10-14-2018, 10:33 PM
Bashti did seem pretty quick...when he tried. But he seemed to be jogging half the time and rarely fought for any ball.
A couple observations/questions.
It seemed that UW liked to attack down their left (our right) side more often than not. Does that speak to their strength or our weakness?
Also, #9 for UW seemed to be a sparkplug/disruptor to our defense. He seemed to be a part of every attack, and any time the ball was not headed, he'd be there to whisk the ball away and then dribble penetrate (sorry don't know soccer terminology that well), deep into our area. Fortunately, either our defense collapsed well, or he wasn't a good finisher because there were several times where he had to dribble back out in a circle and reset. I think when he came back in near the end of the second half, our offensive possessions (that had been so strong for much of the second half) dissipated and we started looking like the first half team that wasn't able to link anything and was just trying to parry all of UW's attacks. Unfortunately, it led (not sure if directly, but at least as part of a general push by UW) to the late game PK (sitting on the far endline, I was very surprised at that call. Seemed like incidental contact between two players going after the ball and just bumping each other. I'd seen much worse throughout the game not called where players were aggressively or sneakily shoving players). Anyway, it seemed like we didn't have a good answer for the super quick player with dribble skills.
As for the fans...everything was quite civil. Perhaps because it was youth night. So lots of families and youth teams. After the game ended, people just got up and left. People talking amongst themselves if anything. Then again, I wasn't paying close attention as I was still riding the high from that ending. =)
A couple observations/questions.
It seemed that UW liked to attack down their left (our right) side more often than not. Does that speak to their strength or our weakness?
Also, #9 for UW seemed to be a sparkplug/disruptor to our defense. He seemed to be a part of every attack, and any time the ball was not headed, he'd be there to whisk the ball away and then dribble penetrate (sorry don't know soccer terminology that well), deep into our area. Fortunately, either our defense collapsed well, or he wasn't a good finisher because there were several times where he had to dribble back out in a circle and reset. I think when he came back in near the end of the second half, our offensive possessions (that had been so strong for much of the second half) dissipated and we started looking like the first half team that wasn't able to link anything and was just trying to parry all of UW's attacks. Unfortunately, it led (not sure if directly, but at least as part of a general push by UW) to the late game PK (sitting on the far endline, I was very surprised at that call. Seemed like incidental contact between two players going after the ball and just bumping each other. I'd seen much worse throughout the game not called where players were aggressively or sneakily shoving players). Anyway, it seemed like we didn't have a good answer for the super quick player with dribble skills.
As for the fans...everything was quite civil. Perhaps because it was youth night. So lots of families and youth teams. After the game ended, people just got up and left. People talking amongst themselves if anything. Then again, I wasn't paying close attention as I was still riding the high from that ending. =)