The 3-5-2 is a formation of discipline. Every player has a specific role in defense, and if a single player fails to do their job, the entire defensive system collapses.

A well oiled 3-5-2 is incredibly hard to break down because it essentially puts the central axis of attack on lockdown. It’s able to do this by defending with two central blocks of three (three center-mids and three center-backs). As you can see from the shape of Italy, there is very little space in between the lines, and both lines are tight and central. The wing-backs generally sit in between the lines, to optimize passing triangles in transition.

The back line consists of three center-backs. The outside center-backs mark the strikers and the central center-back becomes a libero. On the night, this was Jermaine Jones. In many ways, Jermaine is perfect for this role. Chile showed in the last World Cup that playing a cb/dcm hybrid in this system allows for better deep lying distribution, unexpected attacking runs and cover to play an attacking mid. Unfortunately, the complexities of how the libero operates in the Chilean 3-5-2 can not be summed up in a single paragraph, but if you’re interested, here is a great video on that system.

But for now, the issue at hand is the US’s defensive blunders on the wings. In order to understand what went wrong, it’s important to understand how the modern 3-5-2 handles wing defense.

While the wing-backs are responsible for marking attacking wingers, often an offense creates what is known as a “wing overload” which is exactly what it sounds like. They will send extra attackers down the wing in an attempt to over man the defense on that side.

A well oiled 3-5-2 can lock this down by a cohesive shift by the middle three towards the ball as you can see below. Again, shape and cohesion are key here.

The wing overload was a tactic that Chile tried often, and with much success. The US struggled to handle it because the middle three of Bradley Dempsey and Mix Diskerud, failed to keep a cohesive line. Some parties were more guilty than others. The main offender on the night was Dempsey. Note below.

Chile has overloaded the wing. The back three are in a good shape, and Bradley and Mix have shifted towards the ball to cover, however, you’ll notice an absence in the red box. There is no 3rd cm.

This is because Jurgen opted to play Dempsey as a midfielder, despite the rather obvious flaw, assuming you know the fundamentals listed above about 3-5-2 defending, that Dempsey is not a two way player. By having only two cm’s putting in defensive work, the coordinated shift to the ball is ineffective as it leaves players unmarked in dangerous space at the top of the box.

In the case of Chile’s first goal, the failure of the players to play the system was even more egregious. Chile is attacking down the wing, but it’s not a wing overload. The US, however, have Mix Diskerud and Clint Dempsey pushed up in advanced positions—something I predicted would happen with these two in a pregame tweet.

Mix is way out of place here.If he moves up, we’re boned. Demps can’t be as free either. He’s central pin to mid shift pic.twitter.com/96uzXcDr6k — Sean Steffen (@SeanSteffen) January 28, 2015

With two players absent, right center-back Steve Birnbaum is forced to step from the back line, meaning Jones would have to pick up the mark.

But handing off marks at speed is difficult, and the attacker got the inside step on Jones before he could read it. But as I noted on twitter following the goal, this was not Jones’ fault.

If you see Jones on a fwd, the formation failed upfield. — Sean Steffen (@SeanSteffen) January 28, 2015

Center-backs hand their marks to sweepers as a last resort. Mix Diskerud and Clint Dempsey are the true culprits as Birnbaum shouldn’t have had to step out in the first place.

But the US finally settled into a bit of a defensive groove about 20 minutes into the game thanks to the on the field awareness of Jozy Altidore.

Notice how the US handle this wing overload in the 30th minute. It’s the textbook 3 man shift that I showed earlier. Now notice who I’ve highlighted in red. What was previously unmarked space, thanks to Clint Dempsey pushing so high up, is now being occupied by Jozy Altidore.

As crazy and unideal as it is to have your target forward playing center-mid, it was a working fix that prevented the game fro becoming a complete catastrophe. Prior to the introduction of Lee Ngyuen in the second half, and eventual switch to a 4-4-2, which was disastrous, there was brief window where the US was playing the 3-5-2 splendidly in attack and defense.

And when I say splendidly, I mean it. With Altidore playing as a two way midfielder, Jones was given room to show some of the truly neat things a dcm turned libero can offer to this system. As Jozy drops back, Jones rushes from his line to put pressure on the ball. In essence, it’s the same kind of hybrid center-back/attacking mid switch that made Chile’s version of the 3-5-2 the most tactically innovative during the World Cup. Seeing something so advanced on the US’s first stab at the 3-5-2 is actually incredibly heartening.

Obviously you don’t want Jozy playing as a cm, but there is no reason that Klinsmann can’t go to the film room, see the error of his ways and play a guy like Will Trapp in that position, with Altidore playing in Bobby Wood’s place.

Now some have made complaints about how the attack looked in this formation, and in large part, the content of the criticism being offered is completely tactically off base. I’m alluding, of course, to the criticism that the US showed an inability to maintain possession, and the absence of long passing strings.

This critique is not actually a critique at all, however, as both of these things are not inherent to the modern 3-5-2. Perhaps the modern soccer fan has become too enthralled with tiki-taka, or perhaps their conceptions of what a 3-5-2 should look like are trapped in the the 1986 World Cup with Denmark’s high flying version of the Dutch conception of total football, or the iconic Maradona team that won it all, but possession is by no means the bedrock of the modern 3-5-2 and can even be counter productive.

For the most part, the modern 3-5-2 is a counter attack formation, and an incredibly good one at that. The attack almost always consists of two strikers, two wing-backs, and occasionally an attacking midfielder. Through possession, it is possible to bring a sixth player into the attack, but this is always a gamble. The lack of fullbacks means that overlapping runs are hard to come by.

So, with less than optimal attacking numbers, the 3-5-2 is at it’s most deadly in transition, when there is more space to exploit behind the opponent. Immediately following a opposition turnover, there is little time to methodically pass the ball around, probing for holes in the defense, because this allows the opponent to get back into position. For this reason, the modern 3-5-2 often looks to advance the ball into the final third in four passes or less. Since the possession stat is merely a division of total game passes, it’s actually counter intuitive to judge a modern 3-5-2 by possession percentages.

At the end of the day, despite the loss, there was a lot of positives to take away from this game. For one thing, it’s now perfectly clear to me that the US has the pieces to make this formation work. The key will be finding the patience and, perhaps, the humility from Klinsmann to realize in his pursuit of revolutionizing the attack, he’s committing too many players forward. Fortunately, this isn’t new territory for him.

Following a pre-World-Cup friendly in 2006 which saw Germany fall to Italy 4-1, Jurgen was approached by Michael Ballack and Joachim Low about a similar tactical matter. They urged Jurgen to drop Ballack deeper in order to give Germany more defensive cover. Jurgen did and Germany went on to win 3rd place at the World Cup.

Will Klinsmann see the need for a switch? The US’s upcoming game against Panama should tell us a lot.