Style of Play

[debollo]

We are 1-2 against a below average Depaul team, below average Ohio State team and Marquette who appears to be up and coming. However, the things that bothers me about the program is the lack of overall talent and a style of play that can only be described as ugly; kick and run, pack in and defend, and hope to get a goal against the run of play. No possession. It is kind of the chicken and the egg problem. Without the talent it is hard to play good soccer, but if you don't attempt to play good soccer you won't attract good players. Let's try to play soccer; please!

[Big D]

I see your point debollo, but wasn't the style of play under Trask the same as it is now? We were very successful with it....three straight NCAA tournaments...advancing multiple rounds in....elite eight one year.

This has been a defensive-minded team for 7+ years now. The problem is, we still seem to give up goals and then we can't come back. If we're going to be a defensive team, I expect to see better defense...and more shutouts.

If we blow our non-conference schedule, all will be forgiven if we win the HL and get back to the tournament. In years past, we've done well out of conference, but then collapsed in the HL....not good.

[debollo]

You are right it was the style with Trask as well. It gets old watching. Especially when you lose.

[debollo]

The last two games, and for that matter the entire year, has been terrible soccer. There is some talent on the team but you would not know it. The muck it up style we play puts us in every game no matter how good or bad the team is we are playing. The result will always be a .500 type team. The last 4 years 29-31-11. If the style does not change players who can play soccer won't come here. There are a few left, but this coaching staff just does not seem to get it. The worst thing for this program would be to win the league tournament, because it would encourage a continuation of this garbage.

[UICJohn]

Haven't had a chance to see the team in person but the results definitely seem to show that. When you get off 20 or so shots and only get one goal, it says one of two things -

1) The goalie just had a hell of a game OR
2) The shots, while on goal, were just weak shots that had no real chance of scoring.

[debollo]

Season ended with a 3 game losing streak. We beat 1 team the entire year that has a winning record(SIUE), and we were knocked out of the conference tournament by a team that was 3-11-2. That shows you where the program is.

[Big D]

Nov 7, 2012 11:33:37 GMT -6 debollo said:

We beat 1 team the entire year that has a winning record(SIUE).

Pretty good statistic there. Makes the season look much worse than what our record indicates. On top of that, we graduate our best player, so it's hard to see us getting much better next year unless they bring in a really good recruiting class. The seat has to be feeling really hot for Coach right now. I hope he can turn it around!

[axaguy]

For whatever it's worth recruiting is going on. Saw an article in the Times or Trib while the high school finals were going on that said that a supposedly very good sweeper from one of the finalists was a UIC comit. Can't remember name or school....

But sounds like th coaching needs to improve if we have any hope of getting back to a national stage. Another recent article in the Trib talking about UIUC's new women's bb coach from Green Bay, where he molded a national contender in the boondocks, indicated the immediate respect and buy in for this guy from the players because they BG, beat UIUC by 20 in a game late in the season. The player's assessment was simply because GB was really prepared and well coached, not really better athletically. COACHING was recognized by the players as the difference.

Why were Trask's teams better? He had to grow them over time and certainly didn't inherit a title contender when he got here. Coaching, plain and simple. Maybe we weren't appreciative of his style but he won and had us beginning to get some limelight.

What's the difference between a 9-1 team and a 1-9 team in almost any sport? Sure players, maybe,circumstances, maybe, injuries, maybe but coaching probably a majority of the time!!!

Not here to start a fire the coach blog but our athletic staff, ad on down, has to recognize and evaluate coaching ability of all the coaches to ensure they are getting the best out of the kids we ask to come here. Representative, competitive teams should be expected and demanded and the AD is as repsonsible for poor teams if he recommends a coach without the proper credentials, attitude or knowledge.

Nuff said............

[debollo]

UIC loses 4-0 to Northern Illinois. If anyone thinks the program is going to change under the present set up they are kidding themselves.

[UICJohn]

I know it is just a Spring game but 4-0? Wow.

This program has really made a turn for the worse in a short amount of time.

[debollo]

Radice has left program.

[CircleAlum]

I'm gonna chime in here because I think there is some misinformation being spread about what has or has not happened to UIC soccer.

First off, John Trask was a great coach, but anyone who thinks he "built" the team wasn't really paying attention. The team he inherited from the previous coach was overall quite good, but lacking a few key pieces, which he and his assistants successfully added. The thing that UIC had going for it during those years was a unique and controversial (in this country) style of play that he was able to get his players to buy into.

UIC played a posession game unlike anything the Horizon League (or most of the NCAA, for that matter) had ever seen. People criticized it as being defensive, but nothing could be further from the truth. Trask's game was based on a simple philosophy: if the majority of your games are played on your opponent's side of the field with your team in posession of the ball, you will win the majority of the time. It seems quite logical, that is how the game is played in most of the world, and even in the US people now understand that controlling possession is the key to winning a high percentage of games.

But this was not true of the NCAA of 10 years ago. Soccer was still a relatively new sport, and people thought you could build winning teams by stocking your team with big, fast, athletic guys and sending them running down the field to chase down long passes ala American football.

UIC's methodical posession style did, in fact, create the high winning percentages it was designed to do. But here's the kicker: it NEVER attracted the kind speed demons and one-on-one threats in the forward positions necessary to score a lot of goals. This made UIC a dangerously one-trick pony of a team, always vulnerable via an unhealthy dependence on superiority in the central midfield and center back positions, the core of the posession game. This was not a problem during the 2006-2008 seasons when players like Dunjer, Zambrano, Husidic and Trout were playing midfield and UIC's back line was tops in the league. But even during the glory years, UIC was always vulnerable to the counter attack because, by definition, setting up shop on your opponents side of the field leaves tons of undefended space between your back line and your goal.

The flaws in Trask's system became glaringly obvious during the 2009 seaason. The midfield was no longer dominant. The back line was still good, but not as superior to the rest of the league as in the past. The other coaches had by now started to figure out how to stop UIC's posession game, and it was surprisingly simple: double team the central midfielders. Soon as UIC crosses the midfield, sent two or three guys straight at them and try to force a turnover. Now, basketball fans know how to counter a trap, and it works the same way in soccer. Find the guy who the trap leaves unmarked and get him the ball. Which UIC was often able to do. But here's the catch: unlike basketball, an unmarked attacker will rarely have an open path to the net or even an open shot. The most optimistic consistent outcome is a one-on-one with the last defender, with maybe someone coming along to help finish. UIC simply did not have the kind of guys that could beat defenders one-on-one, so opponents never had to make the adjustments that would have relieved the pressure on the central midfield. The result was a disappointing 2009 season.

I have to think that Trask had to realize that his glory days in the Horzon League were over. The harsh reality of his situation was that the 2010 team he had recruited had less raw talent than the 2005 team he inherited. The kind of recruits he was getting were not going to dominate the midfield as his teams had in previous years, nor was he getting the kind of strikers who could make opponents pay for trapping his midfielders. So he left, and if it is any consolation, his Wisconsin teams have not exactly torn up the Big 10, 11, 12, or whatever they call themselves these days.

UIC gave the job to his assistant, rightly in my opinion. So lets talk about what they are doing nowdays.

Our current regime subscribes to the same overriding philosophy: play the majority of the game with the ball in your posession on your opponent's side of the field and you will win the majority of the time. But that's where the similarities end.

Today's UIC beats the midfield trap by moving the ball down the field quickly, and often from the wing position. This gets the ball consistently to the right part of the field, but avoiding the trap also means there are rarely any unmarked attackers to get the ball to. That, added to the ongoing problem with recruiting quality finishers, means if everyone holds position, you will more often than not end up with large quantities of of weak chances and few goals.

UIC attempts to overcome that outcome by sending numbers into the box. Which generates a respectable number of goals, but at the same time leaves them even more vulnerable to the counter attack than under the Trask system. And make no mistake about it: they ARE vulnerable and they DO get hammered by counter attacks.

I don't know what the solution is. Maybe there is none. But if UIC needs anything, in my opinion, it is ball handling at forward and speed on the back line. Depth on the back line, too, because if you are going to put numbers in the box, your backs are sooner or later going to get caught behind the counter and will have no choice but to foul, with red cards always a possibility.

So I guess I am saying that I don't think the style of play is the problem per se.

I think it is the ongoing difficulty recruiting quality finishers that is forcing UIC to play a style that leaves them vulnerable. It may well be the coach's fault, but the problem is not new.

[ssam]

I'm going to chime in here, because it seems everyone is skirting the issue. The issue being Coach Phillips. It's comical that people are talking about what was or wasn't inherited.

Focus on the here. Focus on the now. Many do not want to play for the coach. I just heard another player/JS asked for a release and was berated by the staff.

I give Alexi a lot of credit, but make no mistake about it Phillips causes cancer.

[ssam]

One win against a poor DePaul side surrounded by loses. It's only going to get worse folks until the AD makes a change.