09-03-2018, 01:53 PM
On the men's side, I'm not nearly as sanguine.
Stanford still plays the high-pressure, take the ball back style that has produced three straight national champions. It can be fun to watch,
But they are significantly smaller, and really not very fast; in the game against Maryland, they couldn't get past the bigger Terrapin defenders. And set pieces were not a strong point; beyond Mosharrafa, they're not particularly strong in the air.
Stanford won't be outworked, that's for sure, which can make up for a lot, But they are giving up possession too easily, looking for those perfect balls to split a defense, and hitting passes that are lower probability than they should be.
Their best chances are what resulted in the goal today - high pressure leading to a turnover deep in the opponent's end. Today, Bashti converted. Against Maryland, Bashti stole the ball and fed Wehan, who, instead of hitting the ball with his left, tried to pull it back to his right and got blocked.
They also gave up nearly THIRTY shots today. Ten on goal. If Thomas didn't come up big, they would've lost. It feels like other sides realize our offense is not a brobdingnagian threat, and are really pressing forward - I don't recall a Cardinal side facing that many shots in the last few years.
More to the point, as I mentioned last week, we just don't appear to have that "danger" player, that both puts the ball in the back of the net AND pulls the other team's defense out of shape to open spaces for the other attackers. Bashti appears to be our most consistent threat, and that's a problem - as with others, I think he's better as a change of pace player, rather than as a starter. Most especially because he's not a "target" forward; when he plays back to goal, he seems to want to get rid of the ball as soon as possible, often hitting really low-percentage chip and deflection attempts trying to spring outside players forward.
All of this is off a small sample size - three games. But (1) the men's team doesn't appear to have many significant injuries or players unavailable - there's no Macario or Davidson who is going to come back and change the tenor, and (2) the issues with scoring, absent Foster, were already there last year. Losing Werner hurt this team a lot.
But again, they graduated almost all of their starters from last year. This year is going to be very much a work in progress, and we've seen what Gunn can do, and how much his sides improve over the course of the season.
VG
Stanford still plays the high-pressure, take the ball back style that has produced three straight national champions. It can be fun to watch,
But they are significantly smaller, and really not very fast; in the game against Maryland, they couldn't get past the bigger Terrapin defenders. And set pieces were not a strong point; beyond Mosharrafa, they're not particularly strong in the air.
Stanford won't be outworked, that's for sure, which can make up for a lot, But they are giving up possession too easily, looking for those perfect balls to split a defense, and hitting passes that are lower probability than they should be.
Their best chances are what resulted in the goal today - high pressure leading to a turnover deep in the opponent's end. Today, Bashti converted. Against Maryland, Bashti stole the ball and fed Wehan, who, instead of hitting the ball with his left, tried to pull it back to his right and got blocked.
They also gave up nearly THIRTY shots today. Ten on goal. If Thomas didn't come up big, they would've lost. It feels like other sides realize our offense is not a brobdingnagian threat, and are really pressing forward - I don't recall a Cardinal side facing that many shots in the last few years.
More to the point, as I mentioned last week, we just don't appear to have that "danger" player, that both puts the ball in the back of the net AND pulls the other team's defense out of shape to open spaces for the other attackers. Bashti appears to be our most consistent threat, and that's a problem - as with others, I think he's better as a change of pace player, rather than as a starter. Most especially because he's not a "target" forward; when he plays back to goal, he seems to want to get rid of the ball as soon as possible, often hitting really low-percentage chip and deflection attempts trying to spring outside players forward.
All of this is off a small sample size - three games. But (1) the men's team doesn't appear to have many significant injuries or players unavailable - there's no Macario or Davidson who is going to come back and change the tenor, and (2) the issues with scoring, absent Foster, were already there last year. Losing Werner hurt this team a lot.
But again, they graduated almost all of their starters from last year. This year is going to be very much a work in progress, and we've seen what Gunn can do, and how much his sides improve over the course of the season.
VG