WASHINGTON – Lions interim head coach Bobby Murphy seized the opportunity to play to a new strength in City’s U.S. Open Cup Round of 16 match on Wednesday.
With center backs Jonathan Spector, Lamine Sané and Amro Tarek all fit, healthy and back from national team duty, Murphy rolled out a three-back formation in hopes of “getting us right.”
“I have three international center backs, so I played all three of them and then just built the team from there,” Murphy said after the Lions advanced to the quarterfinals on penalties for the first time since 2015.
The three showed stability in the back rarely seen during City’s recent run of form – and perhaps even before. Not since May 6 had the Lions allowed fewer than two goals, save their 3-0 win over amateur side Miami United FC in the fourth round.
“The goal tonight was just to be harder to play against and be a little bit better defensively,” Sacha Kljestan said. “Bobby challenged us to be better defensively individually and that collectively we have more cover for each other.”
Playing with three central defenders allowed Murphy to deploy RJ Allen and Mohamed El-Munir as wingbacks, giving them free reign to get as far up the pitch as necessary without leaving gaping holes behind them.
Murphy also moved Kljestan, who is usually the Lions’ playmaking No. 10, deeper in the midfield – where the services of Yoshimar Yotún are on temporary hiatus as he leads Peru through the World Cup group stage – into a role Kljestan played for five years at Anderlecht in Belgium.
“I actually came to Bobby and asked about me playing a little bit farther back while Yoshi is gone,” Kljestan said. “Bobby was already two steps ahead of me and had the lineup ready and had me in there and I was all for it.
“I like it. I like having an extra guy back there and then the spacing of always having our wingbacks give us width as well was good. We gotta keep working on it and fine-tuning it but good start.”
A need for some fine-tuning is to be expected, though. Goalkeeper Earl Edwards, Jr. said the team had trained in the formation just twice leading up to Wednesday’s match.
“It wasn’t as pretty as we would’ve liked,” said Edwards, who made five saves and then another in the shootout. “It was one we had to grind out.”
But as with the shift in formation, an ugly, come-from-behind, 120-minutes-in-the-pouring-rain win in a penalty shootout could be the catalyst for a team simultaneously searching for an identity while trying to right the ship and hang on to a playoff spot.
Because as they say, a win is a win.
Or as Murphy put it, “It’s just what everybody needed.”
