Fresh off of a hard-fought (if not exactly well-fought) draw at Philadelphia, San Jose returns to Avaya to host the Houston Dynamo. Houston started off the season by blowing the doors off of Atlanta 4-0, but since then have sandwiched home losses to Vancouver and New England around a road draw in suburban DC.

San Jose has struggled themselves since opening weekend, but they should expect a win against a decimated Houston side. Expecting victory hasn’t helped San Jose in the past, but a formation twist in the second half of last week’s contest may give this team an edge.

A new role for Flo

Florian Jungwirth moved into the center of a five-man backline at halftime up one against Philadelphia, and for about 20 minutes it was devastating. Jungwirth was able to plug up the space that Borek Dockal and Ale Bedoya were commanding, and he repeatedly made passes that keyed a counter for San Jose. It was arguably the first time San Jose commanded the space above their box all year:

Philadelphia eventually countered, primarily by subbing in Ilsinho to get more numbers in the midfield, but Earthquakes fans were excited by the reappearance of Jungwirth as a calming presence leading San Jose in the defensive half.

In many ways, Stahre used Jungwirth in a style that mimics one of the year’s early major storylines: Chicago Fire moving Bastian Schweinsteiger into a libero role. I’ll let the very good tacticsplatform.com explain what this meant for the Fire, for good and for bad:

Chicago lined up a 3-4-1-2, with Bastian Schweinsteiger playing as a sweeper (libero). The formation provides excellent ball control; the three center backs and three central midfielders offer numerical advantages in the middle of the first two lines. For Chicago, it allows Schweinsteiger, their best player and passer, to initiate the build-up and control the possession. When he wanted to push to the midfield, either Dax McCarty and Tony Tchani would drop back with the center backs to maintain the three-man back line.

But the roster’s and formation’s constraints limited Chicago’s offense. Johan Kappelhof and Kevin Ellis often stayed on the same line as Schweinsteiger, so the passing lanes between them were horizontal and predictable. They didn’t use a lot of positional exchanges to create space, so they needed the defenders to advance the ball to push other teammates into the attacking positions. When the defenders couldn’t advance high enough or break Columbus’ first line of defense, Chicago couldn’t attack.

This probably sounds familiar to people watching San Jose. Jungwirth isn’t on Schweini’s level as a passer – few in MLS are – but Flo has the ability and the desire to control the pace of the game in between Andrew Tarbell and the midfield stripe. Schweinsteiger’s passing map is a bit skewed by a 20’ stint moving higher up, but his usage shape looks similar to Jungwirth’s:

Like Schweinsteiger in Chicago, Flo is let down by the centerbacks’ lack of technique in San Jose. Unlike Schweinsteiger’s squad, San Jose lacks the big target men (the still-living Alan Gordon started alongside Nemanja Nickolic) to lob balls to.

That might not be a problem. After all, Chicago didn’t score last week off of a brilliant diagonal. They scored because Columbus goalkeeper Zack Steffen played this ball on the ground:

Perhaps a better example of what Jungwirth could do is seen in Atlanta United’s use of Michael Parkhurst. Tata Martinez has put the physically undersized but gifted passer in the center of his backline to key possession through Darlington Nagbe and Jeff Lawrentowicz and into the playmakers up top.

Again, this isn’t to say that San Jose has the goal-scoring attack that Atlanta does. It is to say that, on a good day, Florian Jungwirth can have a passing map like this:

Hitting diagonals to the feet of Vako, Godoy and Magnus in transition would let the Quakes control possession higher up the pitch. San Jose has failed to keep possession or string together passes so far this season, but there is reason to think that giving Jungwirth a greater role would allow for more creativity for the attacking players.

Dealing with Elis

For the fourth match in a row, San Jose is going to have to deal with a quick and lethal right winger. Houston’s Alberth Elis is likely a whole lot better than the trio of Johnny Russell, Ismael Tajouri and Fafa Picault who have torn San Jose to shreds so far in the young season.

Whether it’s Shea Salinas or Joel Qwiberg at left back on Saturday night, someone will have to keep the 22-year-old Honduran from chewing up space in front of Andrew Tarbell. To make matters worse, Harold Cummings’ ultra-late red card means that there will likely be a new centerback partner for Yefferson Quintana: it will be either the left-footed Francois Affolter or Florian Jungwirth moved back and making the 500 words I wrote about him as a libero irrelevant. Either way, there has been a gaping wound so far in San Jose’s left defensive half and Houston has just the player to exploit it.

The easiest way for San Jose to keep Elis off the scoresheet will be to keep the ball. They have not really succeeded in this so far in the 2018 campaign: Stahre’s counter-press should deny effective long balls to the wings, but teams have been passing straight through it so far. To be fair to Stahre, Kansas City, NYC and Philadelphia all have cagey midfielders and goalkeepers who can pas. Houston, to be blunt, does not.

What the Quakes need to do on Saturday

If San Jose has the ball in Houston’s half, and if Danny Hoesen and Chris Wondolowski are getting touches, San Jose stands a good to get their home three points.

Houston is wracked with injuries. Their best midfielder in Juan David Cabezas, their best defender in Philippe Senderos, and top-choice fullbacks Dylan Remick and AJ DeLaGarza are all out (Cabezas may come back and replace the thoroughly mediocre former Quake Darwin Ceren in the midfield, but that seems unlikely). And with DeMarcus Beasley’s early red card in their last match, Houston is down to their third-choice left back.

Eric Alexander is a stalwart midfielder and Tomas Martinez is a tricky attacking midfielder of the circa-2008 style, but there is no reason for San Jose to lose the midfield battle for the fourth consecutive match. Sustained possession and the pressure to keep Houston too off-balance to counter should be sufficient at Avaya on Saturday night.

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