2017 Colorado Buffaloes

Possession oriented philosophy?? Outside of Arizona, I can't think of any other schools in the Pac-12 who plays more direct style than Colorado.
I personally don't see any problem with it, but that just isn't their "style".

 

Thank you you beat me to it. GMAFB!

 

This topic of "possession" soccer just keeps popping up on these boards every 18 months or so for some heated discussion.

It may be some kind of PC thing that if you mention it as your style, that makes you better. My personal view is possession style versus more direct is NOT a simple dichotomy.

Every intelligent player and coach would, of course, agree that were all things equal, a possession style is more fun to play (and to watch!) with an emphasis on creativity, great movement off the ball, quick decision making, and personal technical skills. But in playing to win soccer games, all is not equal, and teams will play in a way that they think will maximize their chances of winning. The bottom line is that teams winning oriented teams will take advantage of whatever the defense gives to them. For instance, if the defense is playing a high line and your forwards are faster than their backs, the coach would probably be unhappy if a player did not take advantage of a quick service over the top, no matter how "technical his players were. It would be stupid not to take advantage of guaranteed a scoring opportunities for the sake of style. (Even Messi sometimes simply outruns the defense directly at the goal.)

Where you have a clear technical skill advantage over your opposition, then possession style works the best, and your team looks fabulous, passing and being creative with the defense helplessly chasing around. But when you come up against a better defensive team, all of a sudden that great passing game doesn't work as well and when down or scoreless near the end of the game, I have seen many otherwise "possession" teams finding themselves long-balling or trying direct runs going for the equalizer. (Or to put it differently, how many times have you seen the "better" more technical possession oriented team get beaten by one or two counter attacks? Be honest.)

But, I must admit that it is greatly enjoyable to watch to evenly matched technical teams work their possession craft trying to find the wining goal. But as I said above, seldom are two teams equal, and if one is playing to win, one uses the tactic that will most likely produce the result, even if it means listening to the losing team whine about playing better soccer.

 

Many teams appear to be technical until they are put under a severe amount of pressure and forced to play faster than they are accustomed to playing. UVA is a very technical team. Most people would not dispute that. They are also a very good team. However, I watched UNC beat them 3-0 last year and in the 2nd half you would have never guessed that UVA was a technical team. It was frantic long ball and many give always. A team can only be technical when they have the time to play the way they want to play. The great technical teams can play this way regardless of the amount of pressure that the opponent is applying. I have a hard time believing that Colorado would be able to play a "technical" style against Stanford, UCLA, USC, etc. in the PAC 12 and have any success. Against these 3 teams they would be doing most of the chasing.

 

First off, no college teams are good enough technically to deal with proper pressure and be called great.

Second, the NCAA needs the substitution rule to be more like FIFA. Thus, a program like UNC couldn't sub 3-5 players every 15 minutes and run around pressuring like they're on fire. That's not good soccer, just an effective system allowed by non-soccer, NCAA rules and then backed up by "it helps the student athlete experience if more people can play." Are participation medals for everyone next?

In a real soccer game, with a proper amount of substitutions, the technical team would be much more effective over 90 minutes then what you see in NCAA soccer.

 

A college team that was pretty good at it was the 2005 University of Portland team. Of course, they had Christine Sinclair, Megan Rapinoe, Angie, Woznuk (Kerr), Stephanie Lopez (Cox), and Lindsay Huie who might have been the most technically skilled of the bunch.

 

CP, you are correct. Portland had some very good, technical, playing teams on top of any list. My type wording was probably a little off my mind wording. The point I was trying to make is the substitution rules work against these teams and prevent more teams from demonstrating this kind of soccer on a regular basis.

 

I've been ambivalent about the substitution rule, but I'm coming around to your point of view.

 

The point you are making about NCAA substitution rules could also be expressed as a function of roster size (which is what the international tournaments do -limiting to x players and y keepers). If every NCAA D-I team was limited to, for example, 18 players on the roster with two mandated as keepers, then the talent would be spread out more evenly to more teams and there would be a greater chance of better possession/technical soccer.

My point still stands in any case: Given what ever rules are in place, we can't sit back and complain about coaches doing what is necessary within those rules in order to win and keep their jobs.

 

No complaints, just an opinion. Your idea would be a great start.

 

Well, maybe not to the numbers you cite, but I believe the NCAA limits squads to 21 or 23 players suiting up for a tournament match , and your own Acc also has a player limit for intra comference play in that range, as do many conferences.

I believe that an 18 player limit is impractical as long as the NCAA permits 2 games during a weekend. It still gives a team with a large advantage to replace players from Friday to Sunday, for example.
I can't think of any pro league, for example, that regularly requires teams to play with one day of rest.

a real squad limit would restrict a squad to 18 players for, say, one the week road cycle. As it now stands, conferences restrict a travel squad but don't limit what he Home team can do from one game to the next.


Or are you talking about limiting a squad to 18 players for a season, , period? I could see giving out 18 full scholarships and nothing to other players as a means to distributing the talent.

 

Lots of good comments above about "possession" and "direct" style of play, but anyone who has watched much CU Soccer during the 2016 season, and during this 2017 pre-season, can see that they are playing more "possession" style soccer than in the past. They now have enough technical players to do it. Re the subbing issue, I just don't see how UCLA is going to keep all those girls happy...even if they sub liberally that's going to reduce the playing time (and development) of some top national players who want and expect to play 70-90 minutes. Maybe Stanford has less of a problem because at least kids know they've got that Stanford diploma in their back pockets. If any one of those top 10-15 girls went to any other good program they'd have a chance to do what Taylor Kornieck did at CU her Freshman year. As Bruins, they'll be fighting for playing time. But no doubt it will shake-out that one or two of them will get enough minutes to shine, and the others will ride plenty of pine for the first time in their lives. I just don't know how it's possible to keep that many "stars" happy. I guess North Carolina manages to sub liberally and make it work, but that's their tradition, and I don't know that they've ever had as much top talent from the top to bottom of their roster as UCLA does right now.

 

I have a hard time believing that Colorado would be able to play a "technical" style against Stanford, UCLA, USC, etc. in the PAC 12 and have any success. Against these 3 teams they would be doing most of the chasing.

And those three teams wouldn't have guaranteed success trying to play pure possession style against CU either. CU has too many fast and good athletes...and plenty of talent. CU did after all beat UCLA in 2016.