On Saturday night, the New York Red Bulls recorded their second successive win and clean sheet with a 2-0 win against Toronto FC. Gerhard Struber’s men showcased an increased familiarity with his intense style of play and it seems as though things are beginning to click for the Red Bulls. This tactical analysis looks at the tactics Gerhard Struber used to record the win, focussing on their pressing, attacking ideas and initial build-up struggles.
Teams
New York Red Bulls started in a 4-Diamond-2 in which Carlos Coronel started in goal behind a defence of Kyle Duncan to the right, Sean Nealis and Aaron Long as centre-backs and Andrew Gutman to the left. Sean Davis started at the base of the diamond with Cristian Casseres Jr. to the right, the 17-year-old Caden Clark to the left and Frankie Amaya at the tip. Up front, Brian White accompanied Fabio.
Toronto FC fielded Alex Bono in goal and a back-four of Richie Laryea, Omar Gonzalez, Chris Mavinga and Auro Jr. In midfield, Michael Bradley partnered Ralph Priso centrally with Jayden Nelson on the left and Marco Delgado on the right. Up front in their 4-4-2/4-4-1-1, Ayo Akinola lined up alongside Nick DeLeon.
Initial build-up struggles
In the first quarter of an hour, the Red Bulls struggled in their build-up as Toronto pressed them high, which I’ll discuss shortly. First, though, let’s have a look at the attacking structure of Struber’s side. As you can see in the image below, the Red Bulls had their two full-backs wide and then positioned the defensive midfielder Davis in the space behind Toronto’s attackers. The other three midfielders pushed up and looked for spaces behind Toronto’s four-man midfield line.
New York Red Bulls’ 4-Diamond-2 shape in attack.
As mentioned, the Red Bulls struggled initially as Toronto pressed them high. The Canadian side looked to force the ball to the wings where they would put the Red Bulls full-backs under intense pressure. As the image below highlights, Toronto looked to stop passes into the central areas and instead force the ball back to the central defenders. From there, they then managed to cause a number of turnovers as especially Nealis lost the ball in dangerous areas a few times. The main issue the Red Bulls had was that their wide central midfielders, Casseres and Clark, were so high that they could not connect with their defenders, thus removing a controlled pass option forward.
Toronto managed to force NYRB into the the corners of their own half to force turnovers and stop the home side playing out effectively.
Struber tried a few different solutions to this problem, such as the setup below when Casseres dropped to form a double pivot with Davis in what essentially became a 4-2-2-2. However, as highlighted below, Toronto still managed to steal the ball high since the Red Bulls were not on alert. This is highlighted in the situation below by Davis receiving the ball facing his own goal, completely oblivious to Michael Bradley’s pressure from behind. Bradley duly won the ball in a dangerous space.
Casseres joining Davis in a double pivot.
As the first half went on, Struber’s side increasingly decided to bypass midfield completely when put under the slightest pressure. As such, the centre-backs would play lofted passes towards Brian White, whose excellent target play meant the Red Bulls could launch dangerous attacks as White could lay the ball off to the three midfielders positioned behind Toronto’s midfield.
Here is an example of the increased directness of the Red Bulls’ play. Nealis goes long to White who brilliantly lays it off for Amaya between the lines of Toronto’s defence and midfield.
Through this change, the Red Bulls’ avoided unnessary losses of possession around their own goal and could then turn the disadvantage of having three of their midfielders so high into an advantage. This is due to the fact that they were now positioned goalside of the Toronto midfield from where they could spring attacks, rather than being on the wrong side when the side lost the ball in their own half.
Additionally, the more direct play catered to a trademark of Struber’s teams; their counter-pressing. With those four midfielders positioned so close to each other, the Red Bulls automatically had a good chance of recovering possession if their strikers lost the aerial duel.
The image below highlights such a scene, when the Red Bulls have lost possession and Toronto play the ball into midfield. From there, three Red Bulls midfielders counter-press to immediately regain possession thanks to Davis.
The Red Bulls’ counter-pressing was very effective when the game became quite chaotic.
The direct play then naturally forced Toronto deeper, allowing the Red Bulls more time to build attacks from the back and dominate possession (60% in the first half).
Attacking structure
Even if the Red Bulls struggled in their build-up initially, they were always in control when moving the ball higher up the pitch. Naturally, they had a 3 vs 2 advantage against TFC’s front-two. Also, they had a 4 vs 2 advantage against Bradley and Priso in central midfield.
As mentioned above, the Red Bulls pushed their two number 8s and their number 10 into the space behind Toronto’s midfield. When their centre-backs stepped out with the ball, as Long did in the image below, two progressive central pass options presented themselves for the ball-carrier. This also created an issue for the Toronto midfielders because they had two pass lanes to close down. In this way, the Red Bulls managed to create situations of positional superiority in central areas.
Clark and Amaya providing pass options for Long either side of Priso, creating positional superiority when the ball is played into either.
The strong presence of many central options also naturally facilitated combination play, such as the third man combination highlighted in the image below. Here, Long played the ball into Amaya who instantly laid it off to the forward-facing Clark.
Thanks to the depth within the structure, opportunities for combination play presented themselves naturally.
This emphasis on having players between the lines of the opposition’s defence and midfield came to fruition when the Red Bulls scored their second goal of the game. In the image below, the setup is obvious. The right-back Duncan played the ball back to the goalkeeper Coronel while the Red Bulls again had three players behind Toronto’s midfield.
Coronel then played a lofted pass into the substitute Dru Yearwood, who could instantly turn and attack the Toronto back-four. Straight away, three players attacked the space behind the TFC back-four. This highlights another key aspect of Struber’s philosophy; verticality. As this attack shows, the Red Bulls want to play forward as soon as possible.
Yearwood receives the ball and immediately spots options running into depth.
Yearwood played Fabio through, but his shot was saved by Alex Bono. However, Caden Clark had continued his run and tapped in the loose ball to make it 2-0 and clinch the win.
Throughout the ninety minutes, the Red Bulls impressed with their attacking play. Bar a few technical mistakes in midfield, the home side could have caused Toronto even more problems. In general, though, the attacking ideas seem to be incorporated well into this group of players. Young players such as Clark and Amaya seemingly thrive in this system too, which only bodes well for the Red Bulls’ hopes this year.
Pressing
As with all Red Bull coaches, Struber likes to press. This was evident against TFC too. In fact, it was integral to their win, as the Red Bulls limited TFC to only one shot on target. The Red Bulls’ pressing positions can be seen below. They looked to stop TFC from building from goalkicks and placed their strikers in each half-space, the two 8s slightly wider but also in the half-spaces with Amaya and Davis in the central space.
Starting positions for the Red Bulls’ pressing schemes.
For the purpose of this tactical analysis, I will exemplify the Red Bulls’ pressing from two obvious pressing triggers. The first one is back passes, and the second one is passes played into midfielders facing their own goal. The image below is taken from a defensive throw in, but it is an excellent example of how Struber’s side pressed back passes. Additionally, the Red Bulls routinely used defensive throw ins as chances to generate pressing opportunities from which they can regain the ball in better areas than if they encouraged throws down the line. Instead, the Red Bulls allowed Toronto to throw the ball back to a centre-back before proceeding to press.
In the image below, we can see just that happening. The ball is thrown back to the right-sided centre-back, mirroring a back pass along the ground and prompting the Red Bulls to press. Fabio leads the hunt for the ball, but every other player also pushes forward aggressively.
The ball is played backwards and then the Red Bulls push out and press the ball.
While Fabio pressed Gonzalez, White held his position around the halfway line to encourage the pass across the back to Mavinga. As the ball was played across, White started sprinting intensively and steered Mavinga towards the left.
Mavinga then continued the move towards the left, with Casseres sprinting towards the left-back, protecting the centre and forcing the play wide. Meanwhile, Fabio was ready to press the goalkeeper while Amaya and Davis moved across to maintain compactness and support for the pressing players.
The Red Bulls steer the play wide and protect the central areas. The covering players move towards the pressing players to support the press and maintain compactness.
Finally, as seen below, the opponent was trapped in the wide areas as the full-back, Duncan here, joined the press to try and win the ball off the opposition winger. At the same time, the receiving winger had no central options as the Red Bull midfielders had come across.
As we can see, when Nelson receives, the Toronto midfield is unconnected and Nelson is forced to rely on his excellent individual ability to get out if he can.
As the Red Bulls looked to steer the play wide, they used pressing and supporting positions with the full-back and ball-near 8 (orange circle) combining to stop the opposition in those wide areas. The defensive midfielder Davis had the responsibility of dealing with the space that opened up between full-back and centre-back when the TFC got this close to the Red Bulls’ penalty area. As a result, the two centre-backs and ball-far full-back stayed inside the box to prepare for a cross.
The Red Bulls’ setup when TFC were in the wide areas close to their box.
Another key part of their pressing tactics was to create numerical overloads in the wide areas as in the image below with five Red Bulls players outnumbering four TFC players to win the ball.
5 vs 4 in the compressed space as the Red Bulls press in a wide area.
The below image is another example of how the Red Bulls pressed Toronto. Again, they used a back pass as a pressing trigger and then the centre-back Mavinga was all of a sudden facing his own goal whilst under pressure from White. Mavinga played the ball back to his goalkeeper and that triggered Fabio, as the ball-far striker, to angle his run to prevent the goalkeeper Bono from switching sides.
Here, Fabio starts angling his run to keep Bono going back to the same side the ball comes from.
A few seconds later, Fabio pressed Bono back towards the line and forced a long ball into the side of the pitch where the Red Bulls were superior in numbers.
Fabio keeps the ball on the Red Bulls’ right side and prevents the switch of play.
The other obvious trigger Struber’s team used was passes into midfielders who were facing their own goal. In the example below, Bradley received the ball from the right and Amaya was immediately putting him under pressure. Note the position of the right-sided midfielder Casseres in the centre circle.
Under heavy pressure from Amaya, Bradley played the ball backwards to his centre-back. Again, note the positioning of Casseres who has come further across.
When the ball was then played into Priso, who was also facing his own goal and oblivious to the imminent pressure from behind, Casseres pressed him aggressively and won the ball to start another counter-attack from a central position.
This pressing scene is evidence of Struber’s pressing ideas as his Red Bulls practise strong overloads in the areas around the ball. The opposition players on the opposite side of the pitch aren’t involved in the moment and therefore ignored, and by doing this the Red Bulls can create numerical advantages around the ball to press aggressively, win the ball, and then play vertically, just as Red Bull teams always do.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Gerhard Struber’s New York Red Bulls dominated the game against Toronto FC despite a shaky start. The 2-0 win was the second successive win and the second successive clean sheet as Struber’s side looks likely to be building a nice little run of form at the moment. Thanks to clever positioning, vertical football and very good pressing, the Red Bulls defeated their Canadian counterparts.
As for Gerhard Struber, the prototypical Red Bull coach impressed with his tactical setup as his team played trademark Red Bull football. Keep an eye out for their upcoming games to catch a glimpse of his very energetic team.
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