Premier League Game #9 vs Bangu Tsunami White

Second game against the Bangu girls in as many days, this time in Woodbury.

I got to the field a little late.  There's a ton of construction around the Bielenberg Sports Complex due to the new high school coming to the area, going in adjacent to Bielenberg.  I was forced to take a detour that sent me to a dead end.  Nice.  So I backtracked halfway around Woodbury to come into the complex in what would have been my usual way, had I not been distracted at my initial turning intersection by the crazy Quiznos-costumed freak jerking this way and that on the corner.  Poor guy must have had a hornet get into his suit. 

We were scheduled to play on field #11 at Bielenberg.  Up until this point, we had played our home games on fields #13 and #14.  #11 was a ridiculous 80 yards wide, the widest youth field that I've ever seen.  Hopefully the girls would be able to make use of the space, then have the legs left to do something good with the ball when they got it.

We started in the same 4-1-2-3 formation that we put to use yesterday.  I again challenged the girls to look to get forward with crisp, shorter passing and in numbers, rather than look to play too direct.  I was so impressed with the passing yesterday and I was looking forward to seeing the same tonight on the big field.

However, we didn't possess the ball nearly as well as we did the night before.  Some girls were still adapting to "new" positions on the field and play was a bit more frazzled than 24 hours ago.  We did manage to put together some stints of nice play, but the overall level was not as sharp as I wanted it to be.

The half ended 0-0.

Like yesterday at halftime, I switched formations, this time to a 4-4-2.  Yesterday we went to a 3-5-2 to try and make use of the Bloomington field's width, but then got caught numbers down in the back when players in wide mid positions were not able to recover properly. 

We played better in the second half, with my only real instruction at the break being to look to now mix up some direct play with the slower build up, looking to be unpredictable in the attack as much as possible.

We got on the board early in the first half when Nash's (CM) pressure at the top of the White team's penalty box resulted in her winning the ball and finding Brownie (LF) on the left side of the box, about 12 yards from goal.  Brownie ripped a near post shot that the White team GK got her fingers to but was unable to turn away fully. 

A few minutes later the White team leveled the match as their left forward found herself 1v1 against our right back.  The forward cut to the inside an hit a decent shot that Tori likely would have had not much trouble stopping, but the ball deflected off Blondie's (CD) shin and into the back of the net.  Tough goal to give up, but having played defense myself for a number of years, this kind of goal happens.

We continued to battle, denying the White team any more good looks at goal.  The game winner came with about 10 minutes left in the game as Jilly (LF) found herself 1v1 against the GK from an inaccurate square pass by the White team defenders.  The White team GK came out to make a slide attempt save at the ball, but Jilly reached the ball first with a slide of her own and slipped a shot below the oncoming GK. 

All in all another decent performance by the U13s.  We'll need to play better tomorrow though against a tough, rejuvenated Eden Prairie team. 

As I mentioned in the write up after our first game of the season vs EP, I believe either team is capable of scoring 3 or 4 goals against the other.  I give the edge to EP tomorrow as the width of the field at Bielenberg puts a damper on our attacking corner kicks as girls struggle to get the ball into the box.  I'll need to remind the girls about some of our short corner kick plays, especially our sniffer 1-2.

Also, EP has FAST forwards.  Though I don't think that their team plays very direct soccer, it only takes a ball into Taylor's feet (their center forward) and a turn by her and she's running at our defense.  I'll need to make sure to talk with our center backs about making sure Taylor is contested at all times and cover is provided whenever she touches the ball. 

* * * * *

With one game left to play, here is where things stand in the league.

Our score from yesterday is not yet recorded, but I've added in the points, win, loss, goals for and against in.  I don't know the % pts stat so I left that blank.

Looks like we can finish anywhere from 1st to 3rd in the league.  We do have a couple team goals yet to attain this year, including beating the EP team and finishing at least 2nd in our league.  Two birds with one stone maybe tonight... we'll see.