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Tuesday, September 26
Soccer stall right move for Americans
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia -- Growing up, future University of North
Carolina alumnus Kristine Lilly would watch basketball coach Dean
Smith's infamously disliked stall tactic known as the "four
corners." Little did Lilly know that one day she would experience
firsthand just how unpopular such time-wasting can be.
Lilly and the rest of the usually adored U.S. women's soccer
team have been booed off the field twice at these Olympics for
killing the clock in the final minutes with a one-goal lead. The
jeers were especially loud at the end of Sunday's 1-0 semifinal
victory over Brazil, a win that put the U.S. team in Thursday's
gold medal game against Norway.
"We've heard from the crowd that it's not one of their favorite
things to watch," Lilly said. "But in the last minutes it has
helped us. It may not be the prettiest thing, but it's part of the
tactics."
In Smith's four corners, four players would stand in a big
square and play catch with Phil Ford. The monotonous maneuver was
chiefly responsible for the introduction of the shot clock to
college basketball in the mid-1980s.
The soccer version could be called "one corner," with Cindy
Parlow playing Ford's role. Called off the bench as a substitute
late in a one-goal game, Parlow will take the ball into the corner
at the other team's end of the field and stand there with her back
to net. When players from the other team challenge her, she
shuffles the ball from foot to foot and eventually deflects it off
one of their legs and out of bounds, giving the U.S. team a
throw-in.
The throw-in then goes to Parlow. Repeat the above. A few fans
leave. Some probably fall asleep. Most of them boo and whistle.
Loudly.
The architect of the strategy is coach April Heinrichs, another
North Carolina graduate.
"In the past our team would have whacked that ball into the
penalty box," Heinrichs said. "The goalkeeper would catch it, run
to the front of the 18 (yard box) and punt it 70 yards, and that's
certainly not something we want to face."
It makes sense. It works. It's within the rules. But few soccer
fans have seen it before, and foreign journalists unfamiliar with
American "stall ball" have grilled Heinrichs over what they see
as something approaching a blasphemy to the world's most popular
game.
"What you saw in the last five minutes is an intelligent,
tactical application of a game plan," Heinrichs said after the
Brazil game. "It's smart, it's thoughtful soccer. That it was
frustrating to the Brazilian players, I understand. I was an
athlete, and I can totally feel the frustration. It's the
equivalent of the four-corner offense in basketball when you're up
by 10 points with five minutes left."
Heinrichs, who has never had her team actually practice the
clock-killing formation, praises her players for having the
discipline to go against their instincts by not advancing the ball
toward the net. The centerpiece -- er, corner-piece -- of it all
admits it's harder than it looks.
"It's difficult for us to do," said Parlow, who actually is
the team's leading scorer this year. "Because we love to attack
the goal and we love to get shots on goal and we love to score, so
it is a little bit of a change in our mentality. But it's a very
tactical move. It kind of takes the wind out of the other team's
sails. We put them 120 yards away from our goal. It's very hard to
score from there."
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