USC seeks first victory of the season

For the first time in the history of the program, the USC women’s soccer team was swept off McAlister Field last week. A 2-1 loss to Long Beach State on opening day was followed with a 3-1 defeat at the hands of San Diego.

Leadership · After its first losing weekend at McAlister Field in program history, senior midfielder Ashli Sandoval will look to get the Women of Troy back on track against Kansas and Pacific this weekend. - Mac Carlile | Daily Trojan

As a result, USC coach Ali Khosroshahin has drastically simplified the team’s approach, as the Women of Troy (0-2) prepare to face Kansas (1-1) and Pacific (1-1) in this weekend’s San Diego tournament at Torero Stadium.

“The simple ball is the best ball and the most effective ball,” sophomore midfielder Haley Boysen said. “That’s been the theme of the week.”

Last weekend the Women of Troy considerably outplayed Long Beach State on Friday before conceding a goal in the 86th that broke the deadlock at 1-1. On Sunday, however, they were completely outplayed by San Diego, who coasted to a comfortable 3-1 victory over the Women of Troy.

“That’s the nature of our game,” Khosroshahin said. “You can dominate a game and lose. We made a few critical mistakes and we got punished for them.”

The most visible mistakes — those which led to opposing goals — were made on the defensive backline. The group is inexperienced to say the least, featuring just one returning starter in senior defender Claire Schloemer. The rest of the defense consists of junior Kristina Noriega, who is in her first season with the squad after transferring from UC Riverside. And senior Ashli Sandoval and sophomore Autumn Altamirano are making the transition from midfield to defense.

“It’s a pretty big swing,” Altamirano said. “You have to switch from offense to defense so quick in games. It’s hard.”

As a group, the backline is focusing on working together to avoid those most visible and costly errors.

“We need better awareness defensively,” Khosroshahin said. “I thought we got caught in transition too much. We need better awareness and structure.”

Khosroshahin also talked about less visible mistakes — those which occur up front and negate potential Trojan goal-scoring opportunities.

“We’ve been working a lot on being patient up there,” Khosroshahin said. “Last weekend we tried to act too quickly. If there was no avenue we forced one. We need to hold on to the ball and wait for help to come, and then find a different approach to the goal.”

The focus on patience and simplicity is exemplary of the “Spanish” style of play Khosroshahin is trying to instill.

Notice the new “Trojan Fútbol” patch looks nearly identical to that of the legendary Spanish club FC Barcelona — infamous or rather famous for possessing and passing their opponents to death.

“It’s all about possession,” Khosroshahin said. “That’s what the game is all about. That’s what we’re focusing on.”

Boysen says, with this approach, the team can focus more on itself.

“We can control what we do a lot more than we can control what they do,” Boysen said. “It’s good to focus on us and not have to worry about them.”

As a result, Khosroshahin hasn’t given the Women of Troy any information about either Kansas or Pacific.

“It’s been all about us [this week],” Altamirano said. “We haven’t heard anything about the other teams. We usually get little things like their style and their formation. But we’ve gotten nothing. Nothing about either team.”

The Women of Troy will find out about those other teams — and themselves — when they take on the Jayhawks this Friday at 5 p.m. and Pacific on Sunday at 2 p.m. in San Diego.