MATCH DAY EVALUATION
Match Day 11 – Manningham vs. Box Hill
Conditions: Sunny with some cloud but a lovely day. Pitch in had a significant slope down to one corner. It varied between grassless in the centre corridor to quite lush on sides and n corners. A good breeze was helping one end markedly.
PLAN: Team was asked to:
• 110% from the start of play
• Retain possession
• Be patient and wait for the right opportunity
• Keep the ball on the ground due to breeze
• First tackle the hardest
First Half: Team was sent out in a 3-1-4-2 formation. Bircham was selected as the holding midfielder, with Kasapidis partnering Nguyen up front (De Blasio had been absent from training all week due to illness so started on the bench. Box Hill commenced going up the hill and into the face of the breeze. Manningham started, as suspected with a 5-6 man defence, ensuring multiple defenders were present on all our forwards, Nguyen in particular. This lead to an almost non existent midfield for the Manningham team. As such, Becker, Orlando and then Mazzollini and our wide mids were given large amounts of room to play, with Lee and Mills-Warthold lending good support on the overlap and in support of the forwards. To some degree however, this lead to the BH players having too much time on the ball and selecting the wrong options versus those times when we play better teams and we have less time on the ball, we actually move it better and more speedily.
The Manningham coach also resorted to many interchanges, in an attempt I would guess to limit the damage to his team. Their structure however lead to them having to resort to kicking the ball long out of defence only to have it returned almost immediately by the BH backs and mids. A couple of ‘nervous’ challenges, i.e. refusal to head the ball lead to a couple of anxious moments for the bench and coaching staff. BH were probing well and getting to the 18 yard box but weight of numbers and poor final pass selection meant the 1st goal was quite a while in arriving.
Good interplay between Pagotto and Bircham, and a cross by Kasapidis lead to Nguyen opening the scoring after 15 minutes. Becker let fly with a number of shots but he displayed an inability to ‘hit the target’ rule. Pagotto then broke his duck since joining the team and after taking what seemed to be too many touches, fired low and hard into the corner of the net to make it 2-0.
Half time score 0 - 2
Second Half: A number of changes were made in an effort to get more goals from the team and to allow all players on the bench to play at least a ½ of the game. Drossas went to Left wide mid, Lee to Right wide mid, Bryden to the Right back position, Kasapidis to defensive midfield, and the centre mids were Bircham and Mazzollini with De Blasio partnering Nguyen. Becker was rested to keep him fresh for the Bulleen game next week. After a promising start, Bryden was replaced by Orlando as he rolled his ankle and had to sit out the rest of the game. Nguyen started brightly and fired over the top of the bar. Kasapidis carried the ball well and also fired over the top. De Blasio ran on to a well placed ball and made the score 3-0 to BH. After 15 minutes, Pagotto and Clark replaced the two ‘Sams’ in midfield and combined reasonably well, though Pagotto needed to be told a couple of times to work harder up and down the park as a midfielder. In addition, the two forwards were running away from the ball again and not playing as well as they did last week by coming and meeting the ball and turning away as well as moving around. A good cross by Drossas led to the 4th goal by Nguyen. Having the slope and the breeze was allowing BH to swarm forward and attack as they wished. Some poor first touches were letting us down as were poor crosses into the box that fell short or were plucked out by the Manningham GK. Crosses by Drossas and Mills Warthold as well as nice interplay through to Pagotto by Bircham lead to 2 more goals for BH.
Final Score 0 - 6
Overall Comments
Opposition: Manningham played as most teams will play against us in the second round. Large numbers of players behind the ball, stout and resolute defending and no ambition to play soccer on display. They were rarely able to string a number of passes together and they were constantly being changed around by their coach with multiple interchanges. In truth, I felt sorry for them as they cannot and will not learn anything this year except to ‘kick it long’.
Box Hill: Given conditions, and the way Manningham played, to get 6 goals is a good result. We must learn though, that having extra time on the ball to play it about does not give us license to waste our opportunities and chances. We must improve our first touch as well as this was poor at times. What was most pleasing was how all players contributed and played their part in the win, including the reserves.
Bullen next week – I think the team and coaches are looking forward to playing them on our field and show them just how good we are. They will defend and try to kick us off the park so we must be patient and controlled. Our skill, ability and team spirit will deliver us a good win again, if we do what we do best – PLAY FOOTBALL THE EURO WAY, THE BOX HILL WAY…….
NOTE: Malvern lost to North Caulfield 4-1 putting BH 6 points clear and 21 goals goal difference in front. Close, but still NO CHOCOLATES !!!!!
7 weeks to go and UNLESS VERY ILL, SEVERELY INJURED OR IN A WHEELCHAIR all must train!! …..
Coach: John Di Martino 20th July, 2009
