Comments on: Man Utd’s Pick and Roll Play

By: Auslander

Auslander — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 11:14:24 +0000

That wasn't a pick and roll. It was just a pick. If it was a pick and roll it would have required the man setting the pick (Vidic) to get the ball.

By: Alex Z

Alex Z — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:39:55 +0000

Basketball is my favorite sport (even more than soccer), so this is an interesting development.

My question is: what's wrong with the pick and roll in soccer? If executed properly and legally (it clearly wasn't in this case, mainly because Vidic held the defender, whom I think was Ballack in this case) it is a genius play: it creates massive separation without incurring an offside penalty. If the second player sets the screen properly (as they would in basketball: by standing in one spot with their hands folded), then there is nothing illegal about the move, and it is a perfectly legitimate way to score a goal.

By: Phil McThomas

Phil McThomas — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:23:19 +0000

That United got away with this was all the more suprising given the couple of occasions that Ronaldo knocked the ball past a defender and immediately ran into him. It seemed that the defender hardly moved at all, and than it was Ronaldo who initiated the contact.

To draw another analogy to basketball, it was like the defender "taking the charge" and picking up a foul. But in football, the decision always seems to go in the attacker's favor.

So in one situation (the free-kick, above), the attacker steps in front of the defender and doesn't get penalized. In another situation (Ronaldo), the attacker runs into a static defender and picks up a foul.

What's a poor defender to do?

By: taus

taus — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:37:56 +0000

oh as for di santo marking berba
its common knowledge by now. Scholari likes Zonal marking..which noone can pull off except liverpool.. he;s supposedly changing it.

By: taus

taus — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 18:35:54 +0000

chill…this isnt pointing fingers and saying united DID wrong. its a common play in EPL among smaller teams…heard of Bolton?..they do it against less physical teams..a lot of times. as for the terry carvalho underhanded things, everyone does it, esp the two special cbs of united themselves. while its a skill to do it subtlely, which vidic masters, ferdinand fails horribly since he cant even hold his drink, let alone his temper on field
its just that it was such a huge stage, and it was so clearly pre concieved..as someone above pointed out.
and i think the trick to spotting this is if the offense player is NOT looking at the ball..usually if anyone does not look at the ball, its the defense player. of course, its used so rarely, noone notices.
PS: The corner trick which was disallowed was rooney's fault. the main idea of the trick is to let the referee know that you've taken the corner, once you touch the D and roll out the ball. its rarely used trick, but check every video of the time the corner trick has worked, the first takers tells the ref.