Under coach Greg Vanney, Toronto are utilising a 4-1-2-1-2 shape; something uncommon in an MLS league dominated by variations of the 4-5-1. Within their past 4 games leading up to Saturday’s clash the Canadian side have witnessed losses, draws and wins as the team placed 4th in the Eastern Conference are in a somewhat inconsistent period in their campaign.

The narrow shape is a pleasant variation from a league which sees little other than 4-2-3-1s and 4-3-3s. Overall the system is oriented around the use and control of the centre of the pitch with 4 narrow midfielders possessing an extra body than the 3 of the traditional 4-2-3-1. The midfield is home to one of Toronto’s key players in Michael Bradley as the USA international sits at the top of the diamond behind usually Altidore and currently MLS’ most dominant player, Sebastien Giovinco.

Central Orientation

With the narrow 4-1-2-1-2 shape, Vanney has emphasised a significant importance on the midfield of the pitch which plays a key part in both their attacking strategy in particular.

In possession they look to keep all 4 midfielders within the central column of the pitch with the intentions of creating overloads to find a free man amongst the midfield of the opposition’s defensive block. Giovinco can situationally add to this strategy by himself dropping into the midfield, which usually also frees himself from his marker as the defender isn’t willing to step so far out of his position.

Situationally, during moments of wide possession, the ball-near central midfielder moves wide towards the touchline. This allows for wide attacks to function effectively by better support around the ball whilst stopping the full-back from being isolated alone on the wing. These movements are more common down Toronto’s right where Jackson frequently got into advanced positions high up the pitch.

Because of this focus on the central spaces on the pitch we can expect the centre be vital to the outcome of the game this Saturday as both teams’ systems are largely oriented around controlling the middle of the pitch. Against most teams, Toronto are able to take control of the centre simply through their 4 central midfielders all taking up positions down the middle, creating overloads against the opposition’s midfield.

However in the Red Bulls they have an unusual opponent. Marsch’s side possesses a very compact midfield, especially out of possession. Toronto may have to find another means of developing a central control as they will not be able to find the overloads which they usually do. As you can see in the below image from my analysis of Marsch’s system on Spielverlagerung, the inside orientation of the two wide men allow the Red Bulls to control the centre out of possession.

This particular aspect could be key in the battle for control on Saturday as the Red Bulls’ unique defensive strategy may force Vanney’s side to approach with a different tactic for getting central dominance. By forcing the opposition to play with a tactic which is somewhat unusual to them, the Red Bulls may gain an advantage due to their better familiarity with their system at the Red Bull Arena this weekend.

Destabilising the Defence through Misleading Warner

Considering the attacking orientation of both Delgado and Osorio, Toronto’s defensive midfielder Collen Warner is key to the defensive stability of his side. This was exemplified in the game against SKC where the 3rd goal exposed Toronto’s reliance on the holding midfielder.

In the build-up to the goal, we can see that Warner has moved up to his man in order to press the ball, vacating his original position as the deepest midfielder. At the moment in time it is relatively stable shape as his three teammates area positioned infront of the defensive line with Bradley and Delgado man-marking two other Kansas forwards.

However as the play develops, both Bradley and Delgado have lost their men as a result of one of the greatest issues with a man-marking scheme. Being a completely reactive tactic, the defending player is constantly reacting to the movements of the attacker and thus the attacker will always know the future movements before his marker, creating a significant advantage. This is shown here as both Toronto defenders lose their markers creating the space highlighted. SKC quickly shift the ball to Peterson who sends the ball past Bendik and assuring victory for Kansas.

Considering Toronto’s defensive frailty in the absence of Warner, the Red Bulls may look to disrupt the organisation of the defensive block by dragging the midfielder out of his position. With the Canadians’ man-marking scheme this could potentially be done easily enough by simple movement of off the ball. For example RBNY’s 10, possibly in the form of Sacha Kljestan, moving away from his attacking midfield position would force Warner with him, leaving the centre with little defensive protection for the likes of Sam and Grella to exploit.

Central Building-Game Issues

Throughout the game, Toronto showed issues in their 4-1-2-1-2 during early possession as the midfield lacked connections to the defence at the foot of the shape. This caused problems for Vanney’s side on a number of occasions during the game as they struggled to progress the ball into the centre of the midfield as SKC defended this moment well.

The particular use of cover shadows by SKC’s forwards was particularly effective, this is basically the same as the defensive tactic of ‘fronting’ in basketball where a defender positions himself infront of the attacker to block any passes into him.

As you can see in the above scene, SKC’s forwards and midfield are covering the three highest Toronto midfielders in their shadows thus blocking any penetrative passes. Through this, the ball is isolated from the midfield and it creates a very unstable situation for Toronto and as a result, a threatening 5v3 counter-attack is created in the favour of Kansas City.

Later on in the game, Vanney made some slight changes in the orientation of individual players in an attempt to fix their connection issues. Bradley started to make more dropping movements than in the first half where the American often stayed rather static in a high central position. Although this was beneficial for the attacking tactic of a direct game to Altidore as Bradley’s high position proved numerical support for the second-ball, any short passing suffered without his involvement deeper.

In addition to the changes to Bradley’s role, both carrileros (each midfielder on either side of the diamond) started dropping too and on a more frequent basis than Bradley, though still only situationally. By the two midfielders moving deeper into their respective half-spaces, Toronto had an increased support around the ball during their early possession game. Through this Vanney’s side improved their ability to bring the ball out from defence even though it was ultimately not to the extent that the manager will have hoped.

Like I said, there were still some issues even with the midfield dropping to support. This was often in the way the received the pass when dropping as they collected possession still facing their own goal such as in the example below. With the likes of Osorio facing away from goal it makes for an easy press for the SKC defender who can stop him from turning, forcing a simple pass back to the centre-back.

Toronto’s issues in their build-up game will be a very pleasant sight for Jesse Marsch whose midfield is excellent at using this tactic in their pressing. The Red Bulls were particularly fantastic in their pressing game against NYCFC last weekend as the energy from players such as Dax McCarty proved too much to handle for New York City’s aging DPs.

This was particularly the case for Andrea Pirlo who looked a shadow of his usual self all throughout the game. The Italian was never given a minute’s rest as Kljestan and co. minimised his time and space on the ball, cutting his influence on the game significantly.

It is of no doubt that Marsch’s side will be looking to make a continuation of their excellent defensive performance when Toronto come to visit this Saturday. In particular they may be looking to expose the lack of connections in their first phase of possession which was more than evident as SKC eased to victory last weekend.