Posted by

Michele Tossani ,

March 16, 2014 Twitter:

@MicheleTossani

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High pressure pays off

for TFC

This past weekend the story was much more complex and it was not all about Michael Bradley vs Clint Dempsey as Jermaine Defoe stole much of the glory. The former Tottenham forward hit twice in his MLS debut to lead Toronto FC to a 2-1 win over Seattle Sounders in their season opener.



Defoe opened the scoring in the 17th minute exploiting a Jonathan Osorio through ball. Defoe completed his historic day in the 24th minute when Bradley applied pressure in the midfield to force an erratic back pass from Seattle’s Marco Pappa that Defoe pounced on to beat the Seattle back line and goalkeeper Stefan Frei.



Both goals took advantage of high pressure Toronto applied. That made Sounders defense helpless and unable to cope with Toronto FC’s brief counters. TFC simply were better at pressing and ultimately forced Seattle to give the ball away.

Toronto worked hard at winning the ball back high up the pitch and attack with quick transitions. Against Seattle, they pressured them deep in their own half, surprising them in the buildup, i.e. the moment when a defense is helpless if the midfield loses the ball.

This happened in the first goal as Defoe received the ball between split Seattle defenders DeAndre Yedlin and Djimi Traore. TFC applied a high pressure that forced Seattle passers to misplace simple passes. Michael Bradley is a master of excelling on this art. However, Jonatha Osorio also worked hard as both showed the discipline of their pressing. It wasn’t surprising to see TFC counter-attack, but it was interesting to see them applying such high pressure. There are three kinds of pressing: the high pressing, when rivals are chased deep in their own half; the medium pressing, when opponents are closed down at the middle of the pitch; and a low pressing, when a team sit deep and press on their own last quart of field. Otherwise, a team can opt to stay passive without the ball. Against technically gifted teams that are good in possession, a high pressing is risky as those sides have the quality to beat the pressure through ball control. But against teams that don’t excel in ball retention, as Seattle was in this game, a high and structured pressure can easily force a mistake and the gamble to press so high is lowered. Also, the danger of misplacing passes at every buildup makes a team fragile and insecure. That is happened against Seattle as TFC’s press action were effective. Michele Tossani is a football tactician with a Ph.D. in History. Michele resides in Florence, Italy and is a tactical analyst for Futbol-Tactico.com