Matt "the Armchair Analyst" Doyle breaks down both of Sunday's second legs of the Conference Championships of the Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs. Check them out.
EAST: Columbus-New York | WEST: Portland-Dallas
In this space I spend a lot of time talking about the tactical minutiae that separates the mediocre from the good, the good from the great and so on. I don't spend a ton of time talking about set pieces, and I don't spend a lot of time talking about golazos.
The Portland Timbers executed on restarts, and Dairon Asprilla did something spectacular. That's why they hold a 3-1 lead over FC Dallas in the Western Conference Championships heading into Sunday's second leg (5 pm ET; ESPN | WatchESPN | ESPN Deportes | TSN2 | MLS Live).
The Trends:
Portland have won four straight away from home, and five of their last six. Each of their last seven road results would be good enough, if replicated, to get them past Dallas and into MLS Cup.
However, they are capable of completely falling apart. In June and July they lost three straight road games by scores of 5-0 (at LA), 3-0 (at Philly) and 4-1 (at, yup, Dallas).
Throughout the week I've mostly soft-sold FCD's chances, since two-goal first leg deficits have proven do difficult to overcome -- it's happened just twice in league history. But six of Dallas's last 11 home games have produced results that would get them past the Timbers, including that 4-1 win.
Does that mean their chances of getting through are better than 50/50? Naw. But it does mean that if they hit their stride on the right day, they can destroy just about anyone. Including the Timbers.
So don't write them off just yet.
What Portland Will Do: Keepball
There's been some discussion about formations for the Timbers, who get Diego Valeri and Rodney Wallace back from suspension in this one. Will Caleb Porter put Valeri back into central midfield and flip the triangle back to a 4-3-3? Or will he keep the more defensive-minded Jack Jewsbury in there?
There are arguments for both, but the arguments for getting Valeri on the field are better.
Simply put: The central midfield combo of him, Darlington Nagbe and Diego Chara is creative, defensively sound, athletic and terrifyingly gifted on the ball. They don't missplace their passes.
This is Jewsbury's passing map from the first leg:
By no means is that a bad performance, but each one of those red lines is an incomplete pass -- a turnover. And each turnover is a chance for Dallas to get out in transition, where they are truly scary.
Getting Valeri onto the field means fewer of those turnovers to deal with.
How to solve it: Bring the back line up
Dallas probably have to throw a certain amount of caution to the wind and bring their entire defense up a little bit on both sides of the ball. Make the field smaller for the Portland central midfield and take away their ability to change the point of attack.
What Dallas will do: Get on the overlap
The most dangeorus moments from Dallas in the first leg came when either of the fullbacks was able to get forward on the overlap. Doing so comes with inherent risks since Portland's wingers -- most notably Lucas Melano -- are excellent at exploiting that space on the flanks:
In the first 30 seconds of the first leg, we saw both sides of that coin. FCD pushed their fullbacks way up into the attack, and Melano nearly got himself a goal on the counter. Expect a lot of that in leg two.
Dallas have the pieces to make life hell for the Portland defense, especially if Mauro Diaz is allowed to spray balls all over the field as he did in the first leg. The more targets you can give him, the better their chances of overturning the deficit are.
How to solve it: Play direct off of turnovers
That play up there is basically the blueprint. When Dalas get stretched vertically, Portland will be ruthless in driving the ball in the other direction. Wallace and Melano are both excellent in those situations, and in Fanendo Adi they have a true No. 9 who can hold the ball up with his back to goal and then play runners through.
It's a deadly combo.
What's it all mean?
I thought the first leg would be cagey, and couldn't have been more wrong.
So take this with a grain of salt, but I think this game will be wild and wide open. The first 20 minutes should be particularly frantic.
And when the smoke clears, I expect Dallas to win... but not by enough. Portland will go through to their first MLS Cup.
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