MLS Western Conference Final 2018: Sporting Kansas City vs Portland Timbers

We finally know the 2018 MLS Cup finalists, Portland Timbers and Atlanta United. In this tactical analysis, I will look at how Portland Timbers booked their place in the MLS Cup final.

To do this, they had to travel to Sporting Kansas City. A tough ask after a goalless draw in the first leg of their MLS Western Conference final. In a second leg that ebbed and flowed, however, they were able to come out 3-2 winners. I examine the trends of the match and how they came out on top below.

Portland Timbers going compact

From the off, Portland were clear in their game plan. They weren’t going to dictate possession but let Sporting Kansas City do that. Instead, they’d look to force errors, make life difficult and hit SKC on the break.

Here’s an early example of how that was implemented.

This worked early on during the match, however, as expected SKC were able to solve that problem. We can see how below.

Sporting Kansas City taking control

For SKC, the solving of this problem came with the speed of which they moved the ball. To create bigger spaces in attacks they would restart attacks fairly often if one had already run its course.

By restarting attacks I mean play the ball back to the defence who then relocate the point of attack. This was somewhat effective for them.

Although the move may not have worked on that occasion, getting in behind Portland’s full-backs was how SKC opened the scoring:

Portland First-Half Struggles

SKC went into the break 1-0 and although they were very good going forward, Portland also had something to do with that. They were too naïve and were almost too compact. This is because as the first-half grew on, SKC’s attacks grew further and further up the pitch. This didn’t allow Portland to break well once possession was won as we see below:

Thankfully for Portland, they saw a much different performance in the second-half. They were still very solid through the middle of the pitch, but also picked up higher positions. Also, their movement off the ball improved massively as we’ll see shortly.

Sebastian Blanco Getting Higher Up The Pitch

Most importantly, however, Blanco was picking up the ball in higher positions. This proved to be crucial as it led to him being directly involved in the goals which swung the momentum in Portland’s favour.

Blanco uses this as a decoy. As the SKC midfield comes across to double up, Blanco feints and bursts into the highlighted space.

Once in this space, I’m pretty sure everybody knows what happened:

That off the ball movement and spatial awareness was clear once again for Portland’s second goal.

Already having a picture of his surroundings, Blanco knows what he is going to do next. As the defenders rush towards him, he creates a goal out of nothing:

Summary

The difference in first-half and second-half performances should not go unnoticed. Its clear that Portland manager, Giovanni Savarese’s half time messages held up and were effective. He was able to identify what was going wrong and rectify that, which is why Portland are heading to Atlanta.

However, in the MLS Cup final, they’ll need to be at it from the first minute. Whether Atlanta lost some momentum with that second leg loss to the Red Bulls will be seen but that can’t be counted on. Either way, it’ll be an interesting match on December 8^th.

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