MLS 2019: Seattle Sounders vs New York Red Bulls – tactical analysis

Seattle Sounders welcomed New York Red Bulls to the CenturyLink Field for a clash between MLS Western and Eastern conference teams. Seattle manager, Brian Schmetzer, managed to lead his team to a 4-2 victory over Chris Armas’ Red Bulls.

The result led Seattle to move up to 2^nd in the Western division, while New York Red Bulls remain 6^th in the Eastern league regular season. This tactical analysis will investigate how Seattle were able to beat the team from New York. Match analysis, statistics and how each team changed their tactics will feature.

Lineups

To start the match, hosts Seattle utilised a 4-2-3-1 whereas New York Red Bulls operated using a 4-3-1-2 formation. The key differences between these formations is that the Seattle Sounders favoured a balanced approach, with a mix of width and central numbers, requiring average contributions from all players. New York Red Bulls attempted to sacrifice positional width in an attempt to dominate the central midfield positions and up-front. Such a formation places large demands on the left and right central midfield players. These players must contribute in central phases of play as well as moving out to the flanks to support attacks or press an oncoming opponent.

The popular phrase of goals change games was in evidence as reactionary tactical formation changes were evident for both teams. Such changes will be discussed as and when they happened during the chronological set of match events which will be detailed after taking a look at the match stats.

Match stats

While looking at the stats in isolation, we can see that the match statistics suggest that the match was fairly even. Seattle Sounders edged possession 55% to 45%, both teams had the same amount of shots on target and the average shot distance was very similar, although, Seattle did take more shots and more corners. Ultimately, Seattle created more opportunities due to a higher shot number, and higher quality chances, 0.11 average xG per shot, when compared to the New York Red Bulls 0.08 average xG per shot.

Overall, Seattle finished with an xG of 1.7 compared to New York’s 0.89. From this we can also identify that both teams out-performed their xG, such over-performance is usually due to above-average finishing, below average goalkeeping or luck factors. Seattle out-performed their xG, 2.3 xG differential, to a larger extent than New York Red Bulls, 1.11 xG differential, which is also likely to have had an impact on the final score of this match.