Revolution at Portland Timbers, 9.16.11: Building from the Back

Many years ago I read one of John Madden’s books about football (I suppose I should say “American football”). In one interesting passage, Madden recollected his time as Oakland Raiders head coach. Madden would sometimes get into friendly arguments with his boss, Raiders owner Al Davis, about which is the most important unit on a football team. Madden contended that you build a successful football team around its offensive line, whereas Davis felt that you should build a team around its cornerbacks. Neither man ever wavered in his opinion, though as I recall Madden considered cornerbacks to be the second-most important unit on the field, while Davis considered the offensive line to be the second-most important unit, so they were both pretty much in agreement. (Fascinating that the position of quarterback, let alone running back or wide receiver, never entered the argument.)

I thought about Madden and Davis’s old argument last night while watching a replay of the Portland Timbers’ 3-0 defeat of the New England Revolution in Portland. (The game actually took place last Friday). How do you best build a soccer team? Do you start with the midfield line? With the forwards? With the back line? With the goalkeeper? Which of those units is most important to a team’s success?

I happen to think the answer is defense. Let me digress just a moment and say that I’ve always taken the old soccer adage about “building from the back” to refer to what happens during games. That is, I’ve understood “building from the back” to mean that effective buildups—and eventually goals— start with a good defense, with defenders that can defend and effectively distribute. But maybe I’ve misinterpreted the old saying. Maybe it actually means that you build good teams by first installing a good defense and then by building around that particular unit, just as Madden thought that you build a good football team by first assembling a good offensive line.

Whatever “building from the back” means, anyone who has ever coached soccer at any level will know that a team’s chances of winning a game are grim if that team plays with even a single bad defender. I’d argue that New England’s dismal record this year (5-12-12 so far) can be attributed to a constantly changing and often below-average back line. It’s not that all of New England’s defenders are bad—they’re most certainly not—but the unit has had a near-constantly changing lineup, and it is missing a true left back.

Let’s start with the positive. Two of New England’s defensive starters this season have been good and for the most part injury free: center back A.J. Soares and right back Kevin Alston. They are dependable, but it should be noted that they lack experience; Soares is a 22-year-old rookie and Alston is still only 23.

As I’ve mentioned, the other positions along New England’s back line have been in a near-constant state of change. Darrius Barnes, only 24, has been mostly dependable this year. But he’s a central defender repeatedly miscast as left back. (He does occasionally get to play in the center, but that’s usually because would-be central defenders Ryan Cochrane and/or Franco Coria are unavailable.) Didier Domi was a natural left back—and might have spared Barnes the task of playing out of position—but Domi was old, often injured, and is in any event now long gone from New England’s roster. Chris Tierney prefers to play midfield, but he’s sometimes pressed into service at left back. The same can be said of newcomer Ryan Guy. I’m no doubt forgetting other players who have been asked to play left back this year for the Revolution, but it should be clear that the position has yet to be adequately filled.

As for the center back position, Cochrane and Coria have been inconsistent alongside the steady Soares. Last night, for instance, Coria had one of the most perplexing unforced errors I’ve seen by a Revolution player this year. In the 72^nd minute, with no pressure on him whatsoever, he tried to switch the field of play and his pass flew over Alston’s head and out of bounds. Alston appeared to stare back at Coria in disbelief. Dude, he might have been thinking, aren’t you from Argentina? And Cochrane—a native of Portland who presumably desperately wanted to play in front of his hometown crowd— didn’t even get on the field despite the back line’s poor performance in the first half.

Top to bottom, the New England starting lineup against Portland on Friday was actually a pretty good one. A midfield consisting of Benny Feilhaber, Shalrie Joseph, Chris Tierney, and Monsef Zerka is probably above average by MLS standards (though Zerka is still not in shape and was obviously exhausted after an hour of play in Portland). New England’s striker tandem of Milton Caraglio and Rajko Lekic is also respectable, though I’d like to see a lot more hustle when defending by both of them, particularly Lekic. And of course Matt Reis is a virtual MLS living legend. He’s leading the league in saves and generally having a stellar year even by his standards; the Revs’ problems have nothing to do with him. No, the Revolution’s problem is its back line.

New England coach Steve Nicol said it himself after the Portland game: “Our back four in the first half, that's why we lost the game tonight.” In fact, that’s why the Revolution have consistently lost all year long. Playing regularly with only two dependable defenders—and both of those young and inexperienced—is a recipe for a lost season. The back line in soccer is a lot like the offensive line in football that John Madden considered so vital to any successful team. Just like football offensive lines, soccer defenses must not only play well at the individual level, they must—more than any other unit on the soccer field—learn to play in concert, to communicate, to ensure that no attacker is left unmarked, to know when to clear the ball and when to settle it and make the short pass, when to make an overlapping run and when to maintain position, when to hold the line to create an offside call and when to sprint back and get between an attacker and the goal, and on and on.

Revolution management has made a great start building the team’s defense by drafting Soares and Alston. Coria is yet another youngster at 23, and he may yet work out for the Revs. He’s big and strong and good in the air. It’s conceivable that current emergency left back Barnes may move inside permanently, rotating with Coria and Soares. This would make sense. One of the Fox commentators of the Portland match made the good point that Barnes simply doesn’t like to play with his left foot and is incapable of making effective overlapping runs from the left side, as Alston does on the right. It’s tough to be a good soccer team if both of your outside backs aren’t comfortable making those attacking runs.

Management no doubt thought it could stabilize this year’s young defense by bringing in Domi and Cochrane, but that plan has failed. Domi has been jettisoned, and at 28, Cochrane is probably not in the Revolution’s long-term plans either. But whether Cochrane is here next year or not—and God knows they could use his experience—there is still a glaring hole at left back. This hole must be filled in the offseason unless the Revolution want to see continued declines in wins and attendance and a continued increase in on-field chaos.