J Hutcherson writes of the successful tactics of Walter Smith and Rangers in the UEFA Champions League, and the lessons that could be learned from it by MLS coaching staffs.
If you're a struggling Major League Soccer club playing out the schedule, you could do a lot worse than looking at what Rangers are doing in the Champions League. Maurice Edu's team is playing what can politely be called conservative soccer, but it's a tournament specific style of play. Back in the friendly confines of the Premier League, they're piling on goals as usual.
Rangers manager Walter Smith's 541 system assumes the worst about any Champions League club, that the opposition is in the tournament for a reason and not to be overlooked. His team is always the underdog, and that's what their play will reflect even when it's clear they have an advantage.
In other words, it's not just designed to grind out a 0-0 draw or save face when Rangers appear to be overmatched. In real terms, it's almost like Smith is coaching two squads that happen to feature many of the same players. One is built to overrun the opposition in the Scottish Premier League, the other to keep that from happening in the Champions League.
Obviously, that takes a considerable signing on from his players, but results tend to instill belief. True, we've yet to see what happens the game after the Rangers system doesn't work. Still, so far it's earning a lot of notice for its basic pragmatism. There are several MLS teams that should be paying attention.
A lot is said about the MLS brand of parity, but what it normally means in practice is one team not playing to its usual standard getting caught. Case in point, San Jose at home last night. Multiple players described their 3-0 loss to Chicago as some variation of a wake up call. Here's San Jose goalkeeper Jon Busch from the post-game comments:
"I think we learned something tonight, that you can’t just show up every week and get a result. Any team in this league can beat anyone else at any time. It’s not like any other league in the world, where you have a Chelsea, Manchester United that are going to win 90 percent of the time. It doesn’t matter where a team is in the table, any team is close and if you don’t show up and put a solid 100 percent effort in, things like that happen."
More to the point, there's not a lot of MLS teams that consider playing up an opponent even when they might be the ones with the advantage. MLS is closer to what Rangers do week in and week out in the Scottish Premier League. Contrasting styles with the belief that their's is simply better. Busch is right, MLS is too close for that to really work.
So what if an MLS team opted for the Champions League version of Rangers? It's rare for any MLS clubs to spend 90 minutes effectively defending, and there's enough highlight reel material of isolated defenders undoing a game's worth of work with one or two missteps. Even in MLS games where there are only a handful of shots on goal, its rarely a situation where the game is bogged down in the midfield and the opportunities simply aren't there. Normally, it's a question of execution.
Using an MLS variation of the Smith model, a club chooses to play as if they're the ones starting out in trouble. They string multiple defenders across the back, all of whom know they can rely on each other. Their midfield has an attacking edge - and it's worth remembering that edge is an MLS alum - and their lone forward is clear that he's out there as their primary scoring threat.
Unlike so many MLS teams, the partnership problem shifts from the front to the back in a single-forward setup. MLS has never had a wealth of options with players who can take the ball on the run, beat a defense, and score. Certainly not enough for every team to run something resembling a true strike partnership.
It's like MLS is stuck on the Dwight Yorke - Andy Cole model from their glory years at Manchester United. That normally ends up with a season spent working that out and pointing to the handful of times where it seemed to work rather than the examples where it didn't. It's a hedge, showing the support and the media that the club is interested in attacking soccer. In reality, it's just a hedge.
Pull one of those occasionally on target forwards out and save them for the super sub role, and yet another MLS 442 or 352 gets a little more complex. That's what every other team in Rangers' Champions League group is currently dealing with. It's not just the punching power of Manchester United. Now it's breaking up the connections Rangers are making to keep themselves in the game across 90 minutes.
They've become a scary team in spite of their relative weaknesses. Why not try to bring something like that to an MLS team already failing under the old standards?
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