Photo: Daniel Gajdamowicz

(Editor’s note: This is part two of PSP’s look back at John Hackworth’s first year as head coach of the Union. For part one, click here.)

Major League Soccer asks a lot of a coach. The league’s relative parity means that few managers can go out and buy the perfect players for their ideal tactics. Success means making the most of the imperfect hand you are dealt, but when everybody has similar cards, the little things matter.

Coaches that find extended success in the bruising, unpredictable world of MLS do the little things very well. Bruce Arena adjusts his basic formation to give Landon Donovan space, pushing his playmaker inside, far up the pitch, into any gap. Dom Kinnear overloads the wings just outside of the box, waiting for the inevitable foul that lays the groundwork to the inevitable Brad Davis assist. Jason Kreis keeps his formation so tight, and the ball moving so fast, that a disorganized high press overruns the play and watches in horror as Real Salt Lake manages to once again push their holding midfielder to the edge of the opposition penalty box.

These coaches, who win by outthinking the high press on offense and out-organizing the counterattack on defense, embody the level of success Philadelphia Union hoped to reach under Peter Nowak. The man who led DC United to the promised land was given full control of a long-term project that measured success in playoff wins, not playoff appearances.

Nowak failed.

Enter the Hack

In June 2012, a man with no professional head coaching experience took his place. Up to this point, John Hackworth had been considered the youth guru that would guide a young team to early maturity. Whether he had lost Nowak’s trust in this role was an open question, as teenaged draft picks Danny Mwanga, Jack McInerney, and Amobi Okugo rode the pine behind veteran arrivals like Carlos Ruiz, Lionard Pajoy, Gabriel Gomez, and Josue Martinez.

New head coaches like to make a statement with their first lineup. Shake up the formation, move the star player around, bring someone in from the cold. Hackworth did these things, and the results were positive, even if the scorelines were not. Since announcing his first 11, John Hackworth has been loyal to a core of exciting, young players and a pair of workmanlike vets. He has purged the roster of his predecessor’s pets, though he has yet to replenish the bench with trusted depth.

More than a youth coach?

After one year, John Hackworth fits his pedigree: He was a youth national team coach, and he has a young team that plays their age. That they play with the brash aggressiveness that supplies both a naive confidence and a confident talent speaks well of Hackworth’s abilities as an individual communicator and motivator. That they play with a consistently underwhelming sense of positioning and organization gives volume to the whispers that Hackworth is less a leader than the skilled foil of a disciplinarian.

Although he was handed a team that needed to be stripped bare before it could be reclothed as his own (and though he has shown more tactical flexibility than he might admit), John Hackworth appears to have done little more than hand the stage to the performers who deserve it. Over the next four months, he must teach them to dance together.

Formation changes

Hackworth’s formation his first match. (Nice try, MLSSoccer.com. We know a 4-3-3 when Hackworth tells us what it is.)

The John Hackworth era began with the Union shedding the drab 4-4-2 (though assigning numerical descriptors to the helter-skelter lineups of Peter Nowak was like breaking down the flavor palette of a Bud Light, but less fun) and going all in on a 4-3-3.

A 4-3-3 connotes sexy, attacking soccer with copious wing play, overlapping fullbacks, and a spritz of total football to give the whole thing a legitimate historical backbone. In reality, the 4-3-3 is a 4-5-1 for every team that doesn’t have a central midfielder capable of controlling possession through short passes and stretching a defense with longer ones. (You’re thinking of Xavi, aren’t you? I knew I’d catch you thinking about Xavi.)

The best proponent of the system in MLS is Kansas City, though LA can pull it off very effectively when they play to counter. Lacking a control freak in the middle, the 4-3-3 effectively sucks the wingers deep to receive balls up the line from fullbacks. This makes the edges of the pitch claustrophobic for anyone who likes to dribble (now I caught you thinking about Freddy Adu) and the sexy attacks give way to an offense that can’t get a player on the ball facing forward without playing punt and pray.

Early returns

This was John Hackworth’s Philadelphia Union early on. The lineup against DC United on June 16th “featured” Josue Martinez and Freddy Adu as public service announcements on how to be ineffective with your back to goal. Michael Farfan continued his ill-fated learning process in the middle of the pitch, and Amobi Okugo pushed Sheanon Williams back out to right.

Allowed to run after being locked up for two years.

The Okugo and McInerney moves were both obvious and surprising. They seemed logical, yet that alone made them anathema to fan expectations.

Over the past year, the constant presence and continued development of those two players has proved that John Hackworth was the right manager to step in when Peter Nowak was fired. Whether he is also the man to take the Union to the next level rests on a facet of Hackworth’s leadership with a murkier track record: His ability to buy and teach new players to excel in his system.

Calling the Union’s current style John Hackworth’s system is a bit disingenuous. The manager made clear that he wanted his team to play quick, controlled, possession-oriented footy. The tactics that have the Union in the playoff hunt are not that.

2012 evolution

The 2013 Philadelphia Union’s tactical approach was shaped by the bumps, bruises and breakouts of 2012. Early in Hackworth’s tenure, the team really did play a calmer, small ball game. The loss to DC United that marked Hackworth’s entry into the head coaching world featured a team willing to move the ball patiently and wait for opportunities. It would appear that nobody told the Union what those opportunities would look like, however, and they slumped to a sucker punch loss.

Against Sporting Kansas City, an early goal let the Union play on the front foot and, again, with patience. This time Philly was rewarded with a 4-0 scoreline.

For the first month, Hackball was about controlling possession and finding ways to overcome odd bouts of Finalthirdaphobia. The pinnacle of this period was the 3-0 win over Toronto—a fine bookend considering a loss to Toronto prompted Hack’s appointment—in which the Union played 198 more passes than their opponents.

The next week’s win over Montreal, amidst bullying, headbutts, and red cards, marked a change in the Union’s approach. Whether it was the Impact’s physical style or simply a response to opponent’s trying a higher press, Philadelphia lost their possession dominance and began looking to counter more frequently.

The team entered a ten-game stretch in which they only garnered points from matchups with New England (blech) and Toronto (blech, eh).

On September 23rd against Houston, following a dispiriting loss to Lio Pajoy and DC United in which the Union dominated the ball, the elements that have marked the 2013 team began to emerge.

Lahoud vs Houston – 9/23/12

A 4-3-3 with Josue Martinez between Freddy Adu and Danny Cruz gave the Union plenty of speed to counterattack. Michael Lahoud finally stepped forward to play slightly in front of Brian Carroll, allowing the team’s defensive specialist to return to a full coverage style he prefers. Freddy Adu tucked inside often, essentially giving up the wing and opening an outlet for long balls. The Union were officially content to boot it long out of trouble, but they were trying to do it on their own terms. Danny Cruz played high up the pitch and stayed wide, threatening the defense with speed and, hopefully, allowing Philly to surprise an opponent with a break without pulling the main striker from the middle of the pitch.

The defense was good, but not great.

These tactics have come to define the 2013 Union, though Hackworth has complimented them with a few twists, courtesy of Conor Casey and Sebastien Le Toux.

2013

Casey and Le Toux play the same role in completely different ways. Le Toux has shown considerable personal growth to fit himself into Jack McInerney’s shadow as an early runner and decoy. McInerney can read Le Toux’s checking or wide runs and slip into the gaps left behind. In contrast, Casey stays front and center, winning aerial battles, establishing a presence in the center of the pitch that forces the defense to get narrow, and opening spaces between the center backs and wide players.

Brian Carroll has officially been given full control of the midfield, and any partner is expected to be a creator rather than a fellow destroyer. While Carroll has slowly found his footing again in a familiar role, nobody has stepped into the breach alongside him to provide the complementary offensive distribution. Keon Daniel’s low confidence is evident in his deep positioning, while Michael Farfan’s lack of self-belief manifests as a hesitancy to come get the ball and play the necessary short passes that open space for the home runs.

Casey is evidence that Hackworth recognizes his team’s limitations

Returning Carroll to his deep-lying role and bringing in Conor Casey suggest that John Hackworth has begun adjusting to the players he has. His tactics are so built around the counterattack now that opposing players will openly use Philly as an example of a team built to sit back and play to exploit mistakes.

This is not the Philadelphia Union John Hackworth claimed he would create, but a purging of the Nowak signings paired with Hack’s commitment to known and favored quantities has created the current situation. The dirty little secret is that Jack McInerney’s almost unprecedented early season scoring run has pasted over the roster’s clear lack of depth and creativity.

Looking ahead

After one year, John Hackworth has not given Philadelphia the wide open, three-striker system many expected to mark the first time coach’s reign. Instead, the team is fast, narrow, disorganized, and inconsistent.

Hackworth’s defenders will argue the coach can’t put his tactical stamp on the team until he brings in his own set of players. Detractors will wonder why those players are not already on the roster and why the current crop doesn’t appear to have a clear sense of purpose so much as an understanding that they have enough leash to make mistakes and learn from them.

In the end, both defenders and detractors should agree that John Hackworth has been exactly what he appeared to be one year ago: A coach skilled at individual motivation but with clear shortcomings in his ability to design and implement larger tactical strategies.

If the Union appear to play like the team you played against growing up that dominated local tournaments with pure, untaught talent only to struggle against anybody in their own weight class, that is because they are that team. Allowed to express themselves, Jack McInerney, Danny Cruz, Amobi Okugo, Sheanon Williams, Ray Gaddis, and Michael Farfan show glimpses of the skill and intelligence that have won them awards and plaudits at every level. They have also made mistakes, put their heads down, and taken an approach that relies more on their unquestioned abilities than a mature, developed understanding of the game.

Hackworth has given the players the confidence to challenge any team in any week. He has yet to teach them how to impose themselves on a game and control tempo and transition from defense to attack in a way that allows for sustained pressure in the final third.

After one year, the only fair assessment of John Hackworth is that he is extremely effective as a motivator but less so as a teacher. He can bring out the best in a group of individuals, but he hasn’t yet shown that he can turn those individuals into a team.

Hackworth has righted the good ship Union. He has just under four months to show that he knows how to steer.