Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Formation flip helps change outcome vs. Fire
CHESTER » For the first time in nearly two and a half years, Jim Curtin designed a formation for the Philadelphia Union Saturday night that deviated from the obligatory 4-2-3-1.
As if to balance out the levels of predictability, Curtin then made sure his press address after a 3-1 win over Chicago minimized any idea that his tactical change was anything worth discussing.
“Yeah you know, people get caught up in the graphics and how they get put out, and as soon as I saw the graphic get put out I knew that you would probably come with that as the first question,” Curtin joked. “To be honest, it’s still a 4-2-3-1, you know, just because it’s written that way on a schematic that comes out, it’s the difference between a yard or two in either direction.”
That’s how, in the eyes of a coach, a 4-1-4-1 with Warren Creavalle sitting at the deep point of an inverted midfield triangle, registers as a minor alteration, even for a manager for whom any departure from the rigid 4-2-3-1 is regarded as anathema.
Curtin’s commentary cuts along a familiar line. How you line up to start is trivia. How you decide to play once the whistle blows matters. Tactics trump formation, and while Curtin can diminish the importance of rearranging his midfielders, it’s more difficult to argue that those players weren’t deployed with a varied mandate Saturday, or that that change didn’t impact the outcome.
For one, Curtin swapped a weakness for a strength. All season, he’s been underwhelmed by the production from Roland Alberg and Ilsinho, who too often fail to sustain contributions in the lineup when they’re fit at all. It bears repeating that for all the positives the two veterans have brought since joining the club before the 2016 season, they’ve managed just seven 90-minute outings in 97 combined league appearances.
Instead, Creavalle has been used sparingly, seeing his minutes shrink from 21 starts last year to just his fourth of the campaign Saturday night, an untapped resource languishing on the bench.
So with the Fire coming to town and the notorious dynamism of their midfield thanks in large part to Dax McCarty, Curtin saw a chance to use the ballwinning Creavalle to clamp down on space.
“We thought, matchup-wise, (Creavalle) has obviously been in good form and what Chicago likes to do, we thought that it was important to invert the triangle a little bit in some moments to get pressure to Dax McCarty, who for me is the engine of that team,” Curtin said. “So, yes, on paper it looks a little different.”
The shift also adjusted the points of emphasis for Alejandro Bedoya and Haris Medunjanin, who were able to push higher up the field. Bedoya in particular was more active in the attack, notching a secondary assist on CJ Sapong’s tally and regularly presenting an option in the box, particularly early in the game.
“I think it worked well in terms of staying compact,” Bedoya said. “They struggled all night to play balls in between the lines in the middle of us. So I think it was a good effort by all of us, and Warren is going to give you that relentless defensive work and it’s up to me and Haris to get the balls in between the lines and make it tough for a team to break us down. I think we got some good goals off some good combinations in the midfield.”
Curtin’s right to assert that the Union’s win didn’t owe to the tweak in formation. Credit for that goes to Chris Pontius ending a season-long drought to score twice and Sapong notching his franchise record-tying 14th goal of the season.
But the Union have sought the spirit of change in the last four games of the season, as their playoff chances are vanishingly thin. If that doesn’t mean a rush to integrate young players, then perhaps it means instilling a greater tactical flexibility in those members of the roster’s framework that will be in the side again next year.
“You take it game by game,” Pontius said. “I don’t know that we’re mathematically eliminated, you know, things can happen, but if you’re not putting your effort in there, you’re out of job next year, so I don’t think there’s any more motivation that you need right there, if you love this game and you want to continue in it, you better step up and give it your all.”