When the full-time whistle blew last Saturday afternoon, it could certainly be said that the Sounders had pulled out a much-deserved 3 points. While far from the most beautiful performance we have seen from the home side, getting the result without either of our "South American connection" of outside mids must certainly be worth something.

The OPTA stats show the Sounders with clear advantages in shot attempts (18-4), shots on goal (5-1), corners (9-2), and a slight edge in duels won (63-55). This certainly follows the narrative of what most of us will claim to have seen on that sunny afternoon: A clearly better Sounders team eventually went ahead on Zach Scott's first MLS goal and hung on for the win, while giving Colorado very little of their own to work with.

However, when you go down the stats you see some numbers that seem downright counterintuitive: Colorado had 566 passes with a 77% success rate, compared to just 377, at 72%, for the Sounders, granting the Rapids a clear 60-40 edge in possession.

Most of us have gained an understanding as to how important possession is to the modern game. It's hard to argue with the basic logic that you give yourself the jump on your opponent by keeping the ball the majority of the time. So how do we explain this? Did our eyes deceive us, did the glorious sunshine play tricks on our vision?! Furthermore, not to put to fine a point on it, but by most objective standards the Sounders passing numbers were pretty poor. So what happened?

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A couple of weeks ago I asked Dave what I should write about next on the tactics front, and he answered "asymmetry." I didn't get around to it -- this being a common theme in my life -- and the next time we saw each other Dave pointed out to me that Jonathan Wilson had just written the article he wanted me to write (well, not THE article, but you should get my point).

Which takes us to this week, not wanting to let another Thursday go without a tactics piece, I was determined to bunker down and pound one out. I once agin posed the question to Dave, who once agin suggested I write about asymmetry or the Fernandez role on the left.

The only problem is, I feel like I've been there and done that. I have talked about the "W" nature of the defense and defined the "hidden layer," and it shouldn't be difficult to comprehend that "balanced, but asymmetrical" means that 3-man top defensive layer (Burch/Gonzalez-Alonso-Johansson) can still be perfectly intact but at a diagonal.

In fact, I have seen very little tactically that could be said to be unexpected or particularly innovative. Faced with an injured Mauro Rosales and Adam Johansson, last Friday's win over Houston Dynamo saw a right side of Roger Levesque and Zach Scott. While the two certainly bring their own qualities to the table, what they are lacking in is creativity, and as a result the overall quality of the Sounders suffered. But then again, Friday was about grinding out a result against a side which is known for doing just that themselves.

If anything, the closest thing to a "revelation" has been the reality that we once again have the luxury of applying the "lazy" moniker to Fredy Montero, as his strike partner David Estrada has taken Sounder-land by storm. "Lazy" is not often a term applied here, and even then with some nuance.

I am told that there are still pockets of Sounders fans who don't much care for Montero, and the most common adjective attached to his name still seems to be that virtually cliched "L-word." This includes the supposition that Fredy is too lazy to be the captain.

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Let it be known that despite much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments in Sounders-land after the epic flameout in Torreon on Wednesday, that for 3/4's of the tie our boys in, um, "cyan" were battling toe-to-toe with perhaps the best team in CONCACAF at the moment. You may say Monterrey are better, but that represents another side the Sounders have shown themselves capable of playing with.

In fact, coming out of the locker room for the final 45' it could've been said the Sounders were even in the driver's seat due to the peculiarities of the away-goals rule. What happened next was surely disappointing, but may only prove to obscure the important fact that this is a side committed to creative attacking play, and they were simply done in by what may be, for lack of a better word, a certain naivete against a far more pedigreed side.

Additionally disappointing is the fact that the subsequent match featured Toronto upsetting the Galaxy to book a place in the semifinals. If the Sounder's MLS experience has been a ride in a rocket, TFC's has been, well, a launch-pad explosion. In a League where mediocrity is sufficient, the Reds haven't even managed that, which does their quality Support no justice.

And so the MLS opener for both teams gave the home side a unique opportunity to quickly discard of the rotting, stinking corpse of their CCL run. While last night was certainly a lot of fun, I will need a TV viewing to properly break things down, so what follows are my reactions to watching the ROOT sports replay this evening.

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Last year in a 2-part "tactical preview" I suggested that the true shape of a "back four" team is actually a "W", taking into consideration the prevalence of the deep-lying central defensive midfielder, who in many applications has become almost a 3rd center back and revised the famous "libero" role of the past.

The basic premise is that the two center backs form the deepest layer in formation, with fullbacks taking up more advanced positions, and a CDM "lurking" to fill the gaps and reinforce the defense. These 5 players' average positions trace out a distinct "W" shape in many contemporary formations. It could easily be said that the fullbacks and CDM form a distinct band, which for example would turn a 4-3-3 into a 2-3-2-3, and a 4-4-2 into a 2-3-3-2. We have been more than willing to subdivide midfield into multiple bands, and even, to a lesser extent, forwards; but we have been oddly unwilling to more accurately define banding at the back of formations.

Okay, great... if we can begin to accept the fact that this phenomenon exists and begin to incorporate it into our thinking of the game, we need to begin to define what these players do. And I will try to get to that in a bit, but first...

Last season, when MLSsoccer.com begin to publish "chalkboards" with their match recaps, I was at first delighted and then actually intimidated with the opportunity to peruse so much raw data. It was, and can be, a lot to grasp, and much of it can be virtually meaningless with regards to the final result (there is a very good reason The Beautiful Game seems to buck the hardcore statistical analysis which can bog down so many other sports).

There was one trend I quickly begun to pick up on, and that was a sheer number of "trackable actions" or "touches" that Sounders fullbacks seemed to get. It shouldn't be any surprise the number of touches Osvaldo Alosno would get - that is his job, when you break it all down - but the team leader in touches for any given match was more likely than not a fullback, and beyond that it was very common for both fullbacks to be among the top three on the team in touches, joined by - you guessed it - the CDM, aka "el Corazon" Ozzie Alonso.

So what this band does, more than anything, is see the bulk of the action in any given match; at least as measured by OPTA tracking. Okay... so... what does this accomplish?

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Spend too much time examining the MLS scheduling format and the philosophies therein, and one will inevitably fall down a logical rabbit hole - though, to be fair, this doesn't differ significantly from other "major-league" North American sports.

MLS version 3.0, or 2.1, or whatever we are up to, has become all about "local rivalries", or so it seems. Never mind that this is a spiritual epiphany that seems to have suddenly occurred to Don Garber, et al. once Seattle belatedly joined the League - causing a rush to "promote" the much deserving municipalities of Portland and Vancouver, which, in turn gives the Current Era an admittedly self-indulgent Seattle/NW-centric feel. (I write for a Sounder blog, popular amongst Sounder supporters and fans, and live in a world where EVERYTHING is Seattle/NW centric. Nonetheless, I openly invite rival supporter/fans to take me out of context and blow this utterly self-indulgent opinion piece disguised as "analysis" completely out of perspective)

It could also just as easily be said that the Current Era is just as likely all about "the supporters". This is certainly the case insofar as a hallmark of the last few years is an open effort - or at least an ostensible one - to make MLS culture seem less "manufactured". In other words, take what is already there and nurture it, rather than try to start from scratch and ignore the actual history soccer-football has in this country (which is far more diverse than many people seem to realize).

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I'm not gonna lie, my motivation is that I have spent much of the day watching the last day of the professional tackle-football season and watching playoff scenarios and seedings fall into place. It all gets me thinking about how the MLS is going to work going forward.

Yeah, okay, that's a reach, but bear with me. You see, I've actually nothing against playoffs; I just actively hate the MLS playoffs. Fact is, I find the NFL playoffs fundamentally flawed as well. I'll spare you the excruciating details of how and what I would do to fix it, but just know that it is a logical fallacy to assume that the NFL playoff format is fantastic because so many people love the NFL playoffs. What people love is that it is professional tackle-football and the intensity derived from "loser-out" competition; similarly people love college football but the consensus opinion seems to be that the BCS is a joke and the "super-conference" system is getting, um… silly.

But that is all rather beside the point.

As some of you may be aware, I have had a hunch for some time now that when the MLS finally gets around to adding that 20th team (which seems a necessity given the tortured schedule gyrations the League is going through with an uneven number of teams) there will be 4 divisions - meaning two in each conference. The smoking gun - and reason I am now CERTAIN this will be the case, lies in the current format for the 2012 season, which I will explain in a bit.

It will probably stun many of my readers to realize that a 4 division system is actually something I could enthusiastically get behind, but not necessarily in the way that MLS wants to do it. So I'll begin with a look into the way I would do it:

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So if there is one thing I learned last night at the end-of-year Alliance "Business" meeting it is that it apparently takes two years for adidas to scour the globe to look for the most hideous color combinations of highlighter shades to use in our 3rd kits... well, that and the fact that the Sounder training staff doesn't give "happy endings" and Drew Carey likes pain killers (but who doesn't?).

What's really telling is that Joe Roth apparently has never heard of the wish amongst fans to vote on third kits, even though I seem to recall the very same subject of ugly kits came up at last year's meeting (and it is worth noting Mr. Roth repeated the same David Stern anecdote near the beginning of his podium time). In fact, whining about the awful 3rd kits started about 3 seconds after the "Electricity" bomb was dropped on us...

Well, alrighty then... so I guess this means it is time to commence dialogue about what we want to see with our third kits. Times a wasting, those pesky Portland-based adidas folks have surely already started collecting data on visually offensive pastel color combinations (I'm hearing pink "bra straps" is the opening-line favorite)

It is a good problem to have, namely more starting-calibre talent than starting spots, and this is the problem that the Sounders already appear to have in their crowded midfield for 2012.

With Mauro Rosales, Alvaro Fernandez, and Osvaldo Alonso all seeming to be virtual locks in any "best XI", Lamar Neagle, Erik Friberg, and Brad Evans all having proven themselves capable of starting a match, and Steve Zakuani looking to recover from his horrific injury last April and re-join the fray, it becomes pretty clear that the 2012 Sounders already have a logjam of talent at midfield.

Less is more

In a similar vein to the way that a team moving to a "back three" often really means they are going more defensive, teams going to three midfielders are often looking to own the midfield. In a "three man" midfield the three nominal midfielders usually fill roles, not so much positions. The three roles can be described differently: "creator", "passer" , and "holder", or "destroyer", "playmaker", and "runner", the idea is that the three players need to fulfill complimentary if not slightly overlapping roles.

Not unlike the manner in which a more centrally located "back three" needs to be reinforced by wingbacks - nominally midfielders who are little different in skill set and role from fullbacks - the somewhat amorphous central three need to be reinforced in wide areas. In this case, the reinforcements can come by way of fullbacks pushing up or wingers falling back.

With marauding fullbacks special emphasis is placed on the holder/destroyer to fall back as an auxiliary center back. With dropping wingers, special emphasis is placed on the creator/runner to provide support to the center forward or "lone striker". Combine the two, and play with what has come to be called the "false 9" in contemporary parlance and you are playing what the Dutch really had in mind when they "invented" "Total Football."

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When I saw the MLS Best XI the other day, what first struck me wasn't that Kasey Keller made the list, or Osvaldo Alonso didn't, or that there were 4 Galaxy players.  Actually, my first reaction was "wow, I would NEVER field that XI in an actual match!"

This has nothing to do with talent, of course, but more to do with structure and roles.  We can actually learn a lot by analyzing what the "Best XI" would do as a team.  One of the foremost lessons we can learn is that sometimes soccer-football can be strangely counterintuitive.

Before I go on I want to point out that I am fully aware of the nature of "Best XI" and All-Pro type-lists.  But that is also my inherent issue with such "teams", in most cases, they don't reflect what a real "team" would look like.

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The L.A. Galaxy are Champions of MLS.  I have no qualms or hesitation in saying that; they won the trophy I most coveted this season, and regardless of what happens in this poorly-constructed post-season cup tournament currently under way I find it self-apparent as to why the "true champion" is the Supporters Shield winner in this short-lived balanced-schedule era.

If you are one of the many who subscribe to the "Championship or bust" philosophy, then I suppose that "we aren't champions" pretty much ends the conversation.  But actually, from where I sit, this nuance makes all the difference in the world in how you perceive the 2011 Sounders season.

We did win something, of course, namely the U.S. Open Cup, doing so in no small part because we took advantage of what could quite rightfully be called a stupid format for the knockout competition.  But at the same time it is also pretty fair to say the MLS Cup format is egregiously stupid, mainly because we are supposed to be sold on the idea that it truly decides League Champion.  

And so we will spend a few more days bandying about the tired Seattle sports misery,  the tales of juggernaut regular-season teams which failed  to live up to expectations come playoff time.

YAWN

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I believe that sports should be a meritocracy, that is the only way they can have any meaning, otherwise they are subject to the same random lottery that the rest of life is.

The only way you can separate the good from the average from the bad is through repetition, through a lengthy process that separates the wheat from the chaff.  

In MLS play this year, every team played 34 matches over an 8-month span;  it was an exhaustive competition in which every team played every other team both home and away.  No other North American major professional sport plays such a thorough schedule.  And beyond that, no other North American major professional sport has additional competitions that are gained through MERIT.  The Sounders played a maximum number of matches because they EARNED them, by winning.  Okay, take away the two qualifiers for CCL - which L.A. and Colorado didn't have to play because of merit - and we still won - WON - more games than any other team in MLS in 2011 during the season.

That is a fact.  One shitty match does not change the quality that this team has clearly demonstrated for 8 months.  We have suffered major injuries, that would prove to be debilitating for most MLS teams, and we were still as good a team as any that played professional soccer in the USA and Canada.  This is just the plain truth.

…and this is what i am going to tell myself so that I can sleep tonight...

It is a pretty common theme, at least in the American soccer press, that a team is only as good as the talismanic superstar forward it may or may not have.  With regards to the national team, we have heard quite a bit about how the key to the USMNT becoming a global power is that they need a "Lionel Messi" (a notion that is utterly preposterous, quite frankly).  More locally, there was much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments (and still is, to some extent) that the July-August MLS international transfer window didn't land the Sounders an expensive, theoretically superstar "clinical finisher" to score those truckloads of goals the team was apparently not scoring.  This is what i like to call the "messianic striker complex."

As I think about it, the root of this affliction may lie in what can only be called the National sporting obsession, which is major-college and professional tackle-football.  Often considered the "ultimate team sport", it does indeed require a level of regimentation and study and practice that probably borders on the psychologically unhealthy, but more than that, the contemporary game also contains what i find to be an odd and troubling self-contradiction: the Collective Wisdom dictates that a team simply cannot be successful without a good quarterback, and a team cannot be *great* without a *great* quarterback*.  This could be called a single point of failure for all high-level tackle-football teams, and seems to not only be rooted in the core thinking of the game, but also seemingly open up an obvious and easily exploitable weakness in even the greatest of tackle-football teams.

[* although I will be the first to point out the Collective Wisdom is often horribly mistaken]

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If you want to waste time and frustrate yourself, start a conversation/debate about soccer-football positions, what you call them, what that means, and what that implies about their roles.  

This is probably why there is so little intelligent discussion about these things in the English-speaking world, if for no other reason than the fact that the very people who are purported to have invented the game long ago decided that tactics talk was somehow inherently cynical and have always seemingly been a half-step behind the rest of the world (and explains the rather off-putting nationalism that takes over the English sporting press any time a major international tournament rolls around).

Similarly, be wary of anyone who speaks of "Total Football" as a stand-alone concept.  Here's the truth about "Total Football": it is a 40-year-old concept that has been fully integrated into the global culture and tactical awareness of the game.  Anyone gushing about "total football" in 2011 is likely a neophyte to thinking of the game beyond simplistic levels, or are stuck in the rigid ways in which we approach "American" sports.  That may seem harsh but I myself was guilty of this until just a few short years ago myself.

What do these things have to do with anything?  Well, I bring it up because of the ongoing difficulty I have with talking about defensive positions, and comparing "3-man" defenses to "4-man" defenses, and what is a Fullback and what is a Wingback.

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[author' note: this was written on Monday, and with the busy schedule around here I didn't have a chance to run it until now.  The context of this has changed a bit after last night, but not too much to require massive editing.  I post it as originally written]

Saturday evening, as the sun sank lower towards the horizon and the elation of a comprehensive 6-2 win begun to turn to contemplation, a strange thought crossed my mind.

"I wonder how Fredy Montero feels right know?"

it wasn't as though Montero was a passenger in Saturday's match.  He was active enough, and figured onto the scoresheet even though he recorded none of the 6 goals.  But this is, after all, the player who is paid very well (by MLS standards) to be the feature man in the Sounder attack - at least in a nominal sense - and one just has to wonder about these things occasionally - at least I do.  It is not as though I am figuring Montero ought to be upset, in fact, I would be upset if he were.  It has more to do with a sense of self-evaluation, a trait that all good athletes really ought to have.  Not that it matters to the media or the fans - these thoughts are rarely shared in a frank manner, and when they are we tend to judge them harshly against the context of wins and losses.  This is the self-critical voice wherein an individual asks himself "am I really carrying my weight around here?"

Watching highlights I noted a couple of clear moments where he decided to shoot rather than make what should have been an easy and more threatening pass, almost as if he felt at least a modicum of pressure to join in on the goal-scoring himself; but it is also entirely possible to be reading too much into all this.

The 6 goals the Sounders scored Saturday have put them at the top of MLS in goals scored this season, with 42.  This is actually a little odd considering that about 2 weeks ago the Sounders were virtually thrust into crisis, in the minds of some, by not being able to sign a high-priced forward during the transfer window.  Never mind that it very well be fullback that proves to be this team's Achilles heel this year (if they have one), what we needed was a clinical finisher, a forward who would actually score goals and finish these myriad chances seemingly going to waste, and in the lack of such a person our season was ultimately doomed and success merely an illusion.

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Lost in the announcement of the new SB Nation iPhone App, and the excitement that Adrian and Mauro are talking extension was this post by jake. In it he talks a bit about one of the traits of the Sounders identity - wide midfielders who are kind of like forwards.

If we ought to have learned one thing from watching the Sounders for 2.5+ years, it is that the idea of a "midfield" is basically an abstraction.  A contemporary midfield in soccer will usually consist of at least 3 distinctly different types of players, if not 4, and symmetry is rarely the norm, or even important.  The most symmetrical the Sounder midfield has ever been was the second half of last year, when Steve Zakuani and Sanna Nyassi operated as wingers who were something closer to forwards than midfielders, and Sigi compensated by playing two defensive center mids with the oft-maligned Nathan Sturgis paired with Osvaldo Alonso.

Seemingly forgotten in the shuffle was the mid-season DP signing from Uruguay, who seemed to possess the qualities of a central midfielder despite lining up - on the occasion he actually was used - as a winger.  It was speculated often in the off-season he would emerge as the team's answer at the CM spot - aka the "not Alonso" position.  

When the dust settled and the season started he once again seemed to be mis-cast - on those relatively uncommon occasions he was cast at all - as a winger again.  And in the loss of Zakuani, when the left wing spot became open and Alvaro Fernandez was the logical choice to fill it, suddenly there emerged a palpable caveat.  Fernandez wasn't much of a winger.

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There are two things to consider here:

1) If you like soccer-football in the least and haven't been following at least the USA in the World Cup the last few weeks, there is something seriously wrong with you.

2) Men are sexist pigs

I like soccer-football, and I like women (don't ask me in which order).  I have the utmost respect for the women of the USA team as athletes, and I am pretty sure that the likes of Abby Wambach and Hope Solo could kick my ass, and the asses of most of the guys I play with on my GSSL and Co-rec teams (literally and figuratively).

However, let's not kid ourselves.  You know where I am going.  Comments like "you're going to have to work harder if you want to score on Hope Solo" and "Servando is a lucky man" are comments I was heard to make today, with CLEAR double entendre fully intended!

So, this begs the question... and I am going to put it up to a poll!

"Savor this moment, you will remember it the rest of your life"

There has been, and will be, more significant wins, in a global sense, in this team's history.  We have seen 2 U.S. Open Cups lifted, and we will see Supporters Shields and MLS Cups lifted in the future.  The Sounders winning a competitive match in Mexico in CCL play would very well have more bigger-picture significance than yesterday's 3-2 win in a mid-season League match.  But none of this properly appreciates the importance of a rivalry, and the emotional impact of a proper derby day.

With 500+ of my fellow Supporters I made the journey by bus to Portscum to represent the Emerald City in the stands of Jeld-Wen as the Sounders took on the Timbers in the road leg of their heated rivalry in the first year of the MLS Cascadia Derby era.

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First of all, let's make an honest assessment about the month of May for the Sounders.  Eight points through 5 matches isn't bad, in fact it is pretty decent.  1.6 PPM would put them 5 overall on the League PPM table right now.  By way of comparison  to the last two season, 1.6 PPM though 30 matches is 48 points.  Not bad at all.

Of course, this is all tempered by the disappointing draw at home to the Portland Timbers and then the maddening loss to FC Dallas, but they saved their month, so to speak, with the huge win over RSL and the "fortress" of Rio Tinto.

Results speak for themselves, and they speak louder than style ever will.  Just ask the Philadelphia Union or even the Timbers about that.  But let's also not kid ourselves here; 1.6 PPM is hardly breakthrough stuff. It will fall well short of the Shield, and it will likely place the Sounders around 6th on the overall League table at the end of the year.  While this is a marginal improvement over last year (6th out of 18 is a bit better than 6th out of 16) it still has them flirting with a dreaded "wild card" playoff spot, given the silliness of the League structure.  

In short, if you want to make the playoffs, 1.6 PPM is fine.  If you want to be top of the table, it falls short.

But the injuries… yes, the injuries.  When the month started, injures were a big problem, really nearly a crisis.  We were not able to field our best side against Portland because of injuries, and this certainly had an effect.  But against Dallas we fielded one of the most attacking lineups of the year, and against RSL we were fit and deep enough to keep a DP on the bench to start and not have it seem shocking.  Despite all the injuries, we are still fielding teams composed primarily of players deemed good enough to protect last November, or go out and sign from other teams or even leagues last offseason.  Aside from perhaps Carrasco, Sigi hasn't been forced to dip into what could truly be called reserve players (keep in mind that Neagle appeared in each of the first two matches this year).

So, yes, injuries have been a problem.  But are they an excuse to be boring?

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On the whole, there are two words I would use to describe the Seattle Sounders' play over the month of May: sloppy and uninspired.  Yesterday, by and large, was no different; but the result was probably one of the better in this team's still short MLS history.

Lineup/Tactics:

It seems that Sigi Schmid has settled on the diamond midfield as his default shape, which probably follows the lack of wingers available on this team.  Alvaro Fernandez is far more suited to being a midfield shuttler and lacks the speed and aggressiveness to run at defenders effectively.  Brad Evans, although used as a wide midfielder often in the first half of '09, is far too much of a CM-type of player to be able to embrace the winger's role.  

The diamond is a narrower formation, and is actually designed to do two things: clog the middle with possession-oriented players; and facillitate the CAM to effectively run the attack.  The best 4-diamond-2's feature a dynamic CAM, a playmaker/scorer is is often the best player on the roster.  In the case of yesterday, it was Erik Friberg, who simply lacks the pedigree and ability to be that player.  Friberg probably had the worst match of anyone in green yesterday.

Montero was moved to the bench and gave way to Nate Jaqua, who came in alongside Mike Fucito in a bit of a return to the classic Sounders' striker duo of a bigger target man and a second striker.  However, with a true CAM in behind, the two forwards are largely expected to play along the same vertical axis.  It was Fucito who seemed to be the main engine in the attack early on, and despite a couple challenges verging on stupid he looked willing to do what it would take to try to make something happen, a trait that would eventually pay off.

The CB rotation saw Jeff Parke's and Patrick Ianni's names drawn, James Riley back at his usual RB spot, and Tyson Wahl resume at the LB spot he seems to have won over Leo Gonzalez.  As usual Osvaldo Alonso was in at CDM, a position which is a bit more rigid in the diamond midfield.

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It hasn't exactly been the best week in Seattle Sounders land, and the atmosphere around this team has hardly been one of a team riding a 5-match unbeaten streak.  For starters, the stench of the 1 point in three played start perhaps hasn't completely worn off; it is fair to say that the Sounders left 3 points on the pitch - a draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy and a win against the Houston Dynamo seemed the minimum that should've been accomplished given how those games played out - and last week's otherwise positive result of 3 points on the road against the Colorado Rapids, the defending Cup winners, was utterly overwhelmed by the negativity of not only the loss of Steve Zakuani, but the feeling of many that the team lacked attacking initiative despite being up a man nearly the entire match.

As far as the Zakuani incident, the tone of outrage has dominated the last 7 days, and the debate may shift as to whether that outrage was justified (and it looks as though the Rapids/Mullan camp clearly thinks it was overblown) but it will be hard for many Sounders fans to get over it.  Zakuani had been the team's best attacking player for the early part of the season, and looked primed for another double-digit goal and perhaps even assist season.  I am inclined to say the outrage was perfectly acceptable (if not a touch vitriolic in places) but with the suspension now officially handed down the time for anger has seemingly ended.

Then comes the news that O'Brian White is out indefinitely after having surgery to remove a blood clot from his leg - which certainly sounds scary enough.  And this all comes at a time when the team's depth will be tested with a Saturday-Wednseday-Saturday week of matches which includes a long road trip to face DC United and the Columbus Crew. 

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I was away for the weekend so instead of my usual breakdown I am just offering up this quick post of some of the things I have been thinking about since the match on Saturday afternoon.

The anti-Brad Evans sentiment has become excruciatingly tiresome to me...

If I've said it before and I'll say it again, Evans' role as a mostly deep-lying CM who can help out Osvaldo Alonso and pick his spots going forward would be valued by every team in the League, and attacking mids will take up wide roles in Sigi Schmid's system.  Having said that, Evans was horrific Saturday...

Which begs the other question of "As Evans goes, so go the Sounders, or As the Sounders go, so goes Evans?"  It is the emerging "chicken or the egg" question of the 2011 campaign so far.

A front 4 of Steve Zakuani, Fredy Montero, and Mauro Rosales, with either O'Brian White or Nate Jaqua leading the line, could strike fear into he hearts of hearts of MLS...

Erik Friberg and Alvaro Fernandez are great guys to have in the 18, and will prove mighty valuable as this long season progresses.

As for Friberg, I would like to see him play more simple passes along the ground.  Long balls are great when they are like Jaqua's luscious delivery to Zakuani against Chicago, but I feel like Friberg has far too many "I can't think of anything else to do so I'll just chuck it and hope someone gets a head to it."  From what I've seen from Friberg, his efforts don't always accomplish much, and although I'm not necessarily a fan of Fernandez's "slow and technical" style I think it might be better.  Of course, I think I'll prefer Rosales to either of them.

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Lineups/tactics.

The lineup was unchanged from last weekend, but for Jhon Kennedy Hurtado returning and sending Patrick Ianni to the bench.  4-3-3 was hinted at, but the formation was also the same as last week, with Mauro Rosales in the 2nd striker/playmaker role.  Early returns indicate that #10 is the player that Freddie Ljungberg was supposed to be: a pedigreed play-maker useful as both a withdrawn forward or right wing/mid. 

O'Brian White led the line and the good news is he is showing he is useful as a striker who can work in different types of partnerships, as his work with Nate Jaqua, who came on for Rosales in the 64', clearly demonstrated.  Jaqua adopted his usual target man role, allowing OBW to play as a striker in the classic sense of the term: a forward who wants to run into space and peel off defenders rather than post them up.  His size and hustle facilitate his abilities to be both this and the nominal "target man" in the formation.

In the center of midfield, if it is not clear that Brad Evans - a rare, and true, box-to-box midfielder - has clearly won the spot next to and in front of Osvaldo Alonso, I'm not sure what else needs to happen.  The debate seems to only exist in the minds of some fans, and by now it should be clear from over two years of watching this team that in this system, attacking mids will take up wide roles.  Steve Zakuani is a lock on the left; and it has been said here before and it will be said here again that he can do things on the ball that no-one else on the roster can do, and few in MLS seem capable of.  He is not a shuttling, box-to-box left mid, but an attacking player who can unlock defenses: sometimes frustrating, always entertaining.

Erik Friberg, on the right, is a solid option - and starting calibre for sure - but at this point looks to lack the pedigree of Rosales - who likes to go right himself - and may lose his spot when Fredy Montero returns, but we shall see.   This is not and should not be seen as a knock on Friberg, who had another worthy effort yesterday.

The lock that Leo Gonzalez and James Riley have on their respective fullback positions is due somewhat to lack of depth - more so in Gonzo's case, however, as again yesterday Riley was the better of the two as a defender.  Both men did what they needed to in the attack, with Gonzo particularly contributing well. 

Jeff Parke and Hurtado gave a mostly undramatic performance as center backs, which in the parlance of describing that position is actually a good thing.  Hurtado was steady and rarely out of his place.  I had initial concerns about the porosity of the Sounders back 4, but re-watching the match on TV showed me that midfield breakdowns are more often than not the cause for alarm, and not the defense per se.  Good attacks will unlock even the best defenses, and the Sounders are no different.

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Lineups/Tactics:

Sigi Schmid went with a familiar defense of Leo Gonzalez on the left, Patrick Ianni and Jeff Parke in the middle, and James Riley on the right.  Gonzo was very active and looked like the left back revelation he once was back when he was added to the squad in August of '09, and something we saw with decreasing frequency last year.  Overall it was a typical approach from the back 4, as Riley was able to also push forward some, and the CB's stuck their noses in on set pieces.

In the midfield, we saw Osvaldo Alonso and Brad Evans paired up for the second straight match in the middle, likewise with the wings of Steve Zakuani and Erik Friberg. 

The big question entering the match was who would play up top, with Fredy Montero out of action.  Mauro Rosales was given the nod up top with O'Brian White, and almost from the off proved his worth as a 2nd striker.  At times in the first 10-15 minutes it appeared he was trading off with Zakuani, but as the match wore on they settled into their respective positions. 

Much of the first half was end-to-end action, with both teams getting stretched at times,  This seemed to particularly effect the Sounders defense, as James Riley looked a bit out of sorts and tentative at times, and Ianni's night is best described as "ragged".

There wasn't really anything markedly different about the Sounders attack, and the best explanation for the fact they managed two goals in the first 45 - after just 1 in the previous 270' - is that they just finally got a couple to go in, rather than anything really due to tactics or personnel changes. 

The second half saw Alvaro Fernandez come on for a clearly diminished Friberg - questions must be asked about his fitness to start giving his illness we learned about after the game.  It turned out that Sigi could've used at least one more sub later on in the match, and to squander one on a half-time switch for a less-than healthy player seems dubious.  We had every reason to expect that Nate Jaqua would enter at some point, and when he did in the 66' it was for O'Brian White.  This meant that it was almost certain Sigi would use his 3rd sub for Rosales, who certainly was showing clear signs of needing one by the time he was pulled for David Estrada in the 83'.

Upon Jaqua's introduction he appeared to be playing as a 2nd striker, with Rosales the top man in the formation.  This may have been due to Jaqua falling back to use his size to help win balls in the midfield, or the fatigue of Rosales, or likely a combination of both.  Jaqua later became the top man when Estrada was introduced.

Match play:

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USA lineup and tactics: 

Bob Bradley chose a 4-5-1/4-3-3 shape with a trio of central midfielders and attacking outside mids/wingers to support a lone center forward.  The back 4 consisted of Jonathan Spector on the right, Oguchi Onyewu and Jay DeMerit in the middle, and Carlos Bocanegra on the left.  In the central midfield were Michael Bradley, Maurice Edu, and Jermaine Jones.  Clint Dempsey and Landon Donvan were on the wings with Jozy Altidore up top.

The USA seems built for 4-5-1 formations - whether they be more 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 - since the loss of Charlie Davies, something Bradley seemed to fail to comprehend, at least with regards to his starting lineups, last summer.  Yesterday's match may be strong evidence against that, however, and the reality may be that what was missing was an adequate 2nd striker to play with Altidore.  In the Ghana match last June, once Bradley realized his lineup mistakes, it was Dempsey who actually moved into this role, and the resulting improvements to the attack were readily apparent.

Against Argentina, Edu was usually the highest of the CM trio, at times appearing to be between Donovan and Dempsey (heretofore D&D) in a 4-2-3-1.  I found this a bit surprising, as Edu seems a likelier candidate to be the deepest of the 3, as an ACB or 5th defender, and would've guessed Bradley would play as the highest of the three.

As has been the case with the national team for some time, much of the creative, attacking weight falls on the shoulders of D&D, who as wide playmakers essentially form a "2 band" of attacking midfielders/wide playmakers in the nominal 4-4-2 Bradley employed in South Africa.  

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Lineup, Tactics:

There were some changes in the lineup, which isn't in and of itself surprising, but as a whole the changes may have caught some off guard.  Most notably, health concerns kept James Riley out of the lineup, and Zach Scott came in at right back.  Jhon Kennedey Hurtado was given the night off and Patrick Ianni filled in next to Jeff Parke, returning to the CB pairing from the second half of '10.  Alvaro Fernandez was left on the bench, and Erik Friberg given the nod on the right.  Brad Evans came in is a box-to-box CM, paired up again with Osvaldo Alonso after a long absence from league play.  The rest of the lineup was unchanged.

The most notable impact from the first few minutes was that Friberg looked superb at right mid/wing.  He and left winger Steve Zakuani were both excellent as wide playmakers, in different ways.  Zakuani did damage with the dribble, and Friberg with the pass and cross.  Zakuani, as usual pushed very high and essentially a forward, had a great match, despite missing some chances, and again demonstrated his ability to unlock defenses by running at and challenging defenders, a skill certainly unmatched on the team and likely among the top league-wide.  

Evans continues to be drastically under-appreciated as a box-to-box central midfielder - in all reality the only true one on the Sounders roster.  His ability to compliment the tenacity of Alonso by providing a link to the attack, whilst not allowing himself to be exposed defensively, is the reason he is and will continue to be Sigi's first choice as starting CM when fit.  Particularly in the first half, he provided some good balls and found himself in on a couple chances.  

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As Jonathan Wilson points out:

"Football used to be an easy game. The big lads played at centre-half and centre-forward, the hard lads played at full-back, the bright lads played at inside forward, the hard lads who were a bit bright and the bright lads who were a bit hard played at wing-half, and the little, quick lads played on the wing. Left-footers played on the left and right-footers played on the right. And the one with no mates went in goal."

What we are going to talk about today is the wingers, the "quick lads" as it were.

It seems as though this has already become a point of contention in this young 2011 Sounders season.  Last year we learned two things: Sigi believed in the "quick lads" approach, and Steve Zakuani is pretty important. 

Already this year we have seen what the attack looks like with one, and then none, wingers who "play with their legs" as I like to call it: essentially a player who is going to make use of speed as a primary asset and run AT defenders, and not hold the ball up and seek out space.  An example of the latter is Alvaro Fernandez, who as the right winger has demonstrated his skill, but is not someone who plays with his legs.

Last year, we all cringed at times at Sanna Nyassi's "technical naivete" as as I liked to call it.  His slight frame was all to often easily forced off the ball, he seemed to just want to dribble in a straight line as fast as he could every time he got the ball, and he ended too many runs with sub-par crosses.  Despite all this, his running served a positive overall effect.  It created space, it created opportunity.  He may have had little to offer apart from "playing with his legs" but he certainly provided his fill of that.

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