UCLA has some very fast players who are hard to deal with. The one who scored their first goal is a track athlete and used her speed to create some space from her defender and made a perfect shot over the GK that then dipped down under the crossbar. Several of the goals we gave up last year were shot like that. UCLA's second goal came after we turned the ball over in our half, so our defense was not set and made an error in allowing the unguarded run behind us that resulted in the second goal. UCLA uses its speed to put a lot of pressure on us when we have the ball, and we end up passing the ball before we are really ready.
Fatigue may have played some role, but both teams essentially used only 2 subs each. UCLA's first goal was by their fast outside back against our outside back, both of whom played all 90 minutes. Where fatigue may have come into play is that none of our forwards tracked back with that UCLA outside back when she came down the field, possibly because they were tired at that point. A forward might have had a better chance of keeping up with the UCLA speedster. UCLA's second goal was off a turnover by one of our subs (who was therefore not fatigued), and was scored by a player who had sat the first 16 minutes of the second half so was better rested than our same outside back defender who didn't see or go with her on her run behind our defense. I think a bigger factor was that after going one goal down, UCLA played with a much greater sense of urgency and intensity, and put us under more pressure. In fact, UCLA should have scored less than a minute after our goal but their player didn't put the short-range shot on frame.
Our center back who was injured came back in after a few minutes, so that was not a factor in the goals.
LaBonta's score was terrific. One odd thing I noticed is that there were no offside calls in the game at all.
The fact is UCLA is really good. They have all their starters back from last year's national championship team (!), they are as good as us at every position and better at a few, and they are well coached; we can beat them but it's really tough to pull off. I hope we are able to win out and get a #1 or #2 seed in a different regional so that we don't have to play them again until the College Cup.
Fatigue may have played some role, but both teams essentially used only 2 subs each. UCLA's first goal was by their fast outside back against our outside back, both of whom played all 90 minutes. Where fatigue may have come into play is that none of our forwards tracked back with that UCLA outside back when she came down the field, possibly because they were tired at that point. A forward might have had a better chance of keeping up with the UCLA speedster. UCLA's second goal was off a turnover by one of our subs (who was therefore not fatigued), and was scored by a player who had sat the first 16 minutes of the second half so was better rested than our same outside back defender who didn't see or go with her on her run behind our defense. I think a bigger factor was that after going one goal down, UCLA played with a much greater sense of urgency and intensity, and put us under more pressure. In fact, UCLA should have scored less than a minute after our goal but their player didn't put the short-range shot on frame.
Our center back who was injured came back in after a few minutes, so that was not a factor in the goals.
LaBonta's score was terrific. One odd thing I noticed is that there were no offside calls in the game at all.
The fact is UCLA is really good. They have all their starters back from last year's national championship team (!), they are as good as us at every position and better at a few, and they are well coached; we can beat them but it's really tough to pull off. I hope we are able to win out and get a #1 or #2 seed in a different regional so that we don't have to play them again until the College Cup.