OK Herre we go

I watched the Stanford-UNC game last night on the DVR, and here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

This was not the same Stanford team I watched on Friday. Clearly several players were not feeling well. When making a statement like that, the customary rejoinder in sporting circles is "well that is no excuse". What does that really mean, anyway, this stuff about "not an excuse"? I've never really  understood that. If nothing is an excuse, why not force injured players to play through any and all injuries all the time? "Hey! Your broken left femur and your torn-to-shreds right anterior cruciate ligament are NOT EXCUSES! Put down those crutches, and get off that bench and get in there, and get me some GOALS! NOW!!!" If a soccer team loses a game because one one of the team buses, the one with all the starters and coaches on it,  tragically drives over a cliff killing all aboard an hour before kickoff, is that still not an excuse? I guess not, because the mantra in sports is nothing, nothing, nothing is an excuse. Now I get it.  I think.

OK, so a strength-sapping, dehydrating, cognitive fog-inducing stomach flu nagging  4 or 5 of your starters is not an "excuse". I will stipulate to that.  But can we at least call it "relevant"?. Several of the Stanford players reportedly came down with some kind of stomach thing after Friday's game. But its not an excuse. But I will call it a reality. This showed especially in the first half, when Stanford was not even in the game. Stanford played better in the second half when they subbed in some apparently healthier bodies, but still it wasn't enough.

The goal. I don't think there was anything the defense or the goalkeeper could do to keep that one out of the back of the net.  The perfect, bending, weighted cross was placed perfectly for the onrushing McDonald. It was too far out for Kira Maker to come off her line for. It was placed perfectly between the central defenders. It might be argued that Noquiera was given too much space to make the cross, but bear in mind she made the cross from beyond downtown. The dmids know that high balls from there the defense can clear from danger all day long while eating a ham sandwich. The girl just hit the thing with amazing power and precision. It was just a great play. Every once in a while, in both football and in futbol, a "Hail Mary" finds its mark. It happens.

Teresa Noyola might be a Carlos Valderrama against lower-table teams like Oregon State or St. Marys or whoever, but she was invisible in this College Cup.  In both games, both the other attacking midfielders did far better than she did.  While TN was in, KO had to track back to TN's area to get the ball from Riley or other defenders because who knows where TN was. Levin played better at that position than TN did, and Levin was playing out of her natural positon of forward.

Lindsay Taylor, for the send year in a row, did not have a good College Cup.  Like TN, she likes to feast on lesser teams, but when the competion is a national powerhouse in a win or go home situation, she wilts. Because LT was particularly ineffective as a high forward in the UNC game, this allowed UNC to key more on KO and CP.

Kira Maker's problematic distribution in the UCLA game became outright frightful in the UNC game. Kira is a good shot stopper, she is a good positional keeper, but in this Final Four her distribution (punts, goal kicks, throws, free kicks) went STRAIGHT to the other team ALMOST 100% of the time, the whole game. As a matter of fact, if we want to lay some blame for the goal, blame Maker, because UNC's Noquiera got the ball FROM KIRA MAKER.  Shortly after UNC's goal, they almost scored again, twice, because Maker kept GIVING THEM the ball on a silver platter IN OR NEAR THE STANFORD HALF.  You can't do that against UNC and expect to win.  The miracle is that Maker's passing to the other team did not result in a 5-0 blowout. Credit the Cardinal backline for keeping the scoreline respectable.

On the offside calls, who knows. Given the poor camera angles I can't really make a judgment.

KO played like she cared. She played like it was her last college game, because it was. She took some risks, made some necessary professional fouls because the desperate situation called for it, and she got a couple yellow cards.  Had more Cardinal players played as hard and cared as much as Kelley did, yeah there would have been more yellows, but maybe Kelley could have gotten by with taking one for the team instead of two, and maybe just maybe the game result might have been different.

UNC is the only team in women's college soccer that has a comprehensive system. Other teams, even great teams like Stanford, employ various situational tactics, and though they do so very well most of the time, it is usually still a conscious, deliberate process. UNC, though, has a system which is drilled into these players so deeply, much of the time they do it unconsciously. They don't have to think about it.  I think some coaches need to study and emulate UNC's approach.

Take, for example, the ball-pressure portion of their system. The girls don't even have to think about it. A pass by the other team is made, for example, from a defender to a midfielder. In response, one UNC girl bodies up and pressures the ball immediately, and in a flash another joins in. Other nearby players instantly adjust to clog the passing lanes. Everybody instantly knows what do do, and they do it so well it looks choreographed.  When you have the ball against this scheme, your options dry up pretty quickly.

When UNC has the ball, there is nobody in women's soccer better at making off the ball runs. The ball carrier almost always has multiple passing options. It's automatic. It's, shall we say, systematic.

UNC's systematic approach is so ingrained in that program, you can see the same style of play express itself year after year after year. It doesn't matter who is playing, the system remains the same, and it is very effective.

So that's it. The season is in the books, with UNC ranked #1 and Stanford #2. I said before that any of the final four could win the whole thing. And one of them did.