Sooner Soocer - Week 2 Matches - Arkansas and Oklahoma State

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the staff writers article about the Women's Soccer Team's Week 2 matches. They will face Arkansas tonight, Aug 25th, at 7 PM at John Crain Field. On Sunday they will travel to Stillwater to play OSU in a non-conference match at 7 PM.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/8/24 ... k-two.aspx

Good luck to the Sooners in both matches.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the staff writers article about the 6-1 defeat at the hands of the Arkansas Razorbacks on Thursday night at John Crain Field.

https://soonersports.com/news/2022/8/25 ... ansas.aspx

It is hard to draw many good things from a 6-1 defeat for the Oklahoma Sooners, but the Sooners did play 26 players in the match. In-game experience is always good for a player, especially young players. Arkansas seemed to be a very good team. I understand why that after a 19-4-1 season in 2021, They were ranked early at #8 and now 14th. They run very well and attack the goal with numbers very well also.

I will say that the second goal scored by Arkansas was a huge non-call of offsides by the side-official that led to the goal. Even the Arkansas fans around us were agreed on that.

For a Sooner point-of-view, a couple things stand out to me.

- While the Sooners are not slow, they do not have great speed at many positions. At times that hurts them on the outside on defense which allows the ball to be feed into the goal mouth area often.

- The Sooners game plan seems to be that they want to push forward with 6-8 players to improve their chances to score. Often that is by moving the outside defenders forward. that results in a narrow back row of 2 players. When midfield turnovers occur the defense is left short and outnumbered as the ball is moved towards the OU goal.

- I thought the Sooner passing of the ball was improved last night, especially when moving the ball to midfield from the GK. But with long passes it is difficult to control the ball off the chest or off a foot. Most of the time the receiving player did well, but a few balls did get away and cause turnovers.

- The Sooners have trouble moving the ball through the midfield area up the middle. Usually there are only maybe 2 players in the area and the Sooners are outnumbered and have to make very good passes to advance the ball.

- I really could not tell what formation the Sooners were playing last night. It might have been a 4-4-2 but the outside defenders and midfielders spend a great deal of their time forward. The formation ends up being a 2-4-4 which leaves the defense outmanned on quick turnovers. The two center midfielders have a large area to cover it seems with the outside players moving forward and back often.

- I do not know if it is physicality that bothers the Sooners or not, but the Sooner players do seem to get 'run-off' the ball by a single defender often. I guess this is caused by not looking to pass, or by not protecting the ball well enough.

- Twice at least, once in the Nebraska game and once last night in the first half, the Sooners were caught flat-footed after foul calls. Both times the Sooners were trying to get set or get behind the spot-of-the-foul and were caught flat-footed as the other team advanced the ball very quickly and got behind the Sooners. This is caused by havening to many players upfield and as they react to the foul, they take a slow step thinking they have time to get back. Those slow steps hurt when the other team puts the ball in play quickly.

The Sooners travel to Stillwater on Sunday for a 7 PM game. The Sooners are 0-2-1 on the season. The Cowgirls are 3-0 with wins over Central Oklahoma, Missouri State and Tulsa.

Good luck to the Sooners in Stillwater.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

I did forget to mention that there was a very good crowd at the game last night to watch the Sooners play Arkansas.

Many of the sooner Volleyball team were in attendance which I thought looked very good as they supported anther Sooner team. Kudos to them.

[AustinTXSooner]

For some reason, the ESPN playback doesn't have the first 2 1/2 minutes of the game. I watched the first 20 minutes of the game and then I did something out of character for me. I turned the game off and looked up the final score.

We were getting beat in every phase of the game. It was difficult to watch. Arkansas always seemed to have somebody running free in front of the net whenever a centering pass came in.

Were we not playing as a team? Or is our offensive strategy hurting us against good teams? Hard to tell.I'm leaning towards the latter. Hopefully, Sunday is a lot better.

[OUBeliever56A]

For some reason, the ESPN playback doesn't have the first 2 1/2 minutes of the game. I watched the first 20 minutes of the game and then I did something out of character for me. I turned the game off and looked up the final score.

We were getting beat in every phase of the game. It was difficult to watch. Arkansas always seemed to have somebody running free in front of the net whenever a centering pass came in.

Were we not playing as a team? Or is our offensive strategy hurting us against good teams? Hard to tell. I'm leaning towards the latter. Hopefully, Sunday is a lot better.

As an example. I will provide this description of one player's responsibilities that I watched last night.

Kroflin #22 (SOPH) lined up at right outside defender. It looked like she was the designated player to throw in all balls on the right side. All throw-ins even the ones on that side that were deep in past midfield. Kroflin was also asked to handle the corner kicks on both sides of the field. Can you imagine trying to play defender on a quick transition play and get to your spot on the other side of the field and the other end of the field?

Kroflin is a good player and is disciplined and steady with the ball. But asking her to do perform those duties and have a presence on the back defensive line, is really asking a lot. Arkansas figured this out pretty quickly and they attacked from the outside on the left very quickly.

Another thing that made me scratch my head is this. #8 England and #14 Brown started as the middle midfielders. Instead of left-right positioning, it looked like they were playing an up and back midfielder. England was on the defensive side with Brown on the offensive side. The distance between them was about 10-15 yards. Since they were playing front and back, It created lanes on both sides of the field between them and the outside defenders and forwards.

I think the Sooners have some talent. They are young, but the do not move up and down the field as a unit, especially on the defender line. IMO, they need a better structure and plan for a match. They are neither an offensive or a defensive team currently. They should probably work hard to become a defensive team first for now. then try to add offense when opportunities are provided.

[OUBeliever56A]

The Sooner Soccer squad was unable to play their scheduled game at Oklahoma State last night due to weather concerns. The match was finally cancelled at about 9:30 PM.



Their next game is on Thursday in Denton against North Texas @ 7 PM.