Duke 2022

As we approach tonight’s season opener, I’m thinking about our pre-season matches against UGA and South Carolina. It seems like the Blue Devils made some solid changes between those two matches and it will be interesting to see what they do differently this evening against ECU (at ECU). Three freshmen got starts against South Carolina — one more than UGA — adding Devin Lynch in a holding mid role. The coaching staff moved away from the UGA 4-4-3 and back to a formation similar to what Duke ran last year. The possession was strong, but they have to be more dangerous in the final third.

The final score was 2-1. Duke’s first came from a corner and second came from a disruption in SC’s final third that led to a 1 v 1 with the SC keeper. Goals were scored by Groff and Hannon. SC scored when it was 1-0, and Duke will have to do a better job not giving up a sloppy goal, losing a lead, and then scrambling to recover when they are in control of a match.

Disappointing for all that the U20s had an early exit, but it will be nice for every team impacted by the loss of players to get their missing players back. I’m sure that early return will be hard on all of those women. Surely Cooper and Lageyre won’t be available for the first home match on Sunday, but fingers crossed for their quick reintegration in practice ahead of Tennessee.

Candidly, that is too far out to focus on — they’ll first have some work to do tonight and Sunday to have a good start to the season. On paper they’re stronger than ECU and UNCG, but both of those squads will come ready to get a huge boost to their season from either a tie or win, if they can swing it. Captain Obvious, but the key will be to score early and often so that these matches are never tight and there aren’t opportunities for fluke goals against.

 

Congrats to Michelle Cooper -

A huge congratulations to @michelle1cooper on being named to the 2022 Hermann Trophy Watch list!

📰 https://t.co/uUQ2iUA5kC#GoDuke pic.twitter.com/reUhtXs3Fg

— Duke Women's Soccer (@DukeWSOC) August 18, 2022

 

Disappointing first outing for the Blue Devils. Got the win, which is the primary consideration but are not yet playing to their potential. As anticipated, improvement in the final third still remains a “must-have” and was a “didn’t-have” in this match. After the first goal by S. Jones - a cross in the box where M. Graham’s run froze the keeper - it looked like the goals might start pouring in. But the Pirates decided to do what they could to ensure there would be no more goals and they were quite successful in executing a low block that kept Duke from solid attempts in the box.

Duke clearly will have to learn how to break into a parked bus as the season goes along (for some of their opponents) - but that will require both better shot selection and decision making around 1 v 1 attacking. There were way too many missed opportunities - either by losing the pass intended to break lines or the low percentage shot taken seemingly out of frustration with the low block. Duke’s xG in the match was 0.96. Less than 1 ain’t great given they had 72% of possession. Rader seemed to pull the trigger indiscriminately every time she got it on her foot logging seven shots, only two of which were on goal. Looked way too focused on opening her account - to my eye she missed great opportunities to play teammates in. She did, however, strike a set piece dangerously - even though she and Katie Groff stood over the opportunity way too long.

Also, when Duke’s forwards and midfielders decide to initiate 1 v 1 duels, they need to be more dangerous. There was too much losing the ball by Pluck, D. Graham, and Rader (25x between the three of them) and missed opportunities to slip someone through when they were focused on the duel. Finally, D. Graham’s, Pluck’s, and S. Jones’ many crosses are useless if they aren’t more accurate. And when they were accurate, there need to be more players attacking the pass and finding the ball. And while we’re talking about crosses - the final pet peeve - put the service on a corner kick in play.

Coach Church in his post-game remarks commented something about the need to get our injured and US Duty players back - that could change our look on the pitch and hopefully address some of these issues, but we need to be careful about thinking the injection of four players will alone change all of the things addressed here. That said, there are many new parts to this team, and as they get clicking these little things will get worked out.

But let’s end on some positives - Duke was solid in the air winning most of the punts and goal kicks and returning the ball to their possession. Duke disrupted well in the middle of the pitch - credit to S. Jones, Pluck, Lynch and M. Graham for getting the ball back quickly when Duke lost it. And the three back formation worked - both with great possession starting in the back and little change when one of those backs was subbed showing that Bruster, Groff, E. Royson, and J. Royson are all very inter-changeable.

It will be interesting to see how things go against UNCG tomorrow. Hopefully they’ll reduce the selfish play to the detriment of better scoring opportunities. It’s always important to be a little selfish - but Duke’s success has always been driven by the unselfish. And, of course, in two of our next three matches, we’ll likely have to get better quickly at breaking into that parked bus.

 

I’ve got to get these in a little sooner after the match than the day of our next outing….

I thought Duke was somewhat improved against UNCG, but still not clicking on all cylinders. As was noted in the press conferences and write-ups after the match, they still are not connecting the way you’d like to see them connect in the final third — but it’s early and you hope that will come with time. Hopefully they won’t wait too long to get cracking since tonight’s match will be a tough one. Tennessee is hungry after they were dismantled by Carolina and seemingly couldn’t finish their chances against SMU.

But back to UNCG - like the ECU match, the early score was great and it seemed like many more would follow, but that didn’t happen. M. Graham disrupted nicely a mishandled ball by the UNCG defense and then went to goal, which resulted in her being taken down in the box. The PK put Duke up 1-0. But UNCG did what I didn’t think would happen and preyed on some poor defending that resulted in a set piece just outside the box — the set piece was defended poorly too both in failure to clear and R. Jones failing to scoop up the first shot she saved which was not hit particularly hard. Duke will need to be much more clinical in their defense of set pieces as they look to matches against Tennessee, UCLA, and TCU tonight and next week.

In fairness, Duke pushed hard through the first half and scored a nice goal right before the whistle — 1 second before it, to be exact. A great shot and rebound from Cooper and a cheeky left footed chip to Burnell who had a point blank header for her first goal of her career. In the second half, the coaches seemed to toy with some potential lineups and Duke seemed a little more dangerous. All told, they had 71% possession and a 3.7 xG (a strong improvement from ECU). The also added a set piece goal off a corner from Pluck to M. Graham — a good cross and finish - but one finish on 12 corners.

So the keys for me from UNCG with Tennessee in our sights for tonight are: a) better connections in the final third — it did seem like they cleaned up some of the more selfish play from Thursday night’s match against ECU — they just need to connect those final passes a little more efficiently; b) better group defending on set plays; and c) with the exception of Cooper’s cross to Burnell, they still aren’t making the most of their crosses — that will be a necessity tonight.

Go Duke!

 

Kudos to me getting this in the day before the match…

I’ll start with saying, @mpr2477 - have some faith. I recall when you wrote the team completely off a few years ago — let’s not do that yet. But your negative reaction was also not misplaced. Frankly, sitting in Regal Stadium, gagging on the fumes from the waste water treatment facility that is immediately adjacent, and trying to tune out Rocky Top and the drumline, I have to admit that I almost lost faith too.

Let’s not oversell the win though. With VAR it was a tie. Candidly you don’t want to be on the wrong side of lacking VAR, but this time the soccer gods helped the Blue Devils. My guess is that the USC will take that into consideration with rankings this week, and they should. This team is not yet playing to the level of a top 5 team. And they’ll need to show they’re starting to figure that out tomorrow against UNCC because the following games against UCLA, TCU and UNC will be street fights. But kudos to the likes of Cooper, D. Graham, and Rader who dug deep and helped to eek out a win.

But let’s break it down. Duke likes possession but only had 51% of the ball in this match. They had a 1.68 xG to Tennessee’s 1.51 — I guess that shows they scored when they needed to and they didn’t leave opportunities on the table. Top players on the pitch per InStat were Rader, D. Graham, Cooper, M. Graham, and E. Piper — in that order. Last on the Duke squad among the starters were J. Royson and Pluck. That should tell the coaches, it seems to me, about improvements they need to consider both in the back line and up top. Rader should be starting ahead of Pluck given her contributions in this match. And Chico did a nice job when Lynch came out on injury playing in the back.

We all recognize that InStat isn’t perfect in assessing the performance of a player subjectively, so I’ll say here that Rader is still making freshman decisions on the pitch and Cooper didn’t look up to par during the match notwithstanding the key individual performance that led to the second goal and the lovely slipped pass from the half-space after she was found by M. Graham to D. Graham on a sprint that led to the third goal. The number of poor passes and failed connections by the entirety of the Duke offense has to get better if we’re going to succeed in the next four matches.

But finally, let me discuss the elephant in the room. Duke has never had difficulty in the defense they have thrown on the field, but Tennessee exposed the back line and R. Jones. That has to be cleaned up. The unwillingness of most of the Duke defense to use their heads and clear balls is going to be fatal against the likes of TCU and UNC. The Duke staff has to clean that up.

Now complaints aside, and not wanting to sound like I’ve given up on the team, know that the heart displayed by this squad was worthy of a deep run in the NCAA tournament. The sideline berms filled with Tennessee students was hostile, the stadium was loud, and my dislike of Rocky Top blaring over the sound system notwithstanding, I’d like to think that this team dug deep was motivated by the adversity and scored three goals down in just more than 11 minutes. I think much of the Duke team showed their fitness as well — Tennessee tried to high press much of the match, but it exhausted them and led to the second and third goals for Duke. And most importantly thanks to the soccer gods for the no VAR agreement for this match — that certainly helped Duke.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.

 

It’s really hard to glean too much from the UNC Charlotte match because, candidly, Charlotte was significantly outmatched and as a side didn’t play incredibly well or to their potential in the match. On the positive, Duke demonstrated that they can be dangerous although it’s hard to say whether that translates to a match where the defense is significantly stronger. There were nice finishes coming off of a corner (Cooper) as well as a beautiful set piece outside the box that was hammered home by Katie Groff. The goals by Pluck and Rader were both decent but certainly the result of very poor defense by Charlotte leaving both strikers open in the box for a free header (Pluck) and an open strike in the box (Rader).

The formation was different in the first and second half. Interestingly, while the formation in the second half was designed - according to Coach Church in his post game interview - to focus on having dribblers attack from the outside, I thought that formation (even though I haven’t always been a fan of it) should be considered for the tougher games that we have coming this week and next. While it wasn’t exactly necessary for defending Charlotte who didn’t log a shot on goal — we seem more compact defensively when we play four in the back. Tennessee exploited our defense in transition when our wingbacks got too high - as did UNC Greensboro. I wonder whether being more compact in the back line and the midfield approaching these next three matches with the athleticism and the goal scoring power that UCLA (Ranked 3 - Thursday), TCU (Ranked 1 - Sunday), and UNC (Ranked 1 - next Thursday) bring to bear, would be a better approach. I don’t propose parking the bus, but making sure that we are tighter in our final third would be something to consider given the types of strikers that will be coming at us in our next three matches (TCU scored 12 goals in week 2 hanging 7 on Santa Clara; UNC scored 8 hanging 6 on Baylor; and UCLA scored 7).

The Charlotte game gave the coaches a great opportunity to try out new things and to work into the match all of the roster. I’m in agreement with @mpr2477 and @Siddhartha, it was great to get a glimpse of some of the freshman who have played played less especially Carina Lageyre, who certainly has great quality that you could see even in the few minutes that she played. I think we’re improving in the final third, and certainly four goals is nothing to scoff at, but I do think we still can stand to improve our final pass(es) in the final third and could benefit from some slightly better decision making in that space as well. There remained a couple of instances where we took players on 1 v 1 instead of making the obvious pass and that won’t play well with the defenses we’ll see in our next three matches who won’t be beaten as easily in the final third as some of the Charlotte defenders were.

With the new rankings released yesterday, Duke is back to having a large(r) target on its back. I’m not sure whether we really earned the jump from 5 to 2, but if nothing else this week will allow us to either grow into that ranking or move down the table (hopefully not the latter). Hats off to UCLA for coming across the country to play Duke and UNC - it will be an interesting weekend for them. Similarly, TCU flies to USC and then have Duke at home on Sunday. And of course, more Captain Obvious, but a really tough week 3 for the Blue Devils — let’s hope they continue to grow into their offense, do a good job dealing with significantly increased pressure in the midfield, lock down their defense in transition and on set pieces, and bring some of the grit to bear that they showed in the final 20 minutes at Tennessee.