Straight Red Hat Trick

WPS in Trouble

2010-01-28T12:51:00.000-08:00

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help but to think the disbanding of the Los Angeles Sol is an ominous development for the young Women's Professional Soccer leage (WPS). Why?

1. LA Sol was the flagship team with the marquee player (Marta). This club gave the young league what it needed most, which were cachet, good buzz, and good crowds at most venues.

2. It has been stated in soccer-learned cicles that the WPS league's finances are more compartmentalized, which in theory makes it less likely that the demise of one franchise would drag the others down. This is, of course, true, but one can't help but to think, at least for reasions stated in #1 above, the unspoken assumption behind this is "as long as the failing club is not the Sol".

3. Now there is going to be a dispersal draft. This means that players currently under contract to the Sol will be dispersed to the remaining teams. This is NOT good news for the new WPS college draftees, who will see their opportunities for playing time significantly diminish as they try to compete with the displaced experienced pros. That is too bad, becuase the main buzz and cachet the league has right now is by far the best draft class in eons.

4. If Marta leaves the league to play overseas, and she probably will, that translates directly into a reduction in media exposure (Sportcenter, etc.), which the league desperately needs to continue to attract the interest of new fans.

5. This HAS to be a major chill for prospective corporate league sponsors, which the league desperately needs more of. If I were a potential investor, I'd cast a pretty jaundiced eye at a WPS sposorship proposal with the knoweledge that the leagues flagship club has folded. Sam deal with club sponsors. This. is. bad. Remember also that the league is already dealing with the headwinds of, shall we say, a slightly suboptimal economic mileu.

I hope I'm wrong, but right now it ain't lookin' good.

Getting it Right

2010-01-11T17:11:00.000-08:00

The Missouri Athletic Club got it right with its choice of Kelley O'Hara as recipient of the MAC Hermann trophy, college soccer's version of the Heisman trophy awarded in gridiron football.

A while ago I wrote on this blog:

"Kelley O'Hara has shown herself to be the best soccer player in the country. Through 26 matches, 25 of them consecutive victories, this player has proven beyond doubt that she was the best player (over the whole course of the season) in the country. She led her team and entire the nation in scoring. She made everybody on her team a better player. I have no idea what else she could possibly have done to prove herself. Don't take my word for it, though. I am just an opinionated soccer fan. Ask someone who actually knows something about soccer, starting with every one of the coaches Stanford played against this year, including Anson Dorrance. Actually you don't need to even ask them. Just use that newfangled internet-thingie and look up their post-game quotes."

Well, the quotes apparently got around among the coach voters, who did the right thing, and gave the crystal futbol to the best player in the country.

WPS Draft Triumvirate

2009-12-30T12:28:00.000-08:00

The consensus among the sages at Bigsoccer seems to be that Cheney, Heath, and O'Hara will be, in some order the top three picks in the Women's Professional Soccer draft. Generally, the prognostications run in about that order, as well.

It very well could be that way.Cheney is a pure striker, and the conventional wisdom in soccer is if a great striker is available, you pull the trigger and get him or her. It is hard to argue with wisdom like that. A fair number of bigsoccer folks have her as the #1 pick.

Tobin Heath is a great attacking midfielder, probably the best in the college game. She reads the game well, she creates, and she can run out of the midfield and score. Word has it in WPS coaching circles is she will go as the #1 pick to the Atlanta team.

My #1 pick, though, would be Kelley O'Hara. Why? Simple, really. KO is every bit as good and dangerous a striker as is Cheney. And she is as good in the attacking midfield as Heath. Throw in the facts that KO can defend. She can win balls. She is what the Dutch call a total footballer. Think Johan Cruyff.

And let's not forget we are talking professional soccer here. If I am a professional coach I want the best soccer player over the best striker, best midfielder, or best whatever for my team. If your team has depth in the midfield, then you tell KO "we'll find you in the box, you just please put the round thing in the back of the net". If you have depth up top, you play KO as withdrawn forward or as an attacking mid. If you have depth both places, you let her run the flanks and let her shred those slow, plodding WPS outside backs. If you need someone to just go in there, run the show and play #10 quarterback for you, well there you go, KO is a player that makes everyone around her better.

Finally, she has got the intangibles. There are a lot of people more soccer-knowledgeble than I am who say no one plays with more heart, with more fire, with more desire. I'm reminded of what Pat Quinn, former coach of the LA Kings hockey team, said in response to a reporter asking about whether the expensive trade he made for Wayne Gretzky was worth it. He responded by recounting a game in which the Kings were down 4-2 with just a few minutes left in the third. Gretzky skated back to the bench after another double-shift and noticed more than a few of his teammates seemed resigned to losing the game. "C'mon guys, we are only two down. We can do this", was Gretzky's exhortation. Sure enough, the Kings pulled it out. Quinn concluded, "How do you put a price tag on THAT?"

Kelley O'Hara was Wayne Gretzky to the Stanford Cardinal. That is the kind of player you draft, no matter who else is available.

UVA Takes College Cup

2009-12-14T06:05:00.000-08:00

Never has egg all over my face tasted so good.

I had written UVA off, but UVA proves me wrong and takes the Men's National Championship in Soccer. It wasn't the prettiest match, a 0-0 draw after regulation and overtime, but PK's are always dramatic, and these were no exception, with UVA prevailing 3-2 from the penalty spot.

Technically speaking, UVA was inferior to Akron, just as they were inferior to Wake Forest in the semi. However, UVA has the best goalkeeper, backline, and defensive midfield in the college game, and this enabled the Cavaliers to neutralize the dangerous attacks of both of those offensive juggernauts.

Some thoughts:

Diego Restrepo, the UVA keeper, ought to turn pro. Now. The guy is that good. A very athletic keeper, reads the game well, excellent positionally, and a clutch shot-stopper.

Jonathan Villanueva played like a true #10 shirt. He was calm on the ball, let the game come to him, and made the great plays when he had to. I don't know if he has the speed and athleticism to succeed in MLS, but I have been wrong about him before, to say the least.

In Friday's semi against Wake Forest, I screamed so loud at both UVA goals that my son said he heard me from the middle of the back yard. My back yard is 4 acres, and mostly wooded. My four year old daughter did not know what to think, so she started crying. She was easily consoled once she was convinced Daddy (yes, I'm "Daddy" now to my two youngest children anyway, "Papa" and "Pop" having for some reason fallen out of favor) was indeed happy. Nontheless Daddy knows to try to keep a bit of a lid on it next time.

So, UVA's national championship stands in stark contrast to the wreckage of my season as a supporter of DC United (crashed, burned, did not make playoffs), Virginia Tech (one of the soccer-minnows of the ACC, devoured by the sharks), the Stanford Women (defeated in College Cup finals), and the USMNT, who did well and qualifed for the World Cup but suffered some potentially catastrophic injuries in the process.

I'll take it.

Ole-Ole-Ole-Ole, UVA!!! UVA!!!

2009-12-11T17:40:00.000-08:00

GREAT win by the UVA men to gain the College Cup final.

Gotta tell ya, I have been a pretty harsh critic of Virginia #10 Jonathan Villanueva over the years, but tonight he was a true #10 shirt and played dazzlingly well. His gorgeous, dribbling run into the box and shot led to the first goal on a rebound.

Then, in golden goal overtime, his lovely, sumptuous, exquisite, sublime, perfectly weighted long ball out of the back to his frontrunner was as nice ball as you will see anywhere, at any level. Ronaldinho could not have hit it any better. Great chip by the striker for the winner.

Wow, way to prove me wrong, UVA.

Another Look

2009-12-11T05:45:00.000-08:00

Having a 3rd look at SU-UNC final. Will post thoughts while replay in progress.

Kira Maker poor clearance out of back straight to UNC. UNC makes 2 passes, then final ball in for score. Maker gave ball repeatedly to UNC whether pressured or not.

Noyola terrible. Can't hold ball in traffic, passes straight to other team. What few passes went to her team were so slow and lazy they were useless and led to loss of possession. PR was absolutely correct to sub her out. Hate to say it, but she was the worst player on the pitch for either team. Heath and McCann were better AM's, but were no where near good enough. This is why KO, CP, and to a LT had to do the AM's jobs for them in addition to playing as strikers.

28th minute, Noyola out, LT moved back to midfield, Verloo up top.

Stanford overall in 1st half is just terrible. They are a day late and a dollar short to every ball. Not even in the match. If UNC could shoot the score would already be 3-0. UNC is good, but Stanford is so out of it they are making UNC look like Brazil.

37th minute. Sigh. its almost like Kira Maker is TRYING to kick the ball to UNC.

McCann off in favor is Noguiera. MN an improvement.

Levin in for LT. Definite improvement.

2nd half. Stanford playing a bit better, but still cannot keep up with UNC tempo. Just no gas in the tank for the Cardinal. If they had played like this in the NCAA first round they would have been eliminated in the first round. Of that I have no doubt.

Press active, but her first touch is off. Hit a nice long range shot, but over the bar.

Overall Stanford's play in 2nd half is an upgrade for the first half's "terrible" to, I'd say, "almost average". It is now about the level of, saym a 35th-ranked college team.

Red card might have sealed SU's fate, but it is also more than probable that Stanford still would have lost. In this game this Stanford team was a shadow of the team that won 5 games to get to the final.

Maker's distribution in second half every bit as bad as in first half. EVERYTHING she kicked up the field went to UNC. Maker should have been yanked at the end of the first half. Possession was a big enough problem for Stanford, but Maker GAVE them numerous, quality, dangerous possessions.

Unfortunate 2nd yellow for KO. Stanford not in match before red, had it not happened result likely would have been same.

All over but the shouting now.

CP unfortunately clearly offside on apparent late goal. Correct call.

Bottom line, Stanford physically just did not have it in that match. They just didn't.

OK Herre we go

2009-12-08T05:03:00.000-08:00

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.

Bad News Travels Fast

2009-12-07T06:42:00.000-08:00

I have not seen the match yet -- its on my DVR. But of course I know that Stanford fell to UNC yesterday in the College Cup finale.

I have to admit I had a bad feeling going in to the match. The cold in College Station gave way to RAIN and cold. In any field team sport, a wet, sloppy field is a great equalizer. This sport (not to mention this game) is no exception. I'm not even going to talk about the flu, which was a lurking concern in my mind for weeks.

This was overshadowed by the sense of foreboding that NC's strength corresponded exactly to Stanford's weakness. I have written before about how UNC is without peer in the college ranks in its ability to swarm the ball and pressure the ball in twos and threes relentlessly and mecilessly. They do this far better than any college team , and do it as well as any professional team. Though Stanford's poise on the ball in their defensive midfield improved markedly, it apparently was not enough to overcome UNC's strangling pressure. Both coaches attested to this reality in their post game comments.

I nonetheless remain persuaded of two things:

1) Kelley O'Hara has shown herself to be the best soccer player in the country. Through 26 matches, 25 of them consecutive victories, this player has proven beyond doubt that she was the best player (over the whole course of the season) in the country. She led her team and entire the nation in scoring. She made everybody on her team a better player. I have no idea what else she could possibly have done to prove herself. Don't take my word for it, though. I am just an opinionated soccer fan. Ask someone who actually knows something about soccer, starting with every one of the coaches Stanford played against this year, including Anson Dorrance. Actually you don't need to even ask them. Just use that newfangled internet-thingie and look up their post-game quotes.

2) Stanford, despite its loss in the finale and despite its few weaknesses which I have written about, showed itself, over the course of the whole season, to be the best soccer team in the country. They won the PAC-10, which is just about as hard as winning the College Cup. The PAC-10 is the best women's soccer conference in the country. Yes, better than the ACC, I don't care what the season (especially the near-meaningless early season) head-to-head stats say. The ACC does have North Carolina, but the ACC does not have Stanford, UCLA, and USC. Make no mistake, it's nice winning the NCAAs. But lets remember it is a large, single-elimination tournament. The gambling term "crap-shoot" is, at least in part, rightly applied to such tournaments. The best team does not always win in such a scenario.

Random Thoughts on Stanford Game

2009-12-05T07:52:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what is up with Noyola. In the first half, she was ineffective and she got subbed out. She came back in in 2h and was steady, but she was hardly the calming and creative force in midfield she is billed to be.

I fail to understand how the denizens of bigsoccer can be so critical of Ratcliffe. His team is 25-0! Hello! News flash, he might not yet be Guus Hiddink or Anson Dorrance, but I'd say the guy can coach.

Some perspective: 1 Stanford has had, BY FAR, the toughest matches of any of the final 4 teams. 2. In UCLA Stanford was playing a talented, and intense PAC-10 rival. That match was WAR, which is why it was, at times, not the prettiest, free-flowing soccer either team has played. Absolute WAR.

How anybody can rake the SU backline over the coals is beyond me. The back 4 were GREAT. Yeah, Cheney found some space on her goal, but it was one of the few times ALL NIGHT LONG the best pure striker (yes, she is the best "pure striker" in the country. Kelley O'Hara is the best SOCCER PLAYER in the country) could turn on her defender anywhere near the box. Plus, 99 times out of 100 Kira Maker parries that shot effortlessly over the bar for the save and Stanford gets the shutout.

The dmids were far more poised on the ball than I have ever seen them. Bravo. Pressure the ball a bit better when the other team has it, and they are in good shape.

About the only thing I would tell the Stanford players if I were the coach is to cut down on the number of unforced passes to the other team, especially from the GK position. That is entirely doable.

That, and please lets get our corner kicks more than three feet off the ground.

Otherwise, go out there, play hard and have fun, and bring home the cup.

Da-le, Da-le, Da-le Car-di-nal!

2009-12-04T18:40:00.000-08:00

That was just a flat-out gripping game between Stanford and UCLA.

Frankly, Stanford struggled until their turning point, which was Kelley O’Hara’s rasping, driven, dipping bomb from downtown for the 1-0 scoreline. KO shifted them into the next gear, and Stanford elevated their game after that.

Lauren Cheney is a great pure striker. Sydney Leroux is frighteningly fast, just a bit raw and a bit unlucky not to have scored.

Christen Press played the role of the classic striker. Some great strikers disappear for long stretches of the game, but then, like lightning come out of nowhere and electrify the match. She got a few touches early in the match, virtually none in the second half, but then finds a little space and smashes home a grass-burner that is too hot for the keep to win the game in OT. Wow.

Stanford’s defensive midfield was light-years better than they were in the Cal game. The backline was great.

I’d say Kira Maker needs to distribute better. Too many of her kicks went straight to blue shirts. I am a little mystified as to why she didn’t stop Cheney’s (admittedly great) shot. It went right by her hand, I thought for sure she would parry it over. It’s possible she lost sight of the ball. Oh, well, that’s soccer.

Bottom line is, like Brazil, Stanford got stronger as the match progressed, especially in the late stages and overtime.

Meanwhile in the Women's Bracket

2009-11-30T07:11:00.000-08:00

Back in college decades ago, I attended a retreat held by a campus Christian organization. After morning studies and lunch the afternoons were free until the evening proceedings. I joined a bunch of guys each afternoon on the basketball court. None of us played college ball, but some of us had played in high school. I was one of the sandlot scrubs.

Some of the girls on the Virginia Tech women’s basketball team were a part of the same organization and in attendance at the retreat. They were joined by some of their friends from the NC State women’s basketball team. One afternoon the lady basketball players came out to the court and said they wanted to take us guys on. We agreed, and the friendly game was on.

Our strategy defensively was to try to keep them outside and at least try to get a hand up when they set up to shoot. We knew if they got some time and space, they would shoot the lights out. Offensively, the idea was all-fast-break, all-the-time. Rebound, outlet the ball to Jeff or Jay, and let them streak the court for layups. We didn’t want a half-court game against them, because they were quick and clever, could steal the ball, and get layups of their own if we were not careful.

Our opponents knew they had to make their shots, and, if not, they had to get some rebounds. The problem was they did miss frequently, or had shots blocked, and they couldn’t get any rebounds. They tried boxing out the tallish scrub in the middle in twos and threes. When that failed, they would get a running start and smash linebacker-like into him, but the problem was they would just bounce off, and he usually got the rebound, fling the ball to a streaking Jeff, who would either layup or lay off to his front-running partner.

The games were not close, but fun was had by all.

I think today such a game would still not be close, but likely the women basketball players would handily defeat a team of male players with similar backgrounds to ours. Major college, major-sport women athletes are now world-class athletes. This is of course true in women’s basketball, but it is even truer at the elite levels of women’s college soccer.

In the NCAA Women’s College Cup you have THE best four teams in the country. All four of these teams play very sound, very technical soccer.

Perennial powerhouse North Carolina is the most cohesive, well-coached team in the country. So they lost three games during the regular season. Who cares, it does not mean beans. There is not a weak or even fundamentally suspect player on the entire squad.

Same deal with Notre Dame. Who cares about the early-season losses? The first three or four, or even FIVE games in the regular season are essentially training matches, since NCAA rules severely limit the amount of organized preseason training teams can conduct. Those games are not very significant indicators of the ability or potential of a team.

UCLA is a quality side with two of the best pure strikers in the country in Lauren Cheney and Sydney Leroux. This is a side that can beat anybody in the country, especially at a neutral venue.

Rounding out the final four we have undefeated and untied Stanford, led by Kelley O’Hara and Christen Press, two of the top scorers in the nation. The thing is they have a list as long as your arm of people who can put the ball in the back of the net. Like the Brazilian National Men’s team, they can even spot you a goal maybe even two and still win it going away.

So, you have four elite teams with great players, who are all extremely well-coached, playing for it all (at, I am relived to say, a neutral venue for a change). This could very well be the best women’s College Cup we have seen in a long time.

UVA Rolls On

2009-11-30T05:49:00.000-08:00

The UVA men's soccer team has made it to the NCAA round of 8 as a result of their 2-0 win against Portland. That makes their 10th shutout in a row.

Next up is uber rival University of Maryland. The tilt is scheduled for this Friday night in the rarefied climes of Charlottesville, Virginia.

I have no idea who is going to win this one. On the one hand, I never count out a side coached by Sasho Cirovsky. Add to that the fact that the Maryland supporters will be present in large and loud numbers.

On the other hand, the boys from Virginia are playing the kind of soccer that wins NCAA championships. It isn't that pretty, it's grind-it-out and get a goal or two and close the other team down.

Whoever wins this match could very well go on to win the whole thing.

In the Interest of Full Disclosure

2009-11-24T03:39:00.000-08:00

Since I wrote off the UVA men's team a few weeks ago, they have gone on a tear.

They WON the ACC tournament, they have WON their first two games of the NCAAs, the most recent outing being a 5-0 thrashing of Bucknell, with one of UVA's strikers getting a hat trick. They are sitting on a streak of NINE clean sheets in a row.

So much for my prognostication that UVA would do nothing in either tournament, and so much for my judgment that UVA "has no true strikers".

I think I read a liiiiitle too much into their performance in one game, the 1-0 victory in their regular season finale against NC State.

Boston College Women's Soccer Scouting Snippet

2009-11-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

I have seen Boston College play some this season.

One thing the denizens of Bigsocccer might not realize is BC has some great players BUT they are lacking, IMO, in the speed department. BC likely is going to have trouble with SU's pace.

A Few Ideas for Stanford

2009-11-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

As previously noted, its gets tougher from here, as if it has not already been tough enough.

Not a comprehensive game plan, but the following I believe will be helpful in the SCU match.

Maker does a nice job coming off her line. Occasionally though she is just a hair late. Another half second sooner would be optimal.

Defenders keep it up in terms of keeping your shape. Keep everything outside. Coordinate with the d-mids to pressure the ball in groups. A-mids should help in this regard. Garcimendez needs to man-mark the top opposing striker tight.

D-mids, don't get so rattled. You are some of the best soccer players in the country. Let's be a little more fearless out there. When you pass, strike the ball like you mean it. Don't be afraid to hold the ball a bit. That is why they call you "holding midfielders". Let's do a little holding instead of those premature boots up the flank, OK? When you receive a pass -- move, move, move. Standing around isn't going to lull the other team to sleep. That kind of thing does not work in MLS, where the pro men have made standing around an art form. Move. Make 'em chase you.

One thing you can do when you are short on space -- instead of booting those aimless balls up field, switch fields. Left to right, right to left. If nothing doing, back again or even backpass. Possession is the name of the game. When you are ready to play forward, play to feet. Speed kills, and Stanford almost to a player is faster than just about anybody.

Attacking mids, use your crisp passing to open space. Run at people. If the space closes down, then back pass or square ball. Get the ball to the forwards in the box, or run into the attack out of the midfield if they give you space.

Forwards, get the ball in the box and shoot. Volley it, Hit it with your weak foot. Head it. Bike it. Take your shot the millisecond you get an opening because the seam ain't gonna be there long.

Meanwhile, in the Other Brackets

2009-11-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

UCLA, being the media darling it is, was once again given an early-round cakewalk. Boise State? San Diego State?

Are you kidding me?

UCLA faces a sterner test in Virginia, and if they get by Virginia, I can't help but to think UCLA will face Portland. So, for the Bruins it gets tougher from here.

In the FSU bracket, we have by and large the usual suspects Notre Dame, Tex A&M and FSU. Seeded UF is out. UND, as always, worries me. They might be surging at the right time.

Then we have the UNC bracket. UNC is faced with rival Maryland. Maryland teams might not always have a corner on elite talent, but you underestimate them at your peril. The UMD - UNC rivalry is real and intense. Throw the records out the window. I still have to think UNC comes out on top, though.

Hold on Lassie, it gets bumpy from here.

(Engineer Scott to Jillian, as he was about take the commandeered Klingon Bird of Prey into the climactic time warp in Star Trek IV)

Been Tough, Gets Tougher

2009-11-16T05:51:00.000-08:00

When I saw the Stanford women's soccer team's draw going into the College Cup, I decided right then and there I was not going to make any public predictions this year.

NAU? I know, not a national powerhouse, but not a bad squad at all. But then, in the round of 32, SU got BYU, which I knew would be very, very tough. BYU has its own national cable channel, so the BYU women are on all the time. Other than not being the fastest team on the planet, they play total football and were apparently unlucky to go down 1-0 in the first minute against Stanford.

So now SU gets Santa Clara, a team that plays every bit as tough as BYU, but has more of a soccer pedigree and probably more soccer-savvy.

By a number of accounts, SU's defensive midfield troubles have continued. Sloppy, lazy passing, getting rattled and booting the ball upfield. Not going to the mattresses for the 40-60 or even 50-50 balls. THAT has GOT TO STOP. I once saw a sign in a baseball dugout (of all places) that said "Hustle Requires No Talent".

[TANGENT ALERT! TANGENT ALERT!!] OK, I brought up baseball. I can't resist going off on a tangent to give it a good slam, inasmuch as I think baseball, as far as watching it goes, has GOT TO be the most boring sport on the face of the earth, next to, say, curling and golf. Yet I suppose, even in a 19th-century, stop-motion, tag-team sport such as baseball hustle may have its utility. One final note -- I did say "boring to watch". I say in all earnestness baseball (and yes, I mean baseball, not its dumbed-down cousin softball) is fun to play. When I was 14, in a sandlot game, I struck out the neighborhood bully, with strike three being the only curve ball I have ever thrown in my life. I had no idea what I was doing, but that ball dipped down and away like nobodies business, causing Mr. Most-likely-to-join-a-motorcycle-gang to whiff by a foot or more. My older brother was the catcher, and witnessed it all. He can vouch for me if I refresh his memory aggressively enough. At that point, I had achieved more than all I had ever wanted to in baseball, so I walked off that field never to play baseball again. [End Tangent]

Anyway, in soccer, simple things like hustle aren't everything, but I would say it is 66% of everything. A great team has to fight for and win loose balls. A great team has to do things as simple as HIT THE BALL HARD when passing it. Why pass the ball slowly when you can pass it fast and crisp? Pass quickly and crisply, and the other team has to work a LOT harder marking and trying to dispossess you,and you create a LOT MORE space for yourself. Stanford D-mids, this means YOU. And, would say, Stanford needs to pressure the ball a lot better.

Perhaps it is time for the Stanford coach to settle on starting his eleven best soccer players from here on out, period. Tell them they are going to be in there unless they get hurt or gassed. Yes, it means some people are going to have to sit. But the fact of the matter is this is the "big dance" and that can only mean one thing:

You dance with the ones that brung ya.

Stanford v Cal

2009-11-10T03:36:00.000-08:00

I watched the match on DVR yesterday. It wasn't Stanford's best effort, but it was still more than good enough to achieve a 4-1 scoreline against crosstown women's soccer rival Cal.

Much has been said on bigsoccer about the somewhat shakey performance of the Stanford defensive midfield early in the first half. One problem was that once the d-mids won possession, their square, diagonal, and up-passes often were too lazy and slow, many being picked off again by Cal in the middle third. But after 25 minutes or so the defensive midfield began to better emulate the example of the attacking midfield, who were placing nicely paced and weighted passes all game long.

These kinds of lapses ar not entirely surprising, given the youth of Stanford's d-mids and central defense. The thing though is they need to stay crisp back there in the tournament. I think they will.

One more persistent problem against Cal was Stanford's habit of giving Cal's a-mids too much space in the midfield. This led directly to some worrisome Cal counter attacks with through-balls played to feet. It seems Stanford felt they could lay off a bit and give some space, and use their speed to close runners down. This, however, led to a habit of overrunning and thus missed tackles, allowing Cal to repeatedly get behind the d-mids. Fortunately for Stanford, the SU defenders kept their shape very nicely and closed down the threats. It also helped that Cal's frontrunners were not terribly fast.

This, too, is entirely correctable. The SU d-mids need to play tighter on their marks, period.

The only other thing I would say to Stanford defensively is they need to more pateintly build possession through the middle third. There were too many hopeful long balls that bypassed the attacking midfield which only resulted on lost possession. Be smarter with the ball in the back, and don't get so rattled by a little pressure. Again, as the game wore on, things improved in this regard. They need to stay improved.

On the offensive side of the ball, it was the diagonal runs, what few there were, that won the game for Stanford, and almost made it more of a blowout than it was. Though Kelley O'Hara's first goal came not from a diagonal run but from KO being in the right place at the right time and heading a high clearance back toward the goal along an almost equally high arc. The ball flashed just under the crossbar and in, Stanford rejoicing and perhaps Cal bemoaning the almost complete lack of vertical leap ability of their goalkeeper.

The diagonal run was money for KO on the second goal. She tore into the box to run onto a nice cross I think by Quon, and KO's lightning-bolt run was rewarded as she, with authority, smashed a gravity defying, Michael Jordan-esque flying header, expertly targeted for the far corner. You could see the "uh-oh's" in the eyes of the Cal players, but to their credit they had plenty of fight left.

On KO's third goal, the diagonal run again was the dagger. KO slashed into the box to one-time a long ball from the midfield. The Cal keeper once again had to dig the ball out of her net, Cal now realizing it is now all over except the shouting.

Cal did pull one back on a mystery PK call by an otherwise pretty good ref, but a short time later LT hit a bomb from downtown, exploiting the Cal keeper's dual inability to either leap or judge a ball in flight to make it a 4-1 scoreline.

Side notes: Christen Press, in her role running the right flank, was up against a quality left back. Even so, CP turned her inside out a number of times, and could have subsequently made runs deep into the box to earn the choice to either shoot or pass from close range. Most of those times she elected to make the early pass into the box, which proved time and again to be too early.

Verloo is a very good player, but a little raw, as top freshmen tend to be. She was the beneficiary of KO's magnanimity in the second half, with KO forgoing an open net on the right to instead feed Verloo in the middle, who unfortunately sky-ed the sitter. She missed a couple sitters on the day, but hey, it happens.

LT did a very nice job of holding the ball in traffic up high, and laying off to runners to wreak havoc. Several other Stanford players, especially d-mids, would do well to emulate LT's ballholding exploits, which they are entirely capable of doing. They needn't get so rattled under pressure to only boot the ball aimlessly upfield.

The announcers said SU was playing a 4-3-3. Ok, whatever. I hardly saw more than three in the back. Frequently there were just two. And Stanford's forwards and a-mids change roles frequently. The announcers rightly stated that KO is not just a forward but a playmaker who "makes the whole team go". Interesting. It is PRECISELY this kind of player that the US WNT is sorely in need of.

Cal is not UCLA or UNC, but Cal is a quality side with some dangerous, tenacious players. For Stanford, this was a win over a quality side, and an arch-rival to boot.

Thoughts on Thoughts

2009-11-09T03:37:00.000-08:00

DC United evaluating whether to keep coach Tommy Soehn. Whatever they decide is fine by me. All I want is, with a handful of exceptions, an entire roster of new players.

Tommy saw the writing on the wall and stepped down. I wish him the best, and I think he will land the coaching gig at another MLS team. Now DCU needs some players. And a coach. I am a little busy these days, so DCU should probably pick someone else, thanks.

UVA men ranked #10. Methinks that is a tad high. ACC tourney will likely bring that to light. I hope to get down to Charlottesville for their finale against NC State. UVA probably has one of the the finest college soccer facilities in the nation. Admission price is very low, soccer is good, and atmosphere is great.

I went down to UVA-land and saw them play NC State. UVA is overrated, probably about 8 positions too high. They have some good midfielders, they play nice team defense, but they have no pure strikers. The flanks are not involved enough, ESPECIALLY for what appeared to be a 3-5-2. #23 was dazzling for the first 15 minutes, then disappeared for the rest of the match. I seriously thinking about offering any willing UVA forward or A-mid, or *anybody* $20 to make a diagonal run. I saw only ONE all night.

The #7 shirt for NC State is the real deal. Dazzling dribbling skills, silky touch on the ball, and very clever. The problem is the rest of their team is not that good, and they had trouble getting him the ball. Most puzzlingly, NC State went down 1-0 in the first half, but played like they were *UP* 1-0 until very late into the 2nd half. State's game plan was clearly lacking.

UVA is not going to do anything this year in either the ACCs or the College Cup.

My strategy "How to beat Stanford" has failed a number of Stanford opponents in recent games. I therefore officially have no idea as to how to beat the SU women's soccer team. Except maybe to bunker 11 people behind the ball and try to get them to fire blanks from range. Problem is, give up corners or deep set pieces and all bets are off.

My ideas for beating Stanford certainly are lacking, but Cal's stratagem of talking smack about SU to the press before the game makes me look like a genius. That takes some doing, I assure you.

Many people, even some among their faithful, are writing off this year's UNC women's team. Fuggedaboudit. They will win the ACCs, which they have done *19 out of the last 21 times* the thing has been played. They will be in the Final Four. If two or three things go wrong against them, they win, regardless of opponent.

Cough-cough. They win the ACC. Again. UNC will top one of the NCAA brackets, and they will be in the Final Four, and I would not be surprised to see them in the final game. They could have lost three more games in the regular season than they did, and likely right now I'd be saying the same thing.

The conventional wisdom says "the level of play in MLS is much higher now than in the early years." Oh, really? Then how to explain the almost universal agreement that the 1998 DC United team was, by far, the best MLS team ever assembled? Or riddle me this -- why are 80% of MLS games so poorly, boringly played? Or tell me, grasshoppah, where are the Etcheverrys, Cienfuegos, Novaks, Valderramas, (young) Morenos, Diaz Arces, Lassiters? Now we have Barros Schellotto, Shalrie Joseph, and David Beckham. Great players, but there are too few of them. MLS, on balance, has treaded water or even declined a bit in the overall level of play department since its inception.

The level of play in the playoffs has ranged from average to awful. It is time for that league to get some more quality players.

Chelsea and Barcelona play soccer that is simply dazzling.Lionel Messi is quite possibly the best soccer player the world has ever seen. 'Nuff said.Didier Drogba is probably the best pure striker in the game today, and one of the best ever.

And Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead. (Line from the 70's. Sorry.)

Somebody on bigsoccer said so-and-so is a "better target forward" than Kelley O'Hara. Man, stuff like that gets my goat. News Flash: Target forward is just one of many KO roles. She can defend. I can count on one had the number of college forwards who can defend. She can create out of the midfield. She has a silky touch on the ball and can run at defenders with the ball at her feet. She can torch you along the endline. She strikes the ball soundly, with power and accuracy, and doesn't take an hour to settle the ball first. She makes her whole team go. Oh, and she does do that "target forward" thing of running onto long balls out of the back, blowing by her marker, and burying the round thing in the back of the ol' onion bag better than anyone in the college game. If all she had to do was be a "target forward" she could probably do that while eating a ham sandwich and a bag of chips. A word to the wise at any WPS team -- draft this player, put the number 10 shirt on her back and tell her, "This is your team. Do whatever you need to/want to to Make it Go." Then make room in the trophy case.

"Target forward". Give me a break.

Heh-heh-heh. Hats never should have gone out of style. :-)

My analysis of the SU-CAl match coming soon.

2009-11-03T03:35:00.001-08:00

I'm gonna take things one thought at a time today.

DC United evaluating whether to keep coach Tommy Soehn. Whatever they decide is fine by me. All I want is, with a handful of exceptions, an entire roster of new players.

UVA men ranked #10. Methinks that is a tad high. ACC tourney will likely bring that to light. I hope to get down to Charlottesville for their finale against NC State. UVA probably has one of the the finest college soccer facilities in the nation. Admission price is very low, soccer is good, and atmosphere is great.

My strategy "How to beat Stanford" has failed a number of Stanford opponents in recent games. I therefore officially have no idea as to how to beat the SU women's soccer team. Except maybe to bunker 11 people behind the ball and try to get them to fire blanks from range. Problem is, give up corners or deep set pieces and all bets are off.

Many people, even some among their faithful, are writing off this year's UNC women's team. Fuggedaboudit. They will win the ACCs, which they have done *19 out of the last 21 times* the thing has been played. They will be in the Final Four. If two or three things go wrong against them, they win, regardless of opponent.

The conventional wisdom says "the level of play in MLS is much higher now than in the early years." Oh, really? Then how to explain the almost universal agreement that the 1998 DC United team was, by far, the best MLS team ever assembled? Or riddle me this -- why are 80% of MLS games so poorly, boringly played? Or tell me, grasshoppah, where are the Etcheverrys, Cienfuegos, Novaks, Valderramas, (young) Morenos, Diaz Arces, Lassiters? Now we have Barros Schellotto, Shalrie Joseph, and David Beckham. Great players, but there are too few of them. MLS, on balance, has treaded water or even declined a bit in the overall level of play department since its inception.

Chelsea and Barcelona play soccer that is simply dazzling.

Lionel Messi is quite possibly the best soccer player the world has ever seen. 'Nuff said.

Didier Drogba is probably the best pure striker in the game today, and one of the best ever.

I really like European soccer, especially EPL and Primera, but I just have no real emotional connection to any of those teams. I don't live in Europe. But I do tune in for the soccer.

Somebody on bigsoccer said so-and-so is a "better target forward" than Kelley O'Hara. Man, stuff like that gets my goat. News Flash: Target forward is just one of many KO roles. She can defend. I can count on one had the number of college forwards who can defend. She can create out of the midfield. She has a silky touch on the ball and can run at defenders with the ball at her feet. She can torch you along the endline. She strikes the ball soundly, with power and accuracy, and doesn't take an hour to settle the ball first. She makes her whole team go. Oh, and she does do that "target forward" thing of running onto long balls out of the back, blowing by her marker, and burying the round thing in the back of the ol' onion bag better than anyone in the college game. If all she had to do was be a "target forward" she could probably do that while eating a ham sandwich and a bag of chips. A word to the wise at any WPS team -- draft this player, put the number 10 shirt on her back and tell her, "This is your team. Do whatever you need to/want to to Make it Go." Then make room in the trophy case.

"Target forward". Give me a break.

Correct Call

2009-10-22T04:50:00.000-07:00

Again, in soccer, THERE IS NO "HALO" AROUND THE GOALKEEPER. If he gets creamed on a 50-50 ball. SO BE IT. I really wonder if there is a youth referee anywhere in North America that understands that. Probably not. This ref, refreshingly, got it right.

The Highly Intellectual Side of Soccer

2009-10-20T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Two Towers

2009-10-19T03:49:00.000-07:00

This has been a rough year for me as a soccer fan.

DC United, as I wrote previously, gambling that old legs would still have some magic, lost the gamble big-time and are all but out of the MLS playoffs. The Virginia Tech men, having lost their coach due to apparent recruiting violations, is floundering somewhere in the middle of the ACC.
The UVA men are doing their usual "we are a pretty good soccer team" thing. The US Men have qualified, and that is great, but have suffered some serious, some would say catastrophic, injuries in the process. Thus the victory may yet prove to be Pyrrhic.

On the "Plus" side, though, are the Stanford women, who over the weekend knocked off powerhouses USC and UCLA by 4-0 and 2-0 scores, respectively. USC is a fine team, maybe not as fine as their tradition would dictate, but a national power nonetheless. They could not withstand the relentless, multi-dimensional onslaught (engineered by the two Maradonas, Kelley O'Hara and Christen Press) that Stanford rained down on them. This victory put Stanford firmly in what I call the "scary-good category".

Two days later, Stanford faced UCLA, a team that is entirely capable of beating any team in the country. Throw out their early season lop-sided loss to UNC. The first three games in any college soccer teams schedule, men or women, are essentially preseason games, due to very limited preseason practice time. UCLA is, top-to-bottom, an outstanding soccer team, and they have the best pure striker in the country in Lauren Cheney.

Well, #1 Stanford handed them a 2-0 loss. This game was, to be sure, an epic battle, UCLA almost putting 1 or 2 goals in the back of Stanford's net. But, unlike Stanford's Final Four match last fall, it was Stanford that got the breaks this time. This time, the round thing went across that lonely white line for the Cardinal, causing digits on the scoreboard to change in their favor.

So, it would seem, there are two towers rising above the rest in women's D1 college soccer. One has long stood in the rarefied climes of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The gaze of its flaming eye must surely be fixed on the other -- one rapidly rising and already imposing, on a farm in Palo Alto, California.

How to Beat Stanford

2009-10-14T12:35:00.001-07:00

I really don't like taking such a point of view on teams I like, but I thought I would try it.

If I were the coach of a team opposing Stanford, what strategy would I have my players execute in order to win? Well, here are the keys, as I see them.

1) Have my two best man-marking d-mids tag-team shadow KO. Cover her like a wet blanket. Deny her the ball. Force her to retreat well into her defensive half to get the ball. When one member of the d-mid tag-team gets tired, and she surely will, sub her out and bring in the other half of the tag-team to keep fresh legs out there. The thing about college soccer is you can be subbed out and then come back in the next half. That means KO will be marked by effectively 4 sets of fresh legs through the course of the game. Allowing KO to line up against an isloated defender to run onto early balls out of midfield or the back MUST BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS (within the bounds of sporsmanship). she will GET THE ball AND SHE will BURY IT. an-marking by the d-mid will allow the defender to back off a few paces.

2) If job #1 gets done, that means part, and I emphasize the word PART of job 2 is done, and job #2 is what to do about Christen Press. CP, if I have interpreted the film correcly, is more service-dependent and a bit more of a pure forward than is KO. If you deny KO the ball, that is less service for CP. However, CP can run out of the midfield with the ball at her feet, take on defenders and score. She will have to be zone-pressured. You can't man-mark everybody. WATCH OUT for her diagonal runs. MF's will have track back, and centerbacks will have to step up. Or be eviscerated.

3) Try to force SU's other striker into long range shots. Force everything wide, and NO CLEARANCES UP THE MIDDLE. Get them out, out, out of bounds, into the upper deck or into the next county if you have to.

4) Offensively. Play fast, play to feet, and run, run, run at the central defense. There are seams to be found for the diligent, assuming you can keep the ball.

5) HOWEVER -- play too much of a south-north game and you are toast. Playing too direct means giviong Stanford too much possession. If there is no place to go, then play a back or square ball. But for Pete's sake keep the ball or you will be sorry. Switch the POA, play back all the way to the keeper if need be, but keep the ball.

USA Qualifies

2009-10-13T07:22:00.000-07:00

I remember all too well being a soccer fan in the 1970's and 80's.

The US Men's National soccer team had no hope, zero, zilch, nada, of qualifying for the World Cup. They could beat neither the minnows who made it or the ones who didn't. For most of that time the US Team was composed of a sort of college-all star team. Sounds nice, but the college game back then, other than Indiana and a few other suspects, was a sports backwater that attracted few quality athletes.

And so, over those decades, we were on the outside looking in. Even by 1990, things were not much different. The US side found itself in Port of Spain, facing a favored Trinidad and Tobago side. But Paul Caligiuri's "shot heard round the world" secured a 1-0 win for the US boys and their first trip to the World Cup since 1950. You read that right. five-zero. The 1990 World Cup would be the US's first in *40 years*.

This past Saturday night, the US team came away from San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with a hard-fought, difficult and improbable 3-2 away victory which has secured their passage to a sixth consecutive World Cup.

Some observations on the game:

1) Landon Donovan has gone from being a very effective, slashing forward to a truer #10 shirt, creative attacking midfielder. His lovely, perfectly paced and perfectly placed through-ball to Conor Casey could not hacve been better executed by Lionel Messi, Maradona, or even Pele himself. You can't do it any better than that, and it was Donovan who did it.

2) Landon's curling free kick over the wall and into the uper corner of the net further secures his postion as a multidimensional attacking player.

3) Youth referees take note. Conor Casey's headed goal in which he collided with the goalkeeper AFTER he headed the ball was a COMPLETELY legit goal. I wish I had a nickel for every time I saw a play like that whistled a foul on the offensive player, especially in youth leagues out of the mistaken belief the goalkeeper is sacrosanct, and the play must be whistled dead every time the goalkeeper is within ten feet of the ball. Youth officials, just because a player is a goalkeeper does not mean they have a divine right to get the ball just because they are near the ball and they want it. If a goalkeeper gets creamed on a true 50-50 ball, SO BE IT. The goalkeeer is just another player, one who happens to be able to use his hands.

4) Conor Casey can score if he gets service. Many of our other strikers fail to score even with good service.

DC United: What Happens in Vegas...

2009-10-06T13:33:00.000-07:00

Now how does the rest of that go?

This MLS season, which, with 2 games remaining, IS OVER FOR DC UNITED, my friends, despite there being a remote mathematical possibility of DCU still making the playoffs.

Posters on bigsoccer.com are screaming for the coach's head.

But I don't think it is as much the coach as it is the players. The fact is, the DCU front office -- of which yes, the coach is a part, at least in terms of player acquisition decisions -- gambled on several of the big players, and unfortunately the gamble did not pay off.

They gambled that Jaime Moreno would still have some pace to combine with his incredible vision and skills. Didn't pan out.

They gambled that Gomez had one more year left in the tank. He didn't.

They gambled that stalwart Ben Olsen would have something to contribute once he healed from his foot injury. That's a negatory, good buddy..

They betted, reasonably, tht Fred would still have some Brazilian spark. Sadly, nada.

They wagered that Quaranta would do something other than run up and down the field and make clever backpasses, punctuated with the occasional cross into the upper deck. Snake eyes.

They also doubled down on Burch at right back, and Janicki in the middle. Throw in the fluid goalkeeper situation, and our Vegas triumvirate Got. Royally. Skunked.

So, DC United fans, the season is over. Likely the offseason will see the naming of a new coach. But if it does not also see a wholesale changeover of the roster, well, didn't Mama always say "Don't play the ponies"?

Stanford: Weapons Free

2009-10-05T07:04:00.000-07:00

The Stanford Womens' soccer team (11-0) retakes the #1 spot in the SoccerAmerica poll, and rightly so.

This is a team that plays at a very high technical and tactical level, and they play very fast, a rarity in college soccer. Stanford is loaded with strikers and attacking mids who know how to put the ball in the back of the net.

If Stanford has a weak spot, it is in the central defense. But I use the term, "weak" in a relative sense. Stanford has plenty of shutouts this season, the central defense can't be too bad.

The Brazil National mens' team is not known to be a defensive fortress, but they win plenty of games. Stanford, like Brazil, has a phalanx of top strikers, and they have the two best attacking midfielders in the country in Kelley O'Hara and Christen Press. Both are, for some reason, listed as forwards. Really they play as a blend of forward/attacking mid. They take turns quarterbacking the team, and they score plenty of goals.

The nice thing is other players are making better runs off the ball than last season, leveraging the creative vision of the two Maradonas. All this makes for a multi-dimensional attack and more than adequate defense that can beat anybody.

All that said, I would not be too quick to gloat about UNC's loss to Va Tech. UNC is extremely good. From the top starter to the last player on the reserve bench, UNC has players who are very fast, very athletic, very soccer-smart, and have a high level of mastery of individual and team soccer fundamentals. They are a team that plays excellent positional football, read passing lanes very, very well, and it goes without saying they are extremely well coached. Their highly efficient, swarming team defense all over the field is something truly wondrous to behold.

Bottom line, these are the two best teams in the country right now.

The Beautiful Game

2009-04-01T03:47:00.000-07:00

Soccer, calcio, futbol, football, futebol... though it has many names, soccer is one game and it is *the* one game that binds virtually all the cultures of the world. I think that is really neat.

I really liked this video. Though I take exception to a word used about 2/3 of the way in, I think the video captures well how soccer brings people together. I like that.

In my own life, I remember some years ago stopping for lunch while on a family trip. There were some Hispanic guys in the restaurant parking lot who were taking a lunch break from their construction jobs and kicking a ball around the lot. My boys and I joined in, though we didn't speak their language. We kicked it around with them for a few minutes, then we shook hands, bid them goodbye and I gave them Spanish-language Gospel tracts.

A few years later found us vacationing on the beach. My boys and I kicked it around on the beach with some Jamaican guys one day that week. One of the Jamaicans said I "had a nice touch" on the ball. Oooh I liked hearing that even though I really have the typical American "cinderblock" touch -- he was just being nice.

Another day we saw some Brazilian guys playing a game which was a combination of beach soccer and four-square. I asked if I could join in. Even though those guys have more soccer ability in their toenail clippings than I do in my entire body, they let me play. I was torched numerous times, but fun was had by all.

The Real Super Bowl: Behind the Scenes

2009-03-03T08:47:00.001-08:00

Yikes.

2009-02-20T12:28:00.000-08:00

When I "get together with the guys" to play soccer, I usually play right back. When I do, I usually end up with a sore neck because I have to resort to the "wooden Indian" approach to defending, so my neck gets sore watching strikers run by me and score.

I hate to see what this kid would do to my statuesque defending. I would probably get relegated from right back to "left out".

It's Hardly a First...

2009-02-17T07:58:00.000-08:00

... but I could be wrong about the Beckham thing. Apparently AC Milan offered a mere $3 million transfer fee to MLS/LA Galaxy for Beckham's continued services at the San Siro. MLS basically told AC Milan to put up or shut up by last Friday's deadine with a real offer. AC Milan didn't. Friday came and went, and the MLS and LAG bigwigs who would need to sign off on any deal promptly went on vacation. All of this of course could be negotiating brinksmanship, but right now I would say there is better than even odds Beckham will still be playing in LA after his loan to AC Milan expires as scheduled in March.

Dos a Cero!!!

2009-02-12T04:45:00.001-08:00

My thoughts about last night's USA-Mexico match.

I first started watching the US Men's National soccer team way back in the 1970's. Back then, we were a minnow among minnows. The team was composed of college players, and as bad as much of US College soccer is now, US college soccer was a podunk backwater back then. The team was lucky to get the ball, much less get a sniff at goal. We now have a team that can play with any team in the world, including the winners of the 2006 World Cup, Italy. And now we regularly beat Mexico everywhere except for at the Azteca in Mexico City, where even mighty Brazil loses. We beat Mexico last night. It feels good.

That said, we did get a little lucky. Mexico missed a couple sitters early on. I wish I had a dollar for every time one of our midfielders passed the ball under little or no pressure to a Mexico player. Our crosses were, in a word, wretched.

The first US goal, on a corner kick, was a nice goal but you have to admit it was a high, floating corner that defenses usually have little trouble dealing with. Donovan gets a head on it banging it back into the scrum, where another header on goal results in a rebound and a fat, beach-ball sitter for Bradley to bury. Mexico does seem to have some trouble with the US physical presence in the box.

The second US goal, in the 90th minute, was the result of Bradley getting a lot of space in the middle of the attacking third owing in part to the fact that Mexico was more than preoccupied with Donovan, keeping 2 or 3 players near him in the US attacking zone. Bradly waltzes up and has a go from 25 yards, and the low, driven shot skips under the Mexican keeper and into the back of the net. It was a bit of a soft goal from the keeper's perspective, but not the howler some make it out to be. The keeper got there laterally, but could't get down far enough once he got over and the ball skips under him.

But the result was really sealed before that late goal, with Rafa Marquez being sent off for a late high challenge on US goalkeeper Tim Howard. The straight red was harsh. At most it should have been a yellow. But the red was given, and off Marquez went.

As for the players, Tim Howard did some good (albeit lucky a time or two) shot-stoppng and controlled his box well. Our central defenders, Onyewu and Bocanegra, were solid. Frankie Hejduk defended well and did an overall good job getting up the right flank and getting the ball to our mids. He was lucky, though, not to get carded for at least one of his studs- up, two-footed tackles. Yeah, he got the ball first, but most refs will be pretty quick to show you some yellow for those. Pearce was steady on the left, but not very effective carrying the ball forward.

In the midfield, I hate to say it but Beasley looks like he has lost a step. He was an offensive threat, though, and he was unafraid to run at people. Sacha Kljestan I thought had an off night. Not much impact. Clint Dempsey looked out of sorts, though he did get a threatening shot off that their keeper did well to stop. He played like he was jet-lagged overall. Michael Bradley, what can you say. Two goals. Man of the Match. Landon Donovan made things go and kept multiple Mexican defenders busy all night. We should note Bradley scored his second because Donovan charges up the left side with the ball, and draws four, count 'em FOUR Mexican defenders. He lays off to Bradley, who has ten yards to charge up, wind up, and let go with a rasping shot that flashes under the lunging Keep for the brace and 2-0 scoreline.

Brian Ching, the lone striker up front, was not very effective. He drew a couple deep fouls, which was good, but I thought he should have been subbed out at the half. He was visibly gassed by the hour mark. He was totally spent when he finally was subbed out late for Jozy Altidore, who played very well in his few minutes.

A nice win against our biggest rival on the continent. It feels good. The soda, the wings, and the nachos tasted all the better for it. Clearly the US is a deserved favorite to qualify for the Word Cup. But lets not get carried away. Unless we get a whole lot better with our possession game, we are looking at an early exit from the WC group stage. You pass the ball to the other team as much as the US did tonight against a world powerhouse team like Spain, Italy, Germany, or Brazil, and you are looking at getting shredded for 4, 5, or 6 goals.

But that is then, this is now.

Dos a cero. I like the sound of that.

How do you say...

2009-02-11T06:35:00.000-08:00

... "shake and bake" in Brazilian portuguese?

Feb 11, 2009: The Real Super Bowl

2009-02-05T13:21:00.001-08:00

USA-Mexico in Columbus, baby. I am so there. (Via satellite, that is). Here are some fond replays from previous "Super Bowls".

Oh, on that first goal, that silky, curling, outside-of-the-boot early-ball assist by Clint Mathis was just exquisite. Soccer is the only sport in the world called "the beautiful game". Lovely, sumptuous, gorgeous passes like that, culminating in a riveting run and goal are just captivating.

Then there is this one.

Beeeeeeeeeasly!

Oh, and how about this one.

Landon turns on the jets. Gotta love it.

As Predicted...

2009-02-04T06:47:00.000-08:00

... it's all over but the paperwork.

Beckham Gone for Good

2009-02-02T05:23:00.001-08:00

It doesn't matter what the contract says. David Beckham is staying with AC Milan, case closed. He is obviously happy there. He is playing well, and playing on a team loaded with international soccer superstars. He knows he does not have much time left to play at such a high level, so Beckham coming back to the woeful LA Galaxy for even 6 months just to send pinpoint crosses in to forwards who have no idea how to finish them, or, perhaps, to get hurt, is out of the question.

Some say MLS should hold out for a $15-20 transfer fee. Ain't gonna happen. MLS will be told they are getting $8-10 million and they better be happy with that or else they quite possibly will get nothing.

But it is not likely to come down to that. Bruce Arena can see the handwriting on the wall. Il Bruce knows he needs to fix his porous backline, and he needs bodies and the money to pay them to do that.

Beckham cannot afford to waste any more time with the dreadful Galaxy or, I hate to say, the mediocre level of play in MLS. And the Galaxy/MLS cannot afford to lose the chance to re-sign Beckham later when he is done in Europe for good.

So Beckham goes, MLS gets some kind of face-saving transfer fee, and hopefully the Galaxy will at least become competitive.

Holes in the Stanford Backline

2009-01-27T05:36:00.000-08:00

Well, from everything I can read, the Stanford ladies are looking at losing 2 starting defenders and bringing back 2 experienced defenders. Thus Stanford are likely going to have to throw two freshmen out there; that is assuming they are going with four in the back.

They probably have the midfield to go with three in the back. That actually may be the best solution, since with they are so loaded in the attack SU could very well be the Gretzkey-era Edmonton Oilers (or, the Lemieux-era Pittsburgh Penuins) of the PAC come soccer season. That is to say, SU's best defense (accent on second syllable, we are talking soccer here) may be its offense. Winning 5-2, 6-3, and 4-0 worked fine for those hockey teams as they sauntered their way to multiple Stanley Cups. So Stanford, go ahead and plan to score 5 and 6 goals a game, and let the defense take care of itself. Oh, that also works for a certain South American selecao that shall remain nameless. I reall think SU can do this. They are loaded with lethal strikers and a-mids who link well together. And ther freshman strikers are no longer so green.

Remember, though, in a 3-back, 5-man midfield, you need speed AND endurance on the wings. Those wingers need to join the attack, get crosses in, run at people. They also need to get back and cover those flanks. That means being able to run fast and run fast tirelessly all day long. Fortunately, with the liberal college subsitution rules, the endurance part shoud be less of a problem.

SU may indeed *have* to rely on this strategy if even one of their experienced defenders goes down with an injury.

I have no problem with winning 6-5.

Inside the A320 on The Hudson...

2009-01-22T12:31:00.000-08:00

... again all I can say is "Wow".

There is something hypnotic...

2009-01-07T13:40:00.000-08:00

... about the Beautiful Game (in a good way) is there not?

All I can say is...

2009-01-07T08:46:00.000-08:00

WOW.

And WOW again.

My friends, Lionel Messi is the real deal. And Barca is scary they are so good.

I Like 'em, too

2009-01-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Jaime Moreno's picks for his all-time DCU best XI.

I hate Roman numerals, though. 'XI' means "eleven".

DC United - the Midfield and Forwards

2008-12-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

Assuming we get reasonably healthy, DC United is in pretty good shape in the midfield. Clyde Simms showed well in the D-Mid role, and got himself a fatter contract as a result. On the left flank we have Guererro, who has shown he can flat-out play. In the middle we have Marcelo 'El Muneco' Gallardo, who I reallly hope gets healthy and maintains form. On the right we have the Brazilian Fred, who I have always liked.

Up front I hope we have a healthy Jaime Moreno and a healthy Luciano Emilio. I think with Moreno's age he'll have to be used as a pure striker and not so much as a MF/F. Get him or Emilio the ball in the box and let them take care of the rest.

I neglected to mention in my previous post that there is some defensive help in the offing. Janicki, a pickup from the minor leage Pittsburgh Riverhounds, has been a revelation. He appears to my untrained eye as one who is capable of starting in defense on the MLS level.

Whither DC United?

2008-12-23T08:34:00.000-08:00

So, where does DC United go from here?

Like Stanford, DCU needs help in the back. The club has given up on Columbian defender Gonzalo Martinez. When the club was winning last summer I thought Martinez was playing very well. Even before that, when the club was losing, I thought Martinez more often than not was one of the bright spots.

But, like the club, Gonzalo faded down the stretch. The club has also apparently given up on Argentine defender Gonzalo Peralta. Last I heard they were trying to bring him back, but on a lower salary. Read into that what you will. What I read into that is he is either not coming back at all, or he is coming back but as a substitute. The question remains: Who will anchor our backline?

Of course, our bggest need is to get people healthy. Injuries are what did us in last year more than anything.

In a subsequent post I'll comment on the situation in the midfield. After that, we'll assess our prospects up front.

File this one under ...

2008-12-22T08:36:00.000-08:00

... WOW.

Whither Stanford?

2008-12-22T04:25:00.001-08:00

Where does the Stanford womens' soccer team go from here?

Well, I'd say they are in pretty good shape. They challenged for the Cup this past season. They have achieved the status of an elite program, and are poised stay in the hunt.

If I am reading their roster correctly, they apparently lose two starting senior defenders in Falk and Abegg. Instead of throwing freshmen in there, maybe they can have a couple experienced D-Mids slide to the backline.

They might also try, as I said previously, to put KO in as central attacking midfielder charged with serving balls to the forwards as well as getting some goals herself. She has good vision and anticipation, she can hold the ball in traffic, and she makes nice, accurate, crisp passes to runners in or entering high-value space.

The problem is, I doubt the Stanford coach will do it. There seems to be a pervading mentality in college soccer that attacking midfield needs to be done by committee. College coaches seem to be loath to have one Carlos Valderrama. That is why, in college soccer, the #10 shirt doesn't really mean anything. It's just another number. College coaches seem more comfortable with multiple Steve Ralstons than one Carlos Valderrama. That is not a slight against a fine player like Steve Ralston. If you have multiple Ralstons, of course you play them. But if you have one Carlos Valderrama you play him, and you play him in position. If you have some Ralstons also, al the better, but they would play in support of your Valderrama.

One big way to improve as a team is to play at their high level but play even faster. The very best teams in the country from the UNC's to the UND's to the UCLAs reaaallly struggled when Stanford would start to swoop and swarm and play very fast with accurate passes with pace on them. The build-up to KO's tying goal against UNC during the regular season is an example of what I am talking about. Movement, movement, movement, both on the ball and off. This is one of Stanford's strengths they can build on by doing it faster.

Defensively, Stanford can pressure the ball better. Of course, its easy to make a "genius" statement like that. It is like saying a company ought "to improve its cash flow". The question is, "How?". Well, in this regard, Stanford can learn from the final four match against UND. UND pressured the ball extremely well, and they did it an a very coordinated fashion. A a result, Stanford felt the heat the entire game, and this was a big barrier to Stanford finding the back of the net. For example, Stanford wide midfielders repeatedly found themselves surrounded by a pressuring midfielder, a high pressuring defender, with strikers often checking back to help out. UND was well organized positionally. Everyone knew what their defensive assignments were, and they carried them out very efficiently.

Another NSR post...

2008-12-18T12:39:00.001-08:00

... but I enjoyed this.

There is just something about...

2008-12-18T09:37:00.000-08:00

soccer and samba, wouldn't you say?

NSR...

2008-12-16T11:56:00.000-08:00

...not soccer related,

but this kid is excellent. At 7 years old he is already soloing in front of an orchestra, and he already has that trumpet players' swagger.

You Gotta Love It

2008-12-15T11:43:00.001-08:00

Joga Bonito is Joga Bonito no matter where it is played.

Terps Take Two

2008-12-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

The Maryland Terrapins mens program wins another College Cup. I say, if Virginia Tech ain't in it, and UVA ain't in it, but if the Terps ARE in it, Go Terps.

The Men's College Cup did not have a lot of attractive soccer, and the NCAA's inexplicable decision to host the thing in Frisco Texas, of all places, meant the matches would be played in front of a few hundred relatives, scouts, MLS coaches and hard-core partisans in a stadium that holds 20,000+.

But none of that means it is easy to win the thing. Congrats, Maryland.

Stanford 0:1 UND

2008-12-08T06:16:00.001-08:00

In my pre-game analysis, I said:

"Stanford needs to fly from the get-go, play fast and incisively, maintain possession, and stretch the field. All three strikers need to get the ball in or near the box and run at people. Midfielders, that means they need service and that means you. All SU's attackers need to take a page from Kelley O'Hara's book and take shots on the volley, because at this level you don't always have time to trap, set, and shoot. I say let 'er rip. All of Stanford's strikers and a-mids need to be menacing. They need to run at people, they need to shoot. Pressure the UND backline and I think they will eventually tire and break. Defensively, Stanford needs to mark the UND strikers out of the match, deny their CAM the ball, and keep things wide."

Taking it a thought or so at a time:

Stanford needs to fly from the get-go, play fast and incisively, maintain possession, and stretch the field.

Stanford did come out flying, and UND struggled a bit as a result. But after 12 minutes or so UND began to pressure the ball well, and get some possession of its own. Stanford had trouble playing sharply and incisively in its attacking third. SU stretched the field but could have used even more support from the flanks in the form of overlapping runs.

All three strikers need to get the ball in or near the box and run at people. Midfielders, that means they need service and that means you. All SU's attackers need to take a page from Kelley O'Hara's book and take shots on the volley, because at this level you don't always have time to trap, set, and shoot. I say let 'er rip. All of Stanford's strikers and a-mids need to be menacing. They need to run at people, they need to shoot. Pressure the UND backline and I think they will eventually tire and break.

Kelly O'Hara terrorized their backline all game long and was unlucky not to get on the scoresheet. KO was the only forward who was not intimidated by the UND backline and ran at them with abandon. Levin was largely ineffective. Taylor was tracking way back into midfield for the ball, contributed defensively with several nice check-backs and takeaways, but her offensive runs were stymied. Several midfielders with space approaching the final third elected not to dribble but make passes into the heavily fortified UND bunker. I believe if you have space and the ball, run at people. Make them come out and defend you. You still have the option to pass into the box, and likely there will be fewer defenders there once you do. Things went better as the second half went on, as SU threw numbers forward. Alas, real chances were right at the keeper.

Defensively, Stanford needs to mark the UND strikers out of the match, deny their CAM the ball, and keep things wide.

Stanford was successful defensively. They held UND to one goal, and other than that one forgivable lapse they absolutely shut down the UND offense. The Stanford defense was nothing short of heroic.

All in all, two pretty evenly matched teams, and this particular time Stanford came out on the short end. Alas, in a single-elimination tournament, that means you go home.

Good Football and Good Music

2008-12-03T11:54:00.000-08:00

Years have gone by and I've finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football. I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in
the stadiums I plead: "A pretty move [please...]."And when good football
happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don't [care] which team or
country performs it. Eduardo Galeano

I have to admit I feel that way not only about futbol, but about music. Today I had a hankering to find a video of a great performance of Chopin's Polonaise in A Flat Major. I really tried to find a good combination of flawless technical playing together with tremendous depth of artistry and feeling.

Naturally, I first went to Horowitz:

Ah, that is artistry par excellence. Oh, my, it was soaring, it was sublime, it was just heart-meltingly beautiful. Ah, but I could not help but to note that by the time this video was made, Horowitz was well on in years, and he makes minor technical misses in 8 or 10 places.

So, I pulled up a video of Rubinstein playing the same piece, and again the artistry was powerful, but it was not technically flawless. And so my search continued, looking at some younger players who played more cleanly, but artisitcally they did not really know what they were doing, so once again I felt as if I were missing something.

Maybe I need to look at music a little more like I look at soccer. After all, I have never seen a soccer ball perfectly struck, but I have seen many that were very beautifully and sumptuously struck. I have never seen a perfect dribbling display, but Maradona's famous syncopated slalom through the England defense in World Cup 1986, though perhaps not technically perfect down to the millimeter, was nonetheless, a masterpiece.

At some point you have to let the flaws vanish, and then all you are left with is something dazzling.

I think I'll watch that Horowitz video again.

The Usual Suspects

2008-11-29T23:25:00.000-08:00

The NCAA Women's College Cup finalists have been set, and as I and undoubtedly many others predicted, all four number one seeds are still standing.

One semifinal is UCLA - UNC and I have to go with UNC simply because UNC has no weaknesses, while UCLA is a little suspect in the back, and has a bit of a propensity to pass the ball to the other team in their own half. Throw in the fact that UNC is essentially playing at home means we are looking at a 2-1 result in UNC's favor.

The other semi is Stanford - Notre Dame. Notre Dame is good, as I have said. But I have a good feeling about this one in Stanford's favor. Based on what I have seen, Notre Dame is not as technically sophisticated as Stanford. I think Stanford has the edge in terms of team speed. I also wonder about the conditioning of some of the UND players, as the team seems to visibly tire 10 minutes or so before the end of each half.

Stanford needs to fly from the get-go, play fast and incisively, maintain possession, and stretch the field. All three strikers need to get the ball in or near the box and run at people. Midfielders, that means they need service and that means you. All SU's attackers need to take a page from Kelley O'Hara's book and take shots on the volley, because at this level you don't always have time to trap, set, and shoot. I say let 'er rip. All of Stanford's strikers and a-mids need to be menacing. They need to run at people, they need to shoot. Pressure the UND backline and I think they will eventually tire and break. Defensively, Stanford needs to mark the UND strikers out of the match, deny their CAM the ball, and keep things wide.

If Stanford plays to Stanford's strengths, I believe Stanford will win this match.

MLS Cup Recap

2008-11-25T13:26:00.000-08:00

I DVR'd the MLS Cup and got up at midnight Monday morning and watched it.

All in all it was a pretty good game. But from a presentation standpoint I have to say two things: First, Alexi Lalas in the studio does not work. When he shotgunned a can of Red Bull and proceeded to spill half of it all over his suit that was it for me. He had even less substantive to say that Julie Foudy, and that is saying something. He has to go.

Also, since the game was between the New York and Columbus clubs and was held in Carson California, there were too many visible empty seats. MLS simply must stop this "Championship Game Must Be Held at a Neutral Site" nonsense. This game should have been played in Columbus in a packed, loud stadium. That is how you market a soccer league.

The goals were nice. The first was good, but not great. Moreno slows his marker by faking middle, then turns on the jets and beats him into the box, where 'keeper Cepero badly overcomitted to the near post and gets beaten by a well-placed far post bid.

The equaliser by Wolniec was quality. Dane Richards torches three defenders (again) and puts a sweet through-ball to Wolniec which he toes home. That was some nice soccer.

The third goal was great, a thing of beauty, instigated by the dazzling Guillermo Barros Schelotto, who plays on a higher plane than almost everyone else in the league. That chip was just sheer greatness straight from the crucible that is the highest levels of Argentine club soccer. Freddy Hejduk, who is not to be confused with the GEICO caveman, simply had to run under it and gently head over the keeper.

There was little doubt in my mind Columbus would win this game. They are clearly the best side in MLS right now. A BigSoccer analyst and Columbus partisan said Columbus played some of the most elegant soccer ever seen in MLS. Well, I'll give him a pass. Columbus played very well. They won, and by and large they won in workmanlike fashion. If they add more players of Schelotto's quality to their roster, then maybe we can start talking about soccer elegance. But that is for another day. Congrats to the Crew, and here's to hoping now they can start getting more than 13,000 people to show up at their home games.

NCAA WCC: The Quarters

2008-11-25T04:48:00.000-08:00

In the Notre Dame Bracket, as I thought, we are looking at ND vs. FSU. ND has not scored as much as I thought they would enroute to this point. Neither has FSU. FSU is a quality side, no doubt, but ND just has too many weapons. They just find a way to win, and I think they will against FSU. So, from this bracket, it is UND to the Final Four.

Also, as I predicted, we have a Quarters matchup between Stanford and Portland. Portland knows how to play soccer. Stanford knows how to play soccer, too, and they are at home. Make no mistake, Portland is entirely capable of winning this game, but I like Stanford at home. I am gonna go with 2-1 Stanford with goals from Lindsay Taylor and Kelley O'Hara. Stanford rolls on to the Final Four.

Over in the UCLA bracket, I thought it would be UCLA-UVA, but it is UCLA-Duke. UCLA wins 2-0 with goals in each half to go to the Final Four.

And then we have the UNC bracket. I thought it would be UNC-UF, but I was wrong about UF and UNC's next victim is Texas A&M. As they say in New York, fuhgeddaboudit, UNC wins 3-0 and clears their bench in the second half. UNC goes to the Final Four. All in a day's work for them.

Any one of my predicted Final Four is entirely capable of winning it all. UNC is essentially playing at home, which is not good for the other three teams. But, lets get there first.

Stanford Through to Next Round

2008-11-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

Stanford, by means of a hard fough 1-0 scoreline over visiting Rutgers, is through to the round of 8. I knew this would be a tough match, and it was. Stanford maintained possession but Rutgers, who I knew would defend like all-get-out, kept a clean sheet until Stanford's biggest big-time player, Kelley O'Hara, does what big-time players do and that is put the ball in the back of the net and win the game with 4:46 remaining.

An analyst on bigsoccer rated Rutgers at something like 35th based on a theoretical relative strength statistics algorithm. This game is a prime example of why, come tournament time, you throw all that out and let the players play the game. My relative strength calcuation on the night came out at the end with Stanford #1, and Rutgers #2. That is the ranking that goes into the brackets, which show Stanford going to the next round to a probable matchup against Portland.

WCC 2008 - My Brackets

2008-11-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

Posted herewith are my picks for the 2008 Womens College Cup. Any one of my projected final four are entirely capable of winning this thing. A few others are, as well.

Notre Dame is really, really good. They are good tactically. They have skilled, fast players. But they can also get after you and grind the daylights out of you. They can finesse you and score goals, or they can ram the ball down your throat and score goals.

UCLA is UCLA. They are fast, and thy are tall. They play some good soccer despite some occasional sloppy passing. You better play fast against these folks or you will be toast.

UNC is the perennial powerhouse. For them, winning the College Cup equals a successful season, anything else is a failure. They have US National teamers who you'd better contain or you will be in a hole, futilely chasing the game.

Stanford is probably the best pure soccer-side in the entire tournament. They have loads of flamboyant firepower up front. Top to bottom they have the best strikers in the country. Their a-mids can kill you, too.

Notre Dame Bracket
First Round Winners/2nd Round Matchups

UND-MSU; Minn-Col; BC-NEastern; Auburn-FSU

3rd Round

UND-Col; BC-FSU

Quarters

UND-FSU

Stanford Bracket
1st Round Winners/2nd Round Matchups

UP-Wash St.; UGA-WFU; OSU-Rutg; Den-Stanford

3rd Round

UP-WFU; Rutgers-Stanford

Quarters

UP-Stanford

UCLA Bracket
First Round Winners/2nd Round Matchups

UCLA-LBS; BYU-USC; Duke-S. Car; WVU-UVA

Third Round

UCLA-USC; Duke-UVA

Quarters

UCLA-UVA

UNC Bracket
1st Round Winners/2nd Round Matchups

UF - Miami; Wash.-Tx A&M; Missouri-Memphis; Charlotte-UNC

3rd Round

UF-Wash.; Missouri - UNC

Quarters

UF-UNC

FINAL FOUR

UND - Stanford; UCLA - UNC

FINAL

Stanford-UNC

CHAMPION

Stanford

Correction

2008-11-05T12:18:00.000-08:00

I said in a previous post that the #1 seeds in the NCAA Womens' tourney would likely go only to conference winners. Further reading has revealed that RPI (a computer strength rating index) is a heavy determiner of the seeding. Stanford was, according to the Pac-10 website, a #1 seed last year even though they did not win the Pac-10.

Seeding isn't everything, anyway. But it is important.

This is Just too much Fun

2008-11-04T09:26:00.001-08:00

Los campeones la segunda vez!

Some Good (Old) DC United Stuff

2008-11-04T08:37:00.000-08:00

Some fond memories about the most successful and decorated soccer club in the history of the United States.

The first home goal, from 1996.

"Campeones, campeones, Ole! Ole! Ole!"

A Certain Someone

2008-11-04T07:32:00.000-08:00

... has offered a tongue-in-cheek list of suggestions to our gridiron fan friends for making their game more appealing to an international audience.

Report from Hoo-Country

2008-11-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

We loaded up the van and headed down the road to Charlottesville last Friday night for the tilt between the Maryland and Virginia.

The CR did his best to ruin the match by issuing, well, a Straight Red Hat-Trick. First to go was a Maryland player who was sent of for a cynical tackle that took the man as well as the ball. It merited a warning at most. Then some minutes later came a make-up call against a Virginia midfielder who pushed a Maryland player. Then another Virginia player is sent off for I have no idea what.

All that aside, Maryland was clearly and to a man the better team, and came out on top of the score sheet by a 2-1 margin.

This is the weakest UVA team I have seen in a long time. It seems George Gelnovatch's recruiting results are waning. In recent years you would see players on the roster from all over the country -- top players from soccer hotbeds such as New York, North New Jersey areas, Texas, Florida, and top talent from right here in Virginia. Now the roster is heavily weighted with players from Virginia. Virginia produces many good players, but not many great players. To get a roster full of great plyers, you have to cast a wide net. It seems that net was light going in to this year.

The View from Base Camp

2008-11-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Well, the Stanford Womens Soccer team has made it to base camp.

The problem is, UCLA, by virtue of their 1-0 defeat of Stanford last Friday, arrived there first, thus getting all the best shelters, and have all but secured the most favorable passage to the summit that is the College Cup trophy. UCLA has essentially won the Pac-10, and thus has virtually assured itself of a top seed going in to the NCAAs.

Stanford is still well-positioned, but likely will have to take a steeper path to the rarified air of that same podium; one rife with obstacles such as the ice walls of having to play at altitude, and the crevasses of having to play strong teams in neutral or hostile venues and conditions.

Only if Stanford wins it all will they have established themslves as an elite program. Another crash-out in the lowly second round will cement its status as a bottle-rocket for at least another year.

There was no video of the SU - UCLA match, and the match reports have been very sketchy. But reading between the lines it sounds as if UCLA clogged the midfield with such success that Stanford had no penetration up the middle to speak of, and were marginalized to the flanks, where they won corners but little else. Not only that, but word is Stanford's defenders coughed the ball up repeatedly in their defensive third, which if true makes it a miracle that Stanford did not get shredded for more goals.

A #1 seed in the NCAAs is unlikely for Stanford. The #1 seeds will likely go to major conference winners such as UNC of the ACC, Notre Dame of the Big East, Florida of the SEC, and UCLA of the Pac-10.

All that said, there is not a soccer team in this country that Stanford cannot beat, including UCLA.

From here on out, Stanford needs to remember the lesson from the Philadelphia Flyers and go out and win soccer games.

One MONSTER Goal

2008-10-30T07:09:00.000-07:00

This was posted on the Stanford Womens team thread on bigsoccer. This goal by Stanford's Lindsay Taylor was absolutely ridiculous, in a good way. Have a look ~

I don't watch a lot of womens' soccer, but I have watched a fair number of games from college to the Women's World Cup and Olympics. This is the best goal I have ever seen scored in women's soccer, and that includes comparing this to some killer strikes by Michelle Akers in her prime. Frankly, it is one of the nicest goals I have ever seen in ANY soccer.

Others have commented on LT's nice footwork before striking the ball. And of course, they are right, it was world class.

I am even more impressed by the strike itself, though. If you look closely at the video, you'll see (though not very well due to the distance and angle of the video) that she not only got tons of power on the ball, but it had a monster swerve as well. She "bent it like Beckham" right into the upper 90 from absolutely downtown. The 'keeper, who correctly was sliding over to her right post as LT was winding up to shoot, still had absolutely NO CHANCE despite cheating over as far as she did. A sublime strike, as nice as you will see anywhere in soccer at any level.

This goal reminds me a lot of the one Preki, playing for the USA Mens National Team used to beat mighty Brazil in the '98 Gold Cup. Preki put a similar move on his defender and then unleashes a swerving, dipping cannon-shot that the flying Taffarel could not touch. The swerve on LT's ball looked similar to what Preki put on his, though Preki's had a little more of a screwball-like dip.

Here is a video of Preki's goal. This is a longer version than what I posted on bigsoccer, and it shows Preki's shot from more than one angle.

The reverse angle shows the swerve/dip very nicely. LT hit a very similar ball, and from further out. Incredible.

Title Tilt: Stanford's Keys to the UCLA Match

2008-10-29T05:54:00.000-07:00

The national college soccer polls, ranking Stanford ahead of UCLA, are a synthesis of opinion. So what?

Stanford will need to be at their best to beat UCLA on the road.

UCLA will likely try to clog the middle with a high-pressure 3-5-2 or maybe even a 3-6-1 formation. The objective will be to force Stanford to bypass their midfield with long balls out of the back. UCLA can defend those long balls all day long and would look for the quick counter, having nullified Stanford's speed and tactical acumen.

Thus, Stanford will need to stay patient, play their game, and use their skill and creativity to unlock the UCLA defense. It may take most of the first hour or more to do it, but do it they can. Simply put, if Stanford gives up and resorts to bootball to overcome UCLA's inevitable midfield pressure they will not win this match.

Stanford will need to use speed and incisive runs on the flanks to stretch the field horizontally. They need their strikers and a-mids to *run at people*. They need to make UCLA foul in their defensive third. Sanford will need to make *judicious* use of long balls and through-balls up the middle from the midfield to stretch the field vertically, serving balls for O'Hara to run onto to terrorize the UCLA backline. The emphasis is of course on the word "judicious", since Stanford's main attack strategy will need to be playing the feet of ther strikers and a-mids and having them run at people, lay off precision passes, and shoot, shoot, shoot!

Defensively, Stanford needs to Pressure. The. Ball. One thing UCLA did with amazing regularity in their game against USC was to make lazy, off-target and often ill-advised passes which went straight to USC. It seemed like UCLA spent half the game passing the ball to USC. Fortunately for UCLA, USC spent at least that much time giving the ball right back to UCLA. I was amazed watching two elite sides making pass after pass after pass that lacked pace, precision, or both. With good pressure, this is something Stanford can exploit.

Other than horrific defensive mental errors, one other key reason USC lost to UCLA was USC simply took too much time to shoot in and near the box. Taking the extra touch to set up the perfect strike is nice in theory, but good defenders get in front and block it every time, which UCLA did with the exception of the goal they gave up. In womens' soccer there seems to be a general reluctance to one-timing or shooting on the full volley. USC blew several chances by foregoing clear volley opportunites inside the box in favor of taking extra time and teeing it up and shooting. Stanford, if you have a chance at a shot on the full or half volley in the box against UCLA, have a go. Dilly-dally and UCLA will close you down every time.

Stanford at Base Camp

2008-10-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

My wife and I went to Mount Rainier on an anniversary trip last month. The Paradise area of Mount Rainier is one of the best places to hike on Planet Earth. One of the more aggressive hiking trails there (which I can assure you we did not attempt) is the 9-mile trail up 4600 feet of mountain elevation to Camp Muir. Camp Muir is is the base camp used by elite hiker/climbers who will continue on the dangerous ascent to the summit at 14,410 feet.

With three matches to go in the regular season, the Stanford Womens' Soccer team is almost to base camp. Stanford has won all their games by lopsided scores, save for the tie against the ~~US National Team~~ UNC Tar Heels. But all that is just trail at their back now. They still have not done anything but have a good regular season.

To get to base camp, the Card needs to beat UCLA in what is effectively the Pac-10 title game this friday. Of course, if the Card does win at UCLA, that does not necessarily mean they'll win the Pac-10. If Stanford were to turn around and lose against USC and then Cal, the Pac-10 would likely go to UCLA. But Stanford needs to look at this next match against UCLA as the match for all the marbles.

To lay claim to having achieved the status of an elite program, and to set the stage for a serious assault on the summit of a national championship instead of flaming out in the early going of the NCAAs, Stanford absolutely, positively must beat UCLA.

The question is, how?

Stay tuned.

DC United Season Wrap-up

2008-10-29T04:49:00.000-07:00

This season can be broken up into thirds.

For roughly the first third of the season, nothing went right as DC United tried to integrate a boatload of new players. Complicating matters was our goalkeeper, Zach Wells, who struggled in the early days to acclimate himself to starting in MLS and let in easy goals.

Then, in the middle "third", that is, June and early July, DCU began to click, played some wonderful soccer, and won a lot of games.

Then came the final "third" of the season where we got bit by the injury bug, an overly congested calendar, and some unlucky breaks and simply lost too many games to get into the playoffs.

Here is what needs to happen in the offseason.

1) Get Jaime Moreno healthy and fit for his last year in MLS.

2) Get Gallardo, Peralta, Olsen, Fred, Emilio, and everybody else healthy and fit.

3) Add some defensive depth. Aquiring Janicki was a good first step. But we need a dominating central defender in the mold of Eddie Pope or Ryan Nelsen. Peralta when healthy might be adequate, but if an upgrade at that position is available, I say trade and go for it.

4) Get a better backup 'keeper who is going to push Crayton hard for playing time. Crayon is good, but needs hard competition on the training ground to be his sharpest.

5) Keep Tom Soehn. He wasn't perfect, but he showed he can coach and win games when he has healthy players. Give him another year.

6) Make the defensive midfield play every game like the one they played against Columbus the last game of the season. I haven't seen DC United pressure the ball and close down passing lanes like that since the late 90's.

7) Play the reserves in all nonleague midweek games. These superligas and Open Cups don't mean a hill of beans. Case in point -- this season we actually WON the US Open Cup, but the players, media, and internet fan sites all consider this season a failure. Winning the US Open Cup was not even a consolation prize. So if winning such "Cups" mean nothing, neither do losing them. Send the reserves out for these matches. If THEY win, it'll mean something to them.

With some well-targeted adjustments and some relief from the injury bug, DC United should be in good shape for a serious run at the MLS Cup.

A Lesson for the Stanford Women's Soccer Team from the Phildelphia Flyers

2008-09-24T04:23:00.000-07:00

I don't follow hockey anymore, but last NHL season I couldn't help but to notice the tremendous turnaround made by our local Washington Capitals team. By late November, it appeared their season was in the tank. Coach Genn Hanlon was let go on Thanksgiving Day of all days.

The Caps brought in Bruce Boudreau as their new coach, who I believe has turned out to be the finest hockey man in the NHL coaching ranks since Scotty Bowman. The Caps went on a tear almost from the get-go of the new coach's tenure. The Capitals improbably won their division on the last day of the regular season, after playing stretches of dazzling hockey.

In the playoffs, the Capitals drew their old nemesis, the Phildelphia Flyers in the first round. The Flyers went to a 3-1 advantage in the best-of-seven series. The Flyers were not as skilled as the Capitals, but what they lacked in skills they made up for in toughness and a willingness to fight for every puck, and to pressure, pressure, pressure when they were on defense, and to hit the stuffing out of anything that moved. The Caps responded with some toughness of their own, but with Alex Ovechkin leading the way, the Caps out-hockeyed the Flyers to roar back to tie the series at 3 games apiece and force game 7.

The Flyers', (or rather Broad Street Bullies') grit proved too much for the Caps, though, and the Caps lost the series 4 games to 3; closing out a still-wondrous season.

A Flyers fan, interviewed by Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post, said of the Caps, "You guys came in [to this series] a bunch of figure skaters in pads and helmets. We taught you to fight and play hockey like men. You're welcome."

I think of that Flyer fan's assessment when I think about the Stanford women's soccer team. The Cardinal has as much or more soccer talent, skills, crisp passing and savvy movement as any women's soccer club in the country.

But will they fight, scrap, and claw for every loose ball? Will they pressure, pressure, pressure the ball all over the field when on defense? Will they deliver, time and again, the hard, crunching (but within the rules) tackles that will knock equally talented opponents off their game? Will Stanford do the grunt work that will break them out of the pack of excellent soccer teams and onto the podium of the National Champion?

All I can tell you is they have what it takes.

You're welcome.

Thoughts on the Stanford Women's Team

2008-09-23T11:52:00.001-07:00

I don't follow women's soccer that much, but a friend of mine follows this team closely so I started to keep track of their doings.

Stanford is a team with loads and loads of talent and athleticism at every position. They are tactically very sophisticated. I really believe top to bottom they have the best strikers in the nation. I was amazed as Stanford made UNC, of all teams, look slow and flat-footed for much of the second half of the recent match between the two sides.

The problem with Stanford historically is they tend to tire as they get well into the meat of their conference schedule, especially when they have to travel. They try with some success to get a second wind going into the conference tourney, but then by the time the NCAAs roll around they are pretty much spent, and they crash out in the early going. That, to me, goes to conditioning, which implicates the coaching. Coupled with some questionable substition patterns, and some mystifying bootball tactics that seem to surface when the going gets tough, and there are thus real question marks in the coaching department.

We'll know if these coaching issues are resolved if the team is stronger once they have gotten through most of their conference schedule.

This team has more than enough talent barring injuries to win their conference, and there is no reason personnel-wise they can't get to the College Cup ("Final Four")and win the thing.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. They have the players to get it done. But do they have what it takes behind the training-ground whistle, and in the coaches' area at the games?

DCU Does it Again

2008-08-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

Another grand and glorious win for DC United.

Both DCU goals were just exquisite. You will not find better highlight-reel goals in any league anywhere in the world. Check out the video highlights at mlsnet.com.

Our new flank player, Guerrero, is a fine pickup. Thank you, San Jose. The guy was a monster on the flank, both offensively and defensively, all night long. He wins a 50-50 ball. in the air, from a taller player, feeds Jaime, who in turn threads a gorgeous diagonal ball to Emilio for the money and a 1-0 scoreline for the good guys.

Joe Vide, former UVA man returned from exile, played great, I thought. He played with heart, and fought to the end for the shirt. In his *first game* for the Black and Red. Was a bit lucky not to see red on his second half challenge. But hey, that kind of thing is avoidable with some coaching, which he will get under Tommy.

Zach Wells. What can I say, other than I like my crow with salt, pepper, AND ketchup. And, of course, a Diet Coke to wash it down and make the calories go away. I was a harsh critic of Zach wells in the early going of this campaign, but the guy gets better each game. He got his clean sheet, having come up with some game-saving stops.

Speaking of eating crow, I have got to say Tommy did a nice job of coaching. He has the team well-prepared, even in the face of several core starters being out.

Jaime Moreno. What can I say. This guy is the king of calcio-coolness. He has got soccer-mojo and massive futbol gravitas in spades. What he has lost in pace he has more than made up for in craftiness. KC made the mistake of marking him with a single player early in the game. I remember commenting directly to my TV set early in the match, (the TV of course agreed completely with my analysis) that KC was in trouble if they didn't put more defenders on him. Then comes the nice assist to Emilio. Not coincidentally KC double and triple teamed Moreno the rest of the night. No matter, Jaime later scores on a lovely header, and almost had another off a through-ball in the box.

I am a bit suprised by KC's form of the last several weeks. Here is a team that does not have a single bad player in its first 11 (I hate using Roman numerals). They are very fit, and they have good chemistry. They are just not scoring. They were a bit unlucky against us. Onalfo needs to turn things around.

For more on DCU and MLS, you can't miss Steve Goff's blog.

Weekly Howler

2008-07-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

Now *this* is a major goalkeeping gaffe!

The poor keeper here just had a mind meltdown, forgot to play the bounce, and over his head it went.

This reminds me of a soccer match I went to around 1975. Kurt Kuykendall was in the net for the Washington Diplomats against, I believe, the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. He had a very stiff wind in his face. Kuykendall punted the ball, but mis-hit it, giving the ball a mean backspin and a stunted but almost vertical trajectory. The wind, even stiffer aloft, caught the ball and blew it right over Kuykendall's head and into his own goal.

Turns Out I was Right (part 2)

2008-07-15T11:43:00.000-07:00

Well, I am probably close to being right, since nothing has officially happened yet on the Chivas USA front. For those who don't know, I have been saying for some time that Chivas USA, which the last couple years has been such a spectacular flop at the gate (despite playing some good soccer) that they are in danger of being relocated.

Well, MLS insider Not Doug Logan is hearing rumblings from those in the know that there will likely be relocation for CUSA sooner rather than later for that side if they don't develop some fan interest.

Other than a couple recent games Chivas USA when playing at home has been playing in front of maybe 1000 fans and 26,000 empty seats at Home Depot Center. An embarassment to MLS.

Turns out I was right

2008-07-02T07:49:00.000-07:00

... about Emilio. The guy is scoring goals at a torrid pace, and is in the hunt for the Golden Boot lead. I am not surprised.

His slump was due primarily to the fact that early in the season he was getting late service with his back to the goal and not uncommonly two or three defenders draped all over him.

NOW, he is getting service while on the move toward and near or in the box. And he has been burying his chances in "the back of the old onion bag" with regularity ever since.

Some of that is due to Emilio's improved movement off the ball, most is due to better play, anticipation, and service by the midfielders.

So, DC United is playing some nice soccer now. But we need to improve our backline, improve our goalkeeping, and get better play from the flanks to get another MLS Cup.

Speaking of goalkeeping, I have been a harsh critic of Zach Wells. But I have to admit he is improving. I watched the LA game (DVR'd the Sunday broadcast) on Monday night and Wells had some nice stops and his positioning was better. The goal was more the fault of Peralta, who whiffed on his clearance, than Wells, who was a bit late off his line but for good reason -- he had to cover the far post first because it appeared the ball would squirt to Buddle's left.

I still like Peralta better than many on Bigsoccer do. He is an improvement over Boswell, and I think he will get even better as he and the team continue to gel.

~ Ron

Don Garber Speakszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

2008-04-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

The Don has a new blog on MLSNet.

Right now it reads like decrees sent down engraved in stone from Mount Olympus, in the form of text cut-and-pasted from old speeches.

I like Don Garber. He has done a good job growing the league. And he believes in the Game.

But, why have a high-visibility blog if you are only going to post *if possible* once every two weeks? And why just give us warmed over stuff from Chamber of Commerce speeches?

For now, I'll keep an open mind and keep reading.

But my hope is the Don will talk *to* us, not talk *down to* us.

DCU - Columbus Aforethoughts

2008-04-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Hmmm. Gonzalo Martinez is out, depriving us of a lot of speed and skill on the backline. Stick Burch over there. He should do OK.

A lot of people on bigsoccer are really ragging on Emilio. I don't understand why. The guy scores in the second minute against Toronto, and a few minutes later launches a Preki-like Bomb from outside the box after a beautiful chop move. True, he clanged it off the crossbar but that seque3nce led directly to a rebound and goal. We were up 2-0 over Toronto before they even knew what hit them, all becuase of Emilio. Also true he could have had more goals, but that is how strikers are. I remember Romario didn't bury 100% of his chances, either. Give me a break. Emilio will be fine. The goals will come.

I also really like Gallardo. He reminds me of a combination of Marco Etcheverry and Christian Gomez. The guy can play. He is worth the DP money.

I am glad Kpene is gone. He just didn't have it. I just never saw what others saw in him.

Should be an interesting evening for one Mrs. Carroll. Two of her sons are with DC United, and one plays for Columbus.

Nail, Hammer. Hammer, Nail.

2008-04-11T06:23:00.000-07:00

Yeah, Baby.

Welcome to Straight Red Hat Trick ...

2008-04-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

... our new blog dedicated to all things soccer/futbol, from the fan's vantage point of the most successful, the most storied, the most trophy-laden soccer club in the history of the United States,

DC United.

We'll also comment on MLS, World Club, as well as National Team soccer. How's that for starters?

Well, this isn't really starters, since this blog is taking over where our old blog, Three FrontRunners left off. We want to morph to this blog because, well, I like the name better.

Hopefully we can figure out how to migrate our posts.