Nashville SC are in the full swing of preseason. After kicking off their preseason camp last week in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, they'll begin their slate of preseason friendlies this week. The Boys In Gold will take on the Chicago Fire and the Colorado Rapids on Tuesday and Friday, respectively, before returning to Music City for a week.
Without the ability to watch these initial matches, takeaways are limited to whatever cursory information can be gained from lineups, scorelines, brief highlight clips, and information relayed through post-match press conferences. There's still valuable insight to be gained into how the squad is shaping up before the games begin for real on February 17.
Here at SixOneFive Soccer, we're breaking down some of the most pressing questions from the first matches of preseason.
What type of partnerships form?
I'm combining this question with another question I had – "which formation does BJ Callaghan settle on?" – for a few reasons.
First, if you've listened to Callaghan's interactions with the media, you will have noticed that he's fully detached from the idea of formation. To him (and, I'd wager, virtually every coach), soccer is less about formation and more about principles of play; how you press, how you build from the back, what types of passes you look to play in the final third, etc. All of these principles are interchangeable across multiple formations.
Callaghan has already hinted at using different formations this season. In fact, he has said he wants his team to be able to change shape within the game, depending on the phase of play and the specific situation. I think we'll see much less of a set shape this year, with the team taking a more fluid approach instead.
"One of our early objectives is going to be, can we be more adaptable?" he said in his first media availability of the year. "And I wouldn't box that into even adaptable game to game, but can it be maybe adaptable from phase to phase? So if we're building up closer to our goal, can we be in a certain structure? And then, if we move closer to scoring and goals, can the structure behind the ball or how we're doing it be in a different way? As a team, if we want to evolve and elevate the things that we've already done well, can we become a little bit more adaptable in different phases of play?"
Ben Wright
While the formation is of secondary importance, the shapes Callaghan uses will give good hints at the partnerships he's emphasizing. Last season, the 4-2-2-2 was seen as a way to get Hany Mukhtar and Andy Nájar in similar areas, allowing them to combine and interchange. This became a building block of the attack for the full season.
