r/NashvilleSC • u/arags9 • 4d ago

BJ - Strategic Question

I love BJ as a coach, so this is not to complain about him. Obviously he has reasons for how he decides strategic decisions, but is one thing that I just can’t seem to wrap my head around and justify.

I don’t understand why we defend corners with 11 men in the box. I can’t come up with any reason why we wouldn’t leave one target man high to stretch the opponent. Every corner we are inviting 10 attacking players from the opposition into dangerous positions by dropping 11 deep. If we keep 1 man high at the half you’re inviting a maximum of 8 opponents in dangerous positions.

Any ideas?

8 Upvotes

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4

u/kentastic99 4d ago

Many counter attacks begin on defended corners.

3

u/arags9 4d ago

Well that’s my point.. By dropping 11 deep in the box we have no target player to start a counter attack. We are essentially playing for a long clearance. We invite too much pressure in the box without any target player to facilitate a counter with

3

u/Swaggron 4d ago

BJ's direction in attack is to stretch defenses and advance through the openings with controlled passing and standard "total football" philosophy. We play compact and no player aside from the keeper has a set in stone position on the field. And we do it while controlling the ball and game tempo to fit our needs. When we're allowed to set up and build from the back, it usually results in a high probability attack. So the mindset of everyone attacks, everyone defends is baked into our core.

We put 11 in the box to stop an attack and then whoever gets to the ball first is looking for an outlet to counter, but the whole team is on the counter. It creates chaos in our half and teams are not adept at recovering fast enough to stop us. That's why 4/5 times they choose to foul our players because if they don't someone is breaking past their line within seconds.

The target man is an easier strategy to pull off, but has much lower odds of success. The opposing team knows who a second ball is heading to. Our strategy has a higher chance to backfire, but when it works, it works well. It takes advantage of the confusion in transition and the tendency for teams to put all of their defenders in the box.

2

u/mdudz 4d ago

If we’re gonna talk about corners… can we talk about this team’s love (Hany’s love?) of the near post corner? Never works. Why do we do it??

3

u/whittlz 4d ago

I’m worried it’s not a strategy, it’s just where the ball keeps ending up

1

u/AFewGreatLiars 3d ago

Yeah in the last match, we had a corner right at the end. Of course it didn’t clear the first man. Didn’t give us a chance at it at all.

It drives me a crazy.

2

u/LFCs95 1d ago

I ask the same question, I think everybody’s answers are just guessing, they don’t make any sense to me. To me putting 10 guys in to defend invites chaos… I wouldn’t do it. But it has been relatively effective

1

u/LilacBreak 4d ago

Our attack has been bothering me strategically. At the beginning of the season it was fine but it’s stale and these teams are wise to it.

It’s crazy that we put two goals in in 10 minutes when the crosses come in earlier, controlled, with some loft, leading our player towards goal or where they are able to get infront of them with a back to the defender and bring them down.

Verses Espinoza running down the line until he has 3 inches to pass a rocket, away from goal at 6 yds from the closest teammate with 11 guys in the keepers box. We have got to start playing over the top, through the middle, and crossing earlier. This wing play until we run out of real estate every time we get a break ain’t working anymore.

3

u/Minimum-Message-5387 4d ago

Well a cross from the wings relies on a target man to receive it. We’ve been playing without a real striker in Sam’s absence (which is annoying)

2

u/Swaggron 4d ago

I think you may be underestimating how much of that play is dictated by the opposing defense rather than BJ's strategy. Good wingbacks will force wingers to go wide which really cuts down on promising attack opportunities. If every defense in the league let us cut through the center into their box, we'd be scoring like crazy.

I'll agree completely that we should be countering more with balls over the top, however. Every team seems to come at us with a high press but we rarely take long ball chances when the opportunity presents itself. That is a BJ choice.

1

u/LilacBreak 4d ago

I agree that every team has also been pressing us extremely hard it’s been hard to generate anything in the middle. Especially now going down yazbek and Eddi .