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SJ Earthquakes midseason review: Tactics

By on July 6, 2015

Midway through the MLS regular season, we highlight comments compiled from Football Every Day’s matchday interviews, with the second part of our San Jose Earthquakes midseason review focused on the Quakes’ tactics. Our first part, on the new Avaya Stadium, can be found here. Our second part, on the Quakes’ offense, can be found here. Our third part, on the Quakes’ defense, can be found here.

“I want us to play like Barcelona. That’s the identity I want,” San Jose Earthquakes coach Dominic Kinnear deadpanned after a 1-0 loss to Real Salt Lake in April.  “It’s not going to happen, right.  The one thing, and I’ve said this from the very beginning, is you want us to be competitive.  You want us to play well, you want to be dangerous in the run of play and set pieces; you want us to be responsible, unselfish.  I think we are that. We’re a little inconsistent at the moment, as happens during the season.”

To summarize: Dominic Kinnear doesn’t care if his team plays possession based football or a counter-attacking style, as long as they attack and win. After a 3-1 win over the LA Galaxy in the recent California Clasico, Kinnear went as far to say: “I really don’t care who scores as long as we win.”

This season, winning has involved both styles of play for the Quakes, depending on the situation. It’s not just the opponent, either — “I think it’s a different mentality anytime you’re home verses on the road,” said Chris Wondolowski. The Quakes’ new Avaya Stadium has certainly played a part in creating that home advantage.

Counter-attacking play versus possession is a heated yet commonplace debate in football; in part, because both can work. In fact, the former’s effectiveness is often defined specifically in terms of its success against the latter style.  The Quakes have trumped Columbus Crew and the LA Galaxy, among others, with the majority of possession but also have ground out tight results against the Vancouver Whitecaps and the Houston Dynamo whilst sitting back and playing on the break. “Sometimes you have to really dig deep to get that result and sometimes you have to play pretty football to get the result,” Wondo summarized.

Two players are pivotal for the Quakes playing a proactive game: Fatai Alashe and Matias Perez Garcia. 21-year-old Alashe is the Quakes’ only holding midfielder and it’s his responsibility — which he has carried well in patches — to distribute the ball.

Garcia’s presence has been a game changer for the Quakes so far this season. “He adds another dynamic,” Wondo said of the Quakes’ second Designated Player. “He opens up a lot of things for other players.  That’s something special that he has.” Moreover, Wondo added: “I think our chemistry is definitely growing.”

Garcia, a nimble attacking midfielder, has been the Quakes’ creative spark this season and is a key factor in breaking down the opposition. As Kinnear put it, he can “make that pass.” Garcia was absent for the Quakes’ latest 1-0 defeat to the Portland Timbers, in which Kinnear’s men held just 38% of possession.

For one, Garcia allows the Quakes to slot into Kinnear’s favored 4-1-4-1, which has proven versatile to both counter-attacking and possession styles. Movement has been a pet peeve of Kinnear’s throughout the season and the Quakes’ function much more fluidly in a 4-1-4-1. Goodson voiced the debate for possession after a 1-0 win over Vancouver. “We need to value possession a lot more,” said the center-back. “We have dynamic players that hurt opponents and if we can do a better job of building through the midfield and switching the ball a bit more and moving other teams around that will open up spaces for our wide guys to get faced up one on one a little bit easier. [Counter-attacking] is at times a little bit too predictable.

“We dwelled on the ball a little bit at times, guys weren’t moving the way that they should have — I’m included in all these things, we’re not blaming any one individual person — but we need to move the ball quicker, we need to move ourselves around a lot quicker.  When we did that we got opportunities to score and when we didn’t we lost the ball in bad areas.  We gave [Vancouver] the ball too easily at times and they were able to come at us.”

With the majority of possession, the game is in your hands.  However, as Alashe noted, MLS is a physical, high-intensity league, which makes it harder to keep the ball. Especially against good teams like the Seattle Sounders and Orlando City, it’s virtually a given that the Quakes have to play on the counter. They’ve done it exceedingly well, beating Seattle twice and Orlando once so far this season. It helps to be dangerous on set-pieces with two six-foot-three-inch forwards in Adam Jahn and Mark Sherrod. Garcia also swings in delicious set-piece deliveries.

As a mid-table club, the Quakes’ situation should become clearer: play with possession whenever possible and sit back on the break when not. Kinnear’s not one for possession for the sake of it. “I don’t come in and ask those questions,” he said regarding possession and passing stats.  Nonetheless, he often strives for his team to possess the ball better in any given game.

“We just want to get our best eleven guys out there — formations are just numbers,” said Wondo after a 1-0 loss to Real Salt Lake.  “You’re out there and you still have play, you still have to move, you still have to pass the ball and it doesn’t matter where you are.”

“There’s all those parts of the game you can work on to get better — we scored three goals but we gave up two,” Kinnear summarized after a 3-2 win over the Galaxy in preseason.  “Our possession at times was good and our possession at times wasn’t the best.  I think soccer is a work in progress.  Every game, every minute, every training session.

“Are we where we want to be?  No, not even close.  But there are some things that I’m really happy with.  This is just the way the game is.  Sometimes you’re great at this and the next week you’re not so good at it. Sometimes you’re great at set pieces and sometimes you couldn’t be dangerous.  What you strive for is a good level of consistency.”

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.