English Soccer: Stoke City Impressive in Upset Road Win

I was watching a Barclay's English Premier League soccer match on TV this morning after getting home from work.  Normally, one would think that sporting events don't have much of a place in a time of the day when people are eating breakfast or traveling to work or school, but you have to consider that in England (and Europe), our mornings are their afternoons.  So on the weekends, NBC Sports broadcasts live league play at this time of day, although this morning's match was a rebroadcast from August 30.  The teams were Manchester City, last year's league champion, and Stoke City, which finished the previous season buried in the standings along with most of the field.  I expected this contest, which was a home game for Manchester City, to go their way by a couple of goals, at the very least.  Instead, I was treated to a clinic of excellent soccer defense...and a goal that reminded me of how I used to score in soccer as a kid...

It can be pretty intimidating when observing how English professional soccer is played in such a continuously agressive manner, in contrast to what I often see in Major League Soccer in the United States.  There seems to be a lot of standing around in MLS games, but the action in England is usually constant, ferocious and fast!  Stoke City produced a masterpiece against Manchester City as they checked attack after attack from their opponent.  But it was their one scoring driving that brought back memories for me.  During the second half of the match, Stoke City's Mame Biram Diouf took a pass after a turnover deep in his own territory and, by himself, took the ball all the way downfield and outmaneuvered the defenders, culminating in an easy close-up goal kick.  That's what I used to do whenever we played soccer (albeit with a much lower level of skill).  Diouf also did something on this drive familiar to me: when someone came up to challenge him for the ball, he just kicked it ahead a few yards...and then outran his opponent to catch up with it and continue the drive...

I know that soccer is supposed to be all about teamwork, but I never got the more formal education about position playing for the sport.  To me, it was all about wresting control of the ball, running very, very fast, and then punching it hard through the goal...nothing very complicated in that!