No. 16--Wigan vs. Manchester City English Soccer: Mistakes Made During the Match

by Soccer Coach Albert M. Luongo

English Soccer: Wigan vs. Manchester City" on Dec. 1, 2007 ended in draw 1 to 1. Here are some highlights of the game. A goal was scored by Manchester City’s Geovanni Gomez in about 30 seconds into play. The Wigan equalizer came 25 minutes later when the relatively slow ball was crossed to the head of Paul Scharner across the goalmouth. Unguarded, he made a diving spear-like movement towards the ball and headed it into the back of the net. Wigan's Koumas had another chance later, but missed the shot by a high kicked ball that went several yards over the goal. He was unimpeded just outside of the penalty area, so he had time to collect his movements. Later still, there was a perfect cross in front of the net, but no Wigan player followed up with the attack. There were no defenders present at this occasion, so Wigan missed another opportunity. Manchester City is known for its good defense, but they obviously made some mistakes during this game. Had they not been lucky, the final score could have been 2 or 3 to 1 against them.

The first half of the game was a decent one to watch, but in my opinion, not up to be at the highest level of play. Then, at about an hour into the game, the play often broke down into a kickball match as well as becoming physical. The kickball aspect was quite surprising for teams of this caliber. It appeared that each team was trying too hard to score another goal to break the tie; but, it was not surprising with this type of play that neither team was able to score again. The play at this stage of the game frequently became very aggressive with long kicks up field, poor passing and, with violent tripping and shoving.

At 74 minutes into the game, Wigan's Paul Schartner should have been given the red card for his violent tackle, but this as well as other serious tackles and handballs were overlooked. Finally at about 88 minutes into the game, Wigan's Mario Melchiot was given the red card for his violent tackle.

Here are my opinions as to what went wrong:

1. At about ten or fifteen minutes into the second half, both teams seemed to become over anxious for a goal and tried to force the ball into the net. This type of haphazard play often prevailed instead of concentrating on playing a passing game

2. As time progressed, the roughness of play elevated; yet, the referee was not firm enough and should have handed out more yellow and red cards earlier

3. The defenses at times did not assure that each opposing attacking player was covered

4. There were several shots off the mark. In particular, shots traveled too high over the goal. These should have been lower if these same players had purposely practiced (in training) getting over the ball before the kick

5. Strikers needed to follow-up alongside their dribbling players heading towards the goal. More than a few chances of scoring were missed because of this. The reasons most likely being that players had been having less than optimum physical conditioning or the coaches had not previously demanded that all attacking players must participate in attacks or both.

All of the above information is the author's opinion. This article in no way is meant to degrade, discredit or defame any team or person. Its sole purpose is to improve the skills of young soccer players, coaches and the game itself.