Soccer is a Short Blanket: Austin FC Struggle to Find Balance

Your eyes start to roll into the back of your head to avoid looking at what’s happening in front of them.

Fingers pressed to your temple, you mutter: “I don’t think I’ve ever been this bored.” Pausing momentarily to contemplate your last statement, you solemnly nod in confirmation. No, you haven’t, in fact, ever been this bored.

Sitting in the waiting room of a dentist’s office, cleaning out the mess that’s piled up at the bottom of your closet, suffering through dinner with your weird uncle – these are all things you would rather be doing than what you’re doing right now.

You are watching Austin FC in possession of the ball.

Possessing the ball is something Austin FC does often. Josh Wolff’s team is currently ranked eighth in possession in Major League Soccer (MLS), having seen 54.6% of the ball in their matches (stats per fbref.com unless otherwise noted). Despite this, Austin FC rank dead last in MLS in shots per 90 minutes – the Verde and Black are taking an anemic 7.63 shots per 90.

It’s one thing for a team not to take a lot of shots if they’re sitting deep and prioritizing defensive solidity, but that’s not what Austin FC are doing. They have the ball; they’re just not doing anything with it.

Anyone who has spent five unfortunate minutes watching Austin FC in attack would consider “plodding’ to be an apt description of how the team moves the ball. Sports analytics company Opta has a metric called ‘direct speed’ that measures ‘the number of meters that the ball travels (when measuring directly up-field), divided by the total time of the sequence’ when a team is in possession. Per Opta’s direct speed metric, Austin FC are the second-slowest team in MLS.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with moving the ball slowly in possession. Top-of-the-table Manchester City are the slowest team in the English Premier League this season. Teams will use possession to control games (the opposition can’t score if they don’t have the ball), and good teams will work the ball around and wait for high-quality shooting opportunities to arrive and pass on lower-quality, longer-range efforts.

But Austin FC aren’t controlling matches well with all of their possession. The Verde and Black have allowed more expected goals (xG) per 90 minutes than any team in MLS, and they aren’t taking especially high-quality shots either. The team’s .10 non-penalty xG per shot ranks tied for 12th in MLS.

Most worryingly, Austin FC aren’t even getting the ball into areas where they could potentially fire off high-quality shots. Wolff’s team rank 21st in MLS in touches in the attacking third of the field and rank 25th in touches in the attacking penalty area. Against St. Louis City this past Saturday, Austin FC were risk-averse to a fault with the ball.

In a first-half sequence typical of Austin FC’s approach in possession in the match, the Verde and Black have the ball in their half near the halfway line. In the screenshot, all four of Austin FC’s defenders and two central midfielders are clustered up inside their own half, and this is despite St. Louis only having three players pushed forward.

This led to a lack of passing options upfield for Austin FC left-back Guilherme Biro, who pinged the ball forward to an isolated Diego Rubio, who was flagged for offsides anyway.

Aside from Sebastian Driussi, Austin FC lack attacking players who can change a game. Because the team doesn’t have anyone capable of beating a defender 1v1 if the Verde and Black want to work the ball into dangerous areas where they can take high-quality shots, they have to overload the opposition in advanced positions – if you can’t beat defenders 1v1 then you have to beat them 2v1, 3v2, etc. Right now, Austin FC aren’t getting enough players forward for those overloads to happen. The result is lots of conservative, sterile possession.

Austin FC’s safe approach in possession against St. Louis felt like a direct reply to their frenetic 4-3 victory the previous week against the San Jose Earthquakes. After a fairly tame first half, that match turned into a topsy-turvy, end-to-end thriller by its conclusion as Austin FC took the handbrake off to fight for a win. The second half saw each team take ten shots. One notable difference between the two matches was the positioning of midfielder Alex Ring.

Against San Jose, Wolff’s team lined up in a 4-3-3 formation, with Ring taking up an advanced midfield role on Austin FC’s right side. Driussi was the left-sided attacking midfielder, and Dani Pereira was the lone holding midfielder. Here is a heat map of Ring’s touches versus the Quakes (Austin FC are attacking left to right in this image; image via WhoScored.com):

Ring accrued plenty of touches high on the right side of Austin FC’s attack near the San Jose penalty area. He also wandered to the left to combine with Driussi, left-winger Owen Wolff, and left-back Jon Gallagher. The 1.9 xG Austin FC generated in the match was their highest total of the season. But the 2.7 xG Wolff’s team conceded was the most they’ve allowed since the season opener against Minnesota United. In Wolff’s press conference after the match, he spoke about his team’s struggles defending in transition against San Jose.

“We have to do a better job of when we have those numbers of closing down the ball, killing opportunities…that’s a transition thing, that’s not a structural thing. It’s going to have to do with a little bit of position while we’re finalizing attacks,” Wolff said.

Saturday in St. Louis, Ring sat deeper alongside Pereira in a double pivot as Austin FC deployed more of a 4-2-3-1 formation. Here is Ring’s touch map against St. Louis City (Austin FC are attacking right to left in this image; image via WhoScored.com):

Ring’s positioning allowed Austin FC to snuff out counterattacks better than they did the previous week. St. Louis had 1.5 xG in the match – not great, but over an expected goal less than San Jose managed. But it came at the expense of Austin FC offering any threat going forward. Austin FC had just two shots in the match (neither on target) worth a scant .3 xG.

While managing Newcastle United, former Liverpool and Valencia boss Rafael Benitez mused that soccer is a short blanket. “If you cover your head, you have your feet cold, but if you cover your feet, you have your head cold,” Benitez said. If Austin FC commit players forward in attack, they can’t stop opposition counterattacks. And if they adopt a more conservative approach in possession to prevent those counterattacks, they can’t create chances. Somehow, Wolff is going to have to find a bigger blanket.

Eric McCoy

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