[R] Adu's goal against Costa Rica @ Lancaster, CA

i was just watching the tape again of Adu's goal 75+ minutes into the Costa Rica game. it put USA up 2-1 and re-took control of the game. (final, 3-2 for USA).

receiving the pass back from gonzalez, adu was close to the left touch line.

move 1: adu faked to the outside, then cut back sharply to the middle. his move gave him enough separation to pull away from the defender (#5) who was on him at the time. just as #5 tried to slide tackle him, Adu pushed the ball a step further with his left foot, and lept over this first would be tackler.

move 2: Adu slowed his pace, and basically had 3 costa rican defenders flat footed. slightly faking outside again (back to his left), he suddenly accelerated to his right, pushing the ball through the two closest to him. (a very nice change of pace). the one closest to him (#?) tried another slide tackle, to no avail. (i couldn't get his # because he was on his back on the ground). the one trailing (#19) was not close enough to do anything, and the third (#2), was in more of a sweeper position, and had bought the fake back out to the outside.

move 3: still dribbling laterally across the field, two new defenders (#3 and #11) converged on him, one from the left, the other from the right. Adu again slowed his pace, before accelerating past both of them as he continued his way across the field from the left to the right. neither of these defenders had much of an opportunity to make a play, and they almost collided into one another.

move 4 (the shot): there was now no one left but the goalie. Adu was probably almost to the far post (from where he started), and the goalie (#1) was charging to cut off his angle. Adu again slowed his pace, and stepping past the ball with his right foot, passed it with the "inside" of his left foot back to the left post. the goalie was totally faked out, and was diving the other way.

move 5: nothing spectacular on the goal celebration. he went to the far corner, completing his journey completely across the field from the left to the right, and his teammates ran over to congratulate him. he didn't pull his shirt off, or anything else. he basically acted like this was an everyday occurrence, notwithstanding how impressed everyone there was by what we had just seen.

none of the moves was individually spectacular, but the entire time he dribbled the ball over this distance it was never more than a foot or two away from him (until he shot). it really was like there really was a string-like or magnet-like quality going on between his shoe and the ball. most of his key touches were with his left foot, and by my count at least 6 defenders plus the goalie had a shot at him.

the key, seemed to be the way he slowed and then accelerated, a concept that is extremely difficult for many players to get. related to it, the threat that he might cut back to his left at any moment (and set his left foot up for a blast), seemed each time to provide him with the separation necessary to move past his opponents to his right. really, really nice.

 

yes. as i mentioned in another post somewhere else, unfortunately i don't know anything about uploading, etc.

 

i thought it was less breathtaking than when he beat all those guys and then shot it off the crossbar in guatemala, but still really nice. in breaking it down, each of the moves was relatively simple, but a big part of what made it so impressive to me was precisely how easy he made it look. i don't think many players could have strung together the entire run.


-- thanks to those who pm'd me. i've been busy this week, but will try to get the tape converted to an mpeg file this weekend.