Possession versus press—two different styles of play that have led to success for the two top teams in the East. It’s only fitting that the highest-seeded clubs, Columbus Crew SC and the New York Red Bulls, will compete for the Conference Championship beginning this Sunday at MAPFRE Stadium.
The Black & Gold have faced this season’s Supporters’ Shield winners three times already, with each match concluding 2-1. Crew SC Sporting Director and Head Coach Gregg Berhalter says at this point “both philosophies of the teams are pretty clear.”
“It’s not necessarily about the personnel, it’s about the philosophy,” he says. “We have a pretty good idea of how they’re going to play and they have a pretty good idea of how we’re going to play, and it becomes about execution. That’s going to be the difference in this series. They’re an excellent team, the best team over the course of the season and we have our work cut out for us.”
Although the outcome of the two-leg series may not be decided by whose name is called, Vice Captain Wil Trapp will certainly play a large role in Columbus’ execution of its game plan. Trapp was absent for all but two minutes of Crew SC’s regular season meetings with New York this year due to international duty and a concussion.
“It’ll be different because I haven’t faced their press this year at all,” he says. “But also, I guess it’s good for us because I haven’t been on the team when we’ve played against them, so I think we’re coming off a lot of chemistry. It’ll be an interesting chess match in a lot of ways is how I picture it—how we’re going to deal with their pressure and playing through it and how they’re going to press us.”
Midfielder Tony Tchani is familiar with his former club’s consistent style of play—the trademark high press that New York Head Coach Jesse Marsch was brought in to execute.
“They’d rather win the ball higher up the field and try to counter because they already have three or four guys in the final third that they can just slip in, and they can go straight to goal,” Tchani says.
But just how high up the field does New York press? The Red Bulls allowed their opponents to complete 84.14 percent passes in their own half. That’s the lowest percentage any team has held their opponents to since 2010.
How do you break that press? Crew SC's style of play may be the answer. The Black & Gold are focused on possession and excel in building out of the back. With the Red Bulls pushing so many numbers forward, Trapp says, there will be opportunities to expose them with a single pass.
“At times, if they’re not as disciplined as they usually are, you can break through them and sometimes create opportunities at will,” he says. “So it’s just managing those moments and picking and choosing when we see gaps to exploit them.”
Sunday's match will see two of the best midfields in Major League Soccer square off. Two midfields that are “pretty similar as they both like to play,” Tchani says. The difference, he says, is that New York will occasionally go straight up the middle, compared to Crew SC’s approach of getting more players involved.
“We don’t like to skip steps, we’re always trying to go step by step,” Tchani says, “but New York, when they have Sacha Kljestan behind us, they will always look for him, even if it’s that first ball that they won, they’re trying to go for him and trying to counter.”
Kjlestan has impressive movement that allows him to find pockets of space and link up with Bradley Wright-Phillips up top, while captain Dax McCarty is one of the best holding midfielders in MLS. Finally, Felipe’s work ethic ties the three central midfielders together.
“I think it’s going to be a great battle,” Trapp says. “They have a very strong, hardworking technical midfield, and so do we. [They’re] very evenly distributed amongst their defensive midfielders and their attacking midfielders, as well as their strikers up top. The way Tony, Pipa and I will play and work together will be pivotal in our approach and our execution in the game.”
Both teams also boast impressive strikers with Phillips and Kei Kamara. Both attackers have good movement and a knack for scoring goals and will pose a challenge for both backlines.
“We just have to make sure that we always have somebody next to him and somebody always covering him because he’s a very smart player,” Tchani says. “He might not make a run behind you all the time, but the few times that he does, he might get us in trouble. Having that guy always covered, that will help us.”
As far as their own attack, the Black & Gold succeed in building from the back, getting the ball wide and finding guys in the box. It’s no surprise Crew SC lead the League in crosses attempted from open play in the regular season, and did so by a margin of 115 crosses. The Black & Gold also completed 27.67 percent of those attempts, which was second-most to FC Dallas by .2 percent, while Dallas attempted 400 fewer crosses.
“If you’re familiar with our style of play, we want to attack, we want to be aggressive and we want to score goals,” Berhalter says. “By nature, that’s going to put their defense under a bit of pressure and we’re going to be looking to do that on Sunday.”
