Back 4 / USMNT

Zonal (Den)Marking

While it was great to see Jozy Altidore continue his exploits in front of goal for the USMNT (and Toronto FC...seriously, how disfunctional is Sunderland??) the back four continued to struggle.

Here's the highlights ... see the bottom of the page for some good video breakdown on the US back line:

To be fair, it's lots harder to get the group play ironed out than to find the big target forward, but there is a disconcerting trend of USMNT squads with underwhelming center back pairings.  This goes back to Alexi Lalas and Thomas Dooley...but think of Matt Besler getting torched twice by Belgium in the Round of 16 in Brazil...

In this space the global shortage of excellent center backs has been touched on before through the lens of Arsene Wenger...

When asked whether there was a lack of top class defenders to buy in the last transfer window, Wenger said: "That is exactly [the issue], you sum it up very well...There is not a lot on the market and if you look at the other clubs, they had exactly the same problem. If you went anywhere, everybody is looking for defenders."

ESPN offers some great advice to would-be center backs in this analysis of the match with Denmark earlier this week:

LMSC GK

Penalty Kicks
(Updated)

I've written before in this space about PKs and the aspects of that situation that the GK can have some control over (read that post - with video - here).  Young goalkeepers dread it, but there's a few strategies they can learn easily to help their cause.  Here we'll take out the notion of "knowing" the opponent, as youth level GKs simply won't have pre-kick information.  At the top level it's all game theory, as Edwin Van Der Sar found out after he joined Man U (which was late in his career...odd to get good advice so late in his career):

Click here for the full article

So, what does a kid have going for herself if not video to analize, and other sources of information to cull through for tips on where a given shooter will aim?  Most importantly is the mental strength to accept the probability of failure, but still make a great effort.  This skill is lost on too many young players, but it's particularly crucial in a PK situation for GKs.  Without some information to work with, it's guesswork, and there are abundant theories as to what to look for prior to the contact of foot to ball.  Any GK hoping to stop PKs should be talking with other GKs, coaches, and even shooters to get some idea of cues might help.  There are theories pertaining to where the shooter looks last, which foot moves first after the whistle, the angle at which the shooter runs to the ball, and so on.  After the years I've put in, I'd offer that any theory a GK believes in, is a good one; confidence is the key.

One theme that penalty saves seems to have is that they are almost all low balls.  The odd 36" or higher shot will get saved, but the majority are saved below that mark.  So, a GK ought to be able to dive low and explosively...all that is needed is good technique to cover to the post.  Harder for the shorter kids, but not impossible.  Remember, too, that any ref will take enough pity that the GK can usually step one long step forward prior to the kick (but only just...don't take advantage of the official's largesse!), thereby giving some momentum to the GK, as well as trimming down the angle ever so slightly.

Here's the 2015 matchup of Bayer Leverkusen V. Athletico Madrid in the Champions League:

The GKs at the 2013 Confederations Cup gave some great examples.  But do recall that they will have had scouting information of varying qualities.  For an amateur GK, the trick is to go as hard as these GKs do, and just accept that whatever method used to choose the side to go to, is still just a guess.  At least a couple will go the other way, and that'll sting.

Deadspin has some good video of the shootout here, but you can see the short version below:

Leo Messi

Watching Michelangelo

If you didn't see the Man City tie with Barca, go find the two legs on foxsoccer2go.com or the app by the same name.  Two terrific matches.  One player who simply towers above the rest:

A measure of Messi's greatness is that he makes world class players like Aguero and Suarez look distinctly ordinary by comparison.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) March 18, 2015

Even the commentators said very softly at one point (as one of their undoubtedly beloved English clubs was being shredded) something to the effect of "just sit and enjoy him."

Just to add my two cents, here's a heat map of Messi's first 400 professional goals:

For all the goals, and all the glory, it's remarkable how concentrated even an all-time-great's goals are.  Of the 41 free play goals scored in zone 13, all but two or three were struck from the arc (22 yards from goal) or less and none were wider than the 6 yard area (central 22 yards).  He's great, in part, because he has the ability to get to these areas with the ball over and over and over.  Either by running without the ball in ways that his teammates can find him, or by carrying the ball ever so cleverly into those spaces...so simple, but as with all true genius, it is the very simplicity that belies the gifts.

Oh, and yeah, if Messi is shut out in a game, as City managed to do in the second leg...he'll just pick up the game-winning assist:

Be Bold, Young GK

Goalkeeper Starting Position

Youth GKs kill me The adults who allow/encourage this sort of thing kill me when youth GKs camp out under the crossbar of their goal for the full match.  A very wise GK coach I work with time to time advised me the other day that a good teacher of the game will train a young GK for the way they will play as an adult, and simply accept the consequences at the youth level that will bring.  Meaning, play high off the goal line where appropriate, and understand that a 4-foot-10 kid will give up goals over their head...but when they're 18, stand closer (or hopefully over) six feet tall, those'll be easy saves.  "Positioning should be based on where they are going to evolve to...not based on short-term success."  

At any rate, take a gander at Ter Stegen's starting position on this cross by Man City's Navas in the 61st minute.  In the first still image, Navas has just received the ball off a Barca turnover just in front of the technical area visible at the bottom of the screen:

Ter Stegen can be seen seven or eight yards off his line, and doesn't flinch much as he knows the odds of a successful shot from this location are virtually nil.

Here the cross has just been struck, Ter Stegen will be well aware there's one runner in the area...this means that so long as Ter Stegen & Co. don't allow him to get the ball, there is no danger whatsoever.  This is liberating for a GK of his quality as it means he can go anywhere and take all manner of risk so long as the one danger man is dealt with:

Navas has to hit the target, a teammate running on an angle some 25 or 30 yards away, all while missing the Barca player trying to block the cross...not easy (Navas was 0-4 in his substitute shift on crosses).  Ter Stegen, for his part, leaves a small opening at the front post to shoot at (and if Navas declines to go at goal here, so will every other mortal soccer player) and his boldness pays off as he takes a couple steps to his right and forward and makes a relatively easy catch.  Of course, any error in his handling and it's trouble, but there's risk in everything.

All too often young GKs are instantly back on their line when possession is lost, especially as in this case when the turnover occurs in their own half, and thus this type of easy catch is never made...and while the play wasn't particularly dangerous for Barcelona, had Ter Stegen started too deep, that ball was directly in the path of the runner who was very clearly onside.

Shooting Percentage And The Big Dance

A quick follow-up to the previous post on stats.  One conversation I always find myself having with other coaches centers around what makes the teams in the sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament capable of getting to that level.

While it takes tons of good fortune to win in the tournament, a sweet 16 team seems to have a great regular season, solid conference tournament run and in the DI (48 team tournament) and DII (35 team tournament) won at least one match, or had a stellar enough season to earn a bye to within one win of the sweet 16 while in DIII (61 team tournament) the teams have won two in a row in the most topsy-turvy environment around.  Surely a sign that the quality is real, right?

Here's shooting percentage for the whole division, with the number of sweet 16 teams per column shown in red (the sweet 16 are not individually labelled in red, unfortunately).  Hover your mouse over each rectangle to see what team is in each column.  A reminder...Virginia, Lynn and Tufts were your champions this fall.

That crazy little red fella way out on the left in the DIII chart?  Amherst College.  Not unprecedented, as Wesleyan and Williams are in that column as well, both fellow NESCAC members, and traditionally successful programs.   A post to follow shortly may offer some insight as to why several of the most respected programs in the nation appear to have very poor shooting percentages...

USSoccer media

GK Stuff

USMNT GKs playing "goalie wars."

A fun little curiosity from US Soccer:

Stats

Stuff Maybe Only I Care About

Some interesting data (I think) from recent seasons in the Centennial Conference men's soccer competition:

Each dot is labelled with the school initials or abbreviation and a hyphen year (HC-11 = Haverford College, 2011); hover mouse to see each data point label.\
UC: Ursinus College
DC: Dickinson
MC: Muhlenberg
F&M: Franklin and Marshall
SWAT: Swarthmore
MCD: McDaniel
WAC: Washington College
HC: Haverford
GC: Gettysburg
JHU: Johns Hopkins University

What is "TSR?"

The formula is simple:
-Shots For- divided by -(Shots For + Shots Against)-

The ratio results in an indicator of how effective a team is at getting shots at the one end, and preventing them at the other.  A simple concept.  Among a few metrics, this particular ratio shows as high a degree of efficacy even after a relatively small sample size in predicting performance.  Somewhere around 85% accuracy.  Which isn't great...but that's as good as analytics gets these days in football.  Clearly, there's a trend here, as you might expect; if I give up fewer shots than I take, I ought to win more than I lose.  Seems intuitive.

The main trick is that every shot is just a loss of possession...how does a team take more shots than their opponent without conceding as many?  So the metric becomes a useful indicator of a team's ability to take the ball away prior to a shot by the opponent.  The slop in the data (that pesky 15% or so of unaccounted-for error) comes from teams who are simply off the charts in goal scoring efficiency.  Broadly speaking, one in every 10 shots is a goal (that's shots of all kinds, regardless of on-target, blocked, saved, etc.) from free play.  A team that exceeds the 10% rule can have a wacky TSR for their win percentage.  Man U in 2012-13 (Fergie's last season in charge) or Simeone's Athletico in 2013-14 come to mind.  Of course, there's some similar effect from the bottom of the tables, where teams struggle to finish, though at the pro level the problem isn't in the scoring, it's in getting the ball to the attacking end, or, indeed, getting the ball at all.

At the top level, too, we tend to see teams that spend a lot of time in the lead content to absorb pressure and attack a little less (to reduce the chance of being caught with too many players forward) and so teams that score early (and win a lot) may have surprisingly low shot totals...but if you finish chances at a high rate, the other team has to come after you with more vigor to get back in the game.  Now the second and third goals can come on the counter - a very high percentage situation.

At the amateur level (college) a team that takes a lead tends to continue to attack.  By virtue of being the better team, they press on because they can.  The NCAA Division I playoffs tend to look more professional in this regard, but DII and DIII tend to have more lopsided contests, with a clearly better team present in most games.  Amherst, this year in DIII was a lower-league outlier, with an 8% shooting percentage, made the sweet 16.  They play in a highly competitive league but are one of the stronger teams.  They defend wonderfully and often play with a lead- so they take fewer shots and finish fewer as well.  Heaven help the rest of the NESCAC if they get a forward who's more effective in counterattack conditions than the players they have now.  And their All-American GK has to graduate someday...

At the college level, the ratio of 1-in-10 pretty well holds...but the bell curve will be more dramatic; more teams, a much wider variety of talent.  The median for DI/DII/DIII in terms of shooting percentage is 10.5/11.75/11.5 percent.

Here's the proof from 2014 Men's NCAA soccer: