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The Weekend in Soccer - Viking_Guy - 10-07-2019

Two very different games from the men and the women on Sunday.  I just wanted to offer some thoughts.

The men drew with Oregon State 1-1, and were lucky to do so.  They were not as outplayed as they were against Washington, and actually probably had more good chances than the Beavers, who basically played an "absorb pressure and counter" gameplan, maintaining possession well and wearing out Stanford by keeping them chasing if they wanted to pressure.  The vast majority of the first half was played with neither team being able to make much headway through the midfield.

After the half, things started to go sideways.  First, they got a little chippy.  Then, the player who I wanted to see bring more to the pitch did so in exactly the wrong way.

Midway through the half, OSU had the ball in a scrum of players at midfield; so many players were around the ball in the center circle, it almost looked like an AYSO game.  And I looked, and thought to myself, "What the heck is that Beaver forward doing completely unmarked on the left side?"

Yep, Panchot had drifted away from his right back position into the middle of the pitch (on the replay, you can see him standing just outside the circle, about 8-10 yards away from the ball.) Naturally, the ball falls to an OSU player, who spring that unmarked attacker forward down the left side, resulting in a cross against a scrambling defense that trickles through to a player who had come unmarked at the backpost because the defense was trying to rotate to cover.  Thomas made a valiant effort, but couldn't get there in time to stop an easy finish.

But wait, it gets better.  Less than four minutes later, an OSU player has a ball on the left sideline, and dishes it away... and is clattered into by Panchot very late.  Straight red card.  So now Stanford is down a player, and down a goal.

The weirdness continued, as Gunn decided to go to a 3-back, leaving his 4 mids and 2 forwards up to try to generate an equalizer.  And with an officiating assist, they got it.  A hard foul drawing a yellow card gave Stanford a setpiece from about 30 yards out.  The service resulted in a deflected ball high in the air falling toward the left post.  Stanford had Joshua (Richmond? I don't have access to my recording right now) go up for the header, and get clattered into from behind by a Beaver.

And the referee called a PK, and gave a yellow.  The yellow was pretty harsh.  But you also almost NEVER see a PK from that kind of contact.  I'm thinking he was giving Stanford a bit of a let off from the red card.  Waldeck converted, and in seven minutes, the game had gone from 0-0 to a 1-1 tie, with Stanford playing with 10 men.

Gunn dropped back into first a 4-3-2, then a 4-4-1, and Stanford hung on for dear life.  Thomas made a great kick save on a 1v1 chance with about 4 minutes left, and the Cardinal hung on for dear life in the overtime - on one sequence, a pinballing situation in Stanford's crease ended with a ball heading into the corner popped up by Hughes, then tucked over the bar by a contorting Thomas.  But hang on they did, to salvage a point from a disappointing weekend.

Beason didn't play, so there's that.  Freshman Keegan Tingey got a start at CB, and Ludwick started in place of Aprahamian at left back.  They performed pretty darned well.  But it will be interesting to see what happens as they move forward.  Gunn went deeper into the bench than has been his norm.


As for the women - well, they scored 4 goals by the time 3 minutes were gone in the second half.  Malatskey followed her own rebound to tuck a ball home in the first 8 minutes, then Smith drew a PK 26 seconds later, which she converted.  Both goals were facilitated by wonderful distribution from Madison Haley.  Late in the half, a handball in the box led to a PK converted by Macario (keeping her tied for the national lead in goals scored at 15 with Louisiana Tech's Autumn Woodard).  And just after halftime, Maya Doms converted a rebound of her own, hitting a volley on a couple of bounces through traffic that the Husky keeper got a hand to but couldn't keep out.

Stanford hit the crossbar twice, from Haley and from Tran, but also played a lot of minutes to subs, with Haley and Smith coming off in the 65th and Doms and Macario about 5 minutes later.

Women are in Oregon next weekend, then have only the UCLA game at home to prepare for the following week.  Men have to look to rebound on the road at UCLA and SDSU, which is a tough haul.  Will be interesting to see what Gunn does to continue to adjust.

VG

RE: The Weekend in Soccer - DenverCard - 10-07-2019

VG--

Thanks for your usual fantastic analysis of the games, especially the men's.  I enjoy watching the women as well, but with the men, it's usually 90 to 110 minutes of white-knuckling it, especially the last three games in which they fell behind in each, so I find myself getting more emotionally invested in the nuts and bolts of the men's performance.

One minor correction to your post: Keegan Tingey played the left back position, replacing Andrew Aprahamian, who has started in the position since he completed his redshirt freshman year (meaning that he had started for a year-and-a-half), which is a pretty big shake-up.  Ludwick was the center back.  Apprahamian later came in on the right side to replace Panchot once Gunn decided to have four defensemen.

Ominous that we did not hear any specifics about Tanner Beason.  As well, I did not see any shots of him on the sideline; in contrast, the injured players on the women's team, last year and this, have been shown on the telecasts.

Against OSU, I was pleased to see Stanford look a lot more like I expect them to.  Especially the first 30 minutes of the game, when Stanford played with energy and greater willingness to pass the ball around.  Nothing is more elegant in soccer than a series of one-touch passes that have a purpose (as opposed to passing it around the back), as it means that the players are cognizant of where their teammates are and have the skill to get them the ball without the need to settle it first.  I recall seeing a few such series this game, which have been lacking previously.

I also love watching Ousseni Bouda who, to use a baseball analogy, is a five-tool guy.  Athletic, works hard, is aggressive, and has a wide range of talents.  Bouda can take a pass in traffic and hold the ball against a defender before making a pass (a skill that among other forwards, only Arda Bulut seems to use with some success; Zach Ryan needs to work on that aspect of his game), or he can go one-on-one with the defender with great ball skills.  However, the offense hasn't been as productive as hoped in combing Ryan and Bouda.  Against UCSB, Bouda played as an attacking midfielder and seemed to get a lot more touches.  These observations move me to wonder about playing Gabe Segal along with Ryan up front, which has not been tried, and employing Bouda as midfielder ever ready to join the rush.  During the telecast, Kelly Gray commented on how the two central midfielders -- Waldeck and Gilbey -- tend to more defensive roles, and having Bouda as the link between the defensive midfielders and forwards might generate a better build-up.

By the way, having previously voiced concern that Gilbey hasn't been more productive, I thought he played much better.  At one point his willingness to press up on an OSU defender created a great chance for Stanford, and he made some nice passes.

All in all, the game against OSU rekindled my hope in the team after I may have overreacted to the Washington game.  OSU's roster is probably as good as Washington's, and without a couple of mistakes as you pointed out, VG, including the consequences of playing a man down, I think Stanford played the better game than OSU.  Indeed, they had great chances by Hughes and Aprahamian that I think each player converts more times than not.

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Re the Pac-12 telecast, our own Troy Clardy did a nice job of involving Kelly Gray to bring out his observations and insights.  Along with providing context and summarizing the action, I think the most important role of the play-by-play announcer is to effectively engage the expert next to him, given that most of the play-by-play announcers have backgrounds in the "major sports" of football, basketball, and baseball rather than in soccer.  Well-constructed questions to the color commentator, and holding his feet to the fire to get him to be decisive, can really enhance the coverage of the game.

Troy, if you're reading, two requests to pass along to the higher echelon at Pac-12 network.

One, the close-ups of the coaches or players go on far, far too long.  A quick 3 second shot is plenty, but sometimes they extend for 15-20 seconds.  And they're frequent; if you in the booth mention the coach, I can expect a shot of him to follow.  Meanwhile large segments of action are taking place off camera.  The games are stressful enough without the added frustration in yelling at my screen in an effort to get the producer to "get back to the live action!!"

Two, is there any way to get the network to archive the games for viewing later?  I realize I'm asking the network to act as the DVR I should obtain, but it can't be too storage intense to save the games for the remainder of the season.  (As well, I have to watch many of the games on my computer because they're telecast only on the regional networks, so without technical assistance, I don't know how I would save them.)  By comparison, the Stanford-UCSB game is still available through the UCSB men's soccer page.

RE: The Weekend in Soccer - troyc - 10-10-2019

(10-07-2019, 01:48 PM)DenverCard Wrote:  Re the Pac-12 telecast, our own Troy Clardy did a nice job of involving Kelly Gray to bring out his observations and insights.  Along with providing context and summarizing the action, I think the most important role of the play-by-play announcer is to effectively engage the expert next to him, given that most of the play-by-play announcers have backgrounds in the "major sports" of football, basketball, and baseball rather than in soccer.  Well-constructed questions to the color commentator, and holding his feet to the fire to get him to be decisive, can really enhance the coverage of the game.


Troy, if you're reading, two requests to pass along to the higher echelon at Pac-12 network.



One, the close-ups of the coaches or players go on far, far too long.  A quick 3 second shot is plenty, but sometimes they extend for 15-20 seconds.  And they're frequent; if you in the booth mention the coach, I can expect a shot of him to follow.  Meanwhile large segments of action are taking place off camera.  The games are stressful enough without the added frustration in yelling at my screen in an effort to get the producer to "get back to the live action!!"



Two, is there any way to get the network to archive the games for viewing later?  I realize I'm asking the network to act as the DVR I should obtain, but it can't be too storage intense to save the games for the remainder of the season.  (As well, I have to watch many of the games on my computer because they're telecast only on the regional networks, so without technical assistance, I don't know how I would save them.)  By comparison, the Stanford-UCSB game is still available through the UCSB men's soccer page.

Much appreciated! And my apologies for just now remembering to respond to this.

Your second question first...to my knowledge, the Pac-12 Networks don't archive games for online viewing. Not going to speculate on reasons why, and I'm not sure if that's on the horizon anytime soon. Wish I could be more help there right now, but I'll try to do some digging and perhaps see what's behind that.

Your first question second...I can certainly suggest that to the directors. That said, since they are able to look at all of our available shots at any given time, I trust that they're showing what we all need to see from moment to moment. Are they perfect? No. Then again, I'm sure as heck not perfect, either!

Troy C

RE: The Weekend in Soccer - DenverCard - 10-10-2019

Troy,

Thanks much for your response to my comments about the Pac-12 coverage of soccer.  Those are just quibbles, as I'm very happy that the games are broadcast.  (Looks like Sunday's men's game against SDSU won't be televised -- presumably because SDSU is not a true Pac-12 school -- or even streamed, which reinforces my gratitude at having the opportunity to watch most of them.)  Keep up your great work!

RE: The Weekend in Soccer - oldalum - 10-10-2019

DenverCard expressed probably my greatest frustration with Pac-12 soccer directing: showing us the player who just did something but is now doing nothing, while live play is going on elsewhere that we are not seeing. Always cut back to live action when it starts!!!!!!!!! That is always much more informative and interesting than watching someone do nothing. Even if the announcer is still talking about the person who just did something and now is doing nothing, we can actually listen and remember who is being talked about while watching the live action that has resumed. And that goes double for the long shots of coaches, who always just did nothing and are now still doing nothing: we should never be missing live action to see that. Most of the time this stuff is just annoying, but every once in a while we get cut back to live action suddenly and see the ball going into the goal with no idea how it got there. We are shown it on replay but it's not the same. Many times there is a delay in live action while the director is showing us an overly long shot of someone who is doing nothing, but because I can't trust them to cut to live action when it starts, the frustration builds as I think I'm missing some soccer. I know they're not perfect but this is a perennial sore spot, and, really, it's their job!

Also, Troy (great job as usual), at least once during the Wash-Stanford women's broadcast the director suddenly showed us a graphic or a long close-up shot of someone while you or your co-announcer were in the middle of talking about something completely different and weren't near finished! Can't they coordinate with you and wait to go to whatever it is they want to show when you're ready to talk about it??? Maybe this is much more complicated than we viewers think, but it doesn't seem like it should be?!

Don't get me wrong, I love watching Pac-12 soccer, just want it to be even better.