Patrick Viera's W-M Against Orlando

Patrick Viera has met a wonky roster with an equally wonky formation. Given a squad with approximately 56 attacking midfielders and exactly zero defensives ones (until he secured Federico Bravo on loan) Viera didn’t try and fit square pegs into round holes. Instead, he took advantage of Yankee Stadium’s comically small field and abundance of attackers. For all intents and purposes, Viera employed the old school W-M formation popularized in the 1920s and seems he will continue using it as his default home formation.

Viera’s W-M - Applying the “number” system of naming formations doesn’t exactly apply here but the W-M could be classified loosely as a 3-2-2-3 or a 3-4-3 but neither tell the whole story. Preferring slow, possession-based play, NYCFC looked to build attacks Mix Diskerud and Tommy McNamara took turns dropping deep to receive passes from Pirlo. From there, the central attackers would either look to play give-and-gos with the wide attackers (Tony Taylor and Khiry Shelton) or look for David Villa to help make plays.

Taylor and Shelton (or Steven Mendoza in the second half) operated as sort-of wingbacks throughout the game. Either player was equally liable to attempt a dribble into the box or track back and form and act as a de facto outside back.