Away - February 20 - San Carlos - CCL (Postmatch)

I wasn't expecting to see us in a 4-1-4-1, but maybe that was just Maxi not being available to start. More of a 4-2-3-1 with Maxi, but I liked how much Keaton and Ring were doing to get forward and create wide overloads. Mitri and Medina didn't look completely prepared for it and it seemed like Keaton and Ring were trying to occupy similar spaces.

Effectively Medina and Mitri both crept into the halfspaces very early in the phase of play, which helped us play very quickly through the middle. Part of this was a lot more one touch passing, weak foot passing between Sands, Keaton, Ring, Medina and Mitri, while Mata and Tinny transitioned into attacking positions much more quickly than we've seen before, and were playing balls into the box far earlier than 2019 NYCFC.

But yeah the other team were very porous so who knows what to take away from this.

Yes we definitely put the ball into dangerous areas more often and attacked with purpose more than we did in the past. I like it. But we need to know when to slow it down too. Having maxi on the field from the start would probably be better for setting the tempo.

I really enjoyed the unpredictability and dynamic flow to our play.

For the love of God I just hope we don't just start swinging the ball around the back and do nothing with it like early last year. That drove me insane
 
Brad Sims comes across as a really good guy in this video. Buying a round of beers, making sure the team gets the Pigeon to Costa Rica ... hopefully he's as good a guy as is being portrayed.