Soccer Strategy Part 3 - Extra Thoughts On Strategy

Extra Thoughts - On Strategy:

To really promote women’s professional soccer as a distinctive American sport and to draw a large audience the league has to realize that women’s soccer is not men’s soccer with bras. Women’s soccer is a slower game with less power. Rather than trying to compete with men’s soccer by selling the game with the same attributes, the women’s game needs to be marketed as its own distinctive sport.

I’m watching the Winter Olympics and I’m looking forward to watching hockey. I may not know hockey incredibly well, but I know that men’s hockey is incredibly physical, fast and power. So what I enjoyed about the women’s hockey today (USA v. China, a rout at 12-1) was the amount of passing, set-up and strategy they used.

Team USA had a cool control of the game, using combinations and strategy rather than just power and a quick shot (though they did have a few of those). They had constant puck control, constant pressure and some fantastic plays. One sequence began when Player 1 had a wild shot opportunity, but passed to Player 2 who quickly passed it back and gave Player 1 a beautiful assist for a goal. The game became captivating because I wanted to see what other combinations they used. More often than not I was surprised as they instantly changed direction or dropped the puck to a teammate in a clearly rehearsed way. But because I could see they were using strategy, I wanted to crack it and understand it.

It was a beautiful example of teamwork.

My father was watching with me and told me a story about when he was back in college. One of his best friends was working with the Virginia Slims Women’s Tennis Tour, which did a great job of sponsoring and promoting women’s tennis as a distinctive sport.

Today, women’s tennis is one of the most successful and recognized women’s sports in the whole world. I believe that success is largely due to its promotion as a different sport than the men’s game.

Men’s tennis is about the power of the serve—ace, ace, fault, ace, fault. The power and the shock is a large part of the appeal. 

Women’s tennis is a baseline volley game with a huge element of strategy where each player has to set up the other player to make a mistake.  The appeal here is in the long returns and the mental game, the out-maneuvering.

The recent Nadal-Federer matches have been stunningly exciting because they are both so capable that they can return the others serve. They make the men’s game look more like the women’s game of volley and strategy, plus power.

The WPS needs to embrace the distinctive nature of the sport, not promote it as a women’s version of the men’s game. I’m not saying that the league / franchises actively market the game as a “women’s side to the men’s team.” The league is actually rather unique in the American women’s sport market in that it is not currently, nor has it ever been, a sister-program to the men’s league like the WNBA or the LPGA.

My point is more in the fundamental assumption made in the way the sport/league is promoted.

Men’s soccer is about speed, power, and the long ball. It is played in a more compact environment because of those elements. Women’s soccer is more about passing, finesse. There is more room on the field for set-ups and strategy.

What I love about the UNC program is that they are knee-deep in the strategy side of the game. They get it.

Sub point: of course of college game is different from the pro game. The point I’m trying to make is that UNC actively uses strategy and in a bit of a blatant way. You know Anson Dorrance is strategizing and making his players do the same.

It’s not his strategy that I’m saying the pros need to copy; it’s the clear existence of strategy that needs to be brought into the WPS.

Give me plays, give me set-ups, and let the fans know they exist so they know to look for them.

This is a large part of what I was trying to do with On the Ball from the start. I want to educate the fans on the subtleties of the sport and what is distinctive about women’s soccer.

Americans have been inundated with Baseball, Football, and Basketball trivia in an endless commentary that educated even a non-fan on the inside game that was being played. And the fans know when to do a sacrifice, when to bunt, when to make a strategic move in the game, they know what a zone-blitz and a cover-two defense are.

Most of the soccer fan base played soccer as kids, but they’ve outgrown the game and need to be re-educated on the subtleties of it. The WPS needs their fans to recognize the existence of strategy and have the interest and ability speculate on the particulars being employed by their team in this game.

Engagement with the game requires the fan/spectator to be active. So (to feed into my last post a bit) a team needs to give the fan things they can be doing during the game.

Julie’s Rule #3 = Potential fans are not disinterested, just uneducated on the intricacies of the women’s game.

If the WPS were to embrace a strategic, play-making approach and then publicize it, it would give the fans more to connect with.