Welcome to Spacing and the Spirit!
Plus a bit about how I look at tactics
A bit about me
My name is Mike Keeley (he/him) and this is the first post of my newsletter(?) covering the NWSL’s Washington Spirit primarily from a tactical standpoint. Starting out, I’m expecting to post mostly player previews, opposition analyses, and match reviews, but hopefully more as I think of it. A newsletter feels like something someone who has been doing this longer (ever) should have, but Substack seems to require the least of the technical/design work I am not cut out for, so here we are.
And thank you for being here and getting this far! I have been a soccer fan for 12 or so years now, first following the Chelsea men, Chelsea women a handful of years later, and then our Washington Spirit seriously in 2020 with the inaugural Challenge Cup. That first cup got me interested, and when I moved back to DC in the Spring of 2021, that championship team and Trinity Rodman’s rookie season got me hooked.
There is some great coverage of this team out there, from Black & Red United in particular, but as someone who loves to read (or listen to podcasts) about my favorite teams I’ve always been surprised there was not more coverage on this team to consume, especially in terms of tactical coverage. (And if I simply have not found other publications that do exist please let me know!)
And since I like to write but don’t really have another excuse to do it at the moment, I thought to give writing about this team a try and hope it’s just as fun (and that anyone reading has fun as well).
It’s a great time to get into this league, with players and fans organizing to expel the worst members of the ownership and management class like Steve Baldwin and Richie Burke in addition to the NWSLPA having fought hard to win their collective bargaining agreement, which finally introduced a free agency system and many other necessary reforms. If you’re a new fan, I hope I can help get you hooked on this team like I have been. And if you’re a longtime fan I hope I can contribute something to your enjoyment of our team.
Welcome! And thanks again for reading.
How I look at tactics
Reasonable people can differ on certain objectives of a successful tactical system in soccer, but there are certain objectives that any successful system must address. For me, the most foundational building block of building a tactic is that the system needs to create space for your players to use when you have the ball. Some teams (willingly or unwillingly) possess the ball less often than others, but virtually all teams have to — at times — know how to attack a defense that is behind the ball (or at least not do such a poor job that they lose the ball in bad spots and get counter-attacked over and over).
Therefore, a team needs to field a system that can create width when in possession - consequently forcing the opposition to spread out across the pitch to defend the flanks, leaving spaces for attacking players to exploit. Most commonly, you’ll see a team accomplish this via traditional wingers, tactically-disciplined wide forwards, or wing backs.
At the same time, a team needs to create depth. This requires (ideally) a couple of players working to threaten and pester the back line, driving them further back towards their own goal and opening up pockets of space between the opposition midfield and defense. Getting a creative player “in between the lines” on the ball = good things about to happen. Most commonly, a team will accomplish this with a sole central attacker and a wide forward tucked inside, two wide forwards playing with a central attacker who likes to drop deeper and vacate their usual territory, or a pair of central attackers playing together up top.
Teams playing more defensively may only have one player doing this work up top, but you will see this less often in a league like the NWSL that is geared towards parity like other American sports.
Those ideas are primarily focused on the attacking side of the game, but any decent system also has to consider the balance between the team’s attack and defense. The best way to do this in my opinion is by determining where in your tactic holds more attacking or defensive responsibilities. To avoid becoming easily outnumbered at either end of the pitch, a system should have five primary defenders and five primary attackers (+ the goalkeeper). Of course, no player (in a successful system) is just an attacker or a defender. Every player will pass the ball and help retain possession, and every player will get behind the ball at times or work as part of a pressing system. A great coach (empowered by talented players) will find ways to craft a system where their five attackers and five defenders can add value at the other end of the pitch while also fulfilling their primary responsibilities.
Because of this, I tend to prefer variants of a 4-3-3 or 3/5 at the back systems (and does provide a possible explanation as to why those formations are highly popular in today’s game). In most 4-3-3 systems, specific player and stylistic instructions differ, but your back four as well as a holding “six” midfielder make up the defensive five. The two advanced midfielders on either side of the six as well as the front three complete the attacking five. In a system with three center backs that is not too defensively-minded, it is usually those three plus two holding six midfielders in the defending group, and the wing backs focusing more on their creative duties alongside the front three in the attacking group. Systems that convert between four at the back when defending and three at the back when attacking are also increasingly common, but rare enough that we don’t need to go into it right now.
Again, very defensive teams may commit fewer players forward in hopes of frustrating a far superior opponent, but the competitive balance-focused setup of the NWSL again makes that less common.
There’s a lot more to it than that, and I’m excited to write more about different systems as the season gets started in late March. Until then, look out for player previews and what I think we might see from Mark Parsons’ staff come kickoff against OL Reign on March 26th.
Thanks for reading and hope to see you around!
Mike