09-04-2016, 09:03 PM
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.
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.