Madison East @ Mukwonago (East Report)

Madison East @ Mukwonago (tournament, 60 minute game)
August 29, 2008

Cheese Athletics Staff

Final Score
Madison East: 2
Mukwonago: 3

Scouting Report on Madison East
I am not sure who Madison East ordered their away jerseys from but they should look for a refund; purple numbers on a black uniform is almost impossible to read in the sunlight. I couldn’t imagine trying to decipher numbers at night.

Offensive Positives

Madison East is a team of central midfielders. Every one of them has above average to superb foot skill. They use the widths of the field as sporadically throughout the match and are very difficult to steal the ball from with just one defender.
The back four defenders use each other well. They are quick with the ball at their feet and look to release it before their opponent breaks them down defensively. Early in the game they rarely got trapped and always looked to play the simple ball.
The central midfielders are not overly active but are good at showing in spaces in the defense. Each one of them can find a hole in the zone to receive the ball.
When East wins the ball at midfield they transition very well. Part of the reason is their forwards are slow coming back on defense and when the ball is stolen they are already in a numbers up situation. Throughout their counter attacks and just regular game play, Madison East always looks to play a one touch pass.
East’s right center back plays a nice 35 yard ball to the center of the 18 yard area for a flick and a near miss on the goal.
Matheus Ribeira (#8) may be East’s best player. He is very quick with good top end speed. He has solid ball skill however sometimes tries to rely on himself too much as opposed to utilizing his teammates. At one point in the game he was 2 for 2 shooting. They were both easy goals but sometimes those are the most difficult to make.
Ribeira had a chance to put East up by two on a nice sequence through the central midfield just missing wide of the back post.

Offensive Negatives

Making runs is a foreign concept to East. As stated earlier, they are good at showing in the gaps of the defense but are terrible at stretching the field both wide and long. Of all the players that East showcased, not one of them was a true runner or even interested in making runs.
Most of their problems stem from the above note. In transition they are extremely slow, if they are covering a large amount of ground, like countering a corner kick for instance, the person with the ball will join the two forwards but that will make up the entire attack. In this particular game, Mukwonago had no trouble thwarting their long range counter attacks.
When East does make a run it is usually made by Ribeira. He’ll make a run towards the ball, if he doesn’t receive it, he’ll continue his run wide or angle it at a diagonal towards the corner flag. Once East gets the other forward to follow suit they will be much more effective in a set offense. As it stands, they are only dangerous off of steals from the opposition’s defenders.
By the end of the game there had been about 4 transitions that would have covered 70 yards or more. All of them were stopped before reaching the 18 yard area with relative ease. East needs to drop one of their many skill players and get a player that is willing to do a little running.

Defensive Positive

It was very difficult to find something positive to say about this defense. They all have tremendous foot skill and any could double as midfielders or forwards. When watching East one gets the feeling that none of the defenders have actually played defense before. If they had, it may have been in a league that allows zero contact. Classic Eight teams will generally come at you hard. Not necessarily with skill, although that may be the case in many instances. With Mukwonago they don’t have the talent that East has but were able to outwork their defenders to second balls. On multiple occasions the fans could hear David Harris, East’s coach, yell “They (Mukwonago) are beating us to the ball, to every ball!”
By the end of the game I couldn’t find anything positive to say about East’s back line. It is a very soft unit; don’t expect any shut outs against good opponents.

Defensive Negatives

At any point East was on defense anyone could see there were 1 or 2 players working to the get the ball back and 9 or 10 others standing and watching.
After the 20 minute mark, keep in mind this is a 60 minute game, East lost complete interest in playing defense. If they had it their way, they’d have the ball the entire match. After all who wouldn’t? The problem is no one on the team was willing to work to win the ball back to continue their possession game.
When the center back has the ball the defenders will show flat for them but will not ask for the ball or call out instructions as to what the back could do with it. The East players are so skilled that I have to assume they have played before. Judging by the quiet players and lack of drive, maybe they have only played in lower level matches. This is a team that should be making the state tournament but I would be shocked to see them get out of Regional Play.
During on offensive series East’s back line would all walk or jog with the same distance between one another for the entirety of the attack. A flat four defense is supposed to be highly communicative, sending defenders forward and backward, changing up their look with each passing second. East’s back line counted on its midfielders to supply all of the ball pressure and would only hope that it happens. When ball pressure was not supplied a Mukwonago midfielder could easily pick out a forward running between the flat four for an easy through ball.
Slow in pushing up, weak tacklers and very low intensity.
Mukwonago clearly wanted to win this game more than their opponent. The last twenty minutes were a constant barrage on the East net. In a 60 minute game, no team should be giving up 3 goals. This East team is terrible on defense and will see huge problems throughout the course of the season if they don’t find someone to fill the void in the back line.
East has the innate ability of making two average to below average players, Ethan Cutberth (#10) and Austin Zimmerman (#19) look like All Americans. To Cutberth’s and Zimmerman’s credit, they both have very high work rates but they are not nearly as good as the forwards on East’s side.
Giving up 2 goals in the final 10 minutes of a one goal game is a sign of things to come.


GOALS
Madison East Goal – 27th Minute - Ribeira steals from Aaron Sirko, dribbles 30 yards cutting in front of two Mukwonago defenders and beating the sliding keeper from 8 yards away.
Mukwonago Goal – 40th Minute - Bularz, from 35 yards out on the left side of the field takes a direct kick off of the cross bar. A scrum in front of the net ensues when Austin Zimmerman (#19) knocks the ball out of the keeper’s grasp and into the goal.
Madison East Goal – 47th Minute - Riberia, in almost the exact same fashion as his first goal, steals from Mukwonago’s left defender, Noah Bularz (#16), sprints passed a center back and slots the ball passed the keeper on the far post.
Mukwonago Goal – 54th Minute – Michael Schlecht (#2) applies pressure to an East center back, steals the ball in front of the net, finishes the shot in the right window of the net.
Mukwonago Goal – 59th Minute – Schlecht gets a quick restart, fires a shot from 35 yards out into the side netting.

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