After Minnesota United crumbled in the ebbing moments of a 2-3 loss to Ottawa, there was a lot of hand-wringing from inside and outside the club. The head coach sat stone-still on the bench as players milled about, faces drawn in exhausted frowns. 2016 has not gone to plan for the club, but who’s to blame? The answer is a twisted knot of competing interests and priorities.
The Front Office
Let’s start at the top and recognize that the ownership and Manny Lagos have had divided attention throughout the year. While everyone inside the club seemed to be sure that they would be moving to MLS in 2017, it wasn’t made official until August. Where this seems to have been felt the most keenly was in player acquisition.
The Loons have been in a bizarre transfer limbo all year and — to be clear — this was mostly unavoidable. MLS players have to be signed to specific MLS contracts and all these contracts had to wait until August at the soonest (though it’s likely existing players won’t learn their fates until after the season). It makes going out and signing quality players exceedingly difficult because you can only offer short-term contracts.
The limbo-year did allow Minnesota to make some signings that perhaps wouldn’t have been as likely, though. Danny Cruz, Jeb Brovsky, and Ben Speas came to Minnesota in part because they could get a paycheck, but also because it was a good career move to get an in with a potential expansion side. All three players would be solid pickups in an expansion draft. The loan signings of Damion Lowe and Bernardo Añor additionally may have come through the Loons’ MLS trajectory.
The team went into 2016 with five defenders, several aging players, and when the injury crisis struck this summer, there were no reinforcements to be found.
However, the team went into 2016 with five defenders, several aging players, and when the injury crisis struck this summer, there were no reinforcements to be found. The inevitable leap to a bigger league also meant that the wage budget belt was tightened a bit. And so, I think it’s fair to say that winning in 2016 was not the highest priority for the club. (As Bill Stenross argued, this is also a completely reasonable decision for the club, but one that we should acknowledge in analyzing this season).
Carl Craig
The Geordie gaffer’s job was always going to be difficult. While he was never called an “interim manager,” there was always noted hesitation from management about whether Carl Craig was the manager or just the manager of the NASL team. For all the things going against Craig, though, he knew what his job was and that was to win.
Carl Craig’s bloodless usurpation of the United throne brought very few large changes to the team’s tactics. After all, Craig was heavily involved with the team’s tactical set up when he was Lagos’s assistant. That said, there were noticeable tweaks: Christian Ramirez no longer drops as deep and stays on his defenders; the No. 10 is a well-defined playmaking role; midfielders direct possession more than centerbacks; Craig uses all of his subs; and he pushed the team to embrace the gegenpress.
A full tactical analysis would not only bore all of us, but would likely fall short. So instead, let’s look back to the weekend’s loss. There were several decisions that, I think, backfired. Pulling Tiago and dropping Pitchkolan into the defense disrupted the backline. Juliano Vicentini (brought into midfield when Pitch went to the defense) looked particularly behind the pace of the match for whatever reason. But the Loons had a horrible time in the first half possessing the ball, so Juliano (or Ibson) would be a natural choice to fix that problem.
Most confusing was the decision to bring Ibson on for Ben Speas in the No. 10 role. Ibson is certainly the most talented player on the team. However, he has never worked as a No. 10 and when the game needed energy to close it out, J.C. Banks should have been the obvious choice. Ibson has very little tactical discipline and what we needed most was someone to help hold the team together. Perhaps Danny Cruz wasn’t fit enough for a role, but substituting him in for Jamie Watson would have additionally injected some energy. These, however, are in-game decisions, which are far easier to make days later.
The more important issues are those that seem to plague the team regularly. The first is that it doesn’t appear the tactics are being fitted to the players, but the players to the tactics. This team simply cannot gegenpress and possess the ball for 90 minutes a match regularly. It’s beautiful when it works, but the NASL is a league played by physical players on turf who can often dismantle the intricate passing play. The Fury’s success last season and Indy’s success this season speak to the power of physicality. And when possession football isn’t working, you need a plan B.
The second issue–and this may be sacrilegious–is that the strategy of “fullbacks racing up the wings, damn the torpedoes full steam ahead!” isn’t working anymore.
The second issue — and this may be sacrilegious — is that the strategy of “fullbacks racing up the wings, damn the torpedoes full steam ahead!” isn’t working anymore (just ask Greg Berhalter). Kevin Venegas offers the attack a really dangerous weapon. However, the rest of the league now looks at the space vacated by those attacks as a summer festival; they can set up shop and enjoy themselves.
The first goal on Saturday came from a loss of possession while Pitchkolan was tucked in, filling the space Venegas had vacated.
https://streamable.com/nsy3
The second goal, well that was really poor defending from Jeb (but again, Jeb was in that space covering for Justin Davis).
https://streamable.com/rxty
On the third goal, you have the two fullbacks inexplicably collapsing on the same player in the center of the pitch (we should also remember that the Loons were bravely pushing up to try to take back the match at this point).
https://streamable.com/gthu
None of these goals can solely be blamed on the fullback tactics, but those tactics played a significant role in each one.
While Venegas was injured, Jeb Brovsky was finally slotted into the fullback position (after the failed attempt of making Damion Lowe a fullback). While Venegas’s guile was missed (the Loons scored one goal per game without him), Jeb shored up a leaky defense (they gave up three goals in seven matches with Jeb at fullback).
Whatever the reason, Carl Craig doesn’t have his squad playing up to the standard that is expected. Quality has come in fits and starts and at least some of the blame has to rest on his shoulders.
The Players
After the match, there were some comments that flitted about social media indicating the players did not seem to care. I think this is largely far from the mark, not just because there were a lot of players out there who were quite visibly upset. Rather, I think it fails to comprehend the complexity of players as humans.
There are individual matches where a player under-performs. After a distinctly poor performance, Jeb threw up his hand and owned it.
Absolutely not good enough from me tonight. I own it 100%, clean up the shit and move forward. #COYL
— Jeb Brovsky (@JebBrovsky) September 18, 2016
And there are even players who have disappointed over a longer period of time. Lance Laing has played largely for himself, protesting his substitutions by secluding himself with headphones or cursing at the staff loudly; Justin Davis has had a quiet year by his standards; and Speas has not gotten up a full head of speed since his injury this spring. Even this singling out seems slightly arbitrary: the fact remains that this team boasts former MLS players and six of last year’s NASL Best XI. How many Loons will make that Best XI in 2016? Likely just Christian Ramirez.
There are a lot of factors going into this under-performance. Some, yes, may simply not care. But there are quite a lot of rumblings going on amongst the players regarding their precarious futures. One problem is that if a player gets injured, they go into the off-season without insurance or a club and so players are demotivated from playing as hard. There is also a current lack of cohesion and team spirit. And while players playing for themselves is understandable as they all audition for contracts, it’s coming at a cost for every player.
So, What the Hell?
This season has been a difficult slough, but it’s not sunshine and unicorns optimism to say that things aren’t that bad. Minnesota has the last playoff spot in their hands and they would go into the playoffs facing likely the Cosmos or Indy Eleven. Both of these are teams that even a struggling Loons can beat. Do things need to improve? Yes, but we’re not talking drastic changes.
This is the last season fans will watch that little club that could, heading up to Nessie to yell in the existential howl of Blaine winds. There has never been a golden period of this club where the club simply dominated the opposition. And so it’s fitting that the Loons will close out their NASL swan song needing to scrap it out. But that’s what fans signed up for. We didn’t sign up to watch easy 3-0 cakewalks; we signed up for agony, frustration, and the glimmered hope of a joyous consummation.
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