Photo: Earl Gardner

Who: Philadelphia Union vs. DC United
What: 2016 regular season game
Where: Talen Energy Stadium
When: Friday, May 20 at 7 pm
Watch: UniMas
Whistle: Jaime Herrera; Adam Garner and Claudiu Badea; Juan Guzman

DC United has won three matches this season. In those wins, DC has scored eight and conceded zero.

In their other eight matches they have scored five and conceded thirteen.

Like much of the Eastern Conference in 2016, DC has struggled for consistency. But unlike Columbus and New England, for whom these struggles also seem real threats to their identity and philosophy, DC just seems to have games where the counterattack works and others where it, well, really doesn’t.

Controlling the counter

This season, DC has stuck with a fairly consistent 4-4-2 diamond with Marcelo Sarvas cleaning up in front of a clunky but strong back line. Sarvas isn’t the best positional defender, but he’s a very good man-marker and will follow deep runs then play the first ball out of defense.

That first ball often goes to Lamar Neagle or Patrick Nyarko at the wide midfield positions. Both players operate narrowly, leaving the flanks open for overlaps from Taylor Kemp and Sean Franklin.

But the real aim of the DC offense is to move the ball forward quickly, no matter the route, and get it onto the feet of the forward players. Alvaro Saborio and Fabian Espindola are the real goal threats, but lately playmaker Luciano Acosta has been operating next to Saborio in a free role.

There are two key measures the Union must take to control DC United’s counter: First, do not let Neagle and Nyarko advance the ball with their feet. Both players are extremely smart with the ball (even if their passing can let them down) and know how to look behind a defense for Saborio’s curling runs.

By forcing these players to use their help either in the center, through Nick DeLeon, or on the wings, the Union can slow down DC’s attack and take Saborio’s dangerous runs out of the offensive equation.

The second key is even more straightforward: Keep Acosta off the ball. Just don’t let him near it.

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AcoStar

After a slow start to life in MLS, Luciano Acosta is figuring out how to exert an influence in a quick, vertical, and very physical league. It is unclear if he will develop into a Cristian Maidana-type player who sacrifices defensive positioning to find space to pass, but one thing is for sure: If he can find a lane for the final pass, he will make it. And he certainly doesn’t need much space or time to do it.

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There are three things that immediately stand out watching Acosta play. First, and quite obviously, he’s tiny. Listed at 5’3”, I would not blink an eye if you told me Acosta was actually 4’1”. He’s so small that it looks like he left the other halves of his legs on the team bus. But about the time you finish wondering why DC let one of the pre-game mascots into the first eleven, you notice two more things about Acosta: He’s incredibly technical and fascinatingly aware.

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Although Acosta is listed as an attacking midfielder, Ben Olsen has been pushing the little man into the striker line so he can drift back into gaps between the lines or scuttle out into holes when fullbacks chase their wingers into midfield. Once Acosta has the ball on the wing, DC sends runners on either side of him to provide time and space, then they wait for him to make magic.

And the thing is: He can! Though only sporting a goal and three assists this season, those numbers don’t tell the full story of a player who can get out of tight space and play the pass that gives Nyarko or Neagle the time they need to drive at defenders or find Saborio running between the lines.

In short, DC is an industrious, blue collar counterattacking team without Acosta, funneling play quickly up to their dangerous strikers.

With Acosta in the side, they become much less predictable.

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The question is how well that unpredictability can translate into goals. Acosta certainly makes DC more difficult to defend by starting high and dropping deep, which gives defenders big positional choices to make. But without the ability to move the ball side to side across the pitch, the black and reds will end up relying heavily on Acosta to create big chances.

That inability to switch fields will go away if Nick DeLeon grows into his central midfield role.

But DeLeon has a lot of growing to do.

Filed under “Marfan”

Nick DeLeon is a good player. When he is in the final third, he’s a smart mover who can shoot and pass from a variety of positions.

But Nick DeLeon hasn’t done these things consistently since his rookie season, and when he drifts out of a match, he tends to go full-on Castaway.

Much like the Union’s Michael Farfan experiment, DC’s move to get DeLeon on the ball more by placing him in the center of the pitch has made it seem like the player has molasses in the brain. Moves that seemed to come natural on the wing happen just a bit slower, and DeLeon seems to be thinking his way through his positioning both offensively and in the defensive third. When Marcelo Sarvas chases a midfielder’s run into the back line, for example, DeLeon is slow to realize that he needs to shift to a deeper central role to challenge second balls and prevent free looks from 16-22 yards out. Defensively, DeLeon often looks like a player who can’t read what’s coming two passes ahead, and he fails to track runs or establish good, anticipatory positions.

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This may change with time, but for now it offers the Union a point of offensive emphasis: If Sarvas tracks Barnetta’s run, a second player needs to step forward because there will be space in front of DC’s deep back four.

Going forward, DeLeon has all the ability in the world, but he has yet to figure out how to impose himself on a match. A winger’s role is often to stay quiet so you can slip away into space unnoticed when the right angle appears. An attacking midfielder needs to help create those angles with earlier runs or moves that push a defense back or pull them into narrow positions. DeLeon still tends to interpret his role like a winger, waiting for things to develop rather than forcing them to change.

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Controlling the box

Without doubt, the DC United defense can keep out goals. Remember, this is a team playing with a third choice goalie behind Sean Franklin and Bobby Boswell, two players whose limitations absolutely should outweigh their benefits.

Yet, DC has one of the best defensive records in the East because they control key areas of their box incredibly well. Boswell and US international Steve Birnbaum are excellent in the air and attack crosses with verve. Sarvas’ responsible defending ensures that the central pairing, which struggles in retreat, rarely has to face a ball carrier at full sprint. On the wings, Kemp and Francis convince opposing wingers to settle for crosses by pulling in narrow defensively before flaring out wide during transitions.

It’s all very simple and straightforward from DC, which fits the middling roster they have put together.

Union attacking keys

Most important for Philly is to find ways to run directly at the DC back line. Drawing early fouls on Sarvas, Boswell, and Birnbaum will give the Union a lot more freedom on the ball. Second, patience in the final third will be paramount. The visitors are not overly aggressive defensively and this can encourage teams to settle for longer shots if moving the ball around for a while doesn’t open any holes. Patience will be a great generator of opportunities for the Union if they can find it and trust in it.

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The final key for Philly is to use CJ Sapong during offensive buildups. The Union have done a great job — often through Barnetta — of forcing opposing backlines to play defense while retreating. However, the Union struggle to make that retreat a chaotic one. By playing off Sapong instead of merely looking to send him the final ball, Philly can make a defense move laterally and lose their sense of spacing, which will make all those driving runs from Barnetta that much more effective.

Prediction: Union 3-1 DC United

Philly is the better team and should win this match. Playing at home against a team that is limited in what it can do offensively looks like a great opportunity for the Union to dominate with an extra man in midfield and pop a few chances away early.

That said, DC could easily drop a sucker punch with its size on set pieces, so the Union need to be disciplined and work on fighting through screens to avoid leaving anyone, I don’t know, completely open at the top of the box.

This is the type of match that playoff teams win by grinding out a victory with controlled, patient play. The Union are new to this “being the better team” thing, but they need to embrace this game as a chance to prove they can put out mature performances against teams that look to level the playing field through physicality.

A win would be nice for the Union, but a dominating, suffocating win would make a statement about how consistently this team can perform this year. In the first match of a three-in-eight-days series, the Union need to grab three home points against a subpar opponent.