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Mens Soccer - DenverCard - 09-04-2016

It's currently halftime of Stanford-Indiana.  Nil-nil, in proper soccer lingo.  Game streamed on the Big Ten Network: http://www.btn2go.com/game/stanford-at-indiana-on-09042016.

Indiana just lost their central defender to a 2nd yellow: "The best defender in college soccer" per announcer.  So it'll be 11 v 10.

Indiana looks good -- skilled players, savvy tactics, dangerous striker.  Stanford uninspired on offense. As with the Notre Dame game two nights ago, Stanford's attack, if if can be called that, almost entirely comprised of long balls from the defense.  No build up, very little offensive possession.  Neither aesthetic nor effective, although with ND, Stanford played 10 v. 11 for much of the 2nd half, iirc.

Hoping that with a man up, Stanford will have more room, and thereby gain confidence, and develop useful offensive play.  With the rather limited number of games that are played in college soccer, it can be hard to dig out of a hole, and if Stanford goes down today against a reduced-manned Indiana, they'll have their work cut out for themselves to make NCAAs, I fear.

Re: Mens Soccer - DenverCard - 09-04-2016

Headed to OT.  Still no score.  Hilliard-Arce had a deadly chance on a header; otherwise no great goal opportunities for either team in the second half.  As expected, Stanford has had full control of the play, and the offensive thrusts are better conceived.

Stanford goal imminent -- I can feel it!

Re: Mens Soccer - DenverCard - 09-04-2016

I guess the goal I felt coming was just another one of my hallucinations.  Scoreless draw.  Arghhhhh.

For excitement, this soccer game had a Stanford-Northwestern football game feel to it.

Back to the laboratory for Gunn and Co.

Re: Mens Soccer - Viking_Guy - 09-04-2016

DC--

A few thoughts.

Midfield play has been really disappointing, especially Baird and Werner.  Not connecting the forwards to the backline at all.  Skundrich has done okay with the position shift to holding mid, but he's not the distributor they need there.

Their work rate has also been really disappointing; can't tell if it's championship-itis or what, but the first game and 2/3rds, they really looked disinterested, especially in the attack.  Their only scoring "outburst" has been when they went man down late against St. Mary's and scored two fairly quickly, but other than that, they've been held to ONE score in 4 games + almost 70 minutes of overtime.  That one goal is the only goal they've scored in "normal soccer."

Don't know if it's by design, but the outside backs are also providing very little to the attack - tonight, against a man-down Hoosier side, they were pulling up 15 yards past the midline to launch speculative crosses into Langsdorf covered by 2 or 3 defenders.

Defensively, they've been solid, for the most part - but when it breaks down, it's almost always starting in the midfield and wide.

And more than that, they feel like they're ready to burst - WAY too many fouls, stupid aggression, etc.  Gunn has got to take this in hand.  Red card against Hilliard-Arce for stamping on an opponent's foot after a tangle in the box down 2-0 against St. Mary's; maybe he was trying to wake his team up, but that put them out of system against Notre Dame.  Against the Irish, they were dominating the run of play until a second yellow against an outside back, and still had some good chances down a player - but should've been able to hold on.  The tying goal was scored by an Irish player standing wide open in the penalty area because the midfield didn't get back to cover with less than 3 minutes left and a 1 goal lead down a player.  Today, the first half was a series of hard challenges, but Langsdorf could very easily have been sent off for raising his arm while getting up after a foul and appearing to hit a Hoosier in the crotch.  Of course, the Indiana player did make a bit of a meal of it, but still...

More generally, Langsdorf and Bashti aren't really connected to the midfield - Foster is playing target forward, and Bashti lying slightly deeper.

Yes, they miss Morris and Vincent.  But my key departure is Ty Thompson - the holding midfielder who was the rock in front of the defense, but also distributed the ball well.  Skundrich is trying, but appears to be more comfortable on the dribble rather than the two-touch release.  Baird and Werner appear content to dribble at people.

There are some positives - the play of freshman Bryce Marion out on the right, and Beason in defense.  But tonight, in 70 minutes against a team playing man down, they managed exactly 4 shots TOTAL, of which only 2 were vaguely threatening - the great header by Hilliard-Arce and a speculative shot from about 25 by Bashti.  The first was the only real chance I saw Stanford take after halftime, and through the two OTs.

Definitely a work in progress, and some hard opposition on the road.  But the lack of a finisher, and the lack of discipline, are troubling.

VG


Re: Mens Soccer - Langdude - 09-04-2016

Also, Indiana is usually really good. They are this year, too.

-m.

Re: Mens Soccer - DenverCard - 09-04-2016

Viking Guy,

I always love to read your takes on the soccer games, as I don't pick up the positioning and tactics the way you do.  My personal analysis of the games is always rather simplistic.  And in that vein, if you had to pick the biggest problem for the offensive ineptitude among the following three choices, which would it be?

"Hardware": Deficit in the collective skill level of the team.  (Tonight the commentator pointed out the great players raise the tide of the entire team, making lesser players look better than they would otherwise.)

"Software": Problems in the most effective use of of players and in developing productive strategies.  (At halftime tonight, Jeremy Gunn alluded to using the long ball to defeat the forward pressure of Indiana.)

"Power source": Insufficient effort leading to compensatory aggression/unnecessarily rough play.  (Per my observations, players have been running hard, and I at least on the road trip, I thought we fought hard on 50-50 balls and won more than our share of contested headers.  To be sure, the obstructive measures to slow play have been obvious, but that may not be a product of insufficient effort, as the Indiana coach, Yeagley, clearly believed that the Stanford players had been instructed to play that way by Jeremy Gunn, as it looked like Yeagley refused to shake Gunn's hand after the game. )

As noted in a previous posting after the Penn State game, its my impression that the team lacks the ball skills to generate a series of 10 passes that generate a productive scoring chance, or to make the creative 2-3 short passes amidst high traffic that can yield a high percentage shot like I recall were common -- often involving Corey Baird -- during the last couple of years.


Re: Mens Soccer - Viking_Guy - 09-04-2016

Yep, these were two hard road games - what's interesting is that Stanford played IU like Notre Dame played Stanford, lots of obstruction, trying to contain the pace of the forwards with a body.  And Yeagley's backs didn't have to deal with their coach's approbation - his all-everything center back got sent off for a second yellow by shoulder-blocking a player who was through onto the ball.

That said, Stanford had the same problems at home against both Penn State and St. Mary's - lots of possession without incisive passes.  The energy level has improved - against the Nittany Lions and the first 70 minutes of St. Mary's, it really looked like they simply expected the game to fall to them.  But the high pressure of last year's Stanford squad hasn't shown up enough.

DC. I think it's a combination of all of them, of course.  The effort is there, but right now, it feels like they're disjointed - the backline completely cut off from the attack, and seemingly by design reluctant to go forward.  Haven't seen any of the Skundrich/Vincent runs to the opposing team's endline before cutting the ball back maneuvers as in the past.

What that's led to is a real lack of numbers in the attack, at least until there's been a sustained foray forward.  Tonight, for example, with all of the long balls served in from the sideline toward one or two players in the box.  Sometimes, they would go through, or be loose, but there was never a midfielder there to pounce on the ball.

What it feels like?  Baird is playing the "creative" role from too deep in the field - he comes back to collect, turns forward, and tries to make a pass from 40 yards out either in behind the defense or over the top, and it's not working.  You end up with Bashti and Langsdorf having little support in the middle of the field.  Skundrich is a good holding midfielder, but I wish there was another player who Gunn felt comfortable with in that role - moving Skundrich back to an overlapping outside back.  Or maybe dropping Bashti into the attacking midfield role and pulling Baird back to holding, and bring in Alabi or another, bigger forward up top.  Bashti is great with the ball at his feet, but he can't win balls against bigger defenders very often, and he's dribbling into too crowded of a penalty area to get through clean. 

But of course this is just idle speculation, because I haven't seen them in practice, so I don't know if anyone is on better form in those spots.

It builds from the backs forward.  With the outside backs not being as aggressive (and they both are after all new starters), the outside mids hang farther back; you haven't seen a lot of multiple player attacks up the sideline this season.  Even the homer IU announcers were wondering why Stanford wasn't committing more people forward up a player.  We ended up with a whole lot of Baird and two forwards running at 8 defenders, with two outside mids on the touch lines and Skundrich hanging out just past the halfline.  I also noticed that even the outside mids from IU were shifting heavily ball-side; they just didn't have a lot of respect for the width of Stanford's attack.

Anyhow, we'll see what happens.  But I wouldn't be surprised to see some position or lineup shifts in the next set of games.

VG


Re: Mens Soccer - Viking_Guy - 09-04-2016

A couple of other adds.

It feels like Bashti wants to play a really deep-lying forward; often, he's in the spot I'd expect an attacking center mid to occupy.  But again, that doesn't add any width to the attack; I'd much prefer another forward playing slightly wider off of Langsdorf.  With Bashti playing where he is, he isn't threatening enough to the backline to pull any pressure off Foster.  It also leads to he and Baird in the same channels too much, IMO.  I'd rather have one of them out wide, if we're going to stick in a 4-4-2.  Maybe shift Werner up top?

Also, they're drawing a lot of cards, most like tonight for tactical fouls to slow down a counter.  One reason is that they are really turning the ball over A LOT trying to work through the midfield, leading to a lot of covering for odd-man rushes.  But defenders are really putting themselves in risky positions, as they found out with the second yellow-ejection against ND on Friday.  That call completely changed the course of the weekend - it eliminated Kahl from today's game, leaving them with no real sub at outside back - another reason for the defense's conservative stance. And it was the change that let the Irish turn the course of the game.

VG