One player was moved out of his comfort zone; the other moved into his.
Interim head coach Bobby Murphy shook up the lineup Friday by moving usual left back Brek Shea up to his more natural left midfield spot and defensive midfielder Darwin Cerén up to right wing, a spot he’s played in sparingly as a Lion.
But it was hardly a new position.
Cerén, the captain of the Salvadorian national team, has played in both the No. 10 playmaking role and No. 8 right midfield role for his country.
“I talk with my family, they say, ‘Why you play in the right wing?’ I say, ‘The coach say I play in that position,’” Cerén recounted after training this week.
His job: contain the only American to play in four World Cups – left back DeMarcus Beasley.
“I was not nervous because I have too many games there with El Salvador national team against Argentina, Spain,” Cerén said. “No, not nervous.”
Murphy wasn’t nervous about it, either.
“Part of the thinking was that a lot of [Houston’s] attack would come from DeMarcus Beasley coming down the side and having a defensive presence to push him back a little bit,” Murphy said. “I think he did that.”
With Cerén hounding him on the wing, Beasley completed just a single forward pass in the attacking third.
“He nullified him.”
The other big lineup change for the Lions was Murphy’s decision to move Shea up to the left wing. Under the previous regime, Shea was often slotted at left back, tasked with getting up the pitch and generating offense from the back. With Murphy, Shea went back to “what made Brek Brek.”
“Stay wide, get after people and get the ball in the box,” Murphy said. “I told him [Thursday] in our meeting, I’m not going to fit square pegs into round holes. You go do what you do.”
It’s been perhaps Murphy’s biggest challenge since being thrust into a head managerial role – figuring out the best combination of players to get results on the pitch. But different people find different solutions to different problems, and Murphy has taken a new approach.
“We’ve worked hard to find what qualities each player brings to the team and how to best utilize those,” Murphy said Tuesday. “Sometimes it may be modifying a role it can be enhancing a role, it could be just trying to put people in the best spots to be successful.
“That may be a little bit different for them, but they’ve all been really great in their approach to recognizing that the group comes first and that they’re willing to do what needs to be done.”
The strength of the group’s bond is something that each player to address the media has pointed to in the past week, regardless of outside noise.
After such an emotional week, getting back to just playing soccer – whether in more comfortable roles or those tweaked by their new coach – was just what the Lions needed.
And maybe more importantly, they kept Houston off the board. They earned the confidence of a stout defensive performance and kept their home-unbeaten streak alive.
“We put a foot in the right direction tonight by getting our first clean sheet in [a while],” defender Luke Boden said. “It was a good start for us to turn things around and get the clean sheet. You have to start somewhere.”
