It's Why a Soccer Ball is Round

Let’s start with the positive things...The winter soccer season has kicked off and the weather was spectacular. Collecting money for the game went seamlessly and turned out to be surprisingly easy. After the game, the group that went to Bertucci’s really enjoyed the beer (Draft Peroni) and the stone fired pizza. Every two weeks, when we play these home games, I intend to rally the team for Bertucci’s after the match. In fact we may also invite the other team.

With the positive things out of the way, now it’s on to the bad news. On Saturday evening, under the lights of Herndon’s spectacular Arrow-brook Park, we suffered one of our worst defeats in Orangemen history. The Orange was crushed to death by the Vienna Metros by a score of 10 to 0.  If this was indoor soccer they might have forced a forfeit of the match so we could have started drinking early. As it was we had to suffer through right until the end as the Metros never took their foot off the gas, wanting to relish in their goal scoring extravaganza right until the end.

What went wrong? First, I’ll take the easy road out of this and push the blame on the Metros. They have been playing with the same core teammates for at least a decade. Same faces, same names, same positions. Their team never changes. The Orangemen on the other hand have a much smaller core...and that core is never consistently at the match. This is a by product of the Orangemen Philosophy...as we are a fun organization as opposed to a competitive one. If you come to the match you will play, and you will play with considerable field time, no matter what your skill level. This can be frustrating, particularly during games like last nights, but to try to change our philosophy is to cease being the Orangemen. Currently we have 55 players on the roster, 34 of whom attend games during the season. Consistently we average about 14 at each match. That means we literally rotate 20 other players through our revolving door. I’m not about to change that because to reduce that number, would reduce the likelihood that we would have 11 at any given match. So we have to live with an inconsistent line-up with various amounts of fitness level, etc.  And we will adjust or positions and formation on the fly.

Second, the Metros, in case anyone didn’t notice, are a passing team. They pass the ball in the back, they pass the ball through the midfield, and the even pass the ball in the final third. Most of their goals coming off of crosses or simple passes to the open striker on the other side of the box. Yes, some of the Metros passing comes from their familiarity with their teammates. But more likely, they pass because their team approach is built on passing the ball, not unlike the winning teams such as Barcelona who have made the approach so successful. The Orangemen, on the other hand, have been moving backwards in their passing abilities. If we counted the number of passes made by the Metro’s last night, and the number of passes the Orangemen attempted, we would find a similar imbalance to the scoreline, quite possibly 10 to 1. The question is, how do we fix our passing deficit?

The Orangemen typically pass as a last resort, not as a tactic. We have a number of individuals with good individual skill, but we don’t have, in general, an always pass first mentality. Passing first requires individuals to set their ego’s aside and to get their heads up. It’s as easy as trapping the ball first, that’s the first touch, followed by the second touch that should be a pass. If we had time to practice two touch ball, we could have some fun. As it stands we don’t have the opportunity to practice unless individually you can do it during the week, etc. But two touch ball is hard, in fact the only thing harder than two touch ball, is one touch ball. And whereas you might see some pros doing one touch ball in training drills, they rarely do it during a match. Two touch ball is also, hard, even for the pros. About the only team that I’ve seen playing two touch ball has been Tottenham Hotspur during Champion’s League games under Harry Redknapp. Short of that, no team plays two touch ball. Even the kings of touch, Barcelona, don’t play two touch ball or even one touch during most of the game. They actually play three touch ball most of game. That doesn’t mean they don’t switch to one or two touch when they attack, they do, but it’s not how they play for the full 90 minutes. But that’s what you see in the highlights. No, for most of the game the Barcelona players, trap the ball with their first touch, make space for themselves with their second touch, and their third touch is always a pass. It’s helpful to emphasize this...their third touch is ALWAYS A PASS! Their magical play comes down to this very simple formula. And, is obviously far easier than one or two touches. One touch ball means your first touch is perfect, every time. Two touch also means your first touch has to be perfect every time, to set up your second touch to become a pass. Three touch means you can make minor errors on both your first and second touch, and still produce a decent pass.

So what does this mean for the Orangemen. It means I’m going to start getting vocal about passing. Fair notice, if you are trying to dribble through a crowd you are going to start hearing some criticism about getting your head up and releasing the ball to a teammate on your third touch. As it turns out, because a soccer ball is round, its pretty good at rolling across the turf to your awaiting teammates. Use them!

Passing alone would not have changed the outcome of the game last night...but it most definitely would have reduced the Metro’s possession and we would have created more chances for ourselves.  The winter season will be about passing.  Get ready.