By Danny Contreras
In soccer there are eleven positions essential to a team. They are divided in three areas: defense, midfield and forwards.
The defense keeps the game from slipping away; without a great defense, no team would be a team. The forwards score the goals.
Then there are the midfielders. The ones that create the set pieces that connect plays from the back all the way to the front, feeding the hungry strikers balls to win the game.
A midfielder plays in two ways: a center midfielder, a tactician, has good peripheral vision and is able to make through balls throughout the game. A center midfielder must have a lot of stamina and should be an efficient defender and a sufficient striker.
Or a winger, a fast paced, strong dribbler who can cut through the opposing defense super effectively in either flank, and feed the ball for strikers who are waiting in the box to wound the opponent.
The CCSU Men’s soccer team lacks the latter form of a midfielder, and this is why the performances they have shown the past five games does not serve justice to what is an otherwise great, formidable team.
Coach Green employs an offensive tactic against opponents; usually a variation of the generic 4-3-3 (4 defenders, 3 midfielders, 3 strikers). This form is known for its demanding, yet fluid, style of gameplay where midfielders are in constant motion, feeding balls through center, and the full backs making run down the flanks to overwhelm the opposing defense.
While the style has proven effective for CCSU in some games, there’s one flaw in the squad that does not allow for improvement; the lack of wingers. Coach Green said that not having wingers is an issue that they have to deal with for the rest of the season and to do so the team will employ a diamond formation in the midfield in order to make the most out of the players.
The function is similar to the traditional 4-3-3 but all the plays must be done through the midfield because that’s where the team is strongest. The flaw in this technique is that teams can exploit the fact that there are no attacks in the wings and are able to build up plays from their own wings down the field.
Connor Smith and Jesse Menzies showcased that we can still attack on the wings. Smith was able to break into the right wing from the midfield about two times every five minutes. Menzies on the other hand had the dribbling skills necessary to confuse the defenders in the left wing but lacks speed.
While we cannot force them to play on the wings we can see that the wings can be easily taken over with the style of play CCSU employs in the game.
A possibility is employing a style similar to that of the Premiership teams. Some use a 4-4-2. In it the wings are more used but the way it is set up, they are not forced, such as Manchester United and Liverpool F.C.
Manchester United employs a more traditional 4-4-2. Extremely straightforward in their game, on the other hand, Liverpool employs a style that can be adapted by CCSU.
A variation of the 4-4-2, this one can be broken up as 4-2-3-1. Obviously there are four defenders, but in between the wingers, there are two center midfielders whose sole job is to open up the opposing midfield by passing the ball out wide. The wingers receive the ball, bring it down more, and then pass it to either Raul Meireles who would be waiting somewhere about 10 yards from goal, or to Fernando Torres who is deeper down the box. This way the opposing teams do not take advantage of the wings.
If CCSU employed a tactic similar to that of those two teams we can improve the situation. I am not saying that we cannot win with our current formation: I have been proven wrong with our past wins — but it would be a good thing to experiment in the pitch and see how CCSU can use the skills of their players.
