MSPSP League Game #5 vs. Michigan Sting (Tie 1-1)

This was a cold night that saw the availability of daylight quickly evaporate. The fact that our referees showed up 20 minutes late did not help either, especially since we were forced to call the game 10 minutes early. It is what it is. This game now places us more than halfway done with our MSPSP fall league schedule (game #5 of 9). At this point, we are the first place team in our division with a 2 point lead over the Michigan Gators. We still have a lot of tough games ahead of us, but we are positioned well to compete for the title. Our division is very close...with a number of ties occurring throughout (7 in the month of September).

The game stats: 14 shots on goal, versus 7 against. 4 corner kicks for us, versus 0 against us. 60-70% possession.

Bottomline: we walked away with a tie (1-1).

We definitely improved in the area of possession and accuracy of simple passing options. I saw a lot better focus on getting heads up and finding players. We used the central midfield a lot more effectively than in past games. The Michigan Sting tended to play a long ball game, and I was happy to see that we did not really get sucked into that. We kept the ball on the ground and played possession. Hannah Huff and Emily Rozin worked very hard to control the midfield and set the wide and central attack options up. Their work in the center of the field was a good example of how we should be setting up the attack.

So...what happened? Simply, we lacked a coordinated attack. We possessed well, but there was no urgency in the attacking third to finish on the net until the last 10-15 minutes of the game. We had isolated individual efforts that were notable (Meggy, Shelby, Hannah Rhoades, etc) throughout the game. But not until the last 10-15 minutes of the game did the whole team decide to attack the net as a team. The result of that coordinated attack was a goal by Shelby (off a nice centering pass from Kara), 3 corner kick opportunities, forced the Sting to play 6 defenders in the back, and at least 6 shots on net. The urgency we showed in the last 10-15 minutes of this game is the level of intensity and coordination that we need to be displaying from the beginning of every game. We made adjustments (converting to 3-5-2 to flood the midfield) but the real issue was one of urgency and desire to score.

We had a rare turnover in our own defensive third that resulted in a goal by the Sting, allowing them to score on one of their few opportunities. We worked through a slight breakdown in shape and spacing in the defense...that we will attribute to the cold weather conditions slowing down our adjustements. Basically, the defense needs to ensure that we start compact in our shape and force plays to the outside or funnel into other defenders to help.

We will be concentrating on the finishing and combination aspects that should follow the build up of possession in the next few training sessions. We should see our efforts to possess the ball followed up by dangerous strikes on net, otherwise we are just playing a big game of keep-away.