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.
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5 comments:
Ron,
What an utter disappointment. UNC looked fantastic and didn't seem to be at all affected by the elements. This was not the same team that lost three games this season. Apparently, they did not field their full team during their losses. Hats off to them. And Dorrance knew exactly how to defend them. Basically with a line of 5-6 midfielders. Looks like he used the same approach that San Diego St. used. All out Pressure. Stanford had to come from two goals down to defeat them. The first goal called back on the Card...I still don't understand. The players on the field still do not know exactly why it was called back. Offsides is what the announcers said. Was it interference? Kelley said she was no where near the goal.
UNC played wonderful and deserved to win. One has to wonder about the health of the starters. At least three got hit with something Friday night. No excuses though.
Lots of folks will be slinging arrows at KO. I feel really badly for her and her relatives. Not the way you want to finish a great college career and stellar senior year.
Very down.
Jerry,
I plan to watch the match on DVR tonight, but from what I hear offside was the call on both Stanford's goals. One knowledgeable observer who I do not think is a UNC partisan on the Soccer Insider forum felt the offside calls were correct. Well, I look forward to seeing the game on video.
From some accounts it sounds as if KO, to her credit, was trying to get something going for her team and taking some risks with tackles that were carded. Unfortunately two yellows equals a red. With the game clock ticking down, likely she felt she needed to make something happen. Risk was not rewarded, unfortunately. I don't think a red card in one game changes the fact that Kelly spent 4 years as hands-down the best soccer player on the Stanford team, three years as one of the best five players in college soccer, and one year as the consensus best player in the country among those who unlike me know something about soccer.
I am kind of wondering where some of the other Stanford players were during the finals. Lindsay Taylor did not impress me in the UCLA game, despite being, just as the denizens of bigsoccer wanted, played high on the front line, not midfield. Yet she really did nothing other than send a few high shots over the crossbar and out of the stadium.
I really started to wonder if I was watching the same game as some of Teresa Noyola's peeps on bigsoccer. In the first half of the UCLA game, all saw TN do was lose the ball (on what few touches she got), while her two comrades in the attacking midfield were doing a better job of linking with the attackers. It got so bad that Riley would bring the ball up the left flank, and feed to Kelly, who had to track back to do TN's job to feed the other two strikers. I kept telling my TV set that TN needed to be subbed out, and amazingly after some minutes she was subbed out in favor of a somewhat more effective Cami Levin. I'll post more later, but some Stanford players who were needed to play well didn't.
I hope Kelley does not stay down long over that loss. National team camp awaits, and I think Kelley can show she is already as good as any striker they have on the squad, and clearly better than half the players they have starting in the midfield now. As good as the USWNT is, they are sorely in need of higher soccer IQ, which Kelly brings. She would have been a regular on the USWNT for years now if the powers that be were not so minded to hang on to popular-but-past-it players and players who in college had certain color jerseys on their back. I better not get started on that.
Ron,
I just got off the phone w/ my bro and after reading your two posts here have so much to say. I leave for Sao Paulo in the morning and unless I can drag my, I mean, Jackie's laptop with me, will be unable to write to you what I've learned. Bottome line...Anson had a great game plan and the team executed just about flawlessly.
KO's at camp in So Cal now.
More to come.
Drive safely.
Should have said "Jerry said..."
Since I have some time...Ron, when you watch the match, notice the tempo of Tarheal play from the from the opening whistle. Then, look at the Card. Heath and Casey are the best in the country and don't get riled easily. My bro thought UCLA was a more dangerous team which had more dangerous shots. UNC played smothering defense, which was the ticket to beat Stanford. In fact, they went right at the Frosh, Quon, for the first goal. She had a tough job defending against Casey. KO tried to do it all and hopefully learned that you can't play too agressive with one yellow card. You would think she would know this. When she was a HS senior and took a trip to UNC, she came away saying she wanted to beat UNC not play for them. And this was the final match.
Understandably, she didn't want to get on the plane to camp but old team coaches and even the current coaches said you have to go if for no other reason than there's no ticket for you to go anywhere else.
One other note on the fouls. KO fouled some of her old teammates (MacDonald)so it was purely soccer(bad).
And another thing...is it still offsides if you never touch the ball and don't cause the goalie to alter their play? Otherwise, Verloo was the only one that could have been offsides on the 1st goal that was called back.
Rambling thoughts I know.
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