Coach's Report - Game 3

This was the game I had been looking forward to most since the tournament draw was first announced. Colchester United Female Academy (http://www.culfc.com/) is one of England's earliest and most successful efforts to apply the successful academy model to the increasingly popular women's side of the game. These are players that school together and train together every day of the week under the tutelage of coaches supervised by the national team coaching staff. The intent is to identify and develop players capable of playing at the highest level and, to date, the Colchester Academy has produced 6 players for the English women's national team. This clearly was always going to be a big challenge for us.
Adding to our anticipation was the fact that this game had significant meaning for our tournament hopes. A win, and we would win the group with an easier entry into the playoffs; anything less and we would be faced with having to beat a group winner to advance into Thursday's play.
The game turned out to be a testament to the truth that this is a 'funny old game', as the score would never suggest that this was, by far, the best game our team had played to date, and yet it was. That was certainly a source of pride, but it was dampened by the disappointment of failing to take the chances to grab the win we felt we deserved.
Colchester began smartly, relying on 1 and 2-touch passing sequences to play calmly through our midfield. Our back line, which has become a real strength, kept them at bay and allowed no penetration, but at the cost of conceding the flank areas. Colchester crosses were being served often, and while they did not always find their intended targets, we were doing a poor job of clearing the balls falling into our penalty area. The Colchester midfield were emboldened by our passivity, and were now running onto the expected poor clearances with intimidating aggressiveness. We had little of the play offensively, and only a great top-hand save by Jordan Becker while diving to her left just before the half kept the game scoreless.
At half-time, we stressed that we could no longer play from our heels. We felt we had an advantage in speed in the matchup between our forwards and their backs, but our poor off-the-ball movement in the first half had effectively negated that advantage. I wanted us to strive to play balls to our front three that found the receiver already on the move, and to support that initial penetration aggressively from the midfield.
The girl's executed this plan with vigor, and the second half saw the game's momentum shift dramatically. We were now not only dominant, but rampant in the attack. Minutes from the resumption of play, Amanda Greco was played in by a flick-on, and her effort was only narrowly wide. Just moments later, a through ball found Liz Ficek in stride and alone against the keeper, but again the shot went wide. Amanda had two further chances, forcing a save from the Colchester keeper after being played in by Liz, and then shooting wide after a fine cross from Jen Guy overlapping from her wide midfield position. A Beth Walther effort was saved by the keeper after another flick-on and, this time being on the serving end, Amanda delivered a cross that Shanna Hutchison volleyed well but over the crossbar. The quality and variety of attacking schemes now on display was better than any displayed by us this week, and we were unfortunate not to finish at least one of the great chances we created.
At the same time, Colchester's threats were now being limited to corner kicks and free kicks. Several of these were well-driven indeed, but invariably turned away by the courageous heading of Emily White, who repeatedly provided the assured clearances we could not accomplish in the first half. Added To Erin Sage's matching Colchester's midfield aggression, Jordan in our goal now really had little to do for most of the half, and Colchester were obviously relieved to have escaped without a loss by the final whistle.
A truly great effort from our girls; another performance of world-class standard. We are disappointed and unlucky not to have won the group. On the other hand, had anyone predicted that we could survive such a strong group as this without a loss and without a goal conceded, such a person's credentials as a soccer pundit would have been seriously questioned. This was a hard-earned, tremendous accomplishment. We now must dust off our shorts, salve our bruises, and go on later today to face the North American Soccer Academy (NASA), runaway winners of Group 6. Wish us luck,

LISC 0 Colchester United Female Academy 0

Shots: LISC 8 Colchester United 6
Shots on target: LISC 3 Colchester United 4