This is part 2 in a series of posts based on PSP’s talk with Union head coach Jim Curtin. Find part 1 here.

Jim Curtin played defense. He believes in defense. So while he certainly won’t complain when the Union score goals, he thinks sustained success begins in the back.

“Interesting stat, and it’s an obvious stat when you hear it: In games where teams kept a clean sheet last year, they averaged 2.5 points,” Curtin told PSP. “That’s common sense. You don’t give up a goal, more likely to win. The only other thing that can happen is a 0-0 draw.

“In games where you give up a goal, the average is 1.2 points. The focus has to be not conceding first. We’re going to score, other teams are going to score, but, simply put, keeping a zero is the easiest way to get points at the end of the day. It’s an obvious one, but it’s one that jumps out at you.”

2015 Eastern Conference table sorted by Goals Against.

The table agrees. Of the six MLS teams that gave up 50 goals or more, only two made the playoffs. And those two teams tucked away their defensive frailty behind the league’s top goalscorers.

So while Curtin could point to nine clean sheets as a sign that the Union are on the cusp of turning a porous defense into a strength, he can also look at ten games in which his team gave up three or more goals and conclude that change is needed.

As the Union’s offseason moves indicate, the club is taking the latter viewpoint.

“The first step is getting guys that can run so there’s more consistency. Otherwise it drives me insane, I know it drives the fans insane,” Curtin said. “It’s difficult when you see a team that gets to back to back [US] Open Cup finals and shows they can compete with any team in the league, and they can look awful in the regular season and look like we don’t belong in the playoffs. Consistency is the word I keep coming back to.”

Consistency also describes Philly’s success in the SuperDraft, but not in a good way. Amobi Okugo and Jack McInerney both briefly ascended into the starting eleven only to quickly disappear from the roster altogether. Michael Farfan looked dangerous out wide, but a move inside stunted his growth. Zac MacMath was the only draft pick to get an extended run in the first team at the position he was drafted to play before Curtin declared Ray Gaddis the starting right back last year.

But this offseason, the Union are rebuilding the defense through the SuperDraft. Andre Blake will start in goal, Ray Gaddis and Keegan Rosenberry will compete on the right, Richie Marquez and Josh Yaro will see plenty of time in the center, and Taylor Washington should push for minutes on the left as the season progresses. At times, the Union could have a number one overall, number two overall, and number three overall SuperDraft pick all starting together in back.

All of those players, and, according to the club, the yet-unseen Anderson Conceicao, share a few qualities: They’re young, they’re affordable, and they are absurdly athletic.

“Yaro certainly can run, there’s no secret there,” Curtin said. “So he’ll have the confidence to get into foot races and not be scared of that. Richie Marquez is also a guy that can run. And if he does get pulled out into those wide spots, his 1v1 defending is excellent.

“I think with [Anderson] Conceicao, an athlete who can find himself in space and not be nervous, it’s a big one.”

In talking to Curtin, it is fairly clear that the Union are attempting to address 2015’s defensive struggles with two adjustments: First, high-end (really high-end) athleticism is a minimum requirement for defenders. Second, defensive discipline must start up top. Those adjustments can sound fairly independent, but they are different battles in what famed soccer tactician George Lucas might have called Star Space Wars.

Successful soccer can be boiled down to two simple rules, both involving space: Create it on offense and take it away on defense. That’s it!

Taking away space is the real motivation behind the modern high press game. Pundits and coaches may talk about pressing better or more effectively, but what they really mean is finding ways to minimize the amount of space opposing players have when they get the ball and when they move without it. And those two things cannot be traded off: Taking away time on the ball but leaving giant swaths of green behind is as ineffective as taking away all the passing lanes but letting the ball carriers waltz into the box unopposed.

In soccer, space can be thought of as a useful proxy for accumulated time. On an individual level, space and time are synonymous. But from a team-level perspective, minimizing time on the ball can be interpreted as: Attack the ball carrier! Whereas controlling space requires a defense to no longer view the opposition as a group of trees, but as a forest. Otherwise eliminating space for one player will almost certainly open space for another. Result: Zero net gain in space, and possibly a loss of it.

Let’s take an example that has played out many times for the Union. Philly loses the ball and the other team plays it wide to an outside back. Philly’s wing player sprints to the ball, minimizing the fullback’s time to think. Pressing? Yes. Eliminating time? Absolutely. But what about space? Now the Union’s wide player has left a gigantic hole between him and his supporting outside back. The opposing team can play the ball into that space, recycle it across the back, or find a central midfielder five yards ahead, which pulls another Union player into the mix, makes the team lopsided, and creates so many holes that the Union defense starts to look like a physical manifestation of Sepp Blatter’s corruption depositions.

Early in the April 25 loss to Columbus, the Union’s defensive lines were tight, forcing Columbus wide without allowing endless time for crosses.

In the memorable implosion of April 2015 against Columbus, the Crew continually exploited Philadelphia’s inability to control space. Crosses were unchallenged, the passes leading to those crosses were unchallenged, and the defense was so concerned with keeping Kei Kamara away from goal that it let him operate in between the lines and pull in midfielders. Tony Tchani and Federico Higuain had all the time they needed to spread the ball around and further pull the Union apart.

But it did not start out that way. For the first fifteen minutes of the match, the Union held a fairly tight shape. However, that structure soon broke down as a lack of pressure up front gave Michael Parkhurst plenty of time to spray the ball to the wings. Gaddis and Fabinho were slow to close down the ball and crosses to Kamara quickly turned into goals.

Click to play.

When on-the-ball pressure was not the main issue, the Union simply did not work hard enough to get back into shape when they lost it. In the 57th minute, Maidana got caught leaning forward during a Columbus throw in (see gif). Michael Lahoud stepped hard to press Higuain and, without Maidana covering, left the entire center of the pitch open for a dangerous transition.  

In the 60th minute, Sebastien Le Toux closes space high up the pitch instead of retreating to the midfield. Columbus easily turned that error into a breakout by playing the ball into the space left behind by the Union’s winger.

Le Toux stays high instead of dropping into a line with the midfield.

These examples do a lot to explain why the Union were willing to trade away Cristian Maidana’s fifteen assists, and they speak to macro issues with defensive spacing. But Earnie Stewart and Jim Curtin spent a lot of SuperDraft capital on the defense because controlling space involves smart pressing up front and compression in back.

“We found ourselves getting so stretched from our front line to our back line,” Curtin said. “Sixty yards at times, and that’s… I don’t care how many athletes on the field are good or bad athletes, you’re going to get picked apart by a team that can pass.

Columbus plays the ball central then easily transitions wide to break forward in numbers with Le Toux left chasing. (2 of 2)

“When that number shrinks to 30-35 yards front to back, I don’t care where you are on the field, whether you’re high up pressing in their half, whether you’re pinned in at the top of the 18 and it’s only 30 yards, you’re going to be a hell of a lot harder to break down.”

And the Union are capable of such organization. They had it against

Columbus in April before they collectively forgot to play defense. They had it against New England in October before dropping too deep and letting the Revolution fire a 21st birthday’s worth of shots at Andre Blake.

Dropping too deep was a troll that refused to let Philly cross the bridge to relevance last season. Early in the year, Ethan White’s low confidence led him to weird positions deep behind his fullback that continually invited service into the corner.

White may have been unafraid of 1v1s, but he struggled to win them. Later in the season, the Union back line dealt with a

Union defense compressing space well: All players within 20 yards. When Tierney collects the ball he will be under pressure from Ayuk, Lahoud will cut off a central pass, and the only option will be to play back where a striker should be ready to pin the ball to the touchline.

different issue as it became clear that Steven Vitoria was extremely timid in wide areas.

“He’s a good defender,” Curtin said, “But his skill set called for us to drop our line. He did not like to get isolated. That makes everyone change by 4-5 yards, which is a big deal in our league.”

Vitoria’s cautious nature is clearly evident on tape. Against New England late in the season, he continually pulled the Union line deep and invited pressure as Philly could not cover all the space in the middle when the Revs moved the ball with any speed. And as the team tired of chasing, that 30 yard shape that Jim Curtin wants to see began to stretch.

The Union drafted fast, technical defenders. To remedy last year’s struggles, they will look to play a higher line that compresses the field and forces the opposition to outrun guys like Josh Yaro and Richie Marquez into the corners. Marquez showed last season that he can run with anyone, and Yaro has the same reputation. Better pressure up front is designed for force long, early passes. A high line in back is meant to force strikers to go a long way to track down those passes. And guys who can run are supposed to make tracking down those passes extremely hard.

Vitoria holds a man onside for no particular reason.

In short, the Union have a defensive strategy and, unlike last offseason, they are bringing in players with the attributes to execute that strategy.

But that is still only half the battle. Curtin and his staff have to show they can train a back line — and goalie — to move as a unit. Compressing space makes it a lot harder for the opposition to hit throughballs, but leaving spaces between the fullbacks and center backs will allow even a tight defensive shape to get burned.

“We got isolated outside a lot, guys got beat, center backs didn’t slide out quick enough, it wound up being free service, and in our league you get punished for that,” Curtin told PSP. “We have games where you go, ‘This team is all on the same page. They can press, they’re picking balls off, they’re scoring goals.’ And then you have games where you go, ‘What the hell…’”

Wenger presses too high, getting tight before his line can shift over. That’s about as much space as you’ll ever see between a fullback and a center back on a pro team.

Teaching a defense how to operate as a unit is one of the key ways that Curtin could be judged as a coach this season. Philadelphia has a young defense with a lot to prove, and how that unit develops will be a firm measure of the Union coaching staff.

Curtin knows this, and when asked how he will approach this task, he says it is about understanding the players as individuals so you can train them to play as a team.

Wenger Island? No support leaves Wenger, who is new to the fullback game, all alone.

““Different guys learn different ways. One thing Earnie’s been very instrumental in is an individual plan for each player. So each player will now have, from the technical, the tactical, the psychological, they will have their own plan. Not just on the field, but also in the video room by themselves or in the back four or the midfield three. So we’ll have a much better grasp of each player’s individual needs. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it sets us up better to have success if everybody is on the same page and understands the commitment it’s going to take. Because if one guy is late, or if one guy is lazy defensively, it leads to trouble.

Curtin believes a focus on individualized preparation can prevent the falling to pieces that characterized the Union’s most demoralizing losses in 2015. “I want everyone to have the mindset that everyone attacks and everyone defends. Hopefully that leads to, right off the bat, a belief that we can come back. Look, you’re going to give up goals. It’s part of the game. But at the same time we need to have a better reaction after we do.

A lot of times when we gave up goals last year, you could see the faces on the field thinking, ‘Oh, this is going to be an uphill battle.’”

As Curtin himself said, every team gives up goals. But in 2016, the Union need to make teams work to score. And that means a defensive strategy that minimizes space, the personnel to execute it, and a coach that can drill the strategy into the heads of a young but talented defense. Philly rode a brilliant defense to the playoffs in 2011. Curtin will be perfectly happy bringing his club back to the postseason the exact same way.