Maybe part of that is the tactical plan by Duke to bunker in. They played with a 5 back all game long. As soon as UCLA had the ball, they sunk in and formed a shell around their box and defended. I think it was very deliberate on their part. They want to expose the slow UCLA defense and go after them. Which they did on several counters.
Not sure where this perv/Matt Lauer esc video comes from but it is marginally appropriate Great to see the Pac12 represent
You have no idea what you are talking about. McCullough is one of the fastest player in the conference and 3 of their 4 fastest players start on defense. You clearly are just some fat old white man talking trash. Save it Trump. Remember you thought the UCLA defense wasn't good when the truth is they can lockdown and outpossess any team. Keep talking shit clown. You don't know shit.
You keep on betting against the Bruins. Why don't you tell them how McCullough cut through the whole USC defense and crowned your daughter? It's because like Trump you are full of fake news. Guess what. They only lose 2 starters and already have replacements waiting their turn.
I was at the game and your recap is inaccurate tripe. Keep feeding it to the bottom feeders. You didn't go to one UCLA game and yet you act like you know. Even with a hurt knee McCullough easily owned McCoy and Dorsey. Thus Duke played pure kickball. They even had to put Dorsey on the other side. You don't know what you don't know clown.
That is a horribly inaccurate analysis. I was at the game. Is this the future of America? All fake news?
Quinn wouldn't start for UCLA. She is slow l, not very technical and all of the UCLA mids beat her 1v1 easily which is why she started fouling. She was so frustrated she mouthed off to the ref and got a yellow. As several Duke fans said to me. " I had no idea how good this team was." Ask Stanford they were hoping like hell to play Duke so that they could blow them out.
Oh I disagree with you bud. She got destroyed by Arizona with their speedsters. Arizona right? You watched that game. They tied UCLA by scoring goals on the counter. Neither McCullogh or Karina Rodriguez are especially fast. Kaiya played well today, she really locked McCoy down and saved a near goal against Dorsey, but she was getting beat by those players and had to make some fantastic plays to stop those chances. She did a sliding tackle against Dorsey in the box. If she missed that tackle, that would of been a PK against UCLA. But she was behind Dorsey, you got to realize if you have a speedster in front of you, you got to give some space to mark her but McCullough likes to dive into tackles and try to win balls. Which is fine, she isn't bad at it, but if she can't make the tackle, and the forward she is marking is a speedster. She is in trouble. That is the truth.
Frankly, I thought this was a boring game. I watched it with 3 fans of American football -- and I'll never be able to persuade them to watch another women's soccer match. I had told my guests to keep their eyes on Ashley Sanchez and Rebecca Quinn. Wrong! If I were making a highlight reel of the game it would be almost blank. But UCLA deserved to win. Duke spent the night looking like it was playing for a 0-0 tie. The much touted speedy Duke forwards were matched in pace by the notoriously slow UCLA defenders. I was interested, however, in the penalty shootout in which UCLA picked several lesser known players to take the shots. Did Cromwell groom those players for that role? If so, plaudits to her. It worked beautifully.
May be. But if so it was a bad strategy. They lost twice against the same way against UNC this year. They said that they lost bcz Quinn has not played. Now she played and nothing changed. They just can not play against pressure.
Wow. You really have verbal diarrhea. Bringing politics and race into WoSo just wrong and definitely does not make your points right.
Welcome Back Really? [[abdul McCullough ). Your tone hasn’t changed a bit I wish your kid and the rest of the. Bruins luck. It should be a fantastic game Pac12 repping nicely
Rather than trashing other analyses of the game, why don't you share your analysis of the duke-ucla game so that we can all laud your brilliance?
Glove Stinks, I was thinking the same thing...Ah, Abdul McCollough, memories of forums past where you got kicked off for similar rants and kicked off of sidelines at games. So transparent. Age has not mellowed you out. Your daughter is an excellent player...you do her a disservice with your diatribes. Looking forward to watching the final with 2 excellent teams.
Player parents, especially Dads, should stay off of forums. They're too involved, there will always be opinions they don't like-- and it turns them into d--ks.
Please don’t lump us all in that boat. There are many of us on this board that contribute thoughtful and unbiased opinion while respecting those around us
I don't necessary agree with bunkering in myself but against better talented teams, its a strategy that gets used even at tier 1 league levels. Duke probably thought they had the better keeper, that they could play this strategy since all they needed was to get one of their counters to score a goal and their defense would win it for them. Playing Racioppi in the 5 back set was very obvious that they were committed to this strategy. The issue is if the penalty shoot out doesn't work into your favor and then you have egg all over your face since this bunker in strategy back fired badly. Especially with a talented Duke team that could try to play possession football but chose to play otherwise. That crossbar hit by Duke in the penalty kick shoot out was the defining moment for Duke. UCLA made their shots, both keepers each had a save. This happens in shoot outs and its a roll of the dice. I don't agree with this strategy, I think it did a big disservice to the great season the team had this year. And what can you say about UCLA, they played their game. would I have wished they could of solved the bunkering and bottling of the middle better. Yes. Would I have liked to see a forward play with their back to goal, yes. But these are the limitations I knew UCLA had and UCLA played their system. They attacked and constantly possessed the ball.
great game by ucla. would have picked them to avenge their regular season loss to stanford in the final. but they played the second game and went into overtime, while stanford was able to sub comfortably. one day of rest is crazy for a final of this stature.
Stanford wins the final 3-2 over UCLA. Goals by Jessie Fleming from the PK and Delanie Sheehan off a corner kick. Stanford would have Kyra Carusa, Andi Sullivan and Jaye Boissiere Whether UCLA were still feeling from the effects of Friday's game, UCLA looked slower on the pitch. Doesn't make any excuses for the mistakes that were made on the pitch and Stanford also played on Friday. But they looked much fresher then the Bruins. Stanford would probably have over 60 percent of the possession. UCLA had to do a lot of running after Stanford for balls. And so shots of course would be very telling with Stanford have the lion's share of the shots. 15-5 and 10 on frame to UCLA's 4. And by the first half, it looked like Stanford were going to steam roll UCLA. They just looked fresher and their combination play were much superior. They were constantly building between midfield to forwards with all the Stanford forwards being able to play with their back to goal. Something that UCLA doesn't do really because of Hailie Mace. This allowed Stanford a lot of time in the box of UCLA and the Cardinals showed clinical precision on how to break down defense by creating 1-2 combination plays to create open looks on goal. Something I hope UCLA takes note of in the future. The goals scored by Stanford in the first half, were either by a goal keeping mistake by Tegan Micah when she tried to come off her line to take a ball on the hop and missed timed the bouncing ball and the ball would go over her hands and allowed an open look on goal by Carusa. The second goal was another mistake by Kaiya McCullough who didn't mark Andi Sullivan's run and Sullivan was on a 1v1 against Micah and here again Micah could of stopped the ball since Sullivan only had the near post to shoot at and the shot went under Micah into goal which was stoppable sadly. The second half, it would be better for UCLA. UCLA created more attacks and Julia Hernadez would play a fair number of minutes in place of Ashley Sanchez who was relatively quiet this match. Zoey Goralski would create an opportunity when she would get a through ball and her run into the box, she would get taken down by the Stanford Keeper Alison Jahansouz and Jessie Fleming would take the spot kick and score for the goal. 2 minutes later, UCLA would get a corner kick and off the corner, Delanie Sheehan would head the ball in to tie it up. Sadly it wouldn't last as Stanford would create more pressure into the UCLA box and off a scramble, the ball would come out of the box onto Jaye Boissiere feet and she would fire a laser past Teagan Micah who had no chance on the save. Stanford would then play keep away and knock the ball around forcing UCLA to chase and they did look very tired out there running after the ball all game long. If we break down the issues for UCLA in this match. 1) Kaiya McCullough had a horrible game. Her slow speed got exposed badly in this game. The second goal was a direct result of her missed mark on Andi Sullivan. But the build up to that goal was sublime on the Cardinals part because they do what the UCLA can't do. Play with their back to goal. The forward had Rodriguez on their back and she knocked the ball back to a Macario and Macario then sent a through ball past McCullough that sprung Sullivan for the 1v1 on Tegan Micah. Its how you break defenses down, without needing to go direct all the time. Combination plays and Stanford showed this again again this match. McCullough also struggled against Madison Haley She would get burnt by Haley several times in one instance, Haley with McCullough on her back, would turn on McCullough and then speed into the box and get a clean shot off on goal. McCullough was completely left behind and couldn't recover. McCullough likes to sit on the forward's back and mark them that way which is fine. But if they have speed, you have to give them some respect and even play off them if they can turn on you and McCullough just got destroyed out there. Plus McCullough also had a very obvious hand ball that wasn't called by the referee but it was balanced out by the no call on Julia Hernadez's take down in the Stanford box. 2) Tegan Micah. I would blame her for the first two goals. She made a horrible gaffe on the first goal, misjudged the bounce and it bounced over her head and the net was wide open for the easy goal. The second goal. Sullivan only had the near post to shoot at since McCullough was slightly behind Sullivan and covering the center box. Micah had to go down and stop that shot but the shot got under Micah and past her for the goal. It should of been saved. Micah also does A LOT of shouting behind her back line. But sometimes when you shout that much. Your back line stops listening to you. If the ball is in the area, Micah was shouting "Get it out" over and over. Your back line knows this, you don't need to tell them that, what you do need to tell them is to mark players and tell them if there is a forward on their blind side. Stuff that Micah isn't doing. 3) The lack of balls to Jessie Fleming. Fleming had very little of the ball. And I blame a lot of this on two issues. One is the team's need to get the ball to Hailie Mace and let her run direct on the ball. Over and over the ball was getting sent to Mace either from up top or through balls. So Fleming was getting by passed by the midfield or the back line were launching long balls. Sometimes I think Fleming needs to be very assertive and say, give me the damn ball, instead of this hopeful balls up top to Mace. And Viviana Villacorta didn't help this situation either. Since as a holding mid, its fine that she will sometimes go on the attack. But she was doing this too often and ignore the build up. Ignoring Fleming and not getting the ball to Fleming. Its like they forgot what won them the game against Duke with all the possession and decided to take matters into their own hands. The midfield was a mess for UCLA and too many individual efforts by the players. Trying to dribble at players to beat them and not looking to pass or wait for support when they did have the ball. Too often you would see Annika Rodriguez trying to dribble at a defender alone without waiting for over lapping players and then would lose the ball. 4) Haile Mace. The Mace effect for UCLA. She has dramatically changed how UCLA played from last year. There when you had Darian Jenkins, you had the team trying to combine and use 1-2 combination plays. Its rare to see that this year because of how Mace plays. She can't play with her back to goal and she can't dribble at defenders because she has poor footwork. So for Mace to really succeed, she has to use her blistering speed to beat defenders and she can do this often. But against good defensive clubs, she gets shut down and then for UCLA, its like there is no answer to figure out another solution since UCLA can't play with their back to goal. Rodriguez, Sanchez all prefer to dribble at the defender and try to beat them direct. Today, what did you see Stanford do? They rarely tried to do that but instead combined and worked to break down the defense as a team and that is what separated Stanford and UCLA today. Quality of chances and looks on goal were far superior from Stanford. This is how you break defenses down by combining and playing with your back to goal. Its why I think UCLA should actually look at playing Fleming up top in a 4-2-3-1 formation because she will hold up, and use her soccer brain to develop the play in front of her. You need a player like that as your center striker. And UCLA doesn't have that player. They just don't. Credit to Stanford, they looked like the superior side today. UCLA did make it close and maybe if those mistakes by Micah and McCullough didn't happen, this could of been a different game for UCLA. But Stanford looked the better possession team and the better attacking team. They deserved this win.
Yes you do. You are right, she also needs to tell them to mark up, etc, but you don't neglect basic communication duties. Ever.
You go to an Ncaa basketball final and the coach is yelling “box out!” Really? They have been playing 15 years and don’t know that?