Last Weekend Game Notes

Tottenham: Great weekend of soccer again for us. I think we played very well and hard against Tottenham. We worked harder then they did and were more dangerous in the attack. But they did a lot of good things on the field themselves and managed to steal three goals, despite what I thought was a very good game from our backline and keepers. Hats off to them.

Our midfield was great and really worked hard covering tons of ground, passing well, and fighting hard physically to win possession of the ball. Our forwards passed the ball very accurately and unselfishly thereby creating chances which we finished very efficiently. I'm happy with the team's progress.

AC Milan: The Milan game was quite different. We controlled the game in the second half completely and were able to knock in a goal by following up a dropped ball by the keeper. This is a GREAT way to score goals. We have given up many important goals this way ourselves (2 against the Explosion alone). To win a game by following a shot was a sure sign that we are maturing, becoming more alert and focused on the field. Remember, scoring goals by taking advantage of balls bouncing around in front of our opponent's net will get us very far (remember Sherwood?).

The best thing about the Milan game was that we had many players that were exhausted--physically, mentally, or both--from Saturday's game but were still able to give us enough juice to win it. A job well done by everyone AGAIN.

Things to work on... We still need more pressure up front by our forwards. Tottenham was very effective at applying forward pressure on our backs because they applied pressure without "diving-in" and over-committing. They ran to our defender with the ball and stood in front of that defender, moving from side-to-side to follow any lateral movement made by our player. Most often we just kicked the ball into them because they're positioning was so good and they were so patient. They often won possession back this way or forced us into a goal kick. They applied the kind of pressure on us that we wanted to apply against them and they did it with just a single player on the ball, when we wanted to do it with two or three. We need to learn from this and be more consistent in applying forward pressure, and not diving-in when we do.

A final note: I'm really proud of the Santos for maintaining their sense of fair play and sportsmanship so far through this year. Its not something we've talked much about, but it is very important. And the fact that our girls play fairly and honestly every game says something good about their character. Play strong, stronger than our opponents, but play fair. That's what the Santos have done.