TennZip

Daniel Strachan as a holding midfielder Colin Biros left outside forward Will Jackson in the middle up front...normal David Egbo spot David will be midfielder up front

This will be great exposure for Richie

Steve French and Oliver Slawson doing the radio broadcast ☺️ Steve French really does a good job on soccer coverage https://gozips.com/news/2019/10/1/mens-soccer-zips-open-october-mens-soccer-slate-hosting-vcu.aspx

Zips need to concentrate one game at a time.... but VCU certainly seems to be the most winnable game of the next 3. The opponent on October 5...FIU is 7-0-2. In their 2nd game of the year, FIU defeated James Madison 3-1 2 weeks after that game....James Madison upset #1 Wake Forest. after the game against FIU, the zips travel to play Butler. Butler defeated the Indiana Hoosiers 2-1 last week rooting for the team to get to 1-7-0.....then they can worry about the upcoming roadblocks https://fiusports.com/schedule.aspx?schedule=237

First off, I am glad to see some discussion on this board. with a night's sleep, the statement above...I even more strongly disagree with the statement above. Who on this team this year has been better at right back...than Abdi Mohammed? Bradley Chick is going to hopefully have a long outstanding zips career...if he does not become discouraged by the losing and lack of effort from some of his teammates. However, Bradley had almost no time to acclimate to his teammates and Bradley has been battling leg injuries almost all season. Certainly, you can not be saying that Carlo Ritaccio, as the right back in the Cornell game, was better than Abdi Mohammed. Carlo is a quality center back (although his pass distribution has not been stellar this year). As a right back, he is not currently a match for Abdi Mohammed. Take off your rose colored glasses. Can you truly say that the David Egbo that we have seen in 2019 is better than the David Egbo that we saw in late 2018. Sam Tojaga and Morgan Hackworth were both outstanding down the stretch in 2018. Sam was winning balls in the midfield in late 2018. Sam is not winning balls in the midfield in 2019. This team has talent and I have not given up on them. Last year's team , on paper, probably did not have the talent to beat Wake Forest and Stanford on their home field. However, they followed Jared's game plan and they played as a team and with great effort. This year's team has too much talent to be totally dominated at Pitt and way too much talent to lose to Marshall and to Cornell. Yes, they had one great possession goal at Marshall....but they lost focus and gave up 2 soft goals to an inferior team.

Which outside forward on this year's team are you saying....is stronger than Marcel Zajac? this team is badly missing Marcel Zajac. Will Jackson is going to be a very good player....but Marcel Zajac was truly outstanding in the tournament run. Zajac was my zips MVP in the MAC tourney and NCAA tourney. Also, do not underestimate the loss of Morgan Hackworth. Morgan might not have the athletic ability of some on this team but he was a coach's son. Morgan was very technically sound and he was the ultimate team player. Morgan made others on the field better. He rarely made sloppy giveaways in the midfield and he won a large portion of 50/50 balls. I certainly was not comparing any midfielder in skill level to any of the greats. To your point, Tojaga and Cruz are playing against less skilled players. I was saying that this current group of players could learn by watching tapes of Kitchen to see how he competed and how he won so many air and ground battles for free balls.

no commentary really needed for the corner kick. The zips look like a team not focused....and like a team that wanted the game to be over

YipaZip, Zip_ME87 has been the only Non-parent that has been to all 5 road games this year. Truth be told, there are probably akron-cleveland area parents that have not been to all 5 road games. This is not a criticism of the parents of the local players. Traveling to Omaha, Huntington, College Park, MD, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh is very expensive and time consuming. Zip_ME87's love and support for this team is undeniable. YipaZip, did you travel to Wake Forest for the round of 16 last year and did you travel to Louisville for the NCAA quarters in 2017? YipaZip, Fknuflobo, ZIP_ME87 and many other "regular fans have been following the zips for 10+ , 20+ , 30+ years. They are not band wagon fans. I am more disgusted by season ticket holders that only show up for NCAA tournament games. I distinctly remember myself being at a late October home game in 2016 when the zips lost 3-0 in 2016 to a bad West Virginia team. I was living in TN at the time and was only to make it to 3 home games that year(I did fly to LA that year to see zip games at SD State and UCLA). I would have got up and left that late October 2016 game in disgust if I had been to all 11 home games. Since I had not been to many games, I kept hoping that the team would get better during the game. That zip team in October 2016....made very little effort in that game. Yes, this team is talented. Yes, Jared, Ger and Michael Nanchoff are all great coaches. ZipaZip, are you going to criticize Jared for criticizing the players that were arguing on the field about passes that did not get made? YipaZip, are you going to criticize Jared for saying that all 11 players are not making a good effort for all 90 minutes? Bottom line, this team is not playing the kind of soccer that Akron soccer fans have seen over the last 65 years. All year long, we have seen one center back (on most pre-season all american teams) pass the ball almost exclusively to the other center back or to Sam Tojaga, the holding defensive midfielder. There have been many times when Bradley Chick or the right def. back has been begging for the ball. Akron soccer, especially in the Porter/Embick era, has been about spreading the field. Akron soccer is about giving your teammate a thumbs up when they have made a good pass...that did not lead to results. Akron soccer is about helping your young teammates with good suggestions, and not with whining criticism. I have not seen enough of the team support and leadership that I am used to seeing. David Egbo is one of the most brilliant, talented forwards in zips history. I will be kind and say that David sometimes get down and distracted when calls don't go the way that that he wants. Great goal scorers like Josef Martinez and Carlos Vela don't get down when things are not going well. This Akron team is not winning 50/50 balls in the midfield. Jared has said that many times in post game interviews or pre match interviews. Akron has been fortunate over the years to have tremendous ball winners in the holding midfield (Zemanski, Perry Kitchen, Victor Souto, Will Trapp). For this team to play true Akron soccer, Sam Tojaga and Henrique Cruz and Colin Biros must win more balls in the midfield. (perhaps , it is time to watch some game film of Perry Kitchen, the warrior from Indianapolis?) Jared has consistently said that this team is losing the 1 vs. 1 battles for the ball. That is a nice way of us saying that they are being outhustled. After the Pitt game, I posted that I hoped that the beatdown in that game....would be a gut check game for this team. I posted that I believed in the coaches and the talent on this team. In the last 2 games, the team has not focused for a full 90 minutes (Jared's words....not mine)....and they are arguing among themselves (Jared's words, not mine). I love Skye Harter....He is creative. He is hard working. I expected him to be a great captain this year. His off season surgery has prevented Skye from being the great on field leader that I expected him to be. I only want to see Skye back on the field when he is really close to being healthy. That being said, that puts a bigger burden on David Egbo as a captain to help the guys up front and for Carlo and Daniel Strachan as captains to help Bradley Chick, Tom Smart and the new guys in the midfield. I posted that after the Pitt game....that something had to change. Something has changed....as the last 2 games....did not show the effort and talent that the zips showed against Stanford. Soccer is a very hard game with no margin for error. The 2010 team was one of the most dominant teams that I have ever seen. However, they came so perilously close to losing to Cal on a bitterly cold, snowy day in the NCAA quarters. I was not a fan of the "unfinished business" signs and tweets from the athletic department early this year. That made it sound like the finalist team from last year.....could just step out on the field and get the results that they wanted. Colin Biros in the beacon article....said that the team probably thought that things would come easier to this group of talented guys. This team is in crisis. 0-7-0 is not good. Let's start the year afresh.....with a motto like "Soccer is hard, we are very good. and we will work harder than anyone else to get the results that we want". The coaches can't do it by themselves....David Egbo can't do it by himself, Carlo can't do it by himself........Zip soccer.......11 guys.....rooting and pulling for each other ....and working together to improve.......is the answer.

change at goal keeper Pol Hernandez and Johnny Fitzgerald get the start

https://www.ohio.com/sports/20190927/university-of-akron-soccer-zips-hoping-for-fresh-start-at-home-after-0-6-start

number 4 in this series

Marla Ridenour article Skye Harter is very important to the success of this team. I am glad that this article informs fans of the physical injuries that Skye has been dealing with. https://www.ohio.com/sports/20190926/marla-ridenour-ua-mens-soccers-0-6-start-puts-master-psychologist-jared-embick-to-his-sternest-test

2nd half starters 45:00 2nd For AKR: #1 SAUNDERS, Tor, #11 JACKSON, Will, #15 FITZGERALD, Johnny, #6 TOJAGA, Sam, #3 RITACCIO, Carlo, #27 WATTERS, Declan, #23 AUSTMANN, Mani, #4 MILANESE, Marco, #25 STRACHAN, Daniel, #16 CRUZ, Henrique, #8 BIROS, Colin.

Declan Watters and Daniel Strachan are the 2 center backs Carlo and Marco as the 2 outside backs Mani in the middle....in place of Egbo Pacheco still battling an injury...so Jaden Wright gets the start on the right side Skye also not in lineup

Looks like it will be $6.95 to watch the game rather than just following live stats, it looks like you might be able to listen to the game via your computer he Thundering Herd enters the match with a 4-1-1 record and the Zips come in at 0-5. Match Details Live Stats: SIDEARM Live Video: HERDVISION/CUSAtv with Jake Griffith on the call Marshall Radio: 88.1 WMUL-FM and online www.marshall.edu/wmul Series History: 11th all-time meeting – Akron leads 7-1-2 Last Meeting: Nov. 1, 2017 in Akron – No. 5 Akron won 2-0

very good comments from Coach Embick... https://gozips.com/news/2019/9/20/mens-soccer-zips-set-to-battle-marshall.aspx sounds like there will be a fee to watch game from article showdown versus Marshall on Saturday, Sept. 21. The 7 p.m. match will be streamed on Herd Vision (per game fee associated to view) with a link on GoZips.com.

https://herdzone.com/news/2019/9/20/mens-soccer-back-on-the-pitch-as-akron-comes-to-huntington.aspx This Marshall team is much better than their teams in prior years. Marshall has already defeated Butler and S. Carolina. Akron's performance against Pitt was its worst game of the season....by far. The 1-0 score was very misleading. The final could have easily been Pitt 4-0 or Pitt 5-0. Almost, every Akron soccer team seems to suffer a gut punch during the season. In 2015, the zips went to Old Dominion and ODU used the long vertical pass to make Brad and Danilo and the zips backline look slow. The team met as a group after that mauling and came back the next weekend and won at Georgetown and Maryland. That team got stronger during the year and was one penalty kick off the crossbar away from beating the eventual NCAA champ in the college cup semis. Last year's gut punch came during a brutal loss at Northern Illinois. Bad luck plagued the team after that game with games cancelled with Notre Dame and Western Michigan. However, the team found a way to regroup and make a magical run to the NCAA final. The Pitt game was brutal. The zips dropped to 0-5. They were outshot 18-6. Pitt led in corner kicks 11-3. Many people want to blame Tor for all of the problems. Tor had some outstanding saves at Pitt to keep the game from ending up 4-0. The 0-5 record can not be blamed on one player. This team has so much offensive firepower and yet, they have scored 2 goals in 5 games. The Pitt game will hopefully be this team's gut punch and they will get off the mat..... They need to play Akron soccer....work as one unit....the captains need to lead and provide direction. They need to spread the field and move the ball with Akron precision. The talent is there. 7 of the guys started in the magical NCAA run. The newcomers have tremendous talent. However, it is always tough to transition to new teammates. David, Skye, Daniel, and Carlo....and other experienced players need to help Bradley, Will, Federico, Mani and Henrique when the new guys have a need to learn. The coaches were super excited before the season about this team's talent and tremendous depth. The future can be very bright for this team. It will take 110% from every player that steps on the field. Akron has had some great stories in its proud 65 year history. Will 2019 be remembered as a non-NCAA year or will it be remembered as the year that the team recovered from an 0-5 year to win the MAC and have a memorable run in the NCAA's. The talent is there. I believe that this team can and will get off the mat after the Pitt "gut punch".

Will Jackson featured in the 3rd installment

Tor did have one very bad decision....but he had some super outstanding saves. Pitt was very impressive.....Announcers said that Pitt was up 2-0 on Indiana....before losing 3-2 in double overtime without Strachan's kick save, the screamer off the top of the goal and Tor's excellent work, this could have been a 5-0 final Jared tried everything......Jaden Wright really was active and had great effort. He is very promising. Johnny Fitzgerald brought a great deal of energy at the end of the game