As I told y’all this morning, I was also writing a more in-depth look at the match with regard to the midfield. What happened and what “switch” flipped that made us competitive during the last 15 minutes of the game when we were seemingly getting dominated for the first 75?

Let’s back up to the beginning. For most of the game, I was very frustrated. We could not maintain possession and our offensive tactics were juvenile much like the offensive tactics of a John Calipari basketball team. When you watch a UK basketball game, look at their offensive sets sometime. What they do on most of their “plays” (and I use the term “play” loosely here), is they run an overload to one side of the floor, run a clear-out for John Wall, and then Wall takes his guy 1 on 1 because he’s more athletic.

For the first 75 minutes of the game, our offensive game was similar in its simplicity. The Dutch would attack with a built-up possession through midfield, eventually Howard or a defender would get a hold of the ball, we would begin a build-up, but then as soon as the Dutch midfield or defense closed on the ball, we would back pass, back pass again (usually through Bradley), and again, and then someone from the backline would fire a long ball over the midfield that was presumably targeted at a striker. Sometimes Findley or Altidore would win the aerial battle, but usually not. Whenever they did win the aerial battle for the ball, there was no midfield support for either of them because the midfield had been sucked backward as a result of 3 back-passes in a row. Because of the lack of midfield support, there would be a turnover, the Dutch would regain possession, and the cycle would repeat.

All of this is nothing new, and I’ve complained about our lack of creativity in the midfield since the beginning of this blog. My biggest knock about Michael Bradley, contrary to popular belief, is not that he’s Bob Bradley’s son. I couldn’t care less if he’s related to Eichmann, Bradley, Mussolini, Stalin, or George W. Bush. Instead, my problem with Junior is that the nature of his skill-set facilitates this kind of overly simplistic offensive approach. For better or worse, Bradley is an elite athlete; he’s in great cardiovascular shape, and his ability to be a “ballhawk” has been well-documented. The problem is that just getting the ball and being around the play isn’t enough. Once you get the ball, you have to know what to do with it, and Bradley has demonstrated consistently that he has no idea. You can see that he has been trained from his dad/coach since birth that, “…if you don’t know what to do, back-pass.”

Against top-flight competition, a predictable back passing strategy only serves to facilitate what the opposition is doing. The Dutch want you to back pass all the time because it allows them to get closer to their marks. As an American defender, the ball is getting worked closer to your own goal, you’re running out of room, and now everyone in the midfield is covered tightly. The only option that you have is to fire a long ball. What makes this strategy even more frustrated from a Yanks perspective is that we have a lot of talent on our wings. Our best player, Landon, is on one flank, and usually Deuce (but then game Beasley – more on him in a minute) need the ability to run with the ball. The only way our wingers can run with the ball is to cycle the ball through the midfield to them.

For the first 75 minutes of the game, we were doing our typical long ball thing. If one breaks this down further, it becomes clear that there is a visible progression to how things went. First, we played our typical long-ball approach offense with Holden on the right flank. Then, Holden got hurt, Beasley came in, and it took him the rest of the first half to get his confidence going. Meanwhile, our long ball approach persisted. About 10 minutes into the second half, Beasley became the best player on the pitch (seemingly as his confidence grew and he realized he wasn’t going to get pulled in 30 seconds). He started drifting more toward the center of the field, and gradually our tendency to play the long-ball broke down. Finally, JFT, who had been playing OK (nice scoring chance in the first half, kind of disappeared after that and played too many long-balls himself), was pulled in favor of Edu. Edu began to push the ball through midfield a little bit more, and this coincided with Beasley realizing he was the best player on the field. The 1-2-3 game between Beasley, Edu, and Spector was really fun to watch, and by the 75th minute, our long-ball offense was done.

Once we transitioned out of this, things went much better and we were able to play competitively with the Dutch for the last 15 minutes. It took a remarkable performance from Beasley to make this possible. Think about it – he wasn’t even on the roster till last week, he got thrust into a position that he never expected, and he exceeded all expectations. Edu played incredibly well; he was able to find openings in the midfield that JFT couldn’t and this helped to push the attack toward the Dutch. As the openings developed, they became large enough for even Junior  to diagnose, once that happened, Lando became more involved, then Jozy became more involved…and I can keep going, but I think you see how it’s spiraling upward! This solution then is to stop playing the long ball.

If the Yanks need to stop playing the long-ball, maybe it’s time to switch to a 4-5-1 formation. A 4-5-1 would give us another presence in the midfield which would presumably help us to build possession. The reason Bradley went with a 4-4-2 originally was that Charlie Davies was playing like Pele. Chuck D is hurt, and even JPD noticed how bad Findley played. Although Findley might be nice for 2014, now is not his time for him; he’s fast but unlike Chuck D, he doesn’t understand how to utilize his speed to find space in the defense. If he’s the best answer we have right now for a secondary striker (and frankly, it’s a little late to start looking at this point), maybe we want to bag it and try something else.

Before you say this is a reactionary response like what we did with the 3-6-1 in 1998, hear me out. Bradley’s skill-set fits well into a 4-5-1. If he’s a lock, it kind of makes sense to make him a CMF where he needs creativity around him to generate creativity through osmosis. Mo Edu answered all questions about his injury problems today; he was exemplary, he provided two critical clear-outs by himself, and he effectively locked down the center of the pitch. There are a myriad of options to play AMF – Sacha, JFT, Maestro – all of whom are better options than Findley at this point. Our wings, which are already solid, won’t change at all. It’s something to consider moving forward beyond this game.  With the offensive options that we have right now and the Chuck D injury, it sort of makes sense

Even if we don’t switch to a 4-5-1 and we maintain a 4-4-2, we have to use the last 15 minutes of this game as an example of how good we can be when we execute the formation properly. If we had kept up the short passing and possession build-up for the first 75 minutes of the game, we could have won. If we can use the last 15 minutes of this match as a carryover to the Revolutionary War (World Cup Edition) on June 12th, we have a shot!

Raf Crowley is a senior writer for The Yanks Are Coming. He can be reached at raf@yanksarecoming.com.