{"id":27479,"date":"2014-08-26T00:22:58","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T04:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=27479"},"modified":"2014-08-26T00:22:58","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T04:22:58","slug":"technically-speaking-nevchv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=27479","title":{"rendered":"Technically Speaking: #NEvCHV"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Chris Aduama\/aduamaphotography.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Even though the main story at moment is the acquisition of Jermaine Jones, the Revs did play pretty well to beat Chivas USA\u00a0by a score of 1-0 on Saturday. Admittedly, Chivas is weak. They\u2019re in last place, and they\u00a0hadn’t\u00a0scored in 344 minutes entering Saturday’s match.<\/p>\n

The most glaring weakness of the Chivas team was their almost baffling inability to hold the ball, especially in the first half, when the Revs dominated the possession stat by almost 70 to 30 percent. Their players appeared to have enough skill, but they are missing that critical player with the mental and physical talents to serve as midfield general. If they want to climb out of the cellar of the MLS western division, they need to to find a player (or players) who can provide that vital midfield leadership.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, they created only two on-target threats on goal throughout the game. The Revs were pretty much in control for the whole game \u2013 but that, in turn, raises the Question of the Day: \u2018Why couldn\u2019t the Revs win this game by more than one goal?\u2019<\/p>\n

The Revs\u2019 main successes at scoring this season have been through skillful possession-style attacks that free up a forward in or very near the penalty area, following a sequence of tricky passes. A deserved residue of this style of play is the kind of defensive error on the part of the opposing team that resulted in Lee Nguyen\u2019s 56th-minute winner against Chivas.<\/p>\n

This is a very appealing style of play \u2013 I\u2019m all for it! \u2013 but it can\u2019t stand by itself. The problem the Revs have is that opposing teams anticipate their style of attack, and take steps to frustrate it by clogging up their defensive penalty area as the Revs approach it. The best way, in return, for the Revs to frustrate that defensive strategy is to pose a genuine threat from outside the penalty area.<\/p>\n

In basketball, by analogy, the inside game (or \u2018game in the paint\u2019) has to be complemented by a good outside shooting game for a team to pile up good scoring chances on a consistent basis. It would behoove the Revs to adopt this way of thinking. They could free up their inside-the-area game if they learned to shoot the ball effectively from distance. That threat would give the other team something else to worry about, something to keep them honest, to keep them from crowding the penalty area.<\/p>\n

The main reason Rev players don\u2019t choose to shoot from distance is that they don\u2019t have confidence in their ability to get the ball on target, largely as a result of technical deficiencies. For the most part, they seem to have a single all-purpose method of kicking a ball, and they use it indiscriminately for crossing, set-piece kicking, and shooting. In all these cases, they make contact with the inside of the big toe, use a restricted backswing and an even more restricted follow-through, very often finishing with legs crossed and a too-erect upper body, making it almost impossible to follow their shots. They employ only minor technical changes for shooting and crossing. Beyond that, they are regrettably one-footed.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, they do make good contact upon occasion. Nguyen\u2019s goal was a notable exception, as was Neuman\u2019s shot from 25 yards in the 76th minute \u2013 which, if it was not picture-perfect, was pretty close to it, a rarity for MLS. But far too often they shoot off-target when they absolutely should not. Daigo Kobayashi and Nguyen both had clear shots from inside the penalty area that soared unnecessarily over the bar.<\/p>\n

In short, poor shooting technique will make players instinctively reluctant to shoot the ball from outside the area. A bad miss from inside the area will reinforce this hesitancy.<\/p>\n

The Revs coaching staff should recognize these problems and focus on solving them. Learning proper shooting technique and learning to kick with the weaker foot are not impossibilities. If the Revs could create a more balanced scoring style, they would make life much more difficult for opposing defenders. The flow of play this past Saturday could (and should) have led to a 3-0 victory. With an effective outside game, maybe underachieving of this type can become a thing of the past.<\/p>\n

Andrew Farrell could be a real offensive threat if he were not so insecure about his shot. He seems to rush and lose all poise when he shoots \u2013 yet he has terrific physical abilities, and few ingrained bad shooting habits. His positive mental attitude makes him a prime candidate to focus on refining his shooting technique. If he did, he would become the offensive weapon the Rev brass feel he could be. Besides, I think he wants to lose that beard.<\/p>\n

Hope to see Jermaine Saturday vs Toronto.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our resident coach and former pro Rick Sewall gives his take on Saturday’s Revs-Chivas USA clash.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":27480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/Chivas-1.png?fit=491%2C262&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27479"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27482,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27479\/revisions\/27482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}