Women's college formation/tactics discussion.

Just think who Vlatko Andonovski will target in this coming draft. He isn't interested in big target forwards, he isn't interested in players that play north and south. What he is interested is players that can plug and play in his system.

Mandy Laddish will be high on his list. Exceptional vision, her nick name is the Wizard at Notre Dame for her ball movement skills.

Another player that I think may be high on his list is Amanda Frisbie. I think this girl will get overlooked by a lot of teams, but she has the right traits that Andonovski wants in his forwards. A player that can hold up play and bring the midfield into the attack.

A lot of teams will go for players like Dunn or Ohai or even big target forwards like Hayes or Marlborough. Laddish will be a first round pick for KC and then Frisbie would just be perfect in the later rounds.

 

I feel funny watching UNC too. But I feel funny because as much as I want to like it, I think it's ugly soccer. It's just a slug-fest of your athletes against ours and hopefully, we get one of our athletes close enough to the goal to create a chance to shoot and score. I watched a lot of the FSU game since it was on my TV in HD and I don't disagree with your take at all but watching that game made me like soccer a little less than I did before. If UNC is the pinnacle of US College Women's soccer in 2013, something we should all aspire to and emulate, where making 5 consecutive passes in a conference game is basically a miracle or an accident, you can have it.

 

At least at the youth club level, the trainers are still somewhat concerned about development. At the college level, development means nothing. It is only about W's. Some programs know they can win by being more athletic, faster, bigger, stronger, and more physical than almost every team on their schedules so that is what they do. It looks horrible and is horrible, but it wins in college because for the most part the high majority of college soccer is not high quality and definitely not high enough to counteract that rugby style of direct soccer from schools who are getting the best athletes. The sad thing is that many of those kids can play great soccer before arriving on campus, but they are put into situation where that style is not promoted.

 

I think the last 3 posts by themaestro, Eddie K and 2-Timer are really quite interesting, and as an unrepentant UNC fan, I have several comments.

First, to themaestro's query can you play the UNC 3-4-3 without being UNC? I'd say probably not, if you are in a good conference. We depend a lot on the depth of our bench; the defensive skill of our forwards; and our relentless pace to make it work. In our system, the fitness pressure on the outside midfielders to play the whole field is just sick. Without a deep bench for subs, I don't think it is sustainable in a college game. We need strong defense from our forwards to help relieve some of that outside pressure before it gets well started, and we need exceptional speed of play to capitalize on our chances so that the attacking advantage we create in 3-4-3 more than compensates for the defensive vulnerabilities we acknowledge. It is a tough system to play. That said, I think any program could incorporate elements of the UNC program (like: fitness isn't everything, but without it, nothing else much matters; and, defense starts at the opposing end line) but trying to play the UNC system without our unique recruiting advantage and historical culture, would, IMO, be a tough way to go.

As to UNC's physicality, yes we are a physical team. Hard to imagine we would not be, as we recruit some of the best female players in the world. But when we play TAMU, it doesn't prompt a discussion on AWK (see Baylor)! Our gals play a remarkably clean game. It is a contact sport, and our gals are more than willing to "swap some paint (to borrow a very cute auto-racing term)" with the best players in the country, but at the end of the day, you don't hear complaints about chippy play directed toward UNC players (Though we seem to take a lot of grief for everything else...).

Eddie K, being cute with the ball is fun for parents to watch, but at the highest level of the sport, it does not bring home the bacon. UNC has had more than its share of ball artists: Kacey White and Tobin Heath come quickly to mind, but Kacey struggled to find her footing with the USWNT and Tobin took tons of grief for being a naive prima-donna when she took that step up. In the bigs (both men and women) its about the back of the net. And UNC (and the ACC) is (are) about as close as you will find to that mindset in the women's college game. IMO, it is harsh to say it is not attractive. It is not delicate, and it is not self-indulgent. Its pseudo-professional, and (IMO) feels more like a pro game. I completely agree that more than 5 passes thru the midfield might be a prerequisite for any kind of props! I'd just say, it is early for UNC in the season, with a very fluid, experimental line-up and some unfortunate injuries. The UNC team, at its best, is capable of a precise, controlled mid-field game (as when we schooled Stanford at College Station, TX for the NCAA Championship). Even now, we are doing more than most college teams would dream of attempting as we try to switch back and forth fluidly between two formations which, while they are technically compatible, place very different mental expectations on the players with regard to their roles. That is a lot to demand of amateur players and I find it very interesting to watch our gals try to adapt to it.

In closing, maybe we aren't everybody's cup of tea, but I think there is a lot to like and a lot to find of interest. It is not just like we are skimming the cream of the recruiting world and waiting for those trophies to fall into our laps. The coaches and players have earned every one in an ever increasingly competitive environment, and I think how they do that is, in itself, interesting enough to make the team well worth watching! Just my very biased opinion!

 

UNC can play that style as long as

a) The current college substitution rules are in place and a more FIFA-like approach to subs does not get adopted.

and

b) The program continues to attract strong recruiting classes.

Their style is innovative in that it takes advantage of those two things: liberal sub rules and good athletes. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before here. I think it's fun to watch and it has obviously been successful for them.

I like a more technical, possession-oriented style with creative play in the attacking third. I really like the way teams like Portland play, for example. But I guess I'm just one of those silly parents who like "cute" ball skills. Even so, I'm glad that variants like UNC's style exist. This type of variety makes the college game fun to watch.

 

I certainly mean no disrespect to any parent who takes pride in their child's patiently acquired skills, or to any player's technical artistry with the ball! I well know how hard it is to master those skills! And I enjoy watching a player dance with the ball as much as anyone else! OLE!! Really well executed passing sequences are a delight as well! I'm just sayin', with a very few exceptions (like maybe Marta) at the highest level of the game that sort of entertainment is the icing on the cake, while low shots on frame are the meat and potatoes of the main meal, and the best coaches don't much care how the ball gets up the field, so long as it finds a striker who can put it in the low corner.

 

The west coast fan's cant stand UNC system because it's made to beat there possession slow style. It makes their players have to react faster and make quicker decisions.

 

I wouldn't say they are though. They're defending champions, yes, and the most iconic and highest-stature program in the country by a mile, but they lose games in the ACC. They've been caught up and found out in the conference in the last few years by teams like Wake who rotate positions and move the ball better, or FSU who can beat them at their own game on their day.

Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't bet against them winning it all this year or ANY year. But I don't think they're THE pinnacle any longer. It's not fair to expect them to be, either. As a measure of how much the game has grown, there are simply too many great players out there for them to horde them all as they did in past decades.

 

I would certainly agree with this! There are now a number of exceptional teams in any given year. Rather than one team at the pinnacle, its more like a melee to find the last team standing. Anson has said for more than a decade that when this (inevitable) day came, UNC would change its chops. We are now doing that, and it is fascinating to watch! I don't suggest that UNC will win the next 10 NCAA Championships, but I would argue that we have an excellent shot at at least four or five of them. That is not a pinnacle, but it eclipses the prospects (and history) of any other program in the country, so if my prediction is anywhere near accurate, I'd say we are still growing, evolving, and might even be worth watching from time to time?

 

I've read this post a couple times now, and it seems both accurate (partially) and poignant. I think you are correct that youth clubs are really the last frontier where the best coaches are about the needs of the kids. Once they move on to college, the best coaches still focus on maximizing the growth of each player, but it is within the context of the needs of their programs. And after college, its not at all about building players, its about proving yourself to keep your spot! Learn, excel, or leave! In one sense this is kinda sad, but on the other hand, childhood ends and players grow up. U-18 is probably long enough to be nurtured, don't you think?

 

Thank you for summarizing just about everything wrong with soccer in the US in just one phrase. NO, the best coaches do care - maybe not coaches that want to win games and keep their jobs in US college women's soccer (which is the topic here, I get it) but the best coaches DO care HOW the ball gets up field AND how it gets into the net. You don't have to admit it if you want to keep drinking the carolina blue Kool-Aide, but UNC has turned college women's soccer into a horse race, and not 'the beautiful game' that it could be or maybe was intended to be.
So again, if you like soccer that looks like a tennis match and that's how you win trophies, you can have it. Thankfully, there's better quality soccer to watch on my TV and in my neighborhood parks.

 

What team do you coach Eddie? So we can see how beautiful your players play.

 

Eddie coaches a little league U8 women's team. They pass so well man. It's like a video game.

 

2 reactions like a U8 player that has no ideas. Guess I hit a nerve... At least UNC4EVER did not concede so easily and made the discussion worth reading. You want to try again on the topic or just give up and think you're insulting someone on an anonymous forum?
I was watching a HS girls game once with a brilliant "Marta" type player. The entire boys team was there watching and had special cheers for her like "ankle....breaker" and "you can't have it...the Ball" while the parents of those same kids where screaming "kick it, kick it" and "she never passes". So, which side of the stands where you on?

 

Your résumé is no doubt forthcoming for our examination and evaluation....

 

I by no means didn't want to intentionally imply that college coaches totally disregard development, but I was trying to make a point that youth trainers and college coaches have different priorities. The ages of the players, the game itself, job responsibility, money, bosses expectations all play a part. Youth coaches want to win as much as anybody, but the good ones realize they need to develop their players. Sometimes that can come at the expense of a victory as you have to allow your kids to make mistakes as they learn to play. It would be easy to just teach them to play physical and long and focus on winning that U14 league, but the kids wouldn't learn much in the process. In college, of course you want your players to continue improving but first and foremost you need to win and you would never risk victory over style for development. It wasn't a knock on college coaches as much as it just the reality of they two completely different systems filled with players at two completely different spots in their careers. For the most part a college player is equal to a 38-40 year old professional. 99.9% are within a couple of years of retirement.

 

In my experience, it's not so much that college coaches don't stress development. Most incoming true freshman in the ACC need development and seasoning before they're ready to contribute. The real problem is how ridiculously short the competitive season is, and the long breaks during winter and summer. College in general, for both men and women, isn't great for developing players - at least not compared to the two or three hundred competitive games a player of similar age in Europe or South America will play during those same four years.

 

Getting back to the original question - yes, lots of 4-3-3 these days, also 4-2-3-1 (tho an awful lot of those 4-3-3's turn into 4-5-1's, if the two wide attacking players end up tracking back or getting pinned back by pressure). These trends are usually a case of matching like for like. Once 4-3-3 started getting popular (popular AGAIN, I should add - it was favored by lots of teams at the 1970 World Cup, according to Jonathan Wilson, who writes books about these things), nobody wanted to get outnumbered in the center of midfield, as you would in a 4-4-2. Theoretically, you give up space in wide areas in a 4-3-3, but then that's why you have overlapping fullbacks.

As for why 4-3-3 found a resurgence in popularity, all defensive shape these days is predicated on screening the back four with either one or two holding midfielders, to stop service going to the feet of (most likely) a lone striker. It's really easy to assign this duty with a midfield 3 either way - one holding, two attacking or vice versa.

 

So, what about a 4-4-2 with one of the outside backs attacking pretty regularly? Morphs from a 4-4-2 to a 3-4-3, but with the midfielders maintaining their shape. The outside backs and center backs have to be aware of what each of the outside backs is doing so as to not get both outside backs forward at the same time. The outside mids also have to be prepared to transition to outside backs if the regular outside backs are overlapping.

BTW, isn't this what the USFS youth curriculum calls for?

 

Nothing wrong with that of course, but if you want to play with a holding midfielder (which today everyone does), then in a 4-4-2 you've got one holding and one attacking, and it's not easy for the two of them - now playing one in front of the other - to deal with the opposition's midfield three. It's also not easy for the two of them to play together; the holding midfielder ends up being 'attached' to the back four, while the attacking midfielder gets attached to the attacking players ahead of her/him. And if you play the two of them flat, you risk leaving the back four exposed, and also have nobody to deal with a striker who checks off the back line to receive balls to feet (a prime responsibility of a holding mid).

4-4-2 also relies on something that is really hard to coach and develop, which is a true strike partnership - not just two people playing up front, but two up front playing off each other and complementing each other, with the right physical aptitude for the two differing jobs. You can't have two players trying to get on the end of the same balls; one has to be willing to play with their back to goal and hold the ball up, bringing the other striker (and midfielders) into play, while the other makes runs into space, most of which won't result in getting the ball played to them. There aren't many true strike partnerships in the men's professional game these days, and that has filtered to the college game.

 

I love this point! A well staffed 4-4-2 brings out the best in the partnership between two compressed strikers, yet it imposes a lot of pressure on the other two lines, as the two advanced strikers are more like one unit, rather than two independent targets-- so the midfield has to be much more aggressive developing independent targets...

 

Portland has played a 4-4-2 for years as its primary formation, although they've had variations. Typically, though not always, there is a forward striker and a withheld striker (I'm not sure what the right terms are). They play with an attacking mid, a holding mid, and two outside mids -- a classic diamond, except that the attacking mid has a lot of freedom to move around the field and does not play directly in front of the holding mid that much. Their outside mids and outside backs also must be able to interchange with each other so that the outside backs can overlap. The formation places tremendous demands on the attacking mid, the outside mids, and the outside backs, the latter four of whom, in particular, must cover a whole lot of territory in a game. Regarding the comments about coaches who focus on fitness, the Pilots players must be extremely fit, especially since they typically have a small roster (24 players, as this year, is a pretty big roster for them). Being big on fitness and big on developing players are not mutually exclusive.