Sports

Brew: Aston Villa has a tough time with Chelsea players’ names

/ Angie Baldelomar / Leave a comment

Prior to the game between Aston Villa and Chelsea, the home team Aston Villa misspelled the names of two Chelsea players. In the line-up sheet, they misspelled Radamel Falcao’s last name. And, although they did spell Falcao right in the game day program, they then misspelled Pedro.

Read full story here.

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Set pieces cost Kansas soccer against Texas

/ Angie Baldelomar / Leave a comment

by Angie Baldelomar

On a chilly Friday night, the Jayhawks faced Texas in their first Big 12 Conference game of the season. Even though the team posted a strong overall performance, the Jayhawks lost the match 2-1, and there was no question as to why.

Simply put: two set pieces decided the entire game.

In a span of five minuter, Texas settled the match with a free kick and a corner kick between minutes 72 and 77 of the game. Kansas added a late goal, but it simply wasn’t enough.

“It’s disappointing. I think we were by far the better team, and created the better chances,” said head coach Mark Francis after the end of the match. “We knew we were going to go on set pieces.”

And that they did.

The errors the team showed defensively during those two set pieces were crucial for determining the final outcome. On the first Texas goal, even though the Jayhawks outnumbered the Texas players, they lost their marks and left players alone at the right post, which, after a series of rebounds, is where the goal ultimately came from.

On the second Texas goal, which originated from a corner kick, the errors were even more serious. The Jayhawks lost their mark on Lindsey Meyer, who jumped out unmarked and headed the ball home.

Those moments of mismatch were enough to turn the game in favor of Texas, costing Kansas a chance at winning its first conference game, but this has been a recurring problem.

Set pieces have been, in fact, one of the major struggles of the team. During the game against Arkansas, the team fell behind due to a free kick goal – although Kansas did overcome the result.

Francis said he is aware of this situation, and it’s something the team is going to work on.

“We keep giving up goal on set pieces, so we have to address that,” he said. “We have to be more physical. We are too nice sometimes in the box defending the set pieces.”

Regardless of what the reason for the loss of focus during set pieces is, the Jayhawks need to learn from their mistakes, and they need to figure it all out in a hurry. They’ll look for a quick recovery this Sunday against Iowa State.

See story published at kansan.com (Oct. 3, 2015)