Mullen vs Coronado 2023

 Mullen vs Coronado

Varsity @4 (JV immediately to follow)

Mullen Soccer Complex: 3601 S Lowell Blvd. Denver, CO 80236

Coronado Strengths:

Coronado has a very good coach and a couple players who can really impact the game.

Marcus has been coaching for quite a while and has won the league the last couple of years, securing the 32nd seed in the playoffs. He gets some talent through his program, but he runs a good system and his teams are well organized. They beat Durango (the number one seed) in the playoffs last year with a block and counter system. They are pretty relentless in their willingness to suffer. 

He will know a lot about you. He will be prepared for dangerous set pieces, and he will wait for his moment to strike. Coronado will not try to take a lot from the game. They will try to keep it tight, block low, and look to score on the counter or a nice set piece into the box. We can't make any mistakes. Coronado makes sure that their non-league schedule is full of competitive teams like us. They want hard games, and they want opportunities to prove themselves. They are also looking to prepare for league!

Additionally, there are a couple of players who have the potential to impact the game. 

The coaches two sons both play for the varsity team. His older son plays the six, and he is very dangerous in transition and on set pieces. He moves the ball quickly and exploits open space behind the defense. Our 10 will need to pick him up defensively and not give him the opportunity to control the game. 

His younger son is the goalie, and he is a competitive player. He is young, so at times he is inconsistent, but he will also make some big saves. We need to push on him and crash. Creating opportunities will be the name of the game.

Lastly, the kid who wears the number 10 is a dangerous player. He has the dog in him. He'll get fiesty, look for big tackles, press relentlessly, and work hard to get behind the defense. If he plays tonight, remember that he doesn't turn off. When he is around, no play is done, he will keep coming. Allow Northfield to be a warning. There were a number of occasions where they came through us when we weren't expecting it. 10 will oporate the same way. He is gonna ask a lot of questions of the game tonight and you have to anticipate him and prevent him from finding opportunities.

Know this: If Coronado finds the back of the net, they will have no problem putting everyone behind the ball and suffering for as long as it takes.

Coronado weaknesses:

This is a team that has faced some injuries this season, and it has left them with players out of positions they are normally comfortable in, and it has pushed them to stay organized against harder opponents. They have good games (like LP or Vista) but they also have bad games like the one against Cheyenne Mountain. 

In the absence of film, I did a little deep dive into Cheyenne Mountains style of play to try and figure out why they were particularly dangerous against Coronado. What I found was this: CheyMo is best in transition. They can strike a team hard from a turnover and move quickly into the final third. I think Coronado struggled with this. I think that they are really good when they can get deep and defend, but I think they struggle to recover in transition. 

What does this mean for us? Essentailly, Coronado is weak against a quick transition. We need to capitalize on this. We need to play quickly all the time. Every throw, restart, you name it, the main goal is to not allow them to get set defensively. We need them to constantly be struggling to recover, and as they do so, they will get pulled out of shape. 

Mullen Keys to Success:

First and foremost, we need to execute a well organized press. We need to push the game to the sidelines and dig in on our marks. Then, once we force the turn over, we need to counter before they can recover beneath the ball. Additionally, we need to use our ten to eliminate the impact that their 6 can have on the game. The 10 needs to be at the base of the triangle to cut off the pass to the checking 6. This will prevent them from playing out of the back and building through their talisman.

You can see in this image that our 10 is perpendicular to the nine, creating a right angle with our 11 on the wing. The problem here is that the GV six and drop into the gap, receive the ball, turn and attack.

As noted above, the six then penetrates the press, and then initiates an attack though the lines. To prevent this scenario, our 10 needs to scan, identify the incoming 6, slide to his left to the point of the triangle and thus cut off the pass, turn, and progression. The 10 should not be vertically even with the 9 but rather tucked in to form a triangle and intercept the incoming midfielder.

Secondly, we need to do everything (except corners and some long throws) quickly. Any restart of play should happen immediately. We can't give them time to recover. Furthermore, when we create a turnover, if the high percentage counter is on, we need to take it. The quicker we are in transition, the more they will struggle. On this same note, we need to also move the ball out wide more quickly. As we saw in the GV game, when we just did the right thing from the start, we created opportunities in front of goal. It was when we hesitated and then chose to do the thing we should have done initially that GV had the chance to recover and initiate a counter. 

Finally, remember how to break down the block:

**Don't get impatient

1. Shoot from outside the block

2. Send early crosses into the block

3. Penetrate the block on the dribble and with brave passes. 

Set pieces:

(Corners)

Rio - Fake corner. One player goes and gets the ball and acts like they are throwing it to the other player. He plays them as soon as he steps on the field and we attack. The runners have to be sharp on Rio and ready for the fake play!

2- Short corner overlap. Attackers cover near, middle, far - slight delay on the run in.

3- short corner choice. The players taking the corner will choose to overlap or take on the player. Attackers cover all positions, and delay runs in.

Jolly - Bend it in the goal. Attackers cover all locations, especially back post. Anything that goes long should be headed back toward goal.

Bumblebee - cluster around the goalie inside the six. Ball should be played into the cluster. 

11 - Three runners at the near post, two at the back. The three runners circle around to the near post, middle, and far post, while the two at the back make direct runs across the goal.

Snake: 

For this corner, we will have two groups of two players at each corner of the six. They will make phantom runs where they appear to check away and then just bounce back. Two more players will start at the front top of the box and make diagonal runs to the back post. At that point an initial runner will sprint to toward the corner taker while the second runner trails. The corner taker will make a pass to the top of the box, the first runner will dummy and the second will strike the ball. 

JV tactical notes:

Unfortunately, I could not find any recent JV film for Coronado Cougars.  They are 1-4-1 so far this season, scoring 5 goals and allowing 33.  In contrast, we have scored 14 and allowed 16 goals.  Last year Mullen JV tied Coronado 0-0 in Colorado Springs.

Mullen Keys to Success

• Shape is King
• Trust the shape and your teammates so we avoid long emergency defending runs like we saw against Grandview
• Midfielders (6s & 10s) - be connected in the middle of the pitch ; we were too close to our defenders against Grandview and this allowed too much space for Grandview's midfielders to turn and play passes into our defensive third
• Outside backs (2/3s) and wide forwards (7/11s) stay wide to the touch line and press their forwards and outside backs
  
  
• Check to the ball
• The video from Grandview shows that too often our players wait for a pass from a teammate and we turned over the ball too often
• Instead every player receiving a pass should move toward the ball (while its moving) to protect the ball from interception by Coronado
• Watch this 1 minute video - there will be a quiz tomorrow in pregame tactics in Coach E's room
  
  
• Play Mullen Football
• Press high and put their defense under pressure
  
• With the ball, we want to move it toward their goal quickly with a lot of quick passes.
• Offensive goal:  double-digit shots on goal (10+)
• Defensive goal : clean sheet

Reminders:

• Trust the shape, trust your teammates
• Play for each other
• Let's get our first home win!