[Viking_Guy]

Two games, two overmatched opponents.

Women's vball took down WSU in straight sets, -21, -9, -20.  The middle game was an almost embarrassing falling apart by the Cougars, who fell behind 9-1 and hit -.200 - yes, they ended the set with 6 kills and 12 errors on 30 attacks.  Great games as normal from Inky, Boukather, and the increasingly reliable Lutz.  Better game than recently from Howard, and Jordan still needs to find her hitting stride.  Burgess was hitting negative for a large part of the night until a couple of late ones, and ended up a .062 - 4 kills and 3 errors on 16 attacks.

A couple of points:  WSU would be much tougher in the Palouse - they've been giving teams a real tussle at home.  But Stanford, because of the Pac-12 schedule, doesn't travel to Pullman.  And they only get to play the Huskies in Seattle, on the Wednesday evening Thanksgiving Eve.  Then Stanford plays at Berkeley that Friday.  That will be an interesting stretch.  Da Bares, meanwhile, took UW to 5 sets in Berkeley tonight; UW's passing was really subpar, and C.al had a big block going on in stretches.

Meanwhile, Men's soccer rolled Gonzaga, outshooting them 23-3 and getting a first-half goal from Jordan Morris to break on top, then an early second-half goal from Tomas Hilliard-Arce off a corner kick; Stanford set pieces have been absolutely deadly.

One thing - the most dangerous lead in any soccer match is 2-0.  Because when you break on top 2-0, people tend to back off on offense and turn their thoughts to "seeing the game out", while the team that's down knows they need to commit forward to try to get back in the game.  That happened after Hilliard-Arce's goal, when Stanford, which had held the Zags to ZERO shots in the first 50 minutes, gave up all three shots they would concede in the course of ten minutes. 

But the Cardinal got back on balance through freshman Foster Langsdorf, who brought in some good energy and was rewarded with his first collegiate goal off assists from Edwards and Callinan in the 68th minute.  With a 3-0 lead, Stanford retook the initiative, pinning Gonzaga in their own end for the majority of the remaining clock.

Still watching the replay of the women's soccer match, but BobK was of course right; the goal was in no sense Campbell's fault.  Looked to me like Lo LaBonta, who had dropped back to cover in the midfield, horribly misplayed a ball coming back in after an initial clearance to the center line, letting it bounce past her and directly into the path of the player she was "defending" behind her directly into the center of Stanford's defense.  The two center backs converged, and a Ute got around them on the left side and in on Campbell for an easy finish from about 8 yards out.  Yuck.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

Two games, two overmatched opponents.

Women's vball took down WSU in straight sets, -21, -9, -20.  The middle game was an almost embarrassing falling apart by the Cougars, who fell behind 9-1 and hit -.200 - yes, they ended the set with 6 kills and 12 errors on 30 attacks.  Great games as normal from Inky, Boukather, and the increasingly reliable Lutz.  Better game than recently from Howard, and Jordan still needs to find her hitting stride.  Burgess was hitting negative for a large part of the night until a couple of late ones, and ended up a .062 - 4 kills and 3 errors on 16 attacks.

A couple of points:  WSU would be much tougher in the Palouse - they've been giving teams a real tussle at home.  But Stanford, because of the Pac-12 schedule, doesn't travel to Pullman.  And they only get to play the Huskies in Seattle, on the Wednesday evening Thanksgiving Eve.  Then Stanford plays at Berkeley that Friday.  That will be an interesting stretch.  Da Bares, meanwhile, took UW to 5 sets in Berkeley tonight; UW's passing was really subpar, and C.al had a big block going on in stretches.

Meanwhile, Men's soccer rolled Gonzaga, outshooting them 23-3 and getting a first-half goal from Jordan Morris to break on top, then an early second-half goal from Tomas Hilliard-Arce off a corner kick; Stanford set pieces have been absolutely deadly.

One thing - the most dangerous lead in any soccer match is 2-0.  Because when you break on top 2-0, people tend to back off on offense and turn their thoughts to "seeing the game out", while the team that's down knows they need to commit forward to try to get back in the game.  That happened after Hilliard-Arce's goal, when Stanford, which had held the Zags to ZERO shots in the first 50 minutes, gave up all three shots they would concede in the course of ten minutes. 

But the Cardinal got back on balance through freshman Foster Langsdorf, who brought in some good energy and was rewarded with his first collegiate goal off assists from Edwards and Callinan in the 68th minute.  With a 3-0 lead, Stanford retook the initiative, pinning Gonzaga in their own end for the majority of the remaining clock.

Still watching the replay of the women's soccer match, but BobK was of course right; the goal was in no sense Campbell's fault.  Looked to me like Lo LaBonta, who had dropped back to cover in the midfield, horribly misplayed a ball coming back in after an initial clearance to the center line, letting it bounce past her and directly into the path of the player she was "defending" behind her directly into the center of Stanford's defense.  The two center backs converged, and a Ute got around them on the left side and in on Campbell for an easy finish from about 8 yards out.  Yuck.

VG

[washingtonismoney]

One thing - the most dangerous lead in any soccer match is 2-0. 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not you too Viking Guy.


http://theshinguardian.com/2011/06/28/tu...ther-team/

[washingtonismoney]

One thing - the most dangerous lead in any soccer match is 2-0. 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO not you too Viking Guy.


http://theshinguardian.com/2011/06/28/tu...ther-team/

[Viking_Guy]

WiM--

Nice statistical analysis of outcomes.  But it doesn't address the issue properly, IMO.

Start with the premise that most often, the team that is the better of the two gets out to the 2-0 lead.  Quite naturally they would be expected to win the vast majority of games in which they had a two goal advantage.

A much more definitive analysis would be "what happens to the course of a match when a team takes a 2-goal lead"?  If you want to be all Bayesian about it, what happens to one's priors about the likelihood of either team scoring a goal if one team has scored 2 while conceding none, and is that statistical prediction borne out?

The article gets to that in the "Context of the Match" section - but it relegates it to anecdotal status, rather than actually looking at game sequences.

I've watched enough soccer to realize that taking a 2-0 lead, if the teams are not worlds apart in terms of quality, almost always engenders an extra push of energy by the trailing team, and also a corresponding diminished work-rate from the leader.  Heck, I sit behind the team in goal and watch it happen - midfielders aren't as willing to get stuck in on defense or make the long run back against the counter-attack, forwards decide that they don't have to contribute even their normal defensive effort and start to look to add a third.

Yep, the author is right.  Most of the time, the team that takes a two-goal lead will not surrender it; they're generally a better side.  But the most dangerous PERIOD in a match for that better team is generally the 10 minutes right after the second goal.

That would be an interesting analysis.  Something that looks at it as a time sequence, rather than a final score.

Sorry, it's often a sore point for me as a keeper :) - facing the inevitable odd-man rush after my team gets up because my forwards and mids have decided that other people can cover for them, and really, if we only give up 1, we're still in the lead.  Had it happen in a game last week; up 2-0 at half, my team relaxed and gave up two quick ones after half, turning what should have been an easy win into a 4-3 nailbiter.

VG

[Viking_Guy]

WiM--

Nice statistical analysis of outcomes.  But it doesn't address the issue properly, IMO.

Start with the premise that most often, the team that is the better of the two gets out to the 2-0 lead.  Quite naturally they would be expected to win the vast majority of games in which they had a two goal advantage.

A much more definitive analysis would be "what happens to the course of a match when a team takes a 2-goal lead"?  If you want to be all Bayesian about it, what happens to one's priors about the likelihood of either team scoring a goal if one team has scored 2 while conceding none, and is that statistical prediction borne out?

The article gets to that in the "Context of the Match" section - but it relegates it to anecdotal status, rather than actually looking at game sequences.

I've watched enough soccer to realize that taking a 2-0 lead, if the teams are not worlds apart in terms of quality, almost always engenders an extra push of energy by the trailing team, and also a corresponding diminished work-rate from the leader.  Heck, I sit behind the team in goal and watch it happen - midfielders aren't as willing to get stuck in on defense or make the long run back against the counter-attack, forwards decide that they don't have to contribute even their normal defensive effort and start to look to add a third.

Yep, the author is right.  Most of the time, the team that takes a two-goal lead will not surrender it; they're generally a better side.  But the most dangerous PERIOD in a match for that better team is generally the 10 minutes right after the second goal.

That would be an interesting analysis.  Something that looks at it as a time sequence, rather than a final score.

Sorry, it's often a sore point for me as a keeper :) - facing the inevitable odd-man rush after my team gets up because my forwards and mids have decided that other people can cover for them, and really, if we only give up 1, we're still in the lead.  Had it happen in a game last week; up 2-0 at half, my team relaxed and gave up two quick ones after half, turning what should have been an easy win into a 4-3 nailbiter.

VG