DC United’s Coach Troy Lesesne has so far fulfilled his promise of an aggressive approach to play. Saturday’s game against Montreal demonstrated how some teams will respond. In short, they parked the bus. Despite possession statistics slightly in Montreal’s favor, play was rarely in United’s end. Relying on speedy counterattacks, Montreal had a few very effective sallies forward which a scrambling defense cleared just in time.
The coach left two expected starters out in Gabriel Pirani and Pedro Santos. He explained the latter’s replacement with Connor Antley by citing Montreal’s using former DC defender Ruan who was a known threat, “That was kind of the plan tonight for a large part of the match for him to be able to handle that. And then if the game started to open up a little bit more, it made more sense for Pedro to come on.”
He explained Pirani’s late entry similarly, “I thought it was the right move to have Cristian Dajome to play early in the match as he’s been performing well for us. And you know, we wanted the game to start to open up a little bit and that’s when I think Gabby has time and space, this is where he’s at his best. And he showed that there was some really, really bright play.”
Lesesne continued to use a varied attack, employing a transitional defensive midfielder in Matti Peltola short, along with Christian Benteke long, as central options while employing dynamic wing play on both sides. The pairing of Jared Stroud and Aaron Herrera on the right was complemented on the left by Ted KuDipietro, with frequent interaction with Dajome.
Passing has become increasingly crisp which allowed United to keep play in Montreal’s end most of the first half. Montreal adjusted some in the second half which opened up play as Lesesne had expected. Less expected was the entry of Jackson Hopkins for Peltola in the 62nd minute. It is unusual to give such a vital role to a young player.
The coach explained, “I think he is a really, really talented central midfielder that has more of a skill set to probably be an 8 and be a little bit more advanced up the field. But what he showed us against Saint Louis was someone that was really disciplined, someone that could break things up and also calm things down when needed – – – I’m really proud of how he’s continued to grow throughout this entire season.”
Hopkins gave his perspective, “I feel really comfortable on the ball. There’s a lot of responsibility in terms of checking the defense, almost like a definite, and then also helping the transition and then working that off at least to a great extent.” Asked if this was part of practice, “Last year, not so much. But this year I’ve been, you know, focusing on that more because I haven’t, you know, I’ve been with my whole life. I’ve kind of been attacking.”
On the right wing, Herrera often drifted well into the center, leaving half the width for Montreal’s attackers to receive the ball unchallenged. This has been a tendency in MLS which was especially visible Saturday. Herrera explained, “We’re not too worried about him because if they switch the point of attack we have plenty of time to get over.” He went on, “We try to keep them towards one side.” The concept is to clog that side to make penetration more difficult.
Lesesne summed up that approach, “I thought that the line of confrontation that we picked up helped us because Montreal was very good at playing through the middle. I mean they typically can open teams up and they did a few times against us tonight, but Ku and Klichy, again, hold a big responsibility, as do Matti Peltola and Jackson. And we want to close the center as much as possible.”
United moves on to play Columbus with a now solid idea of how to implement Lesesne’s plan. The coach is pleased with progress, claiming that a couple of ties might have easily gone DC’s way. He has given real responsibility especially to Hopkins, but also to Kristian Fletcher who came on for Stroud just before the winning goal. His activity and comfort in attack may yield more playing time as the season goes on.
DC United
CF Montreal
