#Tactical soccer club full#

I am intrigued to see if a few trends we’ve seen from the men’s game in recent season manifest themselves in the NWSL, namely the attacking full back as a team’s chief chance creator outside of crosses, and the use of full backs as auxiliary midfielders in the final third. In pretty much every discernable category, the full back is more involved in 2021 compared to 2018.Īs the start of the 2022 season gets closer, expect this growth in the position to continue to flourish, and for the league’s best teams to utilize their players in this manner. These changes in emphasis are manifested in the numbers below. They are now a +1 in the final third: comfortable on the ball, capable of playing the final pass, and performing the same roles as traditional wingers. we’ve been a team that’s been able to break teams down no matter what spaces are or are not available.” This quote is a common denominator across the league’s players in this division.

Speaking about his full back former Thorns coach Mark Parsons praised the veteran's ability to: “build, play-make, create pressure.

Another mainstay in this category for a number of seasons has been Meghan Klingenberg in Portland. Some examples of players which fit this category are the likes of Sofia Huerta, Caprice Dydasco, and Carson Pickett. This aggressive starting position quite simply gets them on the ball in better positions on the field to create chances. When teams are building up play, alongside splitting their central defenders wide, the full backs act as auxiliary wingers, inverting inside and occupying the half spaces (essentially the spaces between the middle of the field and the touchline). What do they do, at a basic level to provide this?įor one, their general starting position up the field is much higher than on average previously. Flip forward to 2021, and these players are vital cogs for their offensive organization. The NWSL has slightly lagged behind this development: when looking at the Team Of The Year from just a few seasons back (while obviously not the greatest barometer), the presence of fairly simplistic “stay at home” wide defenders is prevalent. On a tactical level, in prior seasons full backs were so often an afterthought in regards to in possession structures which forced them to defend first and provide a basic outlet. At a league wide level, this has followed suit. The United States national team has done this for years, thanks to a combination of factors such as team strength (more of the ball = increased need for ball progression) and a relative dearth of defensively minded individuals in the country. In terms of the collective tactics across the league, the NWSL has followed a trend that has developed across soccer worldwide in recent years, regardless of level - the importance of super attacking and aggressive full backs. This list is not exhaustive, but the four profiled below are some of the most interesting and recognizable traits to the NWSL from 2021, and the ones most likely to play a part in 2022.ġ) The importance of super attacking full backs across the league Some of these are focused on how the actual league itself shapes the way the game is played, and others are more about the various quirks that individual teams and players have brought to the field. This being noted, what were the defining trends which shaped the campaign? What tactical outputs from clubs and their key players established how the league was played on the field and had tangible impacts on how teams won and lost matches. Still, like almost any league, there exists a clear and definitive “style” which conditions what we see week in and week out. While the goals per 90 were at their lowest in many years, that did not mean the matches were without intrigue: the manufactured parity that is commonplace within the American sports ecosystem has thankfully not led to teams essentially being copycats of one another. Special thanks to Arielle Dror, Kieran Doyle, and my friends at Zweitracht FC for their help, as ever, with parsing out my thoughts on the women’s game.Īmidst all the chaos that the 2021 NWSL season brought (which we won’t get into in this space) there was some fantastic soccer played.

Tactical soccer club