jake Rufe (#13) and Alex Crognale (#21) averaged in their own half. But also note that no one averaged in the attacking third. Conversely, of the Miami starters only 4 players averaged inside the Legion half and none of them any deeper than the center circle. Evidently, the Legion had concluded that Miami is weaker on its left. That ultimately paid off with the only goal in the game coming from way wide out on the right flank.

Also key to the goal was moving Dawson to the left. Miami keyed in on his right side replacement – Darwin Matheus – and continued to ignore the Legion left despite Dawson having proved relatively effective. He – and Ramiz Hamouda behind him – had acres of space in which to move utterly unmolested.

The other big change in the game came at half-time. Tommy Soehn was just as unsatisified with the slow build-up as everyone in the stands and immediately the team played much faster and more positively in the second half. They also held on to the ball far more. Despite clogging Miami into their own half, the Legion managed just 49% possession in the first 45, but ended with almost 57%, meaning that possession in the second stanza was 65%. The Three Sparks had 8 shots in the first half but twelve in the second (of Miami’s 11 shots, only 3 were in the second half and none were on target). That was a seriously high press.

The big question: would this same tactic work against the Riverhounds on Saturday? Almost certainly not. The Pittsburgh defense is of a far higher caliber than Miami’s and is infamously difficult to penetrate. Tommy Soehn is going to have to reach into his bag of tricks again and pull out another shiny new toy.