War Strategy and Soccer: is a War of Attrition or a Perfect Strike Better for Winning?

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War Strategy and Soccer: is a War of Attrition or a Perfect Strike Better for Winning?

For the purposes of this article, we’re going to define a soccer game through the lens of the home team. It’s their turf, their fans, and their local pride. More importantly, the home team generally chooses the style of gameplay that will occur. This is dubbed “Home Field Advantage.” Home Field Advantage is backed up through data analysis as well, as MLS home teams generally win 53% of games season by season, higher than most every other league in the world.

War is the same way. The home country generally decides the style of fighting; Guerilla Warfare like Che Guevara, or a Battle of Attrition like the French in World War I? This is dictated by a clear strategy coming from the leadership at the top, as well as knowing the local land and intricacies of the surroundings, combined with the technology and mindset of the time.

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Offseason Outlook: Orlando City

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Offseason Outlook: Orlando City

Orlando City haven’t really ever been “good”, per se. They were “entertaining” and “competitive” in their first two years with Kaka. And then, from 2017 to 2019, they were varying shades of bad.

But they’ve never been in existential crisis until now.

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All of our 2019 Offseason Outlooks

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Over the past few weeks we’ve published an article about each MLS team diagnosing their rosters points of depth and weakness, and offering our suggestions for what kind of changes are needed before the start of the 2020 season. Here they all are in one place, so you can get caught up on each team’s needs.

Eastern Conference
Atlanta United by Tiotal Footbal
Chicago Fire by Eric Walcott
Columbus Crew by Eliot McKinley
DC United by Eric Walcott
FC Cincinnati by Jeff Bull
Inter Miami by Drew Olsen
New England Revolution by Harrison Crow
New York City FC by John Muller
New York Red Bulls by Alex Bartiromo
Montreal Impact by Kevin Minkus
Orlando City by Mark Asher Goodman
Philadelphia Union by Jared Young
Toronto FC by Kieran Doyle-Davis

Western Conference
Colorado Rapids by Mark Asher Goodman
FC Dallas by Jason Poon
Houston Dynamo by Dustyn Richardson
LA Galaxy by John Muller
Los Angeles FC by Mark Asher Goodman
Minnesota United FC by Dave Laidig
Nashville SC by Ben Wright
Portland Timbers by Drew Olsen
Real Salt Lake by Kevin Minkus
San Jose Earthquakes by Jamon Moore
Seattle Sounders by Ian L.
Sporting Kansas City by Kevin Minkus
Vancouver Whitecaps by by Eric Walcott

Offseason Outlook: LA Galaxy

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Offseason Outlook: LA Galaxy

On November 13, the L.A. Galaxy announced that it would not return to Major League Soccer in 2020. "Since [its] arrival in 2018, [the L.A. Galaxy] has positively influenced the sport of soccer in Los Angeles," said area businessman Chris Klein. "We thank [the L.A. Galaxy] for [its] professionalism and immeasurable impact on the Los Angeles community and the soccer community in North America as a whole.”

"I wish [the L.A. Galaxy] the best, dude," said Los Angeles resident Sebastian Lletget, who attended the Galaxy’s games and sometimes even training sessions. "It was a good run."

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Offseason Outlook: San Jose Earthquakes

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Offseason Outlook: San Jose Earthquakes

It was a tumultuous season for the Quakes, which saw them fall from a midseason peak of second in the Western Conference down to eighth – four points out of a playoff spot. Based on publicly-available contractual information Earthquakes fans were expecting some mass departures at the end of 2019. Contracts were up for fan favorites Chris Wondolowski, Florian Jungwirth, Judson (on loan), and Cristian Espinoza (on loan). Earthquakes General Manager Jesse Fioranelli quickly addressed the first three, and then paid approximately $3 million, to Villarreal for a permanent transfer for Espinoza. However, other contracts that seemed to be expiring had been previously extended (Andrew Tarbell and Shea Salinas) or curiously had their option picked up (Matt Bersano), while only three players had options declined (Francois Affolter, Jimmy Ockford and Kevin Partida) with one contract allowed to expire (Harold Cummings).

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Offseason Outlook: Houston Dynamo

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The offseason in Houston once again brings more question marks for the Dynamo as they enter yet another period of rebuilding. Gone are head coach Wilmer Cabrera and captain DaMarcus Beasley, in is former United States U23 coach Tab Ramos and a roster with plenty of holes still to fill.

A new era brings a bit of a renewed hope in the fanbase, but the Dynamo still have a bit of work to do if they want to compete in an increasingly difficult Western Conference. If Ramos and general manager Matt Jordan can fill the remaining holes in the roster and get the team to buy-in to the new system, this team could perhaps make some noise in 2020.

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Offseason Outlook: New England Revolution

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Offseason Outlook: New England Revolution

Bruce Arena doesn’t believe in stats. 

Like, not the fact they exist. He’s actually been very vocal over the years as to how helpful and insightful he feels they are due to, well, the fact that there are a lot of circumstances that drive their results.

While his candid thoughts and hesitant approach concerning analytics have understandably rankled the analytics community, it’s Bruce Arena you know? He has a specific way he likes to do things, and he’s not going to change. 

The reality is he’s spent over 20 years crafting and refining his own personal processes for distilling information; an artful approach he trusts and has proven both in concept and reality over his tenure in Major League Soccer. It’s not that more information isn’t better or can’t be helpful but the lack of trust in what that information implies and how to alter decision making from it. 

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Offseason Outlook: Inter Miami

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Offseason Outlook: Inter Miami

For better or for worse, we now inevitably place modern MLS expansion teams in one of two camps. First is the Minnesota/Cincinnati Camp, which is really the “they chose poorly” category. Teams in that class mostly didn’t spend much money, wasted the cash they did spend, and found themselves among the worst teams in MLS history, expansion or otherwise. The second category of expansion side is the Atlanta/LAFC version, which consisted of wise strategic planning that led to their teams competing for trophies in their inaugural seasons.

It’s probably not fair to force each new team into one of those two boxes, but we do it anyway because it helps us frame our preconceptions of them. As the league continues to expand at a rapid rate, we will continue to get more chances to unfairly label expansion teams in one column or the other. The labels for the 2020 expansion teams are still unclear, but Nashville SC looks to be on the fast track to follow in Cincinnati’s footsteps. For Inter Miami CF, the trajectory is still unclear. Despite being linked to nearly every star player in Europe over 30, they still haven’t dropped the cash. No matter if reality ultimately meets expectation, it is clear is that Miami still has a lot of work to do before their season starts on March 1st.

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Offseason Outlook: Toronto FC

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After finishing the 2019 regular season on a hot streak Toronto FC were comprehensively dominated in every playoff game (except against DC United) but somehow found their way to MLS Cup. Losing the best two out of three to Seattle hurt, but making the final was a surprise for a team that didn’t quite look like putting it all together until the end of the season. Before the playoffs I think it would be fair to say most fans were fixated on the team being headed for a rebuild. However, with most of the departures being fringe players or squad reclassifications, Toronto looks ready to re-tool rather than rebuild for 2020.

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Offseason Outlook: Montreal Impact

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Offseason Outlook: Montreal Impact

Montreal head into the offseason with a lot of open questions. Does Ignacio Piatti stay? Does Orji Okwonkwo return? How will new head coach Thierry Henry try to play?

I don’t know what formation Montreal will play in 2020. Henry doesn’t have enough head coaching experience to be able to pick out his tactical preferences. And Montreal played seven different formations last season while trying to get their best roster on the field. So I don’t know how they’ll line up. I’ve fit them into a 4-3-3 for the purposes of this article, but, who knows?

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