Of course it's going to rain i'm going to the game. That said i've learned that rain breeds hate. And I know that I hate Clockwork Orange FC! So yeah...bring on the rain!
[LINEUP-4-5-1][/LINEUP-4-5-1] Cribs Athletica style with Aluko doing the filming! They have a nice house in Fenton.
Well, what can I say. It should have been 3 points for us, but in the end, we were fortunate to salvage 1 point. 1st goal-No question on the penalty. I don't think they evened argued it. Elaine made a long run up the right side and got into the box, Averbuch attempted a slide tackle from a tough angle and brought down Elaine. Boxx went lower right on the penalty. Bardsley guessed the opposite. Rest of half-Saint Louis had a slight advantage in the 1st half, but both sides had a lot of chances. Dallstream was particularly dangerous for them. Luckily, Ellertson is faster than Dallstream because she was able to catch her from behind to force Dallstream to shoot. One time right at Solo, and the other. either Ellertson tipped it away at the last second or Dallstream got her foot on it and Solo deflected wide. All three kind of ran together at the end of the play, so from my angle it was hard to tell. Rosana had one good shot from distance, but Solo was able to slide to her right to make the save. Aluko beat their defenders several times, but one time only got a weak shot off and another was blocked by Trotter at the 6 yard box. Another time Boxx headed to Chalupny to set up Aluko, but she sent it over the crossbar from about 15 yards. Asante came in at half for Athletica's first sub. Athletica absolutely totally dominated the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half. They had headers go left, right, and over the goal, although to be fair, Bardsley definitely had one covered had it been on target. Best chance came when Chalupny interecepted a pass about 35 yards out and dribbled in. She shot from the edge of the box, well struck, but it hit the outside of the post. She thought it had a chance and I thought it may have been deflected very slightly by the defender. Ref ruled goal kick, so I guess she didn't. Then, all of a sudden, we just lapsed. On the 1st goal in the 57th minute, I think it was the first time they got within 30 yards of our goal the whole half. Ellertson had to go to the corner to try to clear. They ended up holding it in and Dallstream got loose on the left side of the box for the cross from close in. Kalmari beat our player to flick a header past Solo. No chance on that one or any of the goals for either goalkeeper for that matter. Second goal was largely caused by the wet field. Ellertson was defending O'Reilly and slid down, giving Heather a completely uncontested cross. They had two attackers in the box, we had one defender. Kalmari hit a great volley from about 10 yards into the left side netting. A bad break that Ellertson slid down, but our defending on the play other than the slip left much to be desired. It sort of looked a lot like what I saw out of Chicago at times last night. Lots of space between defenders and Sky Blue attackers positioned themselves well to finish. We continued to have the better of the play after that, but it wasn't looking good. Tarpley almost scored, stepping in front of Bardsley to tip the ball, but it rolled just wide. Aluko got a yellow when she and Bardsley went for a 50-50 ball in the box and they collided. The play was offsides, but if the whistle had been blown in a timely manner, the collision wouldn't have happened. Luckily, they were both okay. After Boxx hit hard cross from close distance that appeared to deflect off either Tarpley or the player defending Tarp and that went wide, too. Bardsley made a diving stop on a Chalupny shot from 20 yards with maybe 10 minutes to go. Finally tied it in 85th. Boxx won the ball on what I thought was a bit of sloppy play by Sky Blue in their own end. She sent it through to Aluko who took her time and finished it lower left. Landström almost won it in the closing minutes. She got a header from only about 8 yards out and Solo barely got her hands up to stop it and then got her body between the ball and the goal line to keep it from rolling in. But we are surrendering way too many goals. It doesn't look like our defenders are picking up opposing attacking players quick enough and they're finding space. We had several times when an attacker is all alone in the box for a shot. Nogueira's goal in Chicago, she had all day. So did Kalmari on the 2nd goal today. The total shots was pretty reflective of the game. We outshot them 18-7. I thought we held a slight advantage in the 1st and a pretty big advantage in the 2nd overall, but a lapse here and there, and there goes the match. Can't complain about the offense in this match, although the finishing could be somewhat better at times. Well done to Kalmari on her two finishes. Aluko final shot was nice, but I thought she could have had another or two. But she worked her butt off to get several chances. Tarpley played pretty well, but wasn't as big a factor as the last match. Edlund....would somebody please tell her when she has 25 yards of space in front of her, it's okay to take a dribble or two. It looked to me like the second she received the ball, she was looking to pass it right back to Boxx or someone else. She was basically playing an attacking midfielder, but it seemed like she just wanted to get rid of the ball and make a run. No qualms with her effort, but make the defense work when you get the ball. Elaine had a very good game offensively, but on the 2nd goal, she must have gotten caught upfield, because Ellertson had to come outside to take O'Reilly and that's when she slipped down. However, it is possible that Tina could have been marking O'Reilly, I guess. Hard to tell much about Asante's performance. Except for the lapses, the defense didn't come into play that much in the 2nd half and I couldn't tell who didn't get back, especially on the 2nd goal. So, I guess we should have won, could have lost, and got a point out of it. Our player of the match was probably Aluko, although cases could be made for a couple of other players. But Aluko just gave their defense fits throughout the whole match. For Sky Blue, have to give the nod to Kalmari on two great finishes. Let's hope the d*** field is dry for the next match. Edit: 5th place, but I guess the bright side is that we've beaten both the 1st place team and 2nd place team and tied Sky Blue.
And the really sad thing is that Channel 11 sports showed the 3 non-penalty goals on their sports, with beautiful camera work and most people will not get a chance to see them. Definitely better than the team's camera, ground level and followed the action perfectly.
"The game is 90 minutes," Barcellos said once the post-game pow wow broke up. "It's not 45. If the game was 45 minutes, we would have won." "I think we lost our focus," Barcellos said. "We need (the players) to focus 100 percent on the game. Today we dominated, dominated, then al of a sudden we are behind." Solo said, "We're great offensively, but when we lose the ball, it's a matter of everybody getting back to help on defense and I don't mean just the back line. "Our midfield needs to play offense and our midfield needs to play defense. We could have and should have won this game." Aluko, who leads Athletica with four goals, added, "We're conceding goals every game," Aluko said "and that didn't happen last year. "But the key thing is we didn't win - but we didn't lose." http://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/blue-40262-sky-game.html
I don't think any of the players were real happy with the tie, in spite of the fact that they had to score in the last 5 minutes to tie. The next game is Atlanta and that scares me. They're due and overdue. They're going to start finding the net and scoring goals. I was hoping they would get it out of their system against Washington, but I guess not. Other strange thing about the game was that the ref didn't add any stoppage in the 1st half (maybe a few seconds) and only one minute in the 2nd half. The 2nd half featured three goals and a collision between Aluko and Bardsley where both were down for a minute at least. I thought that was really odd. I know there were some major storms coming into the area, but at 45 minutes after the game finished, the rain still hadn't gotten there.
Thanks for the detailed write up Cville KC. Good stuff as always. One question, the boxscore indicates that HAO was playing up top. Was that the case or was she in her usual right mid spot? As for mids playing defense, and way to call out your teammates, Hope. You've let in at least 2 goals that never should have gotten past you. How about step up your game? DiMartino is not going to give more than a token effort at tracking back and she's not going to cover for Boxx running forward. That means Boxx is either going to have to sit on top of the back 4 and not make runs forward or someone else is going to have to cover for DiMartino pulling the team out of shape. If Barcellos likes Asanti more than he likes Fletcher (I'm a total Fletcher homer, so take this with the appropriate amounts of salt) he is making a big mistake. Unless he's going to put her back in her dmid slot from last year. If he pairs Fletcher w/ Boxx in the midfield, that might make a very nice combo w/ Chalu on the left and someone on the right (DiMartino or Blank).
Haha sounds like she wants a Sarah Huffman. that girl is everywhere. watching her play yesterday made me feel tired! she was depossessed easily a few times but she was always running back to the box to help the back 4 and then start the offense forward from there.
U As far as the midfield goes, Blank is really playing the holding mid position. Boxx is pretty much given freedom to roam as needed. DiMartino started yesterday in place of Miyama who is away on national team duty. The defense in general has not been very good this year. I've seeen 5 of their 6 matches and the only time I think they've had a strong defensive game was the opener. Part of the problem is we've had to switch right backs several times, part of the problem is communication. Even if they are playing a zone in back, they still neeed to mark somebody. On the 2nd goal, even if Ellertson doesn't slide down, Sky Blue has a 3 on 2, with a 2 on 1 in front of the net. That should not happen. Too many attackers are running free around the box. As for Solo, maybe she hasn't been spectacular every match, but there have been very few that were her fault. I have a different take on the 3rd goal in Washington than everyone else does. While I do think she was slow to react, I thought the defense on that play was atrocious and Mykjaland should have never gotten the ball, let alone get a shot off. A goal kick at the end of the field and she should be at the top of the box to start the play. She should also expected with 3 defenders back to mark 1 forward, that there shouldn't have been any danger on the play. The defenders were bunched way too close together and when one defender totally missed a header that should have easily cleared the ball, nobody else was in position to cover for her. I do assume that Solo was slow to react once the play went all to hell, but it shouldn't have gotten to that point. I love Kendall. She's a good player, always hustles, and has a positive attitude. But I think she had a much stronger season last year at holding mid than she is this season in back. Watch the replay of Bompastor's goal and explain what she was doing. She had Bompastor marked perfectly and just left her to go at the player in the middle that;Boxx was already sliding over to cover. Yesterday, Kiersten Dallstream got behind the defense at least twice, and only Ellertson's speed saved them. An experienced faster attacking player might have scored both. I don't know whose fault that was but it can't keep happening.
On Sky Blue's second goal Elaine slipped at about midfield and Ellertson had to cover for her. So inevitably it was not one but two slips on the wet field that costed us there. We also definately missed Miyama yesterday because Sky Blue just seemed to kill us on the wings yesterday. I'll take the point but I would agree with the above, that with the quality chances we had it very easily could have been 3 points.
Good report, but I have to disagree on the penalty kick, at least when looking at the picture on the WPS site.
I think that Averbuch has already made contact with Elaine at that point (look higher at the shins) and Elaine is already starting to go down. Averbuch put up no argument whatsoever. I took a picture, albeit blurry and maybe a 10th of a second later. Notice that the ball has only moved about two feet, but Elaine's left leg is already fully upended at that point.
I didn't see the play so I won't comment on that. I'll just say that 1) Elaine has quite the reputation in Sweden for making the most of contact. 2) still photos aren't good methods to decide when a ball was hit vs when a player was hit. and 3) Averbuch isn't the sort to complain about much to the ref. She just goes about her business. Regardless, it sounds like STL had chances and just couldn't convert them. Since I am a fan of Chalu & Tarpley, I'd like to see them (and their team) do well. Perhaps the two week break will help the team.
Looking at the highlights at the WPS site, Aluko had four good chances and finished one. And that was just the highlights they showed. I had her getting another shot from the 6 which was blocked by Trotter and another shot that went just wide. Her ball skill are improving and she's very fast. She is like Marta, only from the opposite side in that she always tries to work the ball to her right foot, just as Marta usually tries to get it to her left. I wish she could have finished one of the other chances, but I'm sure glad she's on Saint Louis.