In the 63rd minute on Saturday, Justin Meram notched his first career MLS Cup Playoffs goal after pouncing on a squared ball in the box from Wil Trapp, who showed great soccer awareness in helping make the goal happen.
The play starts when Andrew Farrell clears a ball from inside his own box by booting it skyward. It falls to Trapp, who heads backward to maintain possession. Here's Trapp at the moment he first plays the ball:
Remember what Thierry Henry said about Trapp being the key to the Crew because he builds the play out of the back? Here's a good visual example of exactly that. After heading this ball to Steve Clark, Trapp hustles backward in order to collect the pass and start the play forward once more:
After a few passes, the ball eventually finds Federico Higuain, who attempts a through pass to get the ball forward. We don't have a clear look at the run made by Aaron Schoenfeld; here's the first instance when he appears in the frame (circled at left). With four Revs in or around the line connecting Higuain to Schoenfeld, you can get a sense of the difficulty of this pass and the vision required by Pipa to even attempt it:
It's understandable that the Revs do a good job to cut this out, but not entirely, as the ball comes back to Pipa, who elects to play it out wide to Hector Jimenez. Now, the Crew has a good chance to get the ball into the box. When you watch this replay back in motion, you can see the urgency with which the Crew attackers hustle to get in position when it's clear that this is a good opportunity to cross.
Here's the moment that Jimenez serves the ball inward:
Looks pretty good for Columbus. Note Waylon Francis aggressively pressing forward from the leftback spot, as well as Trapp getting forward as well. The latter ends up making the difference for the Black & Gold. The Revs again do a great job to win this ball in the air, but unfortunately for New England, it falls right to the feet of Trapp in a dangerous position. He has options:
I see three realistic options that Trapp has here, at the moment he makes his first touch, He could attempt to hit a looping ball to the back post, he could try to blast it on goal, or he could lay it off to Higuain. For as intelligent a player as we know Trapp to be, he's not typically in a position where he has to make split-second decisions in the box, which makes his vision and ability to choose the third option all the more impressive.
Here's the very moment he squares the ball. Tight window, huh?
In fact, it's so tight that Scott Caldwell narrowly gets a touch on it, sending it wayward from Higuain and toward Justin Meram:
And it's a clear finish from 10 yards or so:
It's a shame that the deflected ball caused Trapp to lose an assist, because his awareness and the decision to play the difficult ground pass to the center of the box makes the play for the Black & Gold.
