Pilots win 3-0

Another spring victory at Merlo this afternoon against Trinity from BC

Pliots lined up in the 4-1-2-3 foramtion again:

ErinD; SarahB, MichelleO, EmmaN, KendallJ; CloeeC; DaniF, TaylorB; HallieK, MicaelaC, AmandaF.

HallieK scored off a great feed from DaniK. DaniK hit one at the GK off a great run from MicaelaK. DaniK headed home from a great CloeeC free kick but disallowed (dubiously) for supposed offsides. AmandaK fired one off the post. 1-0 at the half.

HaileeDY for ErinD at half time. MollyK for MichelleO after 15 minutes or so of the second half.

AmandaF scored a fine goal after a poor clearance from the GK, but AF had work to do to win the ball and finished well.
DaniK scored with a left foot scorcher to the upper left corner from about 25 yards.

Neither Erin nor Hailee had a save to make.

Did the hand warmers work for you?


Good progress from the Pilots in the 4-3-3. they looked a lot more comfortable this week than last and had a much better first touch.

if you remember, last year's contest ended in a tie. Trinity is a good team.

I will say that when their keeper hurt herself contesting her post, i think the replacement isn't a keeper. It harkes back to when we had MO in goal last year.

This year we had Erin in the first half and Hailee in the second.

ignoring great play from people we have come to expect it from, I thought Amanda had a great game. she is much more comfortable with people on her back than last fall and even when what she was doing didn't work, you could see she had an idea.
She missed on a couple combinations with other players, but the tries we thought out. she isn't just trying to get rid of the ball.

the defenders held Trinity's Daniella Gerig in check also, She was pretty spectacular last year, but Emma, MO, and Molly all played her 1v1 and did well.

This try at the 4-3-3 is progressing much better than the 2002 attempt.

It was an entertaining game. I thought Sarah Bridges gained confidence and by the second half was playing very well in the defense.

I agree with all of the above comments. I think Harry's description of the formation as a 4-1-2-3 is a little better description than a 4-3-3, although they probably both mean the same thing. Last week, I thought Halley K wasn't in the flow at all. Today, as the game progressed, she got in the flow better. It's actually a 4-1-2-2-1, with Halley as the last 1. It's an intriguing formation and, at least today, allowed for a huge amount of triangle short passing. In the second half, I swear there was a point at which the team strung together about 35 short passes.

It was a pleasure to watch the passing today. Plus, I agree that Amanda Frisbee is looking good. She does a great job of keeping the ball very close to her feet as she moves with it. Plus ... Plus ... Plus ...

That's great to hear. I've been optimistic about Frisbee for a long time. Her high school video clips looked so Sinclair-esque, and she finished last year in a pretty strong fashion.

I think the key to our success this season is midfield dominance and finishing...and maybe some opportunistic counter attacking too.

Except that neither Pilot keeper had to get involved more than a couple times, she had a good game, with the exception that she had a couple of bad goal kicks that were almost picked by the opposing forwards. Very uncharacteristic.

She usually booms them. Rust, I guess. It was her first couple tries.

She supported the defenders well, though.

The three forwards were fairly fluid in who played which role: all three of them played wide and up the middle as circumstances dictated.

4-1-2-3 is a good system for the personnel on hand this spring: although with only one sub there were some players running on fumes by the end of the game. Not sure if this will be the formation we'll see in the fall when there are some more players available. Time enough to find out: it's fun to watch this spring.

Argentina runs this a lot. They call it a 4-1-2-2-1

Sometimes they run a 4-2-2-2

Maybe we'll see that next. (we just need to get Cambiasso and Mascherano)

Hahha we can pretend tomorrow is April fools day and Geez can somehow find some cryptic news site from Buenos Aires where Cambiasso and Mascherano's first born have already committed to UP...

As long as we never see the 9-1 that Roberto Mancini loves so dearly I'll be perfectly happy!

Mascherano is from Santa Fé, Cuchú is from San Lorenzo- both near Rosario ( Messi's home town)
The Buenos Aires announcement wouldn't work.


Just now watching a replay of the Barcelona- Real game. Messi and Pedro up top in a 4-4-2

The more things change...

Here's an interesting factoid.
Christiano Ronaldo has never scored on Barça.

Can someone tell me the name of the forward position that Frisbie played? She moved back and forth from left to right and then to left. One of the guys next to me thought she was following the "strong" side of the field. Is there a name for that kind of position?

"forward"

I had already said forward. Not all forwards moved back and forth like she did, so I thought there might be a special name for that type of forward. Obviously there isn't...since this came from the most reliable source.

All three of the forwards were moving. That one-touch game they were playing requires that more than one player show for the ball at all times. It only works if the defenders have to keep moving.

So you move to keep the defenders moving. Eventually, the defense loses it's shape and you advance the ball and start over. It works best if the attackers don't just run lanes, but they can't just run around without being aware of the defensive responsibilities in that area of the field, so if somebody moved out of an area, somebody has to move into it.

Fun to watch.

As Geez said, the forward position is rarely a fixed one once play starts, tons of overlapping, showing to the ball, making runs off the ball, dropping off, etc. It makes the defenders work over time as they run in and out of their respective zones and gives the mids many more options to initiate the attack. Forwards, for the most part, should work with each other, less as individual players fixed in a position, but more as a single free flowing unit dedicated to creating opportunities, and exhausting/confounding defenses.

As far as positioning on the field typically the outside mids/defenders are the ones most rigidly fixed in their positions so as to keep shape/width on the field. (Although the occasional run out of their typical wings happens from time to time when the opportunity allows it.)