Men's Soccer Friendlies: Virginia

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Tomorrow Georgetown will take on the University of Virginia in Charlottsville Va. At 7pm. The University is Ranked 6th in the CSN Preseason poll. They're a very talneted and aexperienced team. they return all of their starters minus one mid fielder. this is another great tune up before the season begins. Hopefully we can achieve another favorable result. I may or may not make it all the way down to UVA if i do i'll provide soem analysis.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

guhoyas.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/081506aab.html
Here's the Gtown release for the game.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

virginiasports.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/081606aab.html
Here as if you couldn't tell from the link is the virginia release on the game.

I will be taking the two hour dirve to watch the game so i'll come back with a full report.

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Hoyas Lost 2-0. I'll write up a little re cap later. it won't be as through as the last one because 1. i forgot a pen 2. it doesn't seem like anyone cares that terribly much that i should write out a lengthy summary.

[RBHoya]

As long as we're hanging with the big boys, that's all you can ask for. Considering a new coach (which I imagine means the players need to learn his nuances, like it does in other sports) and a number of new contributing players, you have to think that the Hoyas will improve more than an average team as the season goes on and the team gels and learns the system.

[FLHoya]

hoyasincebirth said:

Hoyas Lost 2-0. I'll write up a little re cap later. it won't be as through as the last one because 1. i forgot a pen 2. it doesn't seem like anyone cares that terribly much that i should write out a lengthy summary.

Well, I mean I care about the game/team and appreciate the reports very much, but given that you forgot to bring your pen to a recap situation, maybe we should take it slow and work you up from some basic motor skills exercises first before going into any multi-paragraph essays here. ;D

You got yourself a nice little market here though kid. I'm looking forward to reading your stuff this soccer season...once you master touching your finger to your nose and all. ;D

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Ok here it goes:
This match resembled the match against Maryland in several ways: 1. Georgetown was pretty much out played in the first half but played the second half much more evenly. 2. Georgetown faced a flurry of shots although not many of them were on goal. 3. there was a missed PK

I don't have the starters and subs like last time nor all the same stats but i have the important stuff:

Georgetown Virginia
shots: 4 21
saves: 4 0
SOG: 0 4

virginiasports.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/stats/2006-2007/va0816-e.html here's Virginia's box score i don't know they have us having a shot on goal yet there keepers having no saves and we didn't score but w/e. i took mine off of what they put up on the score board. here's their recap: virginiasports.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/recaps/081606aac.html (it's full of errors such as who drew the PK how to spell the name of the person they incorrectly think drew the pk but I'm impressed at how quickly they got this up where as Georgetown didn't even write up the scrimmage against UMD. Here's a link to a talk board recap: www.thesabre.com/message_board/soccer/2006/August/16/19266.php
Now just looking at the stats this game looks completely one sided and for the most part it kinda was but soccer stats down play a lot off dangerous opportunities. For instance picking off a cross does not count as a save. there is no stat that records the number of times a team has a scoring opportunity but no shot ever gets taken. So there's a lot more gray in there.

The Hoyas actually did have a number of scoring opportunities despite not technically recording a shot on goal. The best scoring opportunity came when junior mike Glacuum drew penalty kick in Virginia's box. unfortunately while aiming for the upper right 90 mike put it just wide.

Now I have to say that having seen both #1 Maryland and #4/#6 Virginia(Soccer America rankings/College Soccer news) is a much better team at this point and i definitely think they'll remain better. One reason is that Virginia returns a lot more players and Maryland's best returning player Robbie rogers left the team and signed a contract with a team in the dutch premiership. (rogers did not play in the scrimmage against gtown cause he was in the Netherlands signing his contract). UVA is one of the great soccer powers. They've won 5 mens soccer NCAA championships. Their stadium is amazingly nice. UVA is very talented and will contend for their 6th NCAA title in my opinion. Jr midfielder Nico Coaluca was named to the college soccer news preseason second team all American.

Virginia closed down the space very well giving the hoyas very little time to make decisions and to play the ball. The hoyas appeared flustered in the first half and had too many careless give aways both in the midfield and in the back. Too many times they had to simply clear the ball out of the area to relieve the pressure. On the other hand i felt Georgetown gave UVA too much space to work with.

I thought that our defense was not as solid as it was against Maryland and committed too many lapses which lead to numerous scoring opportunities for UVA. While almost all of Maryland's shots were missed by a lot most of Virginia's misses were every close. I think Fr. Len ocleman looked really good playing in the center of the defense along with Tim convey i hope this is the line up coach goes with.

Once again this is still a friendly or scrimmage. So line ups that won't ever be seen are used and substitutions are numerous. I think there were definitely positives to be taken from the game and that it'll be extremely helpful in preparing the team for the season. Most of the teams we face this year will not be as talented as UVa except for #2/ #4 Uconn, #8/#10 creighton, #15/16 ND, and # 17 St. Johns. This was another good practice for the team and hopefully they'll learn from this game and improve. The team travels to towson on Friday where hopefully the team will get a win before beginning the season.