08-26-2018, 02:51 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-26-2018, 02:58 PM by Viking_Guy.)
H88--
Tale of two halves, and a hot keeper for the Spartans.
First half was entirely one-way traffic. Stanford was in the offensive half at least 60-65% of the time, and peppered the goal with shots. Bashti hit the crossbar, and Wehan (?) had an absolute golden chance 1-v-1 against the keeper after a cross bounced through to him at the far post. Instead of going back across the goal, he tried for a quick strike, and hit the ball right into the keeper's chest.
Second half was much more even, although San Jose only really managed a couple of good chances. But they took confidence from not being punished for the earlier lapses, and pushed forward a bit more.
Issue for Stanford - who's your finisher? Bashti, for all his on-ball skill, has never really shown a finisher's touch. Wehan will be good, but is still young. Panchot (who played the majority of the game with a brobdingnagian bandage above his left eye from a head clash about 10 minutes in) also has a shot at it. But right now, there is no Jordan/Foster player who will put the ball in the back of the net a majority of the time.
In the second half, that also manifested itself in some of the younger players over-passing - there were a lot of attempts to slot a ball in behind the Spartans' backline, and some worked. But SJSU also adjusted by dropping off the ball a bit more in favor of defending the pass, and the players seemed reluctant to take a strike from 22-25 yards.
And San Jose State's keeper just had a whale of a game. Some intentional, some unintentional, but he came up big.
My $.02,
VG
A couple more things:
Fitness isn't what it will be. They definitely ran out of gas later in the game and later in each period.
I think, while they miss Foster, Corey, and Sam a lot, the one they most miss right now is Drew Skundrich. Waldeck and Gilbey may grow into it, but Drew was everything you could want in a holding MF, especially distributionally and defensively.
On the women's side, the BYU match is going to be really tough - at altitude, without Davidson, and going against a Cougar team that is really strong at home. I'm hoping that Tierna will be back for UND/UNC games, but we'll see. When she and Macario came on in the game against USF, it really did change the nature of the contest.
VG
Tale of two halves, and a hot keeper for the Spartans.
First half was entirely one-way traffic. Stanford was in the offensive half at least 60-65% of the time, and peppered the goal with shots. Bashti hit the crossbar, and Wehan (?) had an absolute golden chance 1-v-1 against the keeper after a cross bounced through to him at the far post. Instead of going back across the goal, he tried for a quick strike, and hit the ball right into the keeper's chest.
Second half was much more even, although San Jose only really managed a couple of good chances. But they took confidence from not being punished for the earlier lapses, and pushed forward a bit more.
Issue for Stanford - who's your finisher? Bashti, for all his on-ball skill, has never really shown a finisher's touch. Wehan will be good, but is still young. Panchot (who played the majority of the game with a brobdingnagian bandage above his left eye from a head clash about 10 minutes in) also has a shot at it. But right now, there is no Jordan/Foster player who will put the ball in the back of the net a majority of the time.
In the second half, that also manifested itself in some of the younger players over-passing - there were a lot of attempts to slot a ball in behind the Spartans' backline, and some worked. But SJSU also adjusted by dropping off the ball a bit more in favor of defending the pass, and the players seemed reluctant to take a strike from 22-25 yards.
And San Jose State's keeper just had a whale of a game. Some intentional, some unintentional, but he came up big.
My $.02,
VG
A couple more things:
Fitness isn't what it will be. They definitely ran out of gas later in the game and later in each period.
I think, while they miss Foster, Corey, and Sam a lot, the one they most miss right now is Drew Skundrich. Waldeck and Gilbey may grow into it, but Drew was everything you could want in a holding MF, especially distributionally and defensively.
On the women's side, the BYU match is going to be really tough - at altitude, without Davidson, and going against a Cougar team that is really strong at home. I'm hoping that Tierna will be back for UND/UNC games, but we'll see. When she and Macario came on in the game against USF, it really did change the nature of the contest.
VG