Enthusiastic Sounders fan, parent of two 4A all-state soccer playing daughters, one regional player of the year, both college all-conference players, past competitive club coach.
Seanhawk":1r73i0bu said:
Aggregate score, away goals, pfft.
OK, so you're ignorant on this topic. I admit: I was ignorant at first. A few seasons back, the LA Galaxy advanced in the playoffs over the Seattle Sounders, based on the away goals rule, even though the 2-game series was tied 1-1 and the aggregate score was I think 3-3 between the two teams. At the time it seemed arbitrary.
The short version is that these rules reward *attacking* exciting soccer, as opposed to boring bunker defense thuggery fests.
It's much more interesting to watch. As a road team, it's to your advantage to play to score, rather than bunkering. Games with scores of 3-2 are generally (but not always) more interesting to watch than a 0-0 tie. It's not so different than recent years NFL rule tweaks limiting DB contact with receivers to create more passing offense. It can take a couple layers of examining cause/effect to understand how away goals and aggregate score make playoff games more open and exciting, but truly, they do.
UK_Seahawk":1r73i0bu said:
Seeing a yank talk about "Soccer" is like watching them talk about culture. They are aware of it, the rest of the world likes it but they are so lacking in their own country they don't quite get it.
It's easy to lob insults, and try to pass oneself off as smug and superior. Are you an inferior NFL fan by "virtue" of your UK roots and cultural ties? Can you ever really "get" NFL football? I don't see how you're any less of a Seahawks fan than those of us who grew up in the Pacific NW as Seahawks fans. So let's dial back the unhelpful snobbery a bit. Wouldn't it be a better goal to help fans of all backgrounds grow in their understanding and appreciation of whatever game(s) they love as a fan? England has very little reason for football snobbery; the last men's World Cup win was 1966. I can appreciate great players like Michael Owen (so impressive as an 18 year old) without being from the UK, or, historically, underappreciated players like the amazing George Best. Even if (or because) he was Irish.
TreeRon":1r73i0bu said:
Comparing soccer strategy with football? Kind of like comparing cricket to baseball or formula 1 to drag racing. In other words not really.
As a coach and fan, I can assure you that soccer has plenty, plenty, of strategies, on par with pretty much any sport, and many in common with football, even if lower-level details differ greatly. A primary difference is that there are very limited timeouts; strategy and tactics adjustments are primarily made on the fly during continuous action.
I will grant that the soccer strategy comparison would be closest to basketball. Would you dispute that basketball has plenty of strategy, choices in the kinds of offenses and defenses a team plays, analyzing matchups for advantages to exploit, and so forth? Someone would dispute that only if they were very ignorant of basketball. For example, in 2005, the Seahawks had that dominant left side of the O-Line, with Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson. A clear matchup advantage and the stats for running over the left side showed it, IIRC. Basketball has matchup advantages and disadvantages to factor in. Soccer has all the same elements. The Sounders just brought back Joevin Jones, who is excellent on the left side, in getting the ball into the attack. Another commonality there, the front office acquiring players to match a team's style of play.
Are the detailed strategies and tactics across sports the same? No, they're different games. There are many strategy elements that cross nearly all team sports boundaries. What does our opponent do well, and how can we take that away? What do we do well, and how can we impose our strength on our opponent? How can we keep the working relationships and culture of our team at a high-performing level? Are many of the foundational principles and approaches highly similar, at the core, across sports? Pete Carroll would certainly say they are. Pete credits John Wooden (in addition to Bill Walsh) as one of his primary coaching mentors.
Now, back to the article. It would be reasonable to argue that misguided analytics approach has set back English soccer. The reason for that is taking the "findings" out of context. Like the "Vince Lombardi approach" to football coaching set American football coaching, and coaching in general, back a decade or two.IMO. The media and coaches glorified the whole Lombardi package, and he was great at many things, but not so much at other things. The media and many of that generation of coaches copied Lombardi's much of *syntax*, without understanding that he was successful because of his *substance* and despite much of his *syntax*, such as Lombardi's at-times abusive treatment of his players. Alabama college football coach Bear Bryant would deny his players water during grueling practices in 100 degree heat, because he thought it would "toughen them up".
Similarly, the context of the analysis, British soccer, in the often-muddy, rainy venues like Wembley stadium appear to be the "context" for the analytics. Plug in different environment and playing conditions, and the efficacy of strategies suggested by those analytics, *surprise*, can change quite a bit, as the assumptions they are based on change. For example, this year's Apple Cup, featuring Mike Leach's "Air Raid" offense, was played in a snowstorm. The UW Husky defense pretty much grounded the Air Raid that day, and the snowy field conditions and poor footing, not to mention poor visibility, took away many advantages of the passing game. The better *running* team won that day.
As a youth basketball coach, of 8 and 9 year olds, many new to basketball, my primary "analytic" was based around getting up a potentially makeable shot before a turnover could occur. So that argued for a fastbreak style, simple plays with short passing sequences leading to a shot, and working within the overall constraints of the setting and the players skill levels. It dictated the sequence of, and time spent on, working on different skills in practices. Contrast that to say, the Princeton-style offense used by some college teams, that involves extended passing sequences, and patiently waits for a mental lapse in the opponent's defense to exploit for an easy basket, often towards the end of the shot clock. The assumptions and environments are quite different.
Pete and his coaching staff have their strategies they are committed to, many based on analytics, but many more based on firsthand knowledge and deep understanding of the game, and it's fun to watch them, more fun when they are successful. Seeing a Pete Carroll Seahawks team get the ball back with a lead and 5 minutes left in the game, and run out the clock with a pounding run offense, against an exhausted opposing defense, is a thing of beauty. Seeing a Seahawks team repeated go 3 and out, run, run, pass, is not so much a thing of beauty. As a fan and coach, I love seeing Pete and his coaching staff work Pete's strategy, and make adjustments (usually) based on what is working and what's not. Like all coaches, Pete on occasion gets into trouble when he fails to recognize that a given strategy or set of tactics is failing on a given day against a given opponent, and fails to switch to another approach with (we hope) a better chance for success. The Cowboys playoff loss this year comes to mind.
