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2021 Wake Forest Soccer Thread

2-0 win vs. Furman, both goals in 2nd half per WFU site.
 
Omar Hernandez and Chase Oliver with the goals. Deacs used completely different lineups in each half. Deacs play the 2nd and last exhibition game on Saturday against Coastal Carolina; WF played Coastal in the NCAA tourney last year.
 
The WF women's team play their first game (not an exhibition) against the Illinois-Chicago tonight. The Lady Deacs played two exhibition games tying Clemson and losing to S. Carolina. Not sure if there was mass attrition or if there is some other explanation, but the women have an incredible 22 freshman on their roster of 33.
 
The WF women's team play their first game (not an exhibition) against the Illinois-Chicago tonight. The Lady Deacs played two exhibition games tying Clemson and losing to S. Carolina. Not sure if there was mass attrition or if there is some other explanation, but the women have an incredible 22 freshman on their roster of 33.

Last year's freshman class all are counted in that number (courtesy of the free year from the NCAA for COVID).
 
Even so, to have 2/3s of the roster to be freshmen and sophomores out of five eligible classes is a lot.
 
The #7 ranked men open the season tonight at home against VCU. The game is available on ESPN+.

The 2-0 ladies also play VCU tonight, but on the road. ESPN+ has that game available as well.
 
Early thoughts, with the caveat that the men have only played exhibition games thus far (and Bobby doesn't take them as seriously as some)...

Men

- Dominated Coastal for most of the game, but lost 2-0 off of goals via a long throw and a defensive miscommunication resulting in a Coastal player splitting our CBs. Poor/unlucky finishing, and a little out of sync with the final ball.

- Nico started at RB before moving to CB later in the first half. Wake had a lot of success early on with him and Hosei overlapping (and with Holland and Jahlane overlapping on the left) before going away from it a bit.

- The freshmen looked solid on the whole in mixed minutes. Babacar Niang started in CM and looked very, very good. Roald Mitchell didn't play too much but looked solid in his minutes, with one stellar run in particular. Nico Mancilla played a stretch at LB and played pretty well in terms of defensive positioning and also bombing forward. Trace Alphin played the last 30 minutes, and while he let in the second goal he also made a great 1v1 stop on the initial shot. I'm sure I'm missing a few and I apologize to them. All told, plenty of reasons to be excited.

- Regulars from previous years that didn't play for whatever reason: Jake Swallen, Aristotle Zarris, Cristian Escribano.

- The first 20 or so minutes (prior to substitutions) was one of the best stretches I've seen from a Wake team. If that's the ceiling, then there's no reason to think we won't be contenders come tourney time once again.

Women

- Good start with unlucky finishing against UIC (whose keeper played wonderfully), and then a true demolition job against High Point: 3-0, plus two goals ruled out for offside (one seemingly incorrectly), a hit post, and a missed penalty.

- As noted above, LOTS of freshmen. We technically started 8 against HPU, with Ryanne Brown and Sofia Rossi as the only pre-COVID Deacs. (Note that Gi Demarco has not played for unspecified reasons, nor has Hulda Arnarsdottir, who is recently back in the country after opting out of the COVID season.)

- Looks like we have a fair bit of quality CM depth, which is nice. Freshmen Malaika Meena (England) and Nikayla Small (Canada) are both very talented on the ball and have already seemingly developed a strong rapport, and Sophie Faircloth (one of the stronger performers during the COVID year) has been moved from outside back to holding mid. We played some very pretty passing patterns in both games.

- The real question for any Tony da Luz team is how aggressive they are willing to play against good teams. The exhibition games against #7 Clemson and #17 South Carolina *seemingly* augur well for that, but let's call that a big TBD. (I've been fooled by strong early season starts before, let's say.) Early returns seem to indicate that he's okay pushing the outside backs pretty high up into the attack this year, which is encouraging.
 
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Zarris is no longer on the roster. Hate it for him if it was solely due to injuries.
 
Great post, Quzy.

I think the one “freshman” maybe not mentioned was Tariq who I expect to get some minutes.

I do think we see Tubbs back at center half/CB whatever we are calling it.

I’m sure we will all have some comments tonight, BUT, give Chris his clicks. He gives great analysis and the more clicks the more likely it continues. LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOO!

https://www.bloggersodear.com/2021/8/25/22640725/wake-forest-mens-soccer-2021-season-preview
 
Less great.

That was dire. Looked little like the team that played much better against Coastal. Also we may have MAJOR injury concerns if the number of players not playing is any indication. By my count:

- Hosei missed the entire game
- Holland didn't play the second half
- Takuma came out for part of the second half and didn't return (possibly tactical)
- Omar seemingly cramped up in the second half and didn't return
- Jahlane took a couple hard shots and was slow to get up but played through
- Babacar went down a few times and had to come off in the second half but did return

Garrison was also subbed out, but that was more because he was having a rough game.

All in all, it was a mess, and I can't imagine training will be easy the next few days. We really need some offensive creativity against deep-lying defenses.
 
I will say, the best moment of the game was the goal VCU did not score, which truly had to be seen to be believed. About burst out laughing at how ridiculous it was.
 
Accurate that Wake was up a man the last 20 mins? (Men)

Yes. VCU sat back with all of their players in or around the box for the last 20 minutes and we really looked bereft of ideas to break down the defense.
 
Goal was great, but generally has only been good. We should be overwhelming them, but it is nice to see Bobby mix in some younger guys to see who wants to mix it up.
 
I haven't been watching with a close eye, but haven't seen Bucknell close to threatening

Muuss' 55-0-1 record when up at half is just bananas
 
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