2014 D3 Season: National Perspective

[Nutmeg]

Finally, a good video feed...the Tufts Midfield controlled the game today. Yes, no all-Americans but they have outplayed many in the tournament. They have flown under the radar and have come up big. I remember posts from early in the year saying how nice they played....Good luck to the Jumbos tomorrow.

[Nutmeg]

Tufts looks good but I have never seen OWU look this bad.  Almost looks like they are throwing the game.  First touch after first too strong and right to a Tufts player.  Virtually no possession.  A horrid performance so far.  WIll be interesting to see what Martin can figure out at the half.

"Throwing the game?"    Come on. The Tufts midfield looked superb today....

[D3soccerwatcher]

THE two best tams will be playing for the title tomorrow imo.

These boyz deserve the crown whoever wins.

Great Tournament.

These are two very good teams at what they do and they have advanced through the tournament, and deserve to be crowned tournament champions.  But I'm not sure I would declare them the two very best soccer teams in the land.

[D3soccerwatcher]

Wheaton got the early game on Friday but had to go the distance with their starters.  Honestly I thought Wheaton lost the game when they gave up the goal with 5 mins to go.  I watched the live stream and saw the replay twice and still can't figure out why the goal was disallowed.  And if you watch the reactions of the Wheaton players it looked like they thought it was a goal too.  Anyone know the true story on that?

Tufts on the other hand, had an easier game.  They got to rest their starters a bit.  So that could work to their advantage tomorrow.

Hopefully it will be a good game.  Field conditions could also be a factor.

[D3soccerwatcher]

Any formation is fluid and any numbered representation can only tell you so much.  By itself, the 4-3-3 designation can't tell you how those three midfielders line-up and position themselves.  I don't find the 4-2-3-1 to be inaccurate.

The bottom line is that they play with four across the back (expecting the outside backs to push forward a lot), a target forward and two wingers, and have alternated over the years between a triangle and inverted triangle of central midfielders (which is very fluid within games, of course, and more fluid in some years than others). 

When they play with the midfield triangle that has two more deep lying or "holding" CM's and a single AM in the hole behind the target, I find the 4-2-3-1 to be fairly accurate description.  In 2013 with Payne in the midfield but usually more advanced than Ramirez and Sheldon Meyer, the 4-2-3-1 description seems fairly refelctive of the positioning.  This year with Payne at target, Danny Brandt took on the advanced midfield role with Ramirez and Benji Kennel in support, though too advanced and attack-minded to want to call them deep-lying.  It's been a little while since there's been a clear "defensive" midfielder at the base of an inverted triangle like when (I hope old age isn't make me confuse names) Renko and Visser and others filled that role.  These past few years have seen the midfield trio play as advanced as ever without a designated D-mid, but with Carter Robbins often pushing up from centerback becoming essentially another midfielder at times.  And I think that's where the suggestion of a 3-4-3 comes from.

I think you are missing one key element here.  It's really about the play of the wingers.  Messiah keeps those wingers extremely high, with limited and very specific defensive responsibility.  That's what makes it a true 4-3-3.  Wheaton tries to do that with their wingers, but they frequently can't hold that shape.  Most teams don't have the desire or even the specific personnel to keep the wingers high so they tuck those wingers in a bit and recess them a bit and it starts to look like a 4-2-3-1 or even a 4-5-1.

[KICKIN95]

Wheaton got the early game on Friday but had to go the distance with their starters.  Honestly I thought Wheaton lost the game when they gave up the goal with 5 mins to go.  I watched the live stream and saw the replay twice and still can't figure out why the goal was disallowed.  And if you watch the reactions of the Wheaton players it looked like they thought it was a goal too.  Anyone know the true story on that?

Tufts on the other hand, had an easier game.  They got to rest their starters a bit.  So that could work to their advantage tomorrow.

Hopefully it will be a good game.  Field conditions could also be a factor.

The goal was disallowed because the keeper had "possession" of the ball. I didn't think so until the replay, but he clearly had both hands on the ball and the opposing player kicked it while in the keepers possession.  At one time all the keeper needed was 1 hand to constitute possession, but not sure if that's still the law.  That was a very good call by the official in my eyes,  takes a keen eye and big balls to make that call.

[Nutmeg]

THE two best tams will be playing for the title tomorrow imo.

These boyz deserve the crown whoever wins.

Great Tournament.

These are two very good teams at what they do and they have advanced through the tournament, and deserve to be crowned tournament champions.  But I'm not sure I would declare them the two very best soccer teams in the land.

Tufts is playing very well and they beat Messiah which no one has done in quite some time. Messiah, imho is still up there as the best team, but whoever wins tomorrow has to be considered the best. Who do u think are the best?

[D3soccerwatcher]

Wheaton got the early game on Friday but had to go the distance with their starters.  Honestly I thought Wheaton lost the game when they gave up the goal with 5 mins to go.  I watched the live stream and saw the replay twice and still can't figure out why the goal was disallowed.  And if you watch the reactions of the Wheaton players it looked like they thought it was a goal too.  Anyone know the true story on that?

Tufts on the other hand, had an easier game.  They got to rest their starters a bit.  So that could work to their advantage tomorrow.

Hopefully it will be a good game.  Field conditions could also be a factor.

The goal was disallowed because the keeper had "possession" of the ball. I didn't think so until the replay, but he clearly had both hands on the ball and the opposing player kicked it while in the keepers possession.  At one time all the keeper needed was 1 hand to constitute possession, but not sure if that's still the law.  That was a very good call by the official in my eyes,  takes a keen eye and big balls to make that call.

I'm sure your explanation is what the official decided.  But what I thought I saw was two hands behind the ball not two hands on the ball.  Two very different things.

[D3soccerwatcher]

THE two best tams will be playing for the title tomorrow imo.

These boyz deserve the crown whoever wins.

Great Tournament.

These are two very good teams at what they do and they have advanced through the tournament, and deserve to be crowned tournament champions.  But I'm not sure I would declare them the two very best soccer teams in the land.

Tufts is playing very well and they beat Messiah which no one has done in quite some time. Messiah, imho is still up there as the best team, but whoever wins tomorrow has to be considered the best. Who do u think are the best?

Is Rutgers-Camden one of the best teams in the country or did they just happen to make a single run at a single point in time?  When Tufts and Wheaton start putting multiple recent stars on their crest then I think we can start talking about them as "best". Until then I have to go with Messiah's 10 recent stars on their crest.

[Flying Weasel]

Come 3:30 or 4pm Saturday, one team and set of fans isn't going to care about being the best or being perceived as being the best--they will be champions and history will always remember them as such.  The whole point of the tournament is to win the whole thing.

Now if we want to discuss and evaluate who is "the best", while Tufts has certainly worked their way into that discussion, I don't think they are clear leaders for the "title" of "the best" even if they win the championship.  That is, if you pitted them against all the other candidates in a series of ten games, would they come out on top against them all?  It's not far-fetched for some to think they would.  But it's also not far-fetched to think another team would fare better.  I certainty wouldn't bet against Messiah across 10 games against anyone in the nation.  And win or lose tomorrow, a case could be made for Wheaton.  Oenonta picked up their lone loss at an unfortunate time with respect to winning the championship, but taking the season as a whole, they're a strong candidate for the title of "the best".

Tufts is a top team that clearly seems to have peaked in terms of both execution and effort at just the right time.  And while that's not something you can completely program as a coaching staff and team, you still have to give them credit for rising to the occasion and consistently performing at a high level throughout the tournament.  It's what all teams strive for coming in, but few accomplish.

[PaulNewman]

While certainly understandable in the midst of the excitement over Tufts' phenomenal performances, some of the attempted extrapolations in that wake are pretty silly, and are reliant on only making extrapolations in one direction.  Yes, Tufts beat Messiah and then completely dominated OWU from the opening whistle.  That said, the Tufts blowout of OWU tells us almost nothing about where OWU would finish in the NESCAC, anymore than the Tufts' loss to Conn College told us anything about Tufts' chances to go on a remarkable run to the national final and very possibly a national championship.  Tufts isn't playing for the NESCAC.  Tufts is playing for Tufts.  And right now Tufts is a very impressive team that at this point would probably be favored against every team in the country not named Messiah or Wheaton.  And if they beat Wheaton today Tufts will be an extremely deserving champion, beating quality opponents from start to finish including the 3 most storied programs in D3 soccer history.

It's true that OWU didn't have as clean a road to the Final Four as the other squads, with two PK advancements and a narrow win in the very first game.  But they didn't play cupcakes to get there.  Calvin, Kenyon, and CNU are all very good teams who almost certainly would have performed better than OWU yesterday.  On another day OWU would have performed better than they did yesterday.  I would guess that was OWU's worst performance of the year.  Yesterday's team would have struggled to beat Wooster or Wittenberg.  Why that happened yesterday we'll never know.  Tufts clearly had something to do with it and clearly was the superior team, but they are not "total domination" level better than OWU.  I'm guessing that OWU maxed out physically and emotionally two weeks earlier, outperforming a bitter rival who had been challenging OWU's supremacy on the rival's home field and then outlasting a talented Newport side.  Based on their performance yesterday, OWU looked like a team that had already won its championship and was showing up for some kind of post-season scrimmage.

It happens.  You can't play one of your worst games at the wrong time.  Kenyon played probably its worst half of soccer all year in the first half against OWU.  Yes, OWU was really pumped up, came in believing they had some psychic edge (which unfortunately the opponent also believed), and on the day were the better team, but you can't extrapolate from that that Kenyon isn't as good as Penn State-Behrend.

As neutrals most of us probably hope both teams will play close to their best and then whoever wins, wins.  That's how I saw the first game.  Oneonta played to the level of its quality, consistent with its phenomenal record and season, and while I thought Wheaton had the better of the play on balance, Oneonta very easily could have won that game (and there were a couple of questionable calls on both sides that could have changed the outcome. [The disallowed goal for Oneonta is the glaring one given the outcome, but Wheaton should have gotten a second PK call as well.]  I actually didn't think the first game was as intense or riveting as it seems it should have been, but at least both teams played to their levels.  That didn't happen in the second game. 

The question is why.  In addition to what I suggested above, I think a big difference is that OWU being OWU meant absolutely nothing to Tufts.  Of course that's partly because they had just beaten Messiah, so there is no reason to fear anyone after that, but in the coach interview with Shapiro you could tell that Tufts was genuinely confident and that OWU's tradition/experience/legacy stuff was going to have zero impact on the Jumbos.  And as for OWU, they already had played that card, against an opponent that was susceptible to it, because the opponent had suffered from the reputation and hocus-pocus kind of mind-game advantage before.  With Tufts, OWU couldn't figure out any way to get a foothold inside the figurative head of Tufts.  Other than a vague sense of OWU having a good program historically, it doesn't appear that OWU meant anything in particular to Tufts at all.  To be fair, Tufts was playing a good but not great OWU team...an OWU team who in contrast to past years really out-performed just to get to the Final Four.  And to repeat, beating Messiah as the lead-in certainly helped.

I hope the final is a great one.  The set-up is great, with both teams having very good reasons going in to believe "this is our year."  Unlike yesterday for Tufts, the physical match-up should be very even.  Wheaton is as big and fast and skilled as Tufts.  Let's all hope that the officiating doesn't negatively impact the result.

[Saint of Old]

And if they beat Wheaton today Tufts will be an extremely deserving champion, beating quality opponents from start to finish including the 3 most storied programs in D3 soccer history.

Well said NCAC.

I have said for a while I do not think a new champion would be crowned.
I like the Wheaton program a lot from what I saw earlier in the year and perhaps a bit biased having played them before, ditto for Messiah.
Add OWU to the mix and I think as stated above the three best teams in the premiership era for sure.
Soccer is tradition.

That being said, there should be little argument that the winner of today's game is not the best team in the country. If not then why play the tournament.

Brazil and their 5 stars on their crest got spanked out of the World Cup by a superior opponent. Would not have mattered they lost in PKs.
The Champion of D3 soccer is the best team in D3 soccer until they are beaten and dethroned.

There can be only one...

[lastguyoffthebench]

THE two best tams will be playing for the title tomorrow imo.

These boyz deserve the crown whoever wins.

Great Tournament.

These are two very good teams at what they do and they have advanced through the tournament, and deserve to be crowned tournament champions.  But I'm not sure I would declare them the two very best soccer teams in the land.

Tufts is playing very well and they beat Messiah which no one has done in quite some time. Messiah, imho is still up there as the best team, but whoever wins tomorrow has to be considered the best. Who do u think are the best?

Is Rutgers-Camden one of the best teams in the country or did they just happen to make a single run at a single point in time?  When Tufts and Wheaton start putting multiple recent stars on their crest then I think we can start talking about them as "best". Until then I have to go with Messiah's 10 recent stars on their crest.

Rutgers-Camden was a top 10 team the last 3 years.  They won't be dropping off anytime soon.   After losing 7 starters they competed vs a tough schedule and were probably one of last two teams out.   Would have performed better than Salisbury or North Park...

[Sirius90]

While certainly understandable in the midst of the excitement over Tufts' phenomenal performances, some of the attempted extrapolations in that wake are pretty silly, and are reliant on only making extrapolations in one direction.  Yes, Tufts beat Messiah and then completely dominated OWU from the opening whistle.  That said, the Tufts blowout of OWU tells us almost nothing about where OWU would finish in the NESCAC, anymore than the Tufts' loss to Conn College told us anything about Tufts' chances to go on a remarkable run to the national final and very possibly a national championship.  Tufts isn't playing for the NESCAC.  Tufts is playing for Tufts.  And right now Tufts is a very impressive team that at this point would probably be favored against every team in the country not named Messiah or Wheaton.  And if they beat Wheaton today Tufts will be an extremely deserving champion, beating quality opponents from start to finish including the 3 most storied programs in D3 soccer history.

...

I hope the final is a great one.  The set-up is great, with both teams having very good reasons going in to believe "this is our year."  Unlike yesterday for Tufts, the physical match-up should be very even.  Wheaton is as big and fast and skilled as Tufts.  Let's all hope that the officiating doesn't negatively impact the result.

Wow. What a post. Kudos!

[GoPerry]

Massey has Wheaton(#1) vs Tufts (#4) as basically a neutral field toss-up.  Would love to see Wheaton give coach Guiliano a National Championship to remember before he moves on.

Best of luck to both teams; forecast looks chilly but dry;  hoping to see a well-played match not decided by conditions, officiating and please no shootout!