Sadly yes. I texted two of my coworkers that a two goal lead isn't putting the game out of reach. UCLA scored only seconds later. I hate that I was right.
it should be that late in the game if you have some measure of tactical control. this year, UNC did not appear to have that.
Condolences to all of you UNC fans. They say soccer is a cruel game, and this was one of the cruelest of the cruel.
AD deserves respect for all that he has done for women’s soccer. Having interacted with him a few times he is a class act. also, honestly that goal in regulation time could have been called a foul and no goal if you go back and look at the play - definitely a foul on the keeper. Soccer can be a cruel game
Bell and/or Meza would have helped a lot in that department. The goal with 16 seconds left, by the way, was more devastating to me than the Austin Rivers shot in 2012.
UNC players really can think of themselves as NCAA champs. They have too much class to whine about it incessantly. UCLA gets the trophy, etc. And good for them. Regardless of the calls, their play in the last 10 min was phenomenal and they dominated OT, too. But UNC players can quietly know they are NCAA champs. Clear foul on the last play of regulation. That foul is properly called, they clear the ball to mid field and the game is over. I am not griping. It’s a hard call to make in a split second in that situation. And the UCLA players fought for position just like UNC players would have had the situation been reversed. Nothing against them. THe call was wrong though, plain and simple. The corner kick itself was phenomenal, a truly beautiful kick.
I wonder if the corner kick would have gone in on its own. It had a bend that looked like it might catch the inside of the post.
It looked to me like it was going in and that the UCLA player headed it as it was crossing the line--but one would have to slow down the replay. It's also very possible that the UNC keeper--had she not been pushed into her goal--would have punched the ball. It was an excellent corner kick AND the keeper was pretty egregiously fouled.
I think pretty clearly it would have gone in if she was shooting on an open goal. Beautiful kick and she served up at least 2 more that were similar. GK could have gotten to it if not fouled, but even if she could not have, the play is over when she is egregiously fouled.
I'm going to post below a few paragraphs from Adam Lucas, a UNC employee who is writes about the last 10 days of UNC athletics: football, basketball, and women's soccer. He has a great take on this. He obviously is a supporter of the collegiate background to athletics as opposed to professional sports. It's all about family, friends, and learning about life's ups and downs. Late teens and early 20s athletes are fantastic. Isn't it great to be a part of this as alums or the adopters of the various colleges and universities? Excerpts from Adam Lucas: ************************************************************************************************************ "CARY—These are the bad times. If you watched Monday night's NCAA championship women's soccer match, then you already know this. There can be no doubt, right? Coming in the wake of Carolina football losing three in a row, including the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, and Tar Heel basketball losing four in a row, including the second four-overtime game in program history, then this has to be the nadir. Watching UCLA somehow overcome a 2-0 deficit to snatch a national title from Anson Dorrance, a member of the Carolina Mount Rushmore, absolutely has to be the worst of life as a Tar Heel. Maybe it is. And if so, then life is pretty good. ............ I am confident that I am one of the only people on the planet who was there in person for this quartet of soul-crushing Tar Heel losses: football at Virginia in 1996, Carolina baseball against Oregon State in 2006, Kris Jenkins in 2016 and women's soccer last night. After each of those defeats, I felt certain it could never possibly be worse. But something surprising happened: when I think about those times now, I think about spending time with my dad watching UNC football and making lifelong friends from that '06 baseball team and how nice Marcus Paige was to my son during that 2016 season. That will happen, eventually, for last night. When it does, it's most likely going to be memories of the entire town of Chapel Hill making the drive to Cary on a Monday night, including representatives from—at minimum—nine different Tar Heel teams (men's soccer, field hockey, women's lacrosse, men's lacrosse, women's basketball, men's basketball, softball, baseball and men's golf) plus athletic director Bubba Cunningham and chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz. "Carolina is so much bigger than self," said women's basketball coach Courtney Banghart, who was in Cary on Monday. "It's a community of winners, for sure. But moreso I have found it to be a community of people who celebrate each other, who show up for each other, and are invested in everyone else's journey. It doesn't matter the sport. It matters that you're Carolina." .................. But these nights, when you get to do what you do in front of your peers and the entire country, wearing Carolina blue with teammates you're going to know for the rest of your life, that's the coolest. Ask every single member of last year's men's basketball team what their favorite part of the memorable run last spring was, and they'll unanimously say the same thing: getting to celebrate on Franklin Street and finally, finally getting the real experience of being a Tar Heel. Several members of the field hockey team returned from Storrs last month and found a national championship banner hanging from the roof of their off-campus house, having been placed there by members of the women's soccer team. As a fan, this hasn't been a great last two weeks. It's been a two weeks unlike almost any we've ever experienced in Tar Heel athletics. These losses sting, and that's partially because they are so unfamiliar and partially because they have all been so calamitous. ................ The people are so much better than the statistics. The people are the field hockey team traveling to Cary with pieces of their national championship net from two weeks ago stuck in their pockets because they were trying to channel championship mojo for their friends and classmates. And they're Roy and Wanda Williams who watch every single Carolina team in every single sport and cheer and groan and pace because those are the Tar Heels out there. And Erin Matson high-fiving the opposing goalie who just made a ridiculous save against her and Drake Maye being incapable of answering a question without saying, "Yes, sir" and Avery Patterson refusing to leave the field in the national championship game despite cramps putting her on the ground in pain and Emily Grund staring down cancer and coming back to dive a few months later. The most remarkable thing about all of them? In college, they've already figured out what many of us take decades to learn: it's not all about them, there are other people on campus who are just as amazing as they are, and the Carolina world is broad enough to include all of them—and all of us. Women's soccer sophomore Emily Murpy sobbed after Monday's game because it was a devastating loss, and then spotted a young fan who was likewise in tears. And Murphy wrapped her in a hug and, through her tears and forgetting that we were supposed to be consoling her, said, "I'm so sorry we didn't win." So, yes, these are without doubt the bad times. And they are like nowhere else. " ***************************************************************************************************** In closing, I'll take Adam's remarks as appropriately focused on bucking up UNC players, coaches and the rest of the UNC campus and alums, but his thoughts are also applicable to all of the colleges and universities who have experienced similar situations, and worse.
Nice article. But first world problems. Monday was a championship game. Kris Jenkins was a championship game. Most schools don't even get to that point. It's the kids who have a string of 2-15 seasons that tug my heartstrings.
UNC blew it. Why did they decide to have an 8 man zone, leave multiple girls open, & yet still fail to protect Allen on the corner? And then Turner with another great header in OT off a corner, unmarked. End of the day there was 11 minutes left to defend a 2-0 lead. They stayed in their 3 back, poor coaching and tactical decisions. Can’t close a game.
?. Whoever is coaching put minimal effort into defensive strategy or discipline all year for the Tar Heels. Gave up multiple leads, corner kick set up didn’t help them, and their pride with sticking with the 3 back costed them 5 goals against this past weekend.
Kinda seems like theres a power struggle with UNC. Anson still wants it one way and Damon wants it another and they are not on the same page
While we’re at it since it’s still crying time, let’s not forget about those non-calls on egregious hip-checks, too!
This is another angle and was posted in the tournament discussion thread. It probably would have gone in without the UCLA player getting her head on it. The call could have gone either way and is going to be looked at differently by fans depending on their biases. “Egregiously fouled” is a bit of a stretch from my perspective. goalkeeper wasn’t fouled at all. UCLA player had legal positioning in front of her. Then the gk jumped back knocking her own teammate over. pic.twitter.com/BlQa2uDXD7— the scarlet psylocke (@marvelnut) December 6, 2022
Not a fan of either program (or maybe a fan of both as a fan of the game), but egregious is the perfect word to describe that foul. I see why the ref missed it in the traffic, but she was shoved while back peddling. Poor starting position for sure, but it was a foul every day and not really even close.
I responded to that video on twitter but I think it's worth repeating here. It's frustrating that so many people continue to comment about the play by pointing out what Allen did wrong, or if the ball was going to go in or not without the foul, etc. None of that has anything to do with whether or not it's a foul or not... Emmie Allen could have been standing at the top of the 18, on her hands, facing away from the ball and trying to fart it away... if someone has an extended arm into her body and is pushing for as long and as hard as we see in this play ... it's a foul. Always. I think the part that most people miss in this foul is the leverage. The UCLA player has her arm hooked underneath Emmie Allen's, and as the play commences you can see the UCLA attackers arm tighten around Allens. She sort of shifts "up", her shoulder rolls, her posture straightens. It almost looks like she's trying to lift Allen up more than she's pushing her. This is not some normal bumping and grinding in the box that happens on every corner. It's why so many legal challenges require the arms to stay down by the side (like shoulder challenges) ... because when the arm is extended it's much easier to get leverage and start using your body weight to push a player one way or the next without it being extremely obvious to the official. It's why such an emphasis on arm extensions and whether or not it's down by the side is made on these kinds of challenges. The other bizarre thing that people are claiming is how Allen wouldn't have been able to get to the ball anyway and this is just flat out wrong. This is a driven corner that, if Allen is allowed to jump straight up, even in her bad position, she can get a touch. It almost looks like the ball grazes the crossbar right above where Allen is standing. If she's not being pushed, she's getting to that. The only acceptable explanation of it not being called is that the official just missed it. on the side, the player who made the foul is #15 ... who, while sitting on a yellow card, made this challenge against Sentnor. Sentnor wow 😳 pic.twitter.com/5l7HGbmOcr— Out Of The Blue (@unc_ootb) December 5, 2022
it's not too far off from being reviewable in NCAA Soccer as well, but I don't think it quite qualifies. It is reckless, but it's clearly going for the ball and not considered Violent Behavior I or II. There are essentially three things the official is allowed to go to VAR to review, broken up into six categories by the NCAA Rule Book. 5�7�3�1 Determining whether the entire ball passed over the goal line, which includes end of period timing issues; 5�7�3�2 Identifying players for disciplinary matters; 5�7�3�3 Determining whether a fight occurred and identifying all participants; 5�7�3�4 Determining whether violent behavior I or II occurred and identifying all participants; 5�7�3�5 Correcting timing errors, which must be corrected at the next stoppage of play and before the next restart; and 5�7�3�6 Determining whether a foul occurred inside the defending team’s penalty area� EDIT: I posted this and realized that last review point can easily be misunderstood. It's poorly written in the rule book. It should be "determining whether a foul called by the official on the defending team occured inside the defending team's penalty area" ... it can't be used to determine if a foul by the attacking team had occurred, which would have allowed the foul against Allen to be reviewed.
This take is just wrong. Nearly EVERYTHING you describe is in hindsight after multiple looks at the video. You could do that for 50 other plays in that game, in every game and the official does not have that luxury. The corner was just too good. The GK increases contact with the blue player as she takes a few steps forward before backtracking. If that ball had landed on top of the keeper and blue player in contact with her, I'd bet you get that whistle. It's EXACTLY because the ball misses them both and goes over them to the far post that the whistle does not blow. The GK misjudged the flight of the ball (by taking forward steps) and that is clear. I can't imagine anyone watching soccer to not understand that. The physical contact between the GK and Blue player does not affect the outcome of the play. Human Judgement is part of the game and in real time, that official made the correct call not to blow her whistle. Now what about the many chances UNC players had to push the ball into the corner or play for a throw or corner themselves that they either didn't think about or execute in the final 10 minutes? Foudy mentions this on the broadcast, "when are they going to start playing the clock?" "that's usually not the UNC way". Sometimes a team's "killer instinct" to go for another goal allows for enough time for your opponents to score. It looked to me that some UNC players understood how to work that clock but others did not. THAT is what is to be learned here. UCLA executed their "down a goal" mode better than UNC executed their "up a goal" mode. Stop blaming the official!