Question for you soccer guys. Why do our women always seem to look for the extra cute little pass instead of just firing it at the goal like the Michigan girl did? Is that a coaching thing or do our women just have no confidence in their shot?
B1G Semifinal: #15 Rutgers Women's Soccer Matches Up with #19 Michigan on Friday
- Thread starter Tango Two
- Start date
Not a soccer guy, but IMHO opinion it is because when we get in position, our girls are usually in the middle of the filed, with 4 defenders standing in front of them. We do not generate a lot of opportunities to get a clean shot off when the defense has a chance to get back.
I will be interested to hear what the 3 main W. Soccer posters have to say about this one.
Much like many other RU sports, our athletes lack speed. Other teams always look twice as fast as us. We always get chased down. Outran. Can’t get a shot off like that because we are always tightly guarded. We can’t do that because one move and we are burned. Just like football.
Swaby was the other starter who went out early. Supposedly has been dealing with a hamstring injury. Seemed to tighten up while they were tending to Holland on the field. No idea what happened to #15 she seem to take a knee and then just walk off the field. I will admit I turned it off after they gave up the first goal. No one from RU contested the header. I don't find this team to be a fun watch. I hate to pick on O'Neill because of his level of success but his style of play seems very conservative.
None this schoolyear. And to make matters worse, State Penn is probably going to celebrate a conference title on our field for the second time in 2019.
Agree with your post 100% was going to post the same thing. O’Neill like you say can recruit but his coaching is terrible. We had 1SHOT the last 75 minutes I mean the goal was our ONLY SHOT!! forget about on goalie was our only shot. You can’t generate any offense when you have 1 girl forward and 10 back you can’t expect Amirah to go 1 on 3 every time because she has zero support. Nothing is going to change because we have a good record and make the NCAA’s but his coaching will not get us to the next level. If we don’t change our style next year it will be the same thing
I have never believed that the PDA style of play carries over well into higher level competition. Trying to split the seams between defenders only works if you have at least two offensive players that are substantially faster than the the defenders. This works at the club level because the top PDA "A" teams get those type of players. It doesn't work very well for the PDA "B", C, D and E teams however. Once you get to the college level, especially the B1G level, you will rarely get those mismatches in speed. The end result is that you get a game like today that looks like kick and run.
Even the efforts to build from the back, like PDA, were woeful. >50% of the passes were negative. That does not win games - it kills clock time and you keep possession, but on the wrong half of the field.
With all that said, I am very optimistic that Allie Lowrey will add a new dynamic to this team next year. And once Riley Tiernan gets there, things should really improve (33 goals and 34 assists this year for #1 Eastern as a junior).
Unless you have played the game its hard to understand why the ball finds the net so few times. The goal is dam big . Being able to finish in soccer is a very rare skill for an athlete to have . Much harder than other sports thus the lack of scoring.
It just stings so much more at Home but we have a team that will be in the NCAA Tournament with a shot at an NCAA Championship...Soccer is a funny game...jmo
Losing Holland, Swaby & Monome really hurt. We would have won that game with them playing. As someone said, we did not contest the cross & the header. It would have not have happened with Holland Swaby & Moneme in there. Their subs are softer & not as tough & aggressive. Additionally the Ref was born & raised in Ann Arbor & has a premium seat on the bus back. What a screwing. You couldn't get that many calls wrong one way in one game & looking right at the play.
Shame these girls lost. They are a great bunch & a very good team. Breaks went against them today.
Shame these girls lost. They are a great bunch & a very good team. Breaks went against them today.
Anything but weak. Have you ever been to a game? Once again you demonstrate that you don't know what the hell you're talking about with regards to the women's soccer team.
It is KIND OF “weak.” Sorry. We had a HUGE opportunity but didn’t take advantage. Lost out on a potential B1G title - our first team title - at home no less. Didn’t even make the final. Likely won’t even get a top 4-seed and will MAYBE get 1 home match in the NCAA’s now with a very difficult 2nd game. HUGE opportunities missed here and thinking or saying otherwise is beyond foolish. YES - injuries took their effect yesterday, no question, but this program should be deep enough by now to overcome these things at home as such, or at least not to tie it up at end of regulation only to blow it - again at HOME - 2 minutes into the 1st OT.
WHEN is this program going to get over the hump? EVERY year there’s an excuse. Very good coach, very good program, TIME TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP. We want them to. we believe they can, LET’S GET IT DONE!!
p.s. - I’m NOT putting this on the girls. This is on O’Neil.
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Of course it's weak.
You have the finals on your campus and you can't beat a team you're supposed to beat.
WEAK!
While we disagree regarding Morgan/Lloyd this I completely agree with. Losing 3 starters in a game, ref was horribly one sided (thought the same in the Penn St game) and even the last goal it looked like Megan lost in the sun, never saw it. We got unlucky but those are the breaks.
The difference here - to me- is that Nuts doesn't seem happy about it.
You? You seem overjoyed. Something definitely not right with you...
No! I’m not happy, I think it’s a shame that we blew suck a great opportunity...HOWEVER...I take ZERO “joy” in being unhappy. You’re correct.
Maybe you should try going to a game, being around these girls & program before you term anything or anyone "weak".
I never called the girls “weak.” Get a clue, regardless, it’s okay to be critical. My Lord man what IS your problem?!
And enough with your incessant “maybe you should try going to a game” bullshit. I watch the game on TV. I watch other games on TV. Whenever the girls are on TV I tried to watch them. Don’t give me that crap. Had we won yesterday a whole group of us were attending the game tomorrow.
While I commend your support for this team, and many others, you really should ease up on putting others down for not being able to attend. You do this quite often friend.
Arm chair QB. You don't know squat about this program. Doesn't stop you from shooting your mouth off. Sure sign of a "know nothing". And by the way, just which of our teams do you get out & support?
Dad - I love your passion but I don't think your take is fair here. People can criticize our teams whether they attend or not.
Some of the worst criticism comes from those who attend the game...does that make it better?
Nuts is a huge fan and I take him as his word that he wasn't calling the ladies weak.
Well where did the characterization come from? Who used the term.These girls, their coaches & this program are anything but weak, nor or was their effort yesterday. These girls have tremendous character & heart & fight in them. Wrong word.
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How about the words "lost opportunity"? We were the highest remaining seed in the tournament playing at home and lost. Didn't someone say we had one shot on goal for a huge stretch of the game? People are frustrated because we had what looked like the best chance we've had to date to win a B1G conference championship and didn't even make it to the finals. The team had a great regular season and that raised expectations/hopes.
Yes we had 1 total shot not just on goal but 1 actual shot the last approximately 70 minutes we didn’t deserve to win that game and we’re very fortunate to only lose by one goal. Not going to review the game itself but I really am starting to question the coach. This is not the girls as I know they played their hearts out and I am very proud of them but back to the coach and this is meant to be an open discussion about our future.
Now in starting I know the team has had great success under O’Neill as this will be off the top of my head I think our 6th straight NCAA tournament appearance which is a great accomplishment and by far the most successful program at Rutgers but at this point I don’t think we should be just happy with making the NCAA tournament but we need to take the next step and get to the point where we can potentially be playing for a championship.
The Michigan game was a microcosm of the season and this is where I start to question O’Neill(again I know we lost 3 girls during the game)
The first in this one was the lineup he started Moneme at left forward a huge mistake as she has absolutely no left foot and in this game when we’re attacking we were basically running everything down the left side with Moneme who has no ability to cross the ball and had a couple of chances but took weak shots and other times could not get effective crosses.
Next point which we have discussed but I will repeat we insist on bringing our forwards back on defense every time which does 2 number one it tires the heck out of our forwards and I know one of the responses mentioned counterattacks as our offense but that’s mostly impossible as we keep only one forward up and that’s Amirah and you are not going to score going 1 on 3 every time even as good as she is and this is the reason she scored only 4 goals(not including her penalty kicks) all season long.
Next point and this has to be on the coach is we rarely utilize the field and keep the ball wide and make crosses. Probably one of our nicest balls of the year was the ball played into the box in the Indiana game on their own goal. Our girls almost always insist on taking the ball and dribble into the middle which is much easier to defend and we don’t get shots off which flows into the next point shoot the darn ball my god how many shots do we pass up!! Look at the Michigan game winner just shoot the ball on net or towards the net and you never know what wii happen
Well that’s it for know I am sure there are other points but it’s late!!
If you get rid of O’Neill then you lose the funnel of PDA girls which is one of the best clubs in the nation.
It's about game day coaching. You can watch video, plan, but can you adjust to the game. In the OT, 2 should have been man marked, she had way to much time on the ball when she struck it, yes Meghan lost the ball in tbe sun, but you have to prevent the shot/pass, R should have aggressively sent numbers forwards, some players that were on the field should not have been, forget who plays what position and get creative. Don't go for a tie and pk's, attack, change formation to get that quick goal and don't look back. Something has to change to create offense before the NCAA's, the defense is set they will continue to have success, focus on offense all week, we have the talent, utilize it!
Your comments have absolutely zero to do with what I’m getting at here (and others see as well). All you do is attack me, incessantly, for some reason. Get a life.
Read my initial comment again. Nowhere did I called the GIRLS “weak.”. Reading comprehension my friend.
You should be banned both for making shit up and for incessantly attacking other posters.
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