SLU Men's Soccer Thread

[Pistol]

1-0 Butler after a nice header from Big East preseason offensive POY Palmer Ault. Set up by really nice, long cross from Jan Quispel.

[wgstl]

1 minute ago, Pistol said:

1-0 Butler after a nice header from Big East preseason offensive POY Palmer Ault. Set up by really nice, long cross from Jan Quispel.

Is butler supposed to be good? 

[Pistol]

1 minute ago, wgstl said:

Is butler supposed to be good? 

Yes. Big East soccer is a little odd, as it split into two divisions and added Akron as an affiliate member. Butler is picked to finish second to Creighton in the Midwest Division, ahead of Akron, Xavier, Marquette, and DePaul. Georgetown is the consensus favorite in the East Division.

Butler isn't ranked but Creighton is #8 and Georgetown is #17. This is the first regular season game for both teams so they might get some votes if they win at SLU.

Palmer Ault is very dangerous, based on what I'm seeing tonight.

[TheA_Bomb]

I'm watching they mentioned VB will be on ESPN+ tomorrow 

[Pistol]

3 minutes ago, TheA_Bomb said:

I'm watching they mentioned VB will be on ESPN+ tomorrow 

Yeah, looks like just the evening game vs. Alabama. There's a Friday morning game vs. Mercer and a Saturday morning game vs. MVSU, neither of which will be on ESPN+.

[wgstl]

That flick was nasty, was that accidental!?

[crymdg2]

GREAT fn pass! 1-1

[Pistol]

7 minutes ago, wgstl said:

That flick was nasty, was that accidental!?

 

7 minutes ago, crymdg2 said:

GREAT fn pass! 1-1

Deliberate from my perspective.

Really nice play. Great pass, clever touch, strong finish.

[TheA_Bomb]

Big time set piece goal. 

 

2-1 SLU!

[TheA_Bomb]

Coppola with both goals.  He had a couple bone headed passes in the mid-field that gave up the ball but he's been clinical in front of goal.

[Lord Elrond]

That was a great way to pull out the win, Butler sure was drawing yellow cards late in the game.

[Gremio14]

10 hours ago, Pistol said:

 

Deliberate from my perspective.

Really nice play. Great pass, clever touch, strong finish.

I don’t know who Kalish uses to scout for his keepers, but the guy deserves a raise.  Schulte, German last year and the French keep this year.  All fabulous.  Several world class saves last night.

And that Leatherman kid….did not make a bad pass all game.

Finally, and this is the one massive downer…we won’t get to see Moore play this year..sucks.

[SLUBALLS]

Caught from 15 minutes in right after Butler goal to very end.  Couple quick observations:

• Boy Butler had our number in the first half.  They were pinging the ball as if they were Man City. SLU looked lethargic...poor first touches, turnovers, just bad soccer by SLU.  S Anderson in particular was off.  He did get played in by Redmon and had  good look that just went by the post.
• Our goalie came up HUGE with premier level saves....think Burki type saves where you thought the odds were we were going to get scored on.
• Forward line and advance middies were not linking in second half.  They had a couple moves forward, numbers up, and the lack of releasing a pass early enough led to offside calls that killed the opportunity.
• Coppola had a glorious chance and when he rounded the goalie he took such a heavy first touch that he lost the angle to slot into an open goal.  BUT....the kid came up huge with two goals so props to him.
• Leatherman has some serious hops and my god is he fearless going up for challenging the ball; I thought he was going to get whacked hard in the head a couple times. Like to see him as a Isaiah Parker type threat on the wing this year.

[Bay Area Billiken]

The SLU Goalie, Jeremi Abonnel, literally saved the game with 2 incredible saves on point blank Butler chances, gave SLU the chance for its fruitful rally.  Forward CJ Coppola scored both SLU Goals. 

It was great to see that SLU Sweep of the Big East, the SLU Women routing Creighton 4-1, the SLU Men rallying to beat Butler 2-1.

Butler was assessed 3 Yellow Cards in the last 2:44 of the game.

[courtside]

3 hours ago, SLUBALLS said:

Caught from 15 minutes in right after Butler goal to very end.  Couple quick observations:

• Boy Butler had our number in the first half.  They were pinging the ball as if they were Man City. SLU looked lethargic...poor first touches, turnovers, just bad soccer by SLU.  S Anderson in particular was off.  He did get played in by Redmon and had  good look that just went by the post.
• Our goalie came up HUGE with premier level saves....think Burki type saves where you thought the odds were we were going to get scored on.
• Forward line and advance middies were not linking in second half.  They had a couple moves forward, numbers up, and the lack of releasing a pass early enough led to offside calls that killed the opportunity.
• Coppola had a glorious chance and when he rounded the goalie he took such a heavy first touch that he lost the angle to slot into an open goal.  BUT....the kid came up huge with two goals so props to him.
• Leatherman has some serious hops and my god is he fearless going up for challenging the ball; I thought he was going to get whacked hard in the head a couple times. Like to see him as a Isaiah Parker type threat on the wing this year.

I'll get to more about the games when I get a chance this weekend.

Regarding Carlos:

Leatherman and Parker have opposite backgounds. Isaiah was an attacking player out of FC United, who played a similar role at SLU He has been converting to outside back at the professional level.

Carlos is a defender first. His background and play has been as an outside back and as a holding midfielder. He has been playing some wing at SLU as SLU has had a need there. Some of his most effective moments in the game last night were when SLU moved him to center midfield from the wing.

[Midtown Madness]

 

[Lord Elrond]

Turns out SIUE took down Butler 3-1 last night, so judging by common opponents, the Bronze Boot game could be very competitive. I hope we get a large turnout at CityPark for the games against SIUE.

[wgstl]

12 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Turns out SIUE took down Butler 3-1 last night, so judging by common opponents, the Bronze Boot game could be very competitive. I hope we get a large turnout at CityPark for the games against SIUE.

Looking like Saturday will be my first ever SLU soccer match. 

[courtside]

On 8/25/2023 at 12:54 PM, courtside said:

I'll get to more about the games when I get a chance this weekend.

Regarding Carlos:

Leatherman and Parker have opposite backgounds. Isaiah was an attacking player out of FC United, who played a similar role at SLU He has been converting to outside back at the professional level.

Carlos is a defender first. His background and play has been as an outside back and as a holding midfielder. He has been playing some wing at SLU as SLU has had a need there. Some of his most effective moments in the game last night were when SLU moved him to center midfield from the wing.

Trying to catch up here.

4-4-2 for SLU 

3-5-2 for Butler

Butler is a solid top 40 RPI team. 

The game changed a bit in about the 63rd minute when Flynn subbed in for Johnson. Flynn played the wing, and Leatherman moved to the middle. SLU moved to more of a diamond shape, with Carlos at the top of the diamond. Even when SLU subbed Johnson back in for Buendia, it kept the same formation. Later Carlos moved back to wing (he did have some nice distribution and combos there too) a bit when Johnson and Buendia played together. But he was more of an inverted wing. 

Both Flynn and Leatherman are outside backs who can get forward. SLU has more of a need at wing. And Carlos also happens to have a lot of experience at center midfield.

This gave SLU two big targets up top in Coppola and Wrobel. It gave them pace with Anderson, Flynn, Leatherman, who all can defend. It was some of SLU’s best moments of the game especially with high pressure. 

SLU is less likely to change its back line as Redmon looks good, and it took a while for Max to move around to a comfortable position. 

Lack of player availability factors in as well. Not having Moore’s pace to get behind the defense up top. No Townsend who can play several positions, including holding mid and wing, and a few others, Dougherty, etc. Opportunities for Karson and Tanner etc…

Early wins when personnel, formations, etc are still being worked out will be big later in the season. It’s why you have a 2nd 11. 

 

 

 

 

[SLUBALLS]

Quick early season reference point for SLU given they played ND in an exhibition. Indy and ND played this past weekend.

 

[brianstl]

26 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

Turns out SIUE took down Butler 3-1 last night, so judging by common opponents, the Bronze Boot game could be very competitive. I hope we get a large turnout at CityPark for the games against SIUE.

Lipscomb lost at home to FAU, but I think they will still be a top 40 team.  SIUE is a top 40 team.  Mo State won @ #15 Maryland.  SMU is a Top 20 team.  ORU is a top 50 team.  The schedule is shaping up to be tougher than I thought it would be before the season started.

[MusicCityBilliken]

Looks like nice weather for this evening game against Lipscomb here in Nashville. Sunny and in the high 70s. I was worried because the weather here has been brutally hot with deluge thunderstorms in the late afternoon.

Plan on making it up to the game. Been awhile since I seen the Bills play soccer. I seen them play at Charlotte many times and in a tourney at Furman but those were years ago.  

[courtside]

49 minutes ago, MusicCityBilliken said:

Looks like nice weather for this evening game against Lipscomb here in Nashville. Sunny and in the high 70s. I was worried because the weather here has been brutally hot with deluge thunderstorms in the late afternoon.

Plan on making it up to the game. Been awhile since I seen the Bills play soccer. I seen them play at Charlotte many times and in a tourney at Furman but those were years ago.  

The heat is often easier to play in than the cold. Much of the time the Mid-South weather there is roughly similar to St. Louis without a lot of difference.

Lipscomb has been playing a 4-2-1-3, pressuring the front 3, generating opportunities in transition. Have been having some challenges defending diagonal balls at outside back and defending inside the 18. Mix of International, CA, KY/TN players.

As for local soccer, Vandy no longer has a Men’s team, but SLU Women’s Soccer plays occasional home and home games with them. VU has a free game at Geodis Park next weekend. (Many Power 5 programs don’t charge admission for their home games). It’s a league SLU recruits against heavily. SLU has 7 Nashville recruiting targets this cycle. 2 are SLU possibilities. 1 took an official visit to SLU recently and is close to a commitment. 

Belmont has 2 former SLU Men’s Soccer players on its Men’s team. 

[courtside]

Top Drawer Soccer and College Soccer News have SLU at 20th nationally this week.

CJ Coppola is honorable mention Top Drawer Soccer national team of the week. 

[courtside]

SLU Men’s Soccer is 20/20/14 in the polls this week.