One of the aims of the Film Room is to take you deeper into the goals and to point out things that you may have missed the first time around. That's especially true this week; considering the frenetic nature of the Crew's three-goals-in-four-minutes, it was hard to keep up in real-time.
This week, the focus of the Film Room is naturally Jairo Arrieta's match-winner in the 82nd minute against the Philadelphia Union, but to fully break down this goal, we have to go to a point even earlier than the above highlight elected to show.
The highlight begins with the Crew dribbling down the middle of the field in the tail end of the 82nd minute. To me, illustrating how the Black & Gold even got to that position in the first place is the key to this play.
Let's rewind the tape a little bit to an earlier part of the 82nd minute. Amobi Okugo has the ball for Philadelphia and has a wide option available in Andrew Wenger:
Okugo hits a pretty nice longball here that Wenger is able to corral just in front of the corner flag:
You can see how quickly he is closed down on by Hector Jimenez. It's important to remember that Jimenez, although an extremely capable rightback, is in the lineup with the intent to get forward and create in the attack. But here, he makes a defensive play that springs the Crew and makes this goal possible. One-on-one with Wenger, the former Impact striker tries to put a dribble on Jimenez, who sticks the ball perfectly with a tackle:
It's a brilliant tackle, and you can tell from the above still just how close Wenger was to pulling the dribble off. Also notice that if he had completed the play, Vincent Nogueira (number five in blue) looks like he would have had a chance at a free run to the back post. Jimenez's tackle could very well have not only helped create a win, but also saved a loss.
Jimenez wins the ball and plays quickly ahead for Ethan Finlay, who lays it off for Wil Trapp, who then finds Ben Speas in the center of the pitch. There's a lot of physical movement involved, but the following screencap summarizes the ball movement fairly well:
It's a textbook counterattack as the Crew quickly gets upfield. The ball is the fastest object on the pitch and from the time Jimenez digs it off of Wenger in the corner to the time that it gets to Speas in the center circle, the Black & Gold completed three passes over the span of roughly six seconds.
When Speas eventually gets it, you can see the wide open space that he has:
This is largely because of Okugo getting forward after hitting the original longball. Go back and look at the screenshot of Jimenez's tackle. Okugo (number 14) is in the penalty arc, looking to get on the end of a cross. It's hard to fault him for stepping up in this situation, because the Union knew that it needed the full three points, but Hector's tackle foiled the plan and the Crew was able to take advantage on the counter. Thus, when Speas starts this break, the Black & Gold are in a situation where just Maurice Edu and the four-man backline are able to support the defense, and as you can see, it's six-on-five for the Crew.
Speas plays it out wide to Bernardo Anor, who continues dribbling and sees this in front of him:
Okugo, circled, has hustled back, but he's still a step behind Tony Tchani, who has gotten forward for the Crew. If he hadn't gotten forward on the previous play, it's possible that he would be in better position to close the Cameroonian down here.
You can see that Tchani is calling for the through ball, as is Jairo Arrieta, but the gap of space between Raymon Gaddis and Ethan White makes the short ball from Anor the easy call, because that pass pulls White out and creates the space for Arrieta to make a run inside Carlos Valdes.
White has to come all the way out to defend against Tchani. Okugo has gotten back into the play, but Arrieta is able to find the gap between him and Valdes. Tchani sees it and times the ball in perfectly, and from there it's a nifty little finish and three points for the Crew:
Another all-around fascinating goal that is, on the surface, a good counterattack by the Crew, but also great spatial awareness, fueled by the clutch tackle from Jimenez to start the play.
