Permanent Pressed: Tampa Bay 3-0 Oakland

 

Get it? It's a Saint Petersburg joke. Levels, baby.

Woof. It’s been a minute since we watched an opponent knock the Roots back like Tampa Bay Rowdies did on Friday night in St. Petersburg. The tone was set almost immediately: Tampa pressed high, had nearly two-thirds of the first half possession, rarely let Oakland make more than 2 or 3 passes, and got opportunity after opportunity. Were it not for some really class netminding from Taylor Bailey this could have gotten completely out of hand. So what was Tampa Bay doing to disrupt Oakland? And, conversely, why was Oakland’s defense so porous?

Let’s start with the latter question. It looked like Oakland’s strategy generally was to keep the ball in the middle of the field. Not until later in the first half did the center forward, Brandon Allen, do much pressing. Typically, if you’ve got a single forward up top, you use them to split the center backs, forcing the ball to the touchline, letting your press use the edge of the field as an extra defender. That obviously is a strategy with less utility against a side playing a back 3 like Tampa. More to the point for this match, though, I think, is that a desire to keep the ball off the flanks meant that the attacking midfield 4 were spread way out horizontally: Rodriguez and Mbumba would occupy the wings, and Fall and Mfeka the half-spaces. Allen’s presence was needed in the center; if he played too far forward it would have left a gaping hole in the center of Oakland’s defense.

We can also see from the runs and positions taken up by Rodriguez and Mbumba a desire to keep the ball in the center of the pitch:

Rodriguez sets up to funnel the ball centrally

Rather than mark the runner through the channel or press the LCB, Rodriguez flattens out to prevent a ball down the sideline

Rather than press, Mbumba widens out to encourage Tampa to play centrally

These images also show a big problem: huge, wide open passing lanes. I am sure this was not the strategy, but the end result is that none of the work the wingers were doing to keep the ball central was at all effective, because Tampa could almost always break the press with a pass through one of these enormous gaps. Here is the first of the above examples with the passing lane highlighted:

Tampa Bay used that lane and some quick triangle passing to break the press, and get space to play a ball over the top. In this instance, it went out of play, but it was a sign of things to come.

As the half wore on, Allen started doing a little more work to trap the ball on one side or the other, although the objective, I think, still was not to force Rowdies down the flank, but more to isolate one of the centerbacks. The issue of wide open passing lanes persisted.

This screenshot is a bit misleading because Fall's pressing has just forced the ball back to the backline, and Allen has shifted to keep the ball on the left side. But you can see here that even though Allen is doing work forcing the ball to one side, Mbumba, up top, is still flattening out to prevent a ball down the flank. 

So why was Oakland looking to force Tampa Bay to funnel the ball through the middle? Much of Rowdies’ success came down the wings. Their wingbacks initiated a lot of Tampa’s threatening offensive sequences. By contrast, we see here an early Tampa with possession in the middle of the field at the edge of the area. You can see that the passing options are few, and Oakland have done a good job clogging potential running lanes. This sequence ended with a goal kick after a harmless pass into the corner:

The problem was Oakland's press so rarely achieved its apparent objective. Here's a shot from the leadup to Tampa's first goal:

Tampa had switched the field to get the ball to this location, and as the ball came to the feet of the mid here, Laurence Wyke, Johnny Rodriguez bent his run out to in, just as Oakland had been doing all match. You can probably see the issue though: Wyke has two outlets along the touchline. He passed back to Aaron Guillen, the LCB, who immediately sent it down the line to Sebastian Dalgaard. Rodriguez did not recover in time to shut down that passing lane, and Memo Diaz, the right back, did not get out to Dalgaard before the pass did. He then played a nifty 1-2 with Sebastian Guenzatti, before centering the ball to Yann Ekra, who forced Taylor Bailey to make a great save. But Tampa scored on the ensuring corner (although only after another great save from Bailey).

A further problem is that there were acres of space between the attacking midfield 4 and the backline. Tampa’s forwards plus central mids Yann Ekra and Laurence Wyke were occupying Oakland’s back line, leaving plenty of room for Tampa’s wingbacks to operate between the lines.

Another huge issue, and one I’m not really sure could be solved with tactics, is that Rowdies were simply the more physical team. They also seemed to win every aerial duel and second ball in the first half. Oakland just had no chance to get anything going.

I have much less to say about Tampa’s defense since they were so rarely out of possession in the first half, but I don’t think they were doing anything complicated. They seemed to aggressively press any second pass between the centerbacks and any pass to a midfielder with his back to goal. Their primary objective was to deny possession to Wal Fall, or, failing that, deny him time and space to pick out a dangerous pass. And, again, they muscled Roots players off the ball when all else failed.

Oakland had more than 70% possession in the second half, but I counted only 4 moments when it even looked like Oakland might create a chance, and it wasn’t until the dying moments that Oakland got a shot on goal. (The first two moments ended with a pass about a foot off target, and the third with an offsides call.)

The good thing is, apart from one more match on the road against Phoenix, Roots will not play a game this tough for the rest of the season. Rowdies may have just given the rest of the league some solid information on how to approach Oakland, but few teams have the kind of year-over-year continuity that Tampa has enjoyed that allowed them to execute their gameplan to near perfection.

Fortunately, Oakland get a midweek match against Las Vegas Lights to get back on track. Next weekend’s home tie with San Diego Loyal looms, though, and this is now two straight matches in which Oakland has looked very iffy off the ball. Oakland will need a new formula against San Diego.