The High Line

[brad]

I would have put this in tactics forum but it seems to have gone away.

The high line worries me. There is a lot more to making this work than simply pushing your defenders higher up the pitch. The high line compacts the space in the midfield making it easier to press the opposition, giving them less time on the ball to pick the pass in behind the defense. The offside trap goes hand in hand with the high line as well.

Here is were I am concerned.

• We aren't pressing in the midfield. We are allowing the opposition too much time on the ball, and that gives them more time to play in behind us
• The high line/offside trap requires a back line that is very familiar with playing with each other in order to play this successfully. Our back line is not familiar. Aceval is new. Emory is new. Manud is new. It takes more than a few pre-season games, training sessions, and even a few competitive matches to build this level of familiarity.
• With the exception of Morgan, e lack speed in defense. When the ball gets played in behind, we need pace to recover.

Against Seattle it was pretty plain to see how this hurt us. I also thought despite the result, the game away against LA was worrying in this regard. LA got behind us too many times. Kocic came up big and saved us that game, and luck was with us for a change when MaGee's goal was called back for offside (he looked on to me).

I think we are going to get burned a lot on this...

[T-boy]

Agreed totally. Opposing teams are going to work out our defensive gameplan very quickly this season and try and bust our offside trap over and over again. I'm not sure I've ever seen another team play SUCH a high offisde line....its almost at the halfway line sometimes? If Winter plans to keep up this tactic we are going to ship a lot of easy goals when we are playing against an opponent with a rapid striker.

I'm "hoping" that TFC have adopted the high line approach just for these early games? I'd be dissapointed if this was a season long exercise, as I think its really asking for trouble!

[Stouffville_RPB]

You are 100% correct. I don't think that we will get away from playing the offside trap soon though. The main problem is that our defense doesn't recognize the pass ahead of time and therefore don't step up to make the attacker offside. If our back line can see the plays before they are made the offside trap can be very effective.

[Canary10]

You can play a high line without playing an offside trap. The point is to compress the midfield space. When possession is lost, the backline just drops back instead of stepping up when the ball is played. I thought offside traps were in the dustbin of history. I played that way back in the 80s and early 90s! Had the same problems then incidentally. Especially when we didn't have linesmen calling offside!

[brad]

You can play a high line without playing an offside trap. The point is to compress the midfield space. When possession is lost, the backline just drops back instead of stepping up when the ball is played. I thought offside traps were in the dustbin of history. I played that way back in the 80s and early 90s! Had the same problems then incidentally. Especially when we didn't have linesmen calling offside!

I think Ajax still plays the offside trap.

EDIT: Googling a bit comes back with match reports from this year talking about teams beating Ajax's offside trap.

Also - very good point about the linesman - another risky bit in trying to play the trap in the MLS

[prizby]

what if the backline (at least for mls play was like this)

---------Frei/Kocic----------
---Eckersley-Aceval-Emory--
Stinson--------------Morgan
...
i feel eckersley has the recovry speed to 'cover' the line

[Canary10]

I think Ajax still plays the offside trap.

EDIT: Googling a bit comes back with match reports from this year talking about teams beating Ajax's offside trap.

Also - very good point about the linesman - another risky bit in trying to play the trap in the MLS

The thing I hated about the trap is it puts serious pressure on you as a defender to not be the guy who played them on, so you end up playing even higher than you really need to. I played a bit of CB and lots of LB under both systems and found it's particulary bad for a CB under a trap. Your play starts to be dictated by not keeping them on. I think it's a bad tactic. Get everyone up fast, that's fine, but give the defenders the freedom to drop when they need to without feeling the pressure that they're keeping people onside.

[T-boy]

I don't mind an offside trap as long as you have at least one SPEEDY central defender who can close the player down who's broken the trap.

The one thing I don't understand about TFC doing this so far tho, is that we've been playing essentially with a sweeper, AND playing an offside trap. Really, one counteracts the other! You can't really play with 3 CB's, which one playing slightly behind the others sometimes, AND play a flat offside line. Then, when the full/wing backs have dropped back, you then have to organise 5 players to be in a line. That's a very difficult thing to do.

I can see why Winter would want to try this, but its a very difficult tactic to make work, especially with a sweeper/3 CB's, and then 5 defenders in a row.

If it wasn't for Frei and Kocic being on TOP form, both LA and Seattle would have hit many more goals against us just due to the inneffectiveness of this offside tactic.

[swan]

what can be said already that hasn't been said..

as an arsenal fan i see this high line a lot, and we get caught a bunch with it but we have a speedy back line that most times can get back to recover..

[Yohan]

I would have put this in tactics forum but it seems to have gone away.

The high line worries me. There is a lot more to making this work than simply pushing your defenders higher up the pitch. The high line compacts the space in the midfield making it easier to press the opposition, giving them less time on the ball to pick the pass in behind the defense. The offside trap goes hand in hand with the high line as well.

Here is were I am concerned.

• We aren't pressing in the midfield. We are allowing the opposition too much time on the ball, and that gives them more time to play in behind us

• The problem is with winter's 5-2-3 formation, we don't have a centre midfield. I suspect part of reason why Winter is playing high back line is to reduce the distance between the defence and the forwards, because TFC has no midfield. the wingers play too forward and don't track back enough, even though they are suppose to tuck in middle more. The AM also stays too close to the forwards. The fullbacks aren't much help pushing up to help at centre mid.So it really leaves the DM (Dunfield or JDG) to essentially do all the pressuring in the centre of the pitch.
• The high line/offside trap requires a back line that is very familiar with playing with each other in order to play this successfully. Our back line is not familiar. Aceval is new. Emory is new. Manud is new. It takes more than a few pre-season games, training sessions, and even a few competitive matches to build this level of familiarity.
• agreed. with chemistry, a lot of deficiencies in the defence can be covered up but defenders helping each other better. hence why I don't want Harden to be benched, because he's the one with best chemistry with Aceval right now, and other available CBs aren't much better than him (if at all)
• With the exception of Morgan, we lack speed in defense. When the ball gets played in behind, we need pace to recover.
• Ecks has decent pace too but having pacy fullbacks don't help that much with average speed CBs. Lack of pace at CB is killing us playing this high line, but it's not that TFC CBs have poor pace in comparison with most other MLS CBs. (Harden and Aceval just look slow getting killed by fast attackers) Rarely you'll find fast CBs in MLS.

Against Seattle it was pretty plain to see how this hurt us. I also thought despite the result, the game away against LA was worrying in this regard. LA got behind us too many times. Kocic came up big and saved us that game, and luck was with us for a change when MaGee's goal was called back for offside (he looked on to me).

I think we are going to get burned a lot on this...

Winter needs to adjust tactics. Offside trap isn't going to work, even on Sat vs SJ. Chavez, Wondo, Dawkins all have good pace

my reply in red

[T-boy]

I'm gonna bump this thread back up to the top - the high line clearly didn't work this weekend once again.

[Stouffville_RPB]

I don't think it was the high line that beat us this weekend. It was the lack of ability to defend. We couldn't defend a cross, or on the counter attack. Attackers weren't playing off the shoulder timing great runs, they were left wide open.

[ArmenJBX]

We need to just chill with the wingplay, it's the same reason Chelsea gets burned over and over again, with Ashley Cole pressing much too high for the team's benefit.

Yes, Eckersley and Morgan are offensive assets, but there are times where Ty Harden is playing where Eckersley should be and Miguel Aceval is playing where Morgan should be, and we're not even on an offensive push.

Also, our goalkeeper is the only keeper I've ever seen that tells his defence to spread out instead of getting back into shape, it's ridiculous! Defend as a unit (4 players) and push forward, ONE wingback at a time, only on a counter attack. Have some faith in our wingers to push forward on their own.

[brad]

If we play the high line tonight against Santos we are going to get slaughtered...

[jloome]

Yeah, they're trying to force the overlap way too often. Spreads the back line too wide.

[TOBOR !]

I think the offside trap isn't so much a tactic as it is a by-product of a 3-4-3 pressing game.You try to stay as close to one another so as best to exploit a quick passing attack when you have the ball and increased pressure when you don't.As you move up the field with the ball, you do it as a unit. The backs move up to support midfield and forwards. The idea is to not lose the ball in a position where you can be quickly countered.Where we're failing is when we lose the ball we aren't applying the pressure to either win it back, or at least prevent the quick counter attack.

[Oldtimer]

Look in today's news (March 28). TFC has identified the high line as something to be changed.

[T-boy]

^^^

I noticed that too. Mind you, that's something that the players have said...NOT coaches I think? It doesn't matter how the players want to play the game, they still have to follow instructions. If Winter tells them to play the offside trap, they are going to have to do it, otherwise players will be dropped.

I wonder if there is a difference in opinion between players and management over this?

[Red I]

I think the offside trap isn't so much a tactic as it is a by-product of a 3-4-3 pressing game.You try to stay as close to one another so as best to exploit a quick passing attack when you have the ball and increased pressure when you don't.As you move up the field with the ball, you do it as a unit. The backs move up to support midfield and forwards. The idea is to not lose the ball in a position where you can be quickly countered.Where we're failing is when we lose the ball we aren't applying the pressure to either win it back, or at least prevent the quick counter attack.

Exactly, i think they lose the ball in really REALLY bad spots, whether it's the passer making a garbage pass (majority of the time i've noticed) or poor movement off the ball, getting caught on a counter when you have numbers attacking is more due to poor possesion play than sheer speed of the attackers. I honestly think when the other team has regular possesion, Toronto has defended the line quite well. Many times I've noticed Aceval stopping a breakaway through pass because of good shape on the line, good marking, and reading the pass. It's just getting countered on an attack, when the marking is not tight...

I honestly think other teams are not waiting for the back line to crumble, they are pouncing to counter on crap passing and possesion in the middle of the pitch, and the lack of ferocity of the mids trying to win it back in the middle of the park like Tobor mentioned above

[TFCRegina]

They need to spend less time raising arms, and more time defending.

[manic.street.preacher]

^beat me to it Lars