Agree. UVA do have one of the fastest players in the NCAA add Spaanstra for her quick feet, but beyond those 2 I would say we have average foot speed. McCool has incredible endurance and is not slow.
I once dismissively described McCool as "just a runner." Thanks to the internet, I could go back and change that, but sheesh, if you're going to pontificate on others, you have to stand by what you said. I do like watching Meg run, though.
That's good news from a Virginia fan's perspective. We'll see.just how in love with UNC and Stanford the coaches are.
i don’t think you can say mccool is any slower than spaanstra. Spaanstra just happens to be decently fast and technical (with the ball). But gorzak is just as fast as spaanstra (though has difficult finding that last pass), constant and ordonez is fast as well. Speed of play definirely factors. i doubt we get ordonez back for tech. She is still in a boot. Constant looks like she could be playing but was held out. as for susceptibility - yeah. Anytime you push your back line to midfield - you will be susceptible. But we gain an advantage by putting more players (and hopefully more skilled players) in a smaller portion of the field. It’s not just that they are so far up and can’t get back, it’s that when they all start running back, they lose shape. They don’t cover as tight as things are flowing back toward your goal and frequently the shift isn’t there. What’s suppose to happen if Mclernon goes forward is that Peterson shifts back. But what happens with Uva is that mclernon will be up (and possibly come in to center and be feeding Peterson as she is up too). It leads to a very very susceptible situation in the back. Any through ball is trouble. But even fully ready and back - our defensive lines are more skilled than actually true defensive stalwarts. Hannah 33 for wake played an impressive center half game. Our center backs don’t tend to be physical and they don’t tend to play close either. The difference is this - and I love sonnet. But Abby dahlkemper is an better defensive center back than sonnet. But What you gain with her defensive abilities you lose with say sonnets offensive playmaking abilities. But I would rather have stronger and robust center backs (in terms of defensive awareness, speed and ability). Who knows - maybe staude will be that person - but Swanson seems to prefer playmakers back there as well.
HoosPlace summary as to where the team is now: https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2019092602 The 1st ACC game is in the books – UVa salvaged a tie vs Wake Forest – and retained the #1 spot in both the United Soccer Coaches poll and the TopDrawer Soccer power rankings for the second consecutive week. Looking ahead, where are the major story lines as the Cavaliers try to make a serious run towards the College Cup, soccer’s equivalent of the Final Four. These Women Never. Give. Up. It had to have been a monumentally deflating moment to have run a good Penn State side so thoroughly, only to have them equalize with 6 minutes left in the game. Yet the Cavaliers scored just 26 later to win the game. Much the same happened in the Wake game. Wake had a better game plan and saw more possession than any opponent has seen all year, and they took the lead with 3 minutes left in the game. Yet again, Virginia scored in the waning seconds and remained undefeated, and purely for prestige purposes only, remained the #1 team in the country. This is a mentally strong team, and this self – belief is not created instantly but rather is forged in countless hours of practice and it results from a true belief in your teammates. Every coach wants this. Coach Swanson has created it. A second aspect to this self – belief is the buy-in from every player to play defense. As in all sports where the players play two-ways, it is much more tiring and mentally fatiguing to play defense. And yet if you look at how hard forward Meg McCool and midfielder Taryn Torres play, you know that they would literally run through brick walls to slow the opposing attack. Every player on the team attacks on defense, so even if we possess less raw footspeed than many teams, we play faster than almost every team in the country. We have a lot of weapons. The attack is increasingly flowing through sophomore left midfielder, Alexa Spaanstra, who is extremely quick, and plays even faster. Raw speed is nice. As the adage goes, “you can’t teach speed,” but Spaanstra’s explosion on the ball once she turns is simply elite. She can separate from any defender at any time. On the opposite side of the field is Becca Jarrett who simply has jets. She is among the very fastest players in Division I soccer. I’ve written critically of her poor dribbling skills and marginal buy in to Swanson’s defense, but Jarrett is getting better. For most of her life she’s played the central striker role and she’s having to learn a new role. Her crossing is getting better and she possesses the ability to roll the ball on the deck or play it in the air. If her progression is linear, she is going to be a terror next year. For now, she is always one good turn away from being her own one-man counter. Her defense is getting better and I think it’s just a matter of how much she wants to defend. In the center of the pitch, the Cavaliers are fortunate to have discovered freshman Diana Ordonez who blazed across the college landscape scoring nine goals in her first six games. She is tall and she appears to know how to take advantage of her height, but she is also a predatory striker, fully capable of scoring many of what Gerd Mueller would call “little goals.” Senior Meg McCool has lost her starting center forward position to Ordonez, but she has filled in wonderfully in Ordonez’ absence. Last year McCool scored 9 goals in approximately 20 games: through 9 games this year she has 7. Now, when Ordonez returns, McCool will most likely be shuffled out to left wing, and she’s not a wing, but she runs hard, covers a lot of ground, and quickly moves into a more central position when Jarrett comes down the right. Lastly, in left back Courtney Petersen, UVa has one of the very best crossers in the women’s game. Think of her as David Beckham with a pony tail. She serves the ball beautifully into the box, right at that sweet spot, the penalty spot. Furthermore, she can go to the end line almost at will, but especially like Beckham, she will serve the ball from the midfield, often before the defenders are set. McCool and Ordonez are decent in the air, but they are also comfortable playing back-to-the-basket soccer and can lay off to advancing teammates. If that’s not enough, everyone else gets into the act. Ashlynn Serepca has already hit a game winner and Sydney Zandi and Anna Sumpter scored the aforementioned winning and tying goals in the waning minutes of regulation. Virginia’s got a lot of weapons. Weaknesses Virginia presses aggressively and Courtney Petersen has the green light to advance on the left. With Phoebe McClernon playing at the right back position, she has similar latitude, and this would leave any team vulnerable to a counter. If we do have one systemic weakness, it is that we lack footspeed, especially on defense. I’m not saying that we are slow, but we’re not going to win any races. We were knocked out of the NCAAs last year in the Round of 16 by a perfect Baylor counter, one that Sydney Zandi diagnosed immediately. She’s got a great engine, but she barely gained any ground on the eventual goal-scorer. One small concern I have is that Petersen seems to have become especially one-footed this year. It would make a decent drinking game for those reading this: drink a beer every time she plays the ball with her right foot. Petersen got hurt last year – I think it was her right ankle – and maybe I didn’t notice it last year, but she is so left-footed this year that any team that looks at game footage is going to realize that she has become predictable when she receives the ball. Our wide players station themselves really wide. Like right on the touchline. If Petersen in on the line, her body angled 45 degrees, and with the ball on her left foot, she cannot advance the ball forward. She’s going to play the ball back to McClernon or Talia Staude, or maybe even sidewise to Torres. I have to think that if a team was coached to look for this, if a defender gets a good break on the ball, a la a corner back breaking on a quarterback’s throw, the result would be the soccer equivalent of the pick-6. Which brings me to another concern: I don’t know how good keeper Laurel Ivory is. One of the complications for playing on such a great team like this current iteration is that Ivory faces very few shots. In nine games, Ivory and backup keeper Michaela Moran, have only had to make 8 saves. 8! And only one of them required much effort. Ivory simply doesn’t get tested in games and that can lead to rust, a lack of development, or her concentration to waver. Ivory seems to have the trust of her teammates, and that is Requirement #1 for a keeper, and she also seems to be coming off her line quicker, but I’m not sure how well she could snuff out that hypothetical pick-6. A Lack of Depth Recent Steve Swanson teams featured him utilizing 18 – 19 players with defined roles and good minutes. The recent injuries to starters Claire Constant and Ordonez, have greatly compounded this year’s lack of depth to the point in the Wake Forest game, we really only had two substitutes play meaningful minutes: midfielder Zandi and forward Alissa Gorzak. Winger Cam Lexow and midfielder Emma Dawson both some time, but they are spot relief only at this point. Other than injuries forcing Swanson’s hand, he has pretty much started the same lineup all season, which is a change from last year. Spaanstra, Torres and McCook are logging major minutes, and given the compression of the Division I soccer schedule, it could lead to further injuries. The Outlook This is a very good Virginia team. Spaanstra and Jarrett are making huge strides in this, their second season, Petersen can deliver a game-winning cross from anywhere in the final third. Seniors Zoe Morse and McClernon, along with Torres just in front of them, are a trio of hard working, tough nosed, ball winning central defenders. The team has proved that they are never out of the game. And in the duo of Ordonez and McCool we have a pair of strikers who can pounce on any defensive error. At the start of the season, I was prepared for a Sweet 16 berth. I have adjusted my expectations upwards. This is a quality team that can win it all. The next step is knocking off Virginia Tech tonight at Klöckner.
Wow. Didn’t think ordonez would make it back for this game since she was still in the full boot over the weekend. But she plays a limited role and just keeps on scoring. Tech plays very physical - and it being an in state rivalry - makes it even more so. Can’t believe the number of yellow cards given as they are pretty rare in the women’s game
Virginia avenges last year's defeat in Blacksburg, knocking off Virginia Tech handily 2 - 0 behind the goals of Diana Ordonez and Meg McCool. Meghan McCool with her 8th goal of the season to put the Hoos on top here in the Commonwealth Clash. #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/HWQhAP6Vaz— Virginia Women's Soccer (@UVAWomenSoccer) September 26, 2019 That's 10 goals this season for those of you keeping track at home! Diana Ordoñez slips one in to give the Hoos the 2-0 lead on Virginia Tech. #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/IQOfnkNUsO— Virginia Women's Soccer (@UVAWomenSoccer) September 26, 2019
Spaanstra really earned her yellow card late in the game. I guess she wanted to take it out after the 7 fouls she got during the game. It was a good tactic to just go hard at her throughout the game to try and knock her off her game.
Spaanstra is one of 2 players that coaches will game plan against. Spanstraa will face a lot of man marking and physical pressure as she plays more centrally in a playmaking role. She needs to adjust to this. The CBs need to do a better job of breaking lines when she checks to the ball deep. I think physicality is something the entire team have to face up to, not just Spaanstra. Teams are not going to play an open game vs UVA at Klockner. They will drop deep, get bodies central and try and stop UVA getting in behind. UVA are rarely going to face marauding OBs, especially on UVAs right side. one of the big differences so far this year is the resilience of this team. Spaanstra works hard off the ball and has been very unselfish in creating space for others. PS I didnt think the foul was a big deal and i did not feel she was targeted. she is just in areas that are very congested.
Well, I think it's a little bit more than just Spaanstra operating in congested areas. It's true, she does, but I do think she's getting targeted a bit. She was horsecollared at Penn State. I think the big reason it's going to be more successful with her is because she's more likely to get the ball at her feet, especially in comparison to Jarrett who's more likely to run onto the ball in space. And part of it is that Spaanstra also draws fouls: she is more likely to cut across a trailing defender than is Jarrett, so she is going to get more contact, even if the defender didn't mean to intentionally down her. Jarrett's elite speed is certainly going to pin other left backs deep, but also, RB is usually a stronger position than LB, so just less quality from the opposing LB to do that "marauding."
Quite telling to see Duke switch to 5 atb after 30 mins and essentially park the bus vs certain UVA personnel groups. Did not think I would see that from them but unlike previous years, i dont see more than 2 or 3 Duke players who would make a combined 11. Duke were very well organized defensively once they switched and played an excellent counter attacking game that created the 3 best chances of the game in the second half. Other teams are going to do the same thing. The coach and his team need to come up with an answer for it. Both Wake and Duke have taken their most athletic players and deployed them as outside backs in a 5. UVA are one of the few teams i have seen that plays with wingers and this now seems to be the standard counter to that. Interestingly enough in the Wake Duke game both teams were a lot more open. I have my own thoughts as to how to counter it, but they involve lineup changes that will not be made. Its going to be interesting to see what they do.
I think there are two things - one is that they have to not waste the chances that they get. They had 3 clear cut chances that the ball should have been in the back of the net. They need to take those chances and put them away. Two - is that they have to just run their offense but not leave themselves wide open on counters. Sometimes a draw is a draw. . . dont open yourself up to a counter that it becomes a loss. THat doesnt mean park the bus, but it means you dont over-extend to get the win. Not sure we know how to do that though. ..
Game should have been over after 25 mins !!. I think its a function of personnel and tactics. UVA dont start a defensive minded midfield player and of the ones they do, 2 have limited experience there. Torres has been excellent so far in trying to cover defensive gaps, but its not her forte. Constant looks to have all the told to play as a true #6, but we have not that often. I think they need to consider a different formation and/or sacrificing an attacker. Doubt they do it
Funny you should mention Constant as a #6, because I mentioned that to you a couple of weeks ago and you didn't think much of that option. Interesting that you mention lineup changes, because that is the subject of my game report, which will go up once I have finished the highlights. Swanson hasn't tinkered with his lineup at all this season. I don't know when he decided that Ordonez would push McCool out left, but other than injuries to Sieracki (before the season began) and Ordonez and Constant, he's been very vanilla in his subs. Sure, Zandi got a start, and Serepca got a start in Ordonez' absence, but not much change overall. This team has the tools to make the run to the Final Four/College Cup, but it's going to be ugly if every team bar UNC and the PAC 12 powers are going bunker every game. Though to be honest, both McCool and Ordonez had chances in the box, the likes of which they have buried before.
She has the tools but does not deploy them there when asked. Once the season starts it’s tough to make changes
Hoos Place writeup: https://hoosplace.com/content.php?inc=2019100102 I've stared at this computer for the past three hours and I just haven't felt like doing highlights. Maybe tonight.... "A Clinic in How to Come Up Short" Duke came into town as the ostensible tenth-ranked team in the country, and with the #4 recruiting class to boot. The Blue Devils played the Cavaliers the same way the decidedly mediocre Liberty Flames did: laying in a 5th defender, bunkering in, and hoping for the counter. The match was not an advertisement for the “beautiful game.” Virginia 0 Duke 0 Duke coach Robbie Church admitted from the get go that his Duke players were likely to be fatigued – they’d played their last three games in 7 days (the Cavs had an entire extra day’s rest for their three games) – and that the long 3-hour drive from Durham could have been just too darn taxing. Regardless of the excuses, the book has nevertheless been written on how to play Virginia: defend with a five-woman line, put your best athlete on Becca Jarrett (Duke’s Mya Gyau was fabulous), and play Alexa Spaanstra rough. If you have speed up top, you will be able to catch Virginia on the counter. Furthermore, the opposition can mix it up by playing the high line because UVa, to be frank, sucks at the through ball, and is underwhelming on the counter (one woman Becca Jarrett fast breaks notwithstanding.) In this game, Virginia had five decent counters, and four of those times the lead attacker missed the wide open player (usually on the left) for the much harder play to the right. If Duke and Penn State are going to defend us thusly, it stands to reason that the only team we may face all season that doesn’t do this is Florida State. Countering this defense is a tactical issue and it rests squarely on Coach Steve Swanson’s shoulders to come up with the response. So far this year, Swanson has not tinkered with his lineup except as a response to the injuries to Lizzy Sieracki (season-long in this case) and Diana Ordonez and Claire Constant. Sure, former starter Sydney Zandi got a start over Anna Sumpter, and Ash Serepca got a start on the left wing, but these were like for like exchanges. Swanson may have to something a little more radical. And that may be operating too far out of his comfort zone. Swanson’s program has been a model of consistency. The women have made the Round of 16 (yeah, it’s the same as basketball’s Sweet 16, but it’s apparently verboten to use March Madness terms for soccer’s very similar bracket) the last 14 years in a row. To compare that to the aforementioned male hoopsters, Duke and UNC have the longest such streaks in basketball at 9 consecutive years and Gonzaga, at five years, has the longest current streak. So for Virginia to have made the Sweet 16 fourteen consecutive times is astounding. But this team needs to be thinking Final Four. We are one of the very best teams in the country and they need to make the leap past the Sweet 16. And maybe the lineup we’re playing isn’t the best for breaking a bunkering team. I don’t usually criticize coaches for their lineup choices. I’ve never coached at anything approaching this level and I haven’t seen the players day-in and day-out for practice, but I would certainly consider the following changes. The first one is pretty simple: keep Phoebe McClernon in the center of defense. Now, even before Constant was felled for three games, Swanson opted to shift McClernon to right back to allow freshman Talia Staude to play centrally. Staude is gonna be a stud – I have no fears that she’ll slip seamlessly into McClernon’s role when we lose ¾ of our back line next year. But Phoebe is the best player on the team, one of the 10 or 12 best players in the country; I simply cannot fathom moving her. McClernon is a decidedly average right back. I would let Staude get a run out in her place. Or, if Swanson has to keep Staude central, maybe move Zoe Morse to RB. I’ve not written much about Morse over the years, but her long ball is much better than McClernon’s and she might provide better service to Jarrett out on the wing. A second option would be to play Constant as the center midfielder, and this would change the shape of the team because she plays much more as a holding midfielder than does Taryn Torres. If teams are going to play for the counter, I would prefer to have another defensively-minded player in the middle. Freeing Torres from primary midfielder responsibilities might allow her to relieve Spaanstra and give Alexa more of a break. Spaanstra may be hitting the wall – she’s been relatively anonymous in three of her last four halves – and she’s being targeted by defenders. She was fouled 7 times by Tech and horse-collared in the Penn State game. She’s logging unholy minutes and she’s simply slowing down, especially the past three games. She needs more of a break than she’s getting. The other change I would consider would be moving Jarrett to left wing and McCool to the right. This has very little to do with Jarrett and everything to do with McCool. With the ascent of Ordonez, McCool has had to change her game on the fly. She’s not a winger but she has been quite successful moving quickly into the center, especially when the ball comes in from the right. She allows Ordonez to make the lead run while she makes the trailing run. Our problem, with teams bunkering in, is that the cross has to be perfect. Fortunately, UVa has a player who can make the perfect cross – and does half a dozen times a game – in Courtney Petersen. But as Petersen plays on the left, McCool cannot make the trailing run and we are left with just a single target in Ordonez. Jarrett as the right wing is simply not a target. But if McCool were stationed on the right, she could be that second target which we need when there are three center backs at the penalty spot. As for the game itself, well the announcer said it all when he said that UVa put on a “clinic in how to come up short.” At one point in the first half, I estimate that UVa had 80% of the possession. We had three corners in the first 6 minutes where we played a short corner and still failed to record a single shot. Think of the football team that marches up and down the field in the first half and fails to score and is subsequently nipped in the fourth quarter. That almost happened to the Cavaliers. Both McCool and Ordonez missed chances inside the box, the likes of which they have buried this season. Serepca had a header that flashed 2 or 3 inches wide of the post. Jarrett rolled a cross past a largely empty net. And Duke managed nary a shot in the first half. Late in the second half and in overtime, Duke possessed the better chances. They had three counters, and to be frank, should have scored. Keeper Laurel Ivory came out of the box for one, failed to get the ball, and left an empty net that Duke missed. A second breakaway saw a shot fizz as wide of the post as Serepca’s header. And on a third, where Staude was too casual with the ball and had it stripped, Ivory was forced into making her best save on the season. All three could have (should have?) been goals. All three exposed the Cavaliers’ lack of true foot speed on the defensive line. Both teams had convertible chances that no doubt left each team feeling like they should have won. Except that Duke wanted the tie, and for the second time in three games, Virginia played two full-overtime games. The #1 team in the country currently sits fifth in ACC standings. Soccer, like most sports, is a chess match. The marker has been laid down by successive teams. It’s up to Coach Swanson to figure out how to beat a bunkering team, which as teams as glorious as Arsenal and the Spanish national team will tell you, is no easy feat.
The Duke UVA game reminds me of FSU vs UF last year. We dominated possession and had a 23-3 Shots advantage. That said, their 3 shots all came on counters that were very dangerous. We ultimately won 1-0, but could easily have lost 2 or 3-1.
Sure, what about the UVa sitters tho ? Goes both ways. If you beleive in advanced stats NCAA - Virginia vs Duke stats and key passes. Virginia in white, Duke in blue.More long balls (at least with key passes) than you'd expect from these two. pic.twitter.com/Gp2uQVLZrQ— Chris Henderson (@chris_awk) October 1, 2019 should not have been close
Both teams should have scored a few for sure. I love stats but they can be misleading without context. Those breakaways by Duke were VERY dangerous. I think both teams had quality scoring chances. Reminded me of Inter v Barca 2010 without the Sneijder, Milito, and Maicon finishing. It is insightful to hear Mourinho's perspective of the chess match and "us hurting them in the attacking transition" (11:55) which they obviously did. With that in mind I think UVA hurt Duke where everyone thought they would Ex. McCool and Ordonez's attempts (should have finished at least one of those) However, Duke hurt UVA "in the attacking transition" with those counters and exposed a potential vulnerability that we haven't seen a lot this year. McGuire's empty netter attempt and the OT breakaway chance should have been converted.
Miami 0 Virginia 3 Virginia scored in the second minute and the game was over. For all intents and purposes. So was the entertainment value. This game was a snoozefest. Biggest talking point: it looks like Swanson is going to try a 3-4-3 a bit. It ain't much of a change, it just recognizes that Petersen is not playing LB, certainly not against bottom-feeder Miami, and she just stations herself 10 yards further afield. Oh, and Ordonez got two more goals....