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UConn Men's Soccer 2024

yungdowork

yungdowork

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UConn held on for a 2-1 win away at Dartmouth tonight. Really ugly game; there were fouls all over the place and Dartmouth finished with 2 red cards.
 
Kolumbo

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yungdowork said:
UConn held on for a 2-1 win away at Dartmouth tonight. Really ugly game; there were fouls all over the place and Dartmouth finished with 2 red cards.
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as Rugby players often say: “Football (soccer) is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen.”
 
yungdowork

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Kolumbo said:
as Rugby players often say: “Football (soccer) is a gentleman's game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan's game played by gentlemen.”
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I've also noticed that a lot of refs love to "let them play" in the first half and then unsurprisingly the players start trying to police the game themselves. Then when the ref starts blowing his whistle, all of the players are already ramped up.

Ref gave out 9 yellow cards yesterday, but he let the game get away from him first and it really impacted the flow of play.
 
yungdowork

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UConn with a 3-2 win over DePaul in Chicago. Pretty nerve-wracking game where we were down 1-0 and 2-1 but kept fighting back. Eli Conway scored a perfect hattrick (left foot, right foot, header) to get us the win. His 3rd goal was a pretty beautiful strike with his left foot. You can see why he got picked in the Superdraft
 
yungdowork

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Similar to some of our other showings this year, we had a lot of possession but didn’t show a ton of killer instinct. We also used a lot of players in ways that I haven’t necessarily seen us use before:

-Kwame Adu-Gyamfi seemed to be playing left mid until Max Gummesson went out with what looked to be a possible shoulder injury (went up for a header and landed on his shoulder after getting his legs taken out).
-Kieran Chandler started the 2nd half at right mid when he normally plays left back.
-Lucas Almeida made an appearance in both halves despite not getting much run in previous games.
-Scott Testori didn’t appear at all in the first half and only played ~20 minutes
-Nicolas Tomerius didn’t play at all.

I don’t think any of the decisions were too bad or strange in isolation but it does seem like a lot of experimenting for a game that finished 0-0.
 
gtcam

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gtcam said:
Disappointing draw - just no finisher at yesterday's match. May hurt a bit with the top 25 rankings........................................
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Fairfield played a 6 man back line the entire game. They were playing for a 0-0 draw. We had a few unlucky chances but they were hard to come by. Big game against top 15 seton hall need the finishing there.
 
yungdowork

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gtcam said:
Disappointing draw - just no finisher at yesterday's match. May hurt a bit with the top 25 rankings........................................
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I kinda thought so too but I guess not.

I didn't think finishing was a real issue because, in comparison to our possession, our forwards had no actual chances. Our best opportunity of the game was from our back up left back, and arguably the next 2 were free kicks from 25 yards. Feels like we need to be a little braver against teams who park the bus against us. We can't wait until the last 15 minutes to have a sense of urgency in our attacks.
 
gtcam

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CTpessimist said:
Fairfield played a 6 man back line the entire game. They were playing for a 0-0 draw. We had a few unlucky chances but they were hard to come by. Big game against top 15 seton hall need the finishing there.
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i hear you but a lot of teams are going to play at least a 5 man back line - its becoming a norm in the college game.
A lack of a consistent finisher and a total lack of urgency over the first 80% of the match will kill this team as it did to so many of Ray R's teams. HC Joe Morrone was always of the school that the team that scores early will find it easier to find formations to hold a lead vs trying to come from behind when the opponents defensive third of the field is packed. Simple but sound.
 
gtcam

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yungdowork said:


I kinda thought so too but I guess not.

I didn't think finishing was a real issue because, in comparison to our possession, our forwards had no actual chances. Our best opportunity of the game was from our back up left back, and arguably the next 2 were free kicks from 25 yards. Feels like we need to be a little braver against teams who park the bus against us. We can't wait until the last 15 minutes to have a sense of urgency in our attacks.
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A couple of mild upsets - especially in the Sun Belt and Big10 kept UConn in there and up one notch.
I am sticking with finishing because the Huskies did have some opportunities to get shots off within 15 yards but became too cute with that extra pass. A quick shot will usually have more impact than a set piece.
Lets see if Marshall's win over VCU yesterday will allow UConn to stay in another week. Marshall should have won by at least 5 goals but they became too cute also- this year's Marshall team is not as solid as last few years but they will win their share. I think they play WVU next week and it is so weird to see WVU as a member of the Sun Belt in soccer.
Anyone watch this year's edition of U of Wisconsin team? Full of freshmen and sophs - very quick/skilled for such a young side.

I feel HC G will figure it out and hopefully the team can stay injury free. Having a solid soccer program is important to UConn based on it's storied past.
 
WrenchFan69

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Do we know if Peacock will be taking over for Flo for non-rev sports next year? FloSoccer is pathetically bad and expensive
 
yungdowork

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0-0 draw vs Seton Hall in Storrs. Pretty hard-fought game with a fair amount of physicality. Crowd was good, felt nice to be back in Big East play. I thought we got the better of the 1st half but with not much to show for it. We started off the 2nd half with some promise, namely a decent hit from Eli Conway, but it seemed to taper off. We were on our heels for the majority of the latter part of that second half and it took a heroic effort (linked below) from captain Guillaume Vacter for us to avoid losing. Definitely some positives considering the level of our opponent, but again, I thought we lacked a little bit of courage and decisiveness in the final third.

 
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Happy to see a sellout. I was worried about the fans after watching some early weekday games.
 
yungdowork

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We play away at Villanova today at 3pm on FloSports. Villanova is currently 0-5-4.

We also have Vermont away on Tuesday 10/8 at 6pm. The game will be on ESPN+. Vermont is currently 4-1-4.

Here’s a quick interview Coach Gbandi gave yesterday leading up to the games. Thought he said some nice things about being more aggressive offensively and in the balls we play, and also committing more men into the box.

 
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Vermont has the same RPI as us for what it’s worth. And then we take on Georgetown at home Saturday who has the 7th best RPI in the country. A couple really Big games before Bryant and Butler who are in the 100s.
 
yungdowork

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I thought we'd be pretty well-prepared for this game after we controlled much of the game vs Seton Hall (#17 in RPI), but we looked pretty out of our element for most of the game. We just couldn't really get a hold of the midfield and struggled to alleviate the pressure. Vermont ended up with 9 corners and a penalty, so it was sort of a matter of time until we conceded a goal. To our credit, I thought all of our defenders were pretty solid, Kerkvliet had a very strong game including a really good save on the penalty (linked below) and Testori was an animal defending their corners. Hopefully now that our unbeaten run is over, we'll have a bit of fire going into the Georgetown game.

 
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