192ft2

Tim Oswald and Rutgers-Camden 

Come Oh-So-Close

Other News & Thoughts Around The Soccer World

UEFA Champions League this week!  Matchups and game times here.  All on FoxSports or the FoxSoccer2Go app.

NCAA men's final four this weekend at PPL...hope they get the field shoveled off.  New Mexico, UVA, Maryland and Notre Dame all face off.  Only one cold-weather school in that bunch..

National Champs crowned all over the place last weekend:
NCAA Division I Women.....UCLA (first ever title)
NCAA Division III Women....William Smith

On the fella's side:
NCAA Division III Men....Messiah (10 for 10 in NCAA Finals) second place to local institution Rutgers-Camden.  Given Messiah's tendency to sub like it's hockey, one has to wonder if Rutgers-Camden might have had a different result if the NCAA/NSCAA and college coaches got their acts together and gave the final four teams more than 18 hours rest between the semis and the final.

Loras used 23 players (35 substitutions) in the semi to Rutgers-Camden's 16 (14 subs...double their total in the final, but with virtually no rest between games the staff has to balance between weakening the squad or being too tired to play the next day for a title!); Messiah used 18 players (17 substitutions) to Rutgers-Camden's 15 (6 substitutions) in the final.  Messiah used 19 subs against Williams in their semi-final, but that was a walk-away 4-0 blowout.

Loras and Messiah combined for 57 substitutions in the semi-finals in 2012, something I griped about just this past October.

Hey, it's within the rules, but it's not in the spirit of the game, and that should be changed.

Lastly, here's a great graphic of from whence goals come.  3 years of goals from the EPL (some 1100 in total) generates this image, courtesy of arcticicehockey.  The image is of the 18 yard area, dark red is more activity, blue is very little activity.  Clearly, virtually no goals are scored from outside 8 or 9 yards from goal: