The Columbus Crew extended the team’s unbeaten streak at home against the New York Red Bulls on Saturday night, beating the visitors 2-1. The Black & Gold had to once again deal with the press of the Red Bulls and, while it was a three-point performance, it wasn’t the prettiest of games for Columbus.

Crew striker Cucho Hernandez opened the scoring with a sublime backheel flick making the score 1-0 in the first half. New York answered though with a header to even the game up before the break. The Black & Gold retook the lead courtesy of a Yaw Yeboah volley that rolled over the line after being initially parried by goalkeeper Carlos Coronel.

Despite not playing the best game of the season, Columbus found a way to secure the win. Let’s dive into the tactics that locked up the victory for the Crew.

Shifting Sean Zawadzki to play alongside Darlington Nagbe

With the absence of Aidan Morris due to international duty, head coach Wilfried Nancy resorted to a few different ways to set up his midfield. His first solution against Nashville SC was to play Alexandru Matan in a central midfield role, playing a bit further up the field than Morris typically does.

In the game against New York, Nancy instructed Matan to play more as a secondary No. 10 alongside Lucas Zelarayan. The key to this change was having Sean Zawadzki move forward into a midfielder position alongside Darlington Nagbe when Columbus had the ball. This was even more pronounced in the second half when Zawadzki move up into midfield as the Crew shifted into a back four.

Zawadzki, a natural midfielder, played as a central defender in recent weeks due to injuries on the backline. Despite some nervy moments and mistakes, he along with Steven Moreira and Malte Amundsen have led the defense that sparked this unbeaten run.

The Crew still set up and defended in a five-back set to begin against the Red Bulls, with wing backs Mohamed Farsi and Yeboah tracking back when necessary. When the Black & Gold had possession though, Zawadzki often slid forward and the backline shifted into a back four, playing almost entirely that way in the second half until Columbus defended a lead late.

This led the Crew to keep a boxed midfield shape, still with two attacking midfielders forward and then the two central midfielders with Nagbe and Zawadzki. Despite having fewer players on defense, the wing backs still pushed up the field, leaving Amundsen and Moreira back to defend in transition.

Like many times this season, committing so many players forward is a double-edged sword. In this case, it left Moreira and Amundsen exposed at times if the Red Bulls’ press forced a turnover high up the pitch. This is what led to many of the visitor’s chances. With the wing backs still being high and Zawadzki playing in the center of the field, at times the Crew defenders were outnumbered in transition.

On the other side though, this move was long thought out by Nancy. New York typically pressed high with a block of four attackers. With the two center backs, two midfielders and goalkeeper Patrick Shulte, the Black & Gold had a numbers advantage to break that wave of pressure. The second wave was a block of three, which Columbus also had a numbers advantage thanks to Zawadzki stepping into the midfield.

At times, a misplaced pass or poor touch put the Crew in real danger on the counter attack, but Nancy trusted his players to be calm on the ball and use their numbers advantage. It wasn’t pretty at times, but the Black & Gold pulled out a win thanks to the innovative thinking from their first-year head coach.

Attacking RBNY’s weakness

The Red Bulls’ entire game plan is to create chaos. Whether it be through relentless pressing or furious counter attacks, the visitors wanted to force Columbus into mistakes and then capitalize on those miscues.

To do this, New York committed many bodies forward to aid in the press and close down the Crew’s options to get the ball out of the back. Most of that pressing was done through the attackers and higher midfielders, but on defense, the Red Bulls had a weakness that the Black & Gold pounced on.

Due to the fact that New York pushed players forward in the press, the Red Bulls’ defense remained very narrow to limit the counter attacks through the middle if Columbus broke the press. This caused the Crew’s wing backs and attackers to have lots of space out wide, which led to the two goals. Despite attacking from out wide, the Black & Gold only registered six crosses, but two of them led to the goals that won the game.

On the first goal, the ball was played to Matan who was already near the corner of the 18-yard box. He simply took the space and then drove towards the end line with pace. Because he wasn’t forced wider, the defender couldn’t lunge out of fear of giving up a penalty kick.

From there, the ball was served to Hernandez on a silver platter that he flicked past the goalkeeper to make it 1-0 inside 20 minutes. A simple combination provided by the Red Bulls’ compactness, which made Matan able to attack with more vigor with the idea of giving away a spot kick on the defender’s mind.

On the Black & Gold’s second goal, New York adjusted. The Red Bulls sent two players out to meet Farsi and Hernandez rather than letting them have space inside. The defensive breakdown came when the ball got passed to the Colombian and both defenders bit. This left a gaping hole of space for the Canadian wing back to exploit and Hernandez played a perfect pass to spring him.

Farsi’ cross found an unmarked Yeboah on the backside of the play. Four New York defenders marked forward Christian Ramirez, which left Zelarayan and Yeboah wide open at the back post, with the Ghanaian wing back dispatching the ball into the back of the net.

Again, both of these goals are defensive breakdowns from New York, but Columbus attacked the width, recognizing the weakness and exploiting it to secure three points.

Room for improvement

Despite getting the win, this was far from the Crew’s best game this season. It easily could have been 2-2 if Elias Manoel’s penalty kick doesn’t bounce back into play off the post. In that sense, the Black & Gold were lucky, but they will focus on what they are in control of improving.

The first thing they can improve is in transition defending and tracking secondary runners. The return of center backs Milos Degenek and Josh Williams will help immensely with sorting out defensive duties, but it has been a reoccurring theme. Marking the first wave of runners is easy, but it’s usually the secondary players crashing into the penalty box that is more difficult.

This is exactly how Manoel equalized in the 38^th minute for New York. The ball was crossed from the end line and all the Crew defenders dropped in deep and didn’t mark the secondary runners. This left Manoel open and he made Columbus pay just by simply holding his run and staying in the blind spot of the defense.

Secondly, the Crew needs to be careful about switching off for portions of the game. The Black & Gold went through some lackluster spells of posession where they turned the ball over too easily and led to Red Bulls’ chances. If the tea switches off like this, other teams will pounce on those mistakes more often.

Lastly, Schutle needs to be more confident and aggressive in the air. The young American goalkeeper was named the Man of the Match against New York but had some nervy moments dealing with crosses, whether it be catching or punching the ball out.

Goalkeepers are always a target for opposing players, especially on corner kicks. It’s at those times where Schutle needs to be more commanding. Even at the end of the game when he corralled the ball, he was hesitant and had a bobble that, if dropped,, could have resulted in a Red Bull equalizer.