Last year, Texas soccer won the Big 12 conference and advanced to the NCAA tournament, only to be knocked out in the Sweet Sixteen to eventual champions Florida State. As the Longhorns look towards redeeming themselves, the team is fresh off a Southeastern Conference championship with a new playstyle and is primed to make another run at the title.
“We have a motto that’s player-made, and it’s G.U.S.,” head coach Angela Kelly said. “It serves as grit, unity, selflessness. This is what they have kept as their motto for the past three seasons now.”
Kelly credits the motto with helping the team adjust to the injuries the team sustained early in the season, with senior defender EmJ Cox and senior forward Trinity Byars suffering season-ending injuries.
Beforehand, the team was built off of being a chance-creating team, with Kelly using the words “prolific goal-scoring” and “creative dynamic” to describe their play style.
Deploying a team with a backline of four defenders and one defensive midfielder allowed the team to attack with four attacking midfielders and a striker. This created mismatches for the opposing defense with an overload in the attack, especially with graduate defenders Madison Haugen and Lauren Lapomarda contributing forward. The Longhorns continued this playstyle in the preseason and went into conference play outsourcing their opponents 22-4.
However, Kelly made a tactical switch after starting conference play with only two wins in their opening five SEC matches.
In their first matchup versus then-No. 5 Arkansas, Kelly instead positioned senior midfielder Ashlyn Miller as a second defensive midfielder next to sophomore midfielder Arianna Brothers. This tactical switch creates a more defensive force, defending with one more person. With a more defensive playstyle, Kelly’s team started to soak in the pressure from opposing attacks for the rest of the season.
The advantages they gained were the counter-attacking opportunities. Allowing teams to commit players to break a compact defense opened the space behind them, and once the Longhorns repossessed the ball, they would immediately try to advance forward in hopes of catching teams off guard.
“We got a couple of opportunities and counters, but we mostly stayed compact and tried to play for those counters,” Kelly said. “(In the) second half, we released the hounds, and they were able to shoot forward a little more … It went exactly as planned for our coaching staff, and the players executed the plan.”
When reflecting on the identity change in the tactics, Kelly thinks back to the G.U.S. mentality her players have.
“Things could have gone sideways, and we needed to find a new identity,” Kelly said. “Grit and grind would be tertiary words for our team. We had to make grit and grind the top (priority), and our players bought into that.”
The Longhorns will return to the field to start their national title campaign on Friday at 6 p.m. at Mike A. Myers Stadium to take on the Boston University Terriers.
