By Joseph Lowery (@joeincleats)

Jesse Marsch’s New York Red Bulls play a style unlike any other team in Major League Soccer. They employ a frenzied, but organized high press that is a staple of Red Bull teams all over the soccer world. RBNY usually set up in a somewhat fluid 4-2-3-1. Bradley Wright-Phillips leads the line, often occupying the space between opposing center backs and shrinking the field. Right behind BWP sits Argentinian playmaker Kaku. Flanking Kaku is usually a combination of Florian Valot, Daniel Royer, and Derrick Etienne Jr.; these wingers are tasked with pressuring the ball in wide areas and occasionally dropping to help the pair of deeper midfielders. Who are those deeper mids? USMNT starlet Tyler Adams and fellow American Sean Davis are instructed to patrol the entire center of the field, acting as a pair of disrupters, intercepting passes, marking opposing playmakers, and shutting down attacks.

This style of play is undoubtedly entertaining and has had some success so far this season. But in order to fully appreciate the great work that Marsch and his staff are doing, we are going to look at some statistics that better illustrate the effectiveness of this system.

Click here to view our interactive tables and the team passing fields referenced below for all MLS sides.

PctA, xPctA:

The heart of the Red Bulls’ style of play involves flustering opposing players, closing down passing angles, and occupying key areas of space defensively. Judging by the pass competition percentage of their opponents this season, New York has been excellent in that area. RBNY have allowed the lowest PctA (pass completion percentage against) with just 69.2% and the second lowest xPctA (expected pass completion percentage against based on how and where the passes were attempted) with 74.2%.

Now, why is there a 5% discrepancy between these two figures? It is possible that the Red Bulls’ high pressure system is responsible for the variance against the model. No other team has as big a difference between their PctA and xPctA. At the same time, no other team in Major League Soccer plays a style quite like NY. It seems like a logical conclusion to say that the amount of physical and mental energy it takes to play against this team shows itself in the fluctuation against the xPass model.

PassA/g:

New York has the fifth fewest PassA/g (passes against per game) in all Major League Soccer, at 462.6. This can be partially attributed to the immediate and constant ball pressure that the Red Bulls apply. It is much harder to maintain possession when being constantly hounded by one, two or even three players. This is another important tenant of the system.

ScoreA/g:

An interesting way to roughly combine the last few stats is by looking at Score, a stat that measures passes completed over/under the expected number. The New York Red Bulls have the lowest Score against them per game in all of MLS, allowing 23.33 passes per game fewer than expected. How close is the next team in this category? NYCFC sit second with 11.10, less than half as many passes lower than their expected number when compared to the Red Bulls. In terms of limiting opposition passing, no team has been as effective as RBNY.

Here are the top five teams for ScoreA/g so far this season: