San Diego 2 Louisville 0 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
If you are reading this, you really are more of glutton for punishment that I am. I didn’t see much of the match live and now have no reason to watch the replay. I won’t be tweeting a link on Twitter (always Twitter, never “X”), so if you read this you are either Tom Benson, or …well I can’t really think of any other person who might stumble across this post.
Ultimately, maybe one could take comfort in the fact that ultimately Louisville’s performance didn’t matter as a win still wouldn’t have done anything other than worsen their draft position (but only from 6 to 7 and frankly there isn’t much difference between those two spots in recent history.) Pick 7 has more reliable minute contributors with 3 out of 6 logging more than 50% of the available minutes, and Diana Ordonez was taken at 6, but is the only notable 6 pick in the last six years.) Here are some quick hits before I go into complete off-season mode.
Congratulations to the San Diego Wave for winning the shield which is THE accomplishment for the season in my opinion when the schedule is fully balanced (I don’t even watch the playoffs). They are doing things on the field the right way. They have an excellent coach (regardless of what you might think of her personality) are strong through the middle.
Erceg stated that see thought the match was lost somewhat through a tactical insufficiency (lost the chess match in her words). Like I stated above, I didn’t watch enough of it to know if I share her opinion on this particular match, so I will just say that her comment doesn’t shock me.
The “high press” was referenced as well as fitness concerns in the players’ post-match comments. I generally like the high press…when the Arsenal men do it. They also have an embarrassment of riches in young attacking talent. Even then, they rotate the tip of the spear when it comes to pressing with the 7,8,9,10, and 11 leading the press at different times in a match. Louisville hasn’t figured out how to press and leave gas in the tank for the last 20 minutes yet.
The most telling comment and the one that surprised me the least was that Abby Erceg highlighted that the team was prone to try to win by themselves too much. This is something that requires some deeper analysis at some point but let me point to a number that might help tell the story. For the season, Louisville averaged 1.58 take-ons per match (a take-on is an attempt to take on a defender while dribbling). I classify a player who exceeds this average as a “dribbler”. When Louisville began to start Kgatlana regularly, she essentially took Wang’s spot in the lineup. Kgatlana averages about 2.5 times the number of take-ons/match compared to Wang. Louisville’s players that I would classify as “dribblers” are: Kgatlana, DeMelo, Nadim, Pokorny, Fischer and Kanu. This leaves Monaghan, Borges, Howell, Baggett and Davis as your “non-dribblers”. Wang is near the average, and I would consider her more balanced. After the World Cup, the number of “dribblers” on the team that were getting minutes might have gotten just a bit out of balance. Since the team wasn’t used to so many “dribblers” I think the tactical system became out of sorts. Additionally, when you play with a “dribbler”, you have to accordingly adjust your runs. Kgatlana and DeMelo are so high above the mean, that one might argue that they are “over-dribblers”. When you play with a teammate who dribbles the ball in attack, you have to learn that they aren’t going to see your runs unless you place yourself into their eyelines which are always going to be focused on the ball. Either you have to run into their eyeline (which seems nearly impossible in Kgatlana’s case), call for the ball very loudly, or place yourself where you know she likes to cross it. It seems like Davis figured out how to do this, but I am not sure if anybody else did. Conversely, if you are Kgatlana, you need to focus on pulling back your run earlier or being very clear with your teammates about where you expect them to be. The ultimate point is that as a player you have to make an effort to get on the same page as your teammates. You wouldn’t ask Kgatlana to limit one of her strengths, so as a teammate you need to learn how to work together with her. The insertion of Kgatlana late in the season meant that her teammates had to adjust to how to play with her, and that appeared to not go as well as one would have liked.
