Post by warrior16 on Jul 24, 2015 21:06:52 GMT -6
Here's a fascinating article by Matt Doyle on the evolution of tactics in Major League Soccer over the past two decades, that I think all of you coaches out there will enjoy.
www.mlssoccer.com/news/article/2015/07/24/20-years-tactics-modern-soccer-and-mlss-field-evolution-armchair-analyst
The basic 4-4-2 was pretty much the standard formation around the world in the mid-90s, but over time certain MLS coaches like Bruce Arena and Bob Bradley deviated from the norm and had great success. By the end of the last decade, some MLS teams like Sporting Kansas City even adopted a Barcelona-style high-pressure 4-3-3.
Most MLS teams now play in some variation of a diamond 4-4-2, most notably the LA Galaxy, but there are still some outliers. One thing that's pretty universal among MLS teams is that the "best" attacking player is just about always in either the number 10 role or as a false 9. Columbus is really the only exception I can think of, since they have a monster of a target forward, Kei Kamara, and they just use the traditional English tactic of crossing the ball to him from wide positions. It's obviously working for them, as Kamara currently leads MLS in goals.