If you’ve watched the Chicago Fire play this season then you’ve likely seen more fullbacks on the field at one time than is medically advised. Hopefully, the arrival of Jairo Torres from Atlas, and Chris Mueller from Scotland by way of Orlando (because he has to exchange his currency from British Pounds to MLS TAM or something like that), means we won’t be subjected to the double fullback lineup anymore!
Don’t get me wrong the Fire actually have four pretty decent fullbacks. I just don’t want to see more than two of them at a time…maybe three if we are defending a lead late in a game. But four no thanks!
Speaking of fullbacks, one of them in particular will be especially happy to see the new arrivals, Boris Sekulić. At times this season Torres and Mueller will get minutes on the right. (My money is on Torres getting the majority of the starts there.)
Super Sekulić
Sekulić has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of Ezra Hendrickson’s defensive structure this season. His role is more clearly defined, and the balance in the team is better. Miguel Navarro and Sekulić aren’t both bombing down the wing at the same time and the center midfielders are providing better coverage when one of them does get forward. These small tweaks have made Sekulić’s life easier, and as a result he is playing really well.
According to the Goals Added (G+) metric from American Soccer Analysis, which measures the impact of a players on-ball actions on the likelihood of scoring or conceding a goal, Boris Sekulić is the most impactful player on the Fire this season with 0.59 G+. Most of his positive contributions come from interrupting the opposition attacks high up the field. He leads the team in tackles (6 per Fbref) in the attacking third of the pitch. Then once he gets the ball he’s been pretty good at playing quick one-twos, and making positive runs down the right side.
Attacking Honor Roll
Interestingly, the player with the greatest negative impact on the team scoring a goal is the player who has spent most of the season playing just ahead of Sekulic at Right-Mid, Stanislav Ivanov who has a -1.18 G+.
It’s like Sekulić is that “A” student working in a group project who convinces his partner to participate and help out when they are both at school, but when the partner has to take the project home to work on it independently he drops it into a muddy puddle.
Luckily for Sekulić he’s about to be partnered up with a new student who has a pretty high GPA coming in. If Sekulić can continue to win the ball in midfield or higher, and consistently choose the right pass then Torres will at the very least have a good foundation to build on, and hopefully show that he has the skill to turn promising possessions into goals.
Pass and move fundamentals
I went over several examples of the Fire wingers failing to make the right decisions in the final third a couple of weeks ago (here). So let’s take a look at something more positive today.
Sekulić receives the pass from Giménez who makes a run down the line and gets a return ball from Sekulić. Who also immediately makes a run forward off the back shoulder of the Minnesota midfielder.
After Giménez receives the ball on the sideline he back-heels it into the path of Sekulić, who again plays quickly forward into the feet of Przybylko just off the edge of the picture. And again Sekulić follows his pass to make himself available for a return ball.
Przybylko lays the ball off perfectly into the path of Sekulić who plays a nice through ball to Shaqiri who nearly gets a shot off inside the Minnesota eighteen before he’s crowded out by the Loons defense.
Through this whole example Sekulić played three one-twos with two different Fire players and it nearly created a great team goal. This is the way the Fire should look even more often down the right once Torres is in the mix. He’s a player who is known for his combination play and good technique, not a burner who’s going to get behind a defense, or necessarily dribble past two or three players on his own. But luckily in Sekulić and Shaqiri, who likes to drift to the right, he will have players capable of playing quick pass and move combinations to create scoring opportunities.
Meanwhile on the other side I’m expecting Chris Mueller to be given the green light to get the ball and go at defenders, and make runs in behind, so that once the tiki-taka right side sucks the defense over there will be plenty of green grass on the left for Mueller to run into.
A good team is all about forming solid partnerships across the field and despite recent struggles the defensive partnerships still look strong, now hopefully the pieces are in place to create those positive attacking partnerships and Sekulic/ Torres looks the most ready made partnership to me.
