Nashville makes its first foray north of the border (only this season, in fact, with next weekend’s game “at” Toronto taking place in Rochester, N.Y. instead) of the season. Ottawa Fury started limply but had rounded into form. What should we expect?
The essentials
Opponent: Ottawa Fury (7-8-3 USL). 17 GF, 23 GA so far in 2018, 10th in USL East, 8th in USL East Power Ratings and 24th in combined-table Pure Power.
Recent form: OTT (W-L-W-L-W) NSH (L-D-W-L-W)
The Line: Nashville SC +162, Ottawa Fury +142, Draw +220
Time, Location: 6:00 p.m. CDT (7:00 local) • Ottawa, Ontario
Event: USL Regular season
Weather: 84ºF, 0% chance of rain, 35% humidity, 10 MPH Easterly winds
Watch: Locally on MyTV30, stream with a subscription to ESPN+. See the list of soccer bars in Nashville if you want to watch remotely. Assembly at Tailgate Demonbreun, Roadies at Pastime ot Party Fowl Murfreesboro
Listen: Locally on 94.9 Game2 in English, 96.7 El Jefe FM en Español.
Follow: @NashvilleSC, @ClubCountryUSA, USL gametracker page, #OTTvNSH
Etc.: Light week ’round these parts.
Elsewhere: Golden Goal preview.
Ottawa Fury
As of today, this team is better than it appears. While it took until their seventh game to get an average-or-better performance (and their first win, a 1-0 road result over Penn FC), they’ve been below-average only four times in the 11 games since then: they’ve rounded into form in a major way.
“Ottawa have done a great job after a really rough start of being one of the most competitive teams in the league,” said Nashville head coach Gary Smith. “They give up
few goals, they’ve got a home field that is not easy to play on or at. It’s a turf field, they play it well and have a particular mind set and style about them and I think they’ve really gotten into a groove in that aspect.”
When you look at their defense (23 goals allowed in 18 games), it may not seem good on its face. Drill it down further once again, though, and 14 of those goals were allowed in their first five games: in the 13 since, they’ve allowed just nine goals, four of them in a 4-2 barn-burning loss to Charlotte Independence on the road. The offense has hardly lit the world on fire regardless of location (they’ve scored three goals twice, against NYRBII and TFCII, both pretty poor defensive teams), and when accounting for quality of opposition has actually been quite a bit worse at home.
So they’re getting it done defensively, and that effort is led by keeper Maxime Crepeau, who has shockingly not been named to the Best XI of the Week list once this year (though nor has Matt Pickens – it’s a lot of not paying attention going on with that vote), despite being the “bench” keeper four times. He’s tied for third in the league with eight clean sheets – it’s also frustrating that you can’t look up save percentage rankings for keepers in USL’s stats engines, but I would imagine his .762 success rate is up there. He’s helped in a major way by a very strong back four defensively: Colin Falvey and Nana Attakora are both outstanding centerbacks (though Falvey has been banged-up lately, ceding his spot to Thomas Meuilleur-Giguère), and left back Onua Obasi has been a multiple Team of the Week selection.
As I mentioned above, news of their offensive renaissance has been greatly exaggerated: they’ve been shut out in two of their last three home matches, and they’ve only scored multiple times in five games (against Atlanta 2, Toronto II, Penn FC, New York II, and North Carolina), and one of those was in a loss. It’s fairly common to keep them from scoring twice or more, and if they don’t hit that mark, the defense is solid-not-elite enough to keep high-scoring teams off the board – alas, Nashville is certainly not such a team.
The offensive effort is led by Steevan Dos Santos’s four marks, while Adonijah Reid and Kévin Oliveira are the only other multi-goal scorers with three apiece. All three of Reid’s came in the game against New York Red Bulls II, for which he was named to the team of the week. Right winger Carl Haworth has been in-and-out of the lineup with minor injuries lately, but when on the pitch, he’s the team’s captain. He was also the goal-scorer and the near-assist man in the preseason friendly between these sides. He’s tied for the team lead with two assists, alongside Dos Santos and Tony Taylor.
Ottawa has been mixing up formations a bit, but when they have the full squad, prefer either a 4-4-2 or a 4-3-3 (perhaps a semantic difference, with Haworth playing pretty high on the right side either way).
The Boys in Gold
I think we’ll see a new formation out of Nashville. Against a punchless offensive team, but one whose defense is very stout, NSC should try to be a little bit more forward-thinking. Dropping to one defensive midfielder and going to a 4-1-4-1 (a.k.a. 4-5-1) or even a riskier 4-1-3-2 seem like distinct possibilities to me.
This team needs a way to step up the offensive output, and Ottawa won’t be an easy team to do it against with the same formation and tactics we’ve been seeing. A minor shakeup in personnel (against a team that shouldn’t score easily either way) should help accomplish that.
“I think we have to go in probably not the same we’ve have been going in,” defender Ryan James said. “Every game, we need to go in not saying we need to tie or hold them to a 0-0 tie, but with the mentality to win the game and score goals, so we need to start out on the right foot. I’ll say we’re going in with the same mentality we have and we need to execute a little bit better than last game coming from Charlotte.”
That sounds like a team that plans to mix things up just a bit. I’m speculating a bit on the method and means of that shakeup, naturally, but one is coming. Given that I don’t expect to see Bolu Akinyode, one CDM makes sense (especially when a more traditional midfielder like Matt LaGrassa can slide back to help cover, as well).
That said, I do think the hand-wringing about the state of the attack is a little overdone. A little bad luck here and there can really make an enormous difference in a sport where three goals is a great output: the high variance of a single moment in the game helps overrate a team’s ability to replicate the creating of those moments – and the creating is much more highly correlated with future success than even the finishing of those created chances.
“I don’t want to dip from [our] standards and the players don’t,” Gary Smith said of recent results, “Sometimes you have to refocus and look at a couple areas of the game again that have gotten away from us slightly and come back sharp and ready to get back on track this weekend.”
While Ottawa is greatly improved from the beginning of the year, this isn’t a horrible opponent to do just that against.
Projected lineups
Here’s what I’m look for:
Captain Reed is your lone defensive midfielder, while Lebo Moloto and Matt LaGrassa continue working the chemistry that they’ve been building recently. You could also see this look more like a 4-1-3-2 with Moloto pushed up top with Allen, and the fullbacks pushing a little bit higher up the pitch in possession.
Ropapa Mensah, a winger, and potentially another defender are your substitutions (possibly another striker, with Tucker Hume a possibility against his former club).
Predictions
I don’t see Ottawa scoring, but naturally projecting a big offensive day from NSC is a fool’s errand, as well.
- Allen breaks a bit of an unlucky streak and gets the scoring going on an assist from Ish Jome early in the game.
- Nashville pushes the wings really high trying to generate some crossing-oriented offense, opening some gaps for Haworth to run into. There are scary moments (especially with Reed playing solo as a defensive midfielder), but nothing much doing for the Fury.
- The second half of the game is more open than you’d expect with Nashville holding a lead. Gary Smith continues to push for more – and it pays off with Mensah getting on the scoresheet off an individual effort, though there’s also a moment where Ottawa has a great chance, with Oliveira feeding Taylor, whether the shot actually goes in or not is more a matter of Pickens and luck than of NSC’s defensive acumen in front of the keeper.
- The game slows to a slog late, with Nashville trying to continue holding that lead.
Nashville wins, 2-1. This is obviously not the type of scoreline we expect from Nashville (multiple goals! opponent scores in a loss!), but I do think a slightly more aggressive formation is likely, without all CDMs available, and the Boys in Gold simply want to show they’ve got the ability to put the ball in the net. With two easy opponents coming up, a calculated risk can still lead to a win in Canada’s capital.
Club and Country 