Like many other sports, soccer rewards the team that makes the fewest mistakes – be it fouls, missed shots, turnovers or the like.
While the Boston University men’s soccer team showed great skill and athleticism during Friday night’s 2-1 overtime loss to Seton Hall University, the team did just that – it simply made too many crucial mistakes and missed too many opportunities to win the game.
The Terriers began the game on fire, creating multiple chances in the first ten minutes, and scoring their only goal of the game on a header from freshman forward Dominique Badji. Badji credited his first career goal to the hard work the team has put in during practice the past week on its offense, which had been lacking in the first few games.
“We just went hard at it in practice,” Badji said. “We practiced our attacking so much and it paid off, but we just have to keep finishing.”
Finishing was a problem for the Terriers in the game, as they repeatedly missed open scoring opportunities. The team had seven quality scoring chances, according to BU coach Neil Roberts, and probably should have scored at least two goals.
Scoring only once was unsatisfactory for Roberts.
“That was very disappointing,” Roberts said. “When you get the chance to put the game away you have to put the game away.”
Often when a team doesn’t put the game away it comes back to haunt them in the end, and that is exactly what happened against Seton Hall. The Pirates scored a goal in the 60th minute to tie the game up, and then scored on a misdirected shot in overtime.
“We had some good chances and they mishit it,” Roberts said. “That is why you put away chances: so you don’t put yourself in that situation.”
While the team made mistakes offensively, those mistakes were even more apparent on the defensive end. BU committed an astounding 26 fouls in the game, which is 14 more than they have committed in a game all season at this point.
“You are not going to win if you commit 26 fouls; when we commit 15, that is bad for us,” Roberts said. “That was a very undisciplined performance.”
Some may attribute these mistakes to the youth of the team, as six freshmen were a part of the Terriers’ starting 11 on Friday, and only five of the 15 Terriers that played in the game were upperclassmen.
However, Roberts does not attribute any of the team’s shortcomings at this point in the season to the youth of the team.
“We just have some habits we need to break, even if they are sophomores, freshmen or seniors,” Roberts said. “Until we do that we are going to learn the hard way.”
Luckily for the Terriers, none of these little mistakes are due to an overall lack of skill. Based on the amount of chances created on Friday, it is apparent that the athleticism and ability is there for BU to have a much better offense than it has shown to this point in the season, according to coaches and players alike.
“It is the very little things that are very correctable,” Roberts said. “Whether it is just closing down, or getting on the right side of somebody, or pressuring, or putting forth a little bit more effort, we are not doing the little things right now.”
It is early in the season, and those around the team know it’s not time to push the panic button on the Terriers’ season yet. There was improvement offensively in this game from the last game against St. John’s University, but if BU wants to get Roberts his 300th win against a formidable University of Connecticut team, it is going to have to focus on minimizing mistakes and doing what Roberts described routinely as “the little things.”
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