Earlier this week, Terrapin men’s soccer coach Sasho Cirovski led his team back to the drawing board in preparation for tonight’s match at No. 15 Duke.
After four of the first nine goals the Terps scored this season came in set-piece situations — corner kicks, free kicks or penalty kicks — not one of their last five tallies has come off a restart, leading Cirovski to focus more in recent practices on the team’s set piece strategy than he probably expected he would have to.
Surprisingly, the Terps have done less recently even as they’ve had more opportunities than earlier in the season. The team converted two of their first 17 corner kicks to start the season, but since defender Ethan White’s header early in the second half of the team’s 7-0 rout of Duquesne on Sept. 15, the squad hasn’t capitalized on any of their 34 corner kick opportunities.
The Terps were unlikely to sustain their white-hot dead ball proficiency — typically, a far higher percentage of a team’s goals are scored in the run of play — and Cirovski admitted the drop in success was somewhat expected. Still, Cirovski said it’s all fixable.
“Other teams have seen that we’ve been successful and have done a better job at trying to stop it,” Cirovski said. “You never want to show all of your cards on set pieces too early in the season, and you’re adjusting and adding different components and pieces throughout the season.”
The Terps’ 51 corner kicks are more than double that of their opponents. In eight games, the team has had to defend just 20 corners, or 2.5 per game.
Though it’s largely indicative of a team’s possession time and scoring opportunities, the differential in dead ball opportunities doesn’t win games alone. Statistics like corner kick and free kick totals only hold explicit value if the acts themselves are successful.
Many a Terp opponent learned that the hard way last year.
Set piece goals were a consistently dangerous weapon for the Terps last season. But it was how and when the Terps scored those goals that mattered.
Early in the season, the Terps forced overtime in an eventual 2-1 win over No. 14 UCLA after a header from defender Sean Flatley found the net in the 90th minute.
In a win over No. 25 Duke, defender Omar Gonzalez headed in the lone goal off a corner from midfielder Matt Kassel.
In a 1-0 victory against Creighton, midfielder Rodney Wallace’s diving header off a free kick helped the Terps advance to their fifth College Cup in seven years.
And against No. 3 seed St. Johns in the College Cup semifinal, midfielder Graham Zusi’s unforgettable looping 26-yard free kick pushed the Terps one step closer to their third National Championship.
This year’s Terps have been just as proficient on restarts — four of 14 of their scores have come off set pieces — but not nearly as lethal.
Three of the team’s four tallies came in the Duquesne blowout. The last before that game — a late header by defender Kevin Tangney off a Kassel corner to go up two against Boston College — clinched a game the Terps already had well in hand.
The Terps failed to take advantage of several late-game free kicks and corners against George Mason on Tuesday, and they won’t have any more breathing room against Duke. The Blue Devils have allowed only one goal off a set piece all year. And this time around, the 6-foot-5 Gonzalez won’t be available.
“It’s not all about the size,” Cirovski said. “It’s about the timing and breaking away from your man. We’re trying to get other guys to step up a little bit.”
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