We lost again today, 1-0, to Eskilstuna City. They were terrible and only created a handful
of chances the entire match. We on the
other hand dominated the game, though we also only created a few chances. I came on in the 58th minute as a
striker and had a big chance from a scramble in the box, but the goalie blocked
it. Perhaps I should have scored but I
didn’t have much time to really size up the goal and the keeper saved it with
pretty much just throwing his arms up.
He did a good job of making himself big and in the end made the
save. Also, for the second successive
home game, I put the ball in the net only to have it called back. Last game I had no idea I was flagged for
offsides and neither did the goalie.
Today though I thought I might have been off even though I didn’t see
the linesman. I don’t know if the goalie
saw the flag go up, but I suspect he did because I rounded him rather easily.
I won’t go into much detail about the match. The only thing I will say is that we’ve
totally abandoned the passing game we played in the preseason in favor of long
balls. No offense to anyone on our team,
but we have no Andrea Pirlo’s in the squad.
For that reason, we can’t be trying to unlock defenses with 40-50 yard
aerial passes from just inside midfield
or our own half. Today our strategy was
to breakdown the defense with long passes from one of our holding
midfielders. He would come equal to our
backline and then try to play perfect passes to streaking runners on either flank. It’s the soccer equivalent of calling a Hail Mary
every single play. The problem with
playing like that is two-fold. First,
you start off every attack with a pass that has a 30% chance of being
completed. By that logic, you will only
retain possession for more than 10 seconds roughly 1 in 3 times you get the
ball. Naturally your players will be
forced to chase the ball more and tire out.
The second problem is that the other team simply drops deeper and
deeper, making the strategy almost impossible.
That reaction is the equivalent of a defense in football using 8 DB’s
when they know your team will do a Hail Mary.
What was a 30% chance becomes too low a chance to really even be
considered.
When I came on, I looked to change things a bit. In the early moments I was successful,
linking up with Daniel and Erik quite well and getting that goal that was
called back. Also was a chance where I
linked up with the midfield and played a ball that would have put Erik in on
goal, but was blocked by a sliding intervention from the center back. Those were both within 10 minutes of coming
on. Things were looking good. But then we went back to long diagonal balls
and we hardly had another chance.
Training this week wasn’t very good. We played last weekend, so we had plenty of
time to rest but still prepare properly for this match. Monday was a complete washout because it
rained the entire day. There would have
been no way we could have had a decent training in the downpour. Me and some of the guys didn’t take the day
off though; we met at the stadium and lifted weights, while I ran some
difficult fitness out on the track since I had only played 20 minutes the day
before and needed to do some running. I
did a track-soccer hybrid type workout.
Pretty much that means that I use track distances, but with a soccer
rest. Actually that probably doesn’t
help you so I’ll just tell you the workout.
I ran, in order, 200m-300m-400m-200m-300m-400m. The rest was to job half the distance of the
previous run. So, after the first 200, I
jogged 100m and then ran 300m then jogged 150m and so on. It was quite difficult since my body isn’t
used to making runs longer than 60m maximum at a time, but that’s what it takes
to get truly fit. You have to push
yourself beyond your comfort zone sometimes.
Anyway, because Monday was rained out the team didn’t get to
do anything together that day. Tuesday
all we did was have a intrasquad scrimmage with some filler players from the
youth team. It was largely pointless and
afterwards we ran some really difficult fitness, which was even harder for me
since I had run so hard the day before.
Wednesday was off (for my birthday, I presume J) and Thursday was a good
training, though we didn’t actually work on anything for the match. Friday was simply a walkthrough. So, despite the fact that we have been
consistently giving up set play goals, we didn’t spend any of our three
trainings working on defending set plays.
That’s what made this week of training bad. We worked hard, but accomplished very little
in my opinion.
For those of you who care, I still don’t have my contract
situation sorted. My contract ends at
the end of July and I don’t have any offers as of now. I’ve played in every game I’ve been eligible
so far this season except against Vasalunds (a 5-1 loss). With the injuries we have at the club right
now I think that I’ll be offered an extension, I just worry that once everyone
heals up that I might get buried on the bench here. I’ve said it before, but I’m too old to be
buried on any lower-division bench. If an MLS team wants to pay me $90k a year
and put me on the bench then I’ll happily sit, but for essentially $1200 a
month(before tax) I get here, no thanks.
Lastly, Allsvenskan started back up today after their Euro Championships break. I like that Allsvenskan schedules games on a stagger because it gives me a game to watch every night during the summer. I'm excited for the league to be back and running!
Actually I lied, that wasn't the last thing. To quote one of my favorite shows in America, Pardon the Interruption, a melancholy happy trails to Tom Noden and Philip Zamayeri. Both of these players have left the team. Noden's contract was up today and Zamayeri left the team for his own reasons which I don't fully know. Even if I did know I wouldn't put those reasons in a public forum like this. I got along well with both of those guys and I'll miss them. I wish them nothing but the best with their new clubs, whoever those clubs might be! When you see this photo imagine Boyz II Men's "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye" playing in the background...
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| Zamayeri on the far left, Noden in the grey sweater in front. |
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