Diving Deep: Birmingham Legion 3-1 El Paso Locomotive
The oddity in the initial formation was that Dawson McCartney was playing at left back. He is of course mostly used as a winger. I assume he was put in at fullback faute de mieux, as it were, given that the Three Sparks are rather short on backs right now. Phanuel Kavita, despite being in training Friday, was apparently judged not game fit and Ethan Kos has been disappointing despite an excellent preseason. Stephen Turnbull started the game but only went 45 minutes, presumably still not ready for 90 minutes. Moses Mensah was on the bench and it’s a bit of a head-scratcher as to why he was not in the starting XI.
Not to say that Dawson can’t play at fullback, but it was definitely his error that led to the El Paso goal in the first half. Here’s how the goal came about:
Clearly, Dawson just lets Wilmer Cabrera go right by him. He did call for offside, but as the video shows he very obviously was not and the AR was in the perfect position to judge it. This is not to knock Dawson and he did make up for the error later in the game. Also, he played relatively high at the left back position. This is the heatmap for him and Stephen Turnbull at right back for the first half:
Stephen is at the bottom. They both advanced just as high but Stephen got deeper into cover.
I’m not sure when the formation began to change but it certainly changed no later than half-time when Stephen and Tyler Pasher were pulled and Moses Mensah and Preston Tabort Etaka were inserted. Eric Avila ended up making 5 substitutions in the game, although the last (Tiago Suarez for Preston) was in stoppage time and not a strategic decision but an injury-driven one. That’s a big change from Tommy Soehn’s evident preference for keeping starters in as long as possible. Here are the average positions for every player on the team:
As previously, the arrows point to the player being subbed out. Moses (#33) is a natural left back, so that freed Dawson (#11) to move to a wing position. Preston (#10) is also a winger and was a like-for-like switch with Tyler. There was one other obvious direct switch – Sebastian Tregarthen (#21) for Kobe Hernandez-Foster (#8). Both changes are evident from the shortness of the connecting arrows. Tiago (#43) was technically the same but clearly in his short time he was tasked with defensive responsibilities; his limited player stats bear that out as well. The last change was Roman Torres (#25) for Danny Trejo (#7).
Note that Moses – a left back – replaced Stephen – a right back. That is where the formation really changed. If we strip out the starters who left the game and Tiago here’s what the team looked like:
Dawson’s positioning is blurred by his first half play; he played the second half over on the right mostly. But you can see the 3-1-3-1-2 setup much more clearly now. Newcomer Sam McIllhatton (#6) is at the defensive pivot, which was a slight surprise to me. Reviewing his game film I had expected him to fit in as a central attacking mid. It can also be thought of as a 3-5-2 diamond and therein lies its flexibility; it can change from a defensive focus to an attacking one very quickly. It is sometimes criticized for not having enough width in the midfield but the Legion certainly did not play it that way.
What the Legion did with it is to take the opponent’s game away from them. The Locomotive is very much a counter-attacking team relying on fast breaks. The Three Sparks flipped the script by doing precisely that. El Paso had 54.4% possession, nearly a 9-point edge. They did outshoot the good guys 11-9 (and 3-1 in the first half) but ended up with only 3 shots on target compared to the Legion’s 6. Also, of the Legion’s 9 shots 7 were from inside the 18. A massive improvement.
The Locomotive were thus somewhat confused as to what to do with their possession. They also had difficulty getting past the 3-man back line. Finally, this strategy allowed the Legion to exploit its speed – which it has in spades. It also partly explains taking Tyler out; he is fast but likely can’t keep that up for a full 90 yet.
What this also shows is that Eric Avila is not afraid to make adjustments on the fly, and big ones at that. As his first game as a head coach this was an excellent managerial performance. He likely will not be the full-time Legion gaffer but if he keeps this up he will be somewhere.
