Posts: 314
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Joined: Mar 2014
Some observations, speculations, and opinions about SU-USD and men's soccer 2026.
Regarding the winning goal, I heard that Calder Zirn had played only about 3 minutes prior to coming on with about 3 1/2 minutes left, at which time Stanford had a corner kick. He's 6'5" and I said out loud (to myself), wouldn't it be something if he scored the winning goal (thinking header off the corner kick). And then a couple of minutes later he did score the winning way in a very unexpected way.
I have to believe the very long VAR was to check to see if the ball bounced up and hit his arm on either of the blocks he made that resulted in his goal. Watching on YouTube TV I could rewind and generate my own replays, and I was pretty confident the goal would stand. Especially since none of the USD players protested when the goal occurred, as they would have if anyone saw a hand ball.
So far this year Jeremy Gunn has been very uncharacteristic with his substitutions, both in terms of amount and timing. He's playing just about everyone, as if it pre-season. Only the goalie, Schnebly and defender/captain Groeneveld never come out. And small statured, big-hearted Alex Chow is high up in the minutes. Even star Jack Pymm comes out, and he was out at crunchtime against USD. But he has a knock (wrist injury) and had a yellow card today, so maybe those factors contributed. The other strange aspect of the subbing is that Gunn put a few sub defenders in late against Grand Canyon and they hadn't played at all up until that time. Highly unusual for Gunn, who is usually conservative in such situations. Presumably he's still sizing up who will get the minutes as the season progresses, but per my memory, even by this point early in a season he has his rotation of 4-5 subs, and it doesn't change much thereafter.
(Back, back, in the day I played very sporadically for Nelson Lodge at Stanford, and he was the anti--Gunn, insofar as he would make the most random and impulsive decisions about players and minutes in the game. A guy who hadn't played for 15 games would all of a sudden be a starter for three games, and then never play again. Drove the seniors on the team, including one Laird Q. Cagan, bonkers. They almost mutinied, to the extent that a college soccer team could back then. But I digress.)
As to Stanford's tactics, what is with all the high school soccer level panic boot it out of the back? It seems so unnecessary much of the time, as well as craven and usually ineffective. Stanford could, and at times did, play with possession today, and they were a match for USD when they did. But so often they just blasted it from the back, at times when the Stanford player doing the blasting was not under any threat. That #1 ranking is not only way too premature, but if they feel the need to play boot-and-hope much of the time, it very much belies such a ranking. They look very ordinary when they play that way.
And what is with the kickoff strategy in which the ball is blasted out of bounds in the opposing half of the field? I know they do it at the highest level of soccer, but it's completely illogical. If that is your best move at kickoff when under no pressure, would that not be the best strategy throughout the game? Every time you possess the ball in your own half, kick it out of bounds deep in the opponents half and play defense to try to win it back.
Absent today was Joshua Partal, who went off early against Denver with an injury and did not return. He was in street clothes today.
At the beginning of the game I listened to the broadcast for anything about Pymm's injury (his wrist was wrapped), about Partal's injury, or why the flag was at half-mast. (What did I miss in the news recently? Not for Dolly Parton's death...or could it be?) However, the announcers addressed none of those items; in fact, they failed to discuss the line-up at all. Instead, from the get-go they began their barrage of cliches, platitudes, and other completely tedious drivel...and they did not let up the entire game. I hate to be so critical, as they are probably announcing the game for nothing more than the experience of doing so but good God, man, can we have a) Some original thought? b) Analysis of the strategy, tactics, or perspective on the content of the game?, or c) Information that is not available on gostanford.com? I used to think that only hearing my brother eat caused misophonia in me, but the broadcasts of Stanford soccer are now a second stimuli I try to avoid, although I did turn the sound back on after the goal was scored.
