Sockers Seeking a Way to Stop Karic

Psssst . The Cleveland Crunch have a secret.

(They cheat.)

But there’s no need to whisper. The secret’s out. In fact, the Crunch’s top culprit during the Major Soccer League championship series against the Sockers has been caught red-handed--twice. It’s simply that the Sockers can’t stop him.

Once in Game 1 and again in Game 2, Zoran Karic slipped away from the Sockers’ defense, accepted passes in the midfield, dribbled in on goalie Victor Nogueira and made Nogueira realize how lonely it can be in front of those 14 feet-by-7 1/2 feet goals.

Karic got it behind Nogueira both times.

“That first goal in the first game was just a classic example of how he scores goals,” said Dave Banks, a Socker defender. “He just cheats a bit. He lets all the other guys do all the hard work and try to win the ball back and he cheats upfield.”

When the Crunch manages a turnover, there is Karic, all alone, waiting for the ball and wondering, if there are never any defenders around him, how he was only second in the league in scoring.

While Karic often finds himself alone in the midfield, he is not alone among the Crunch when it comes to slipping behind defenses. Cleveland’s first two goals in Game 2, which it won 4-3 to even the series, were scored on counterattacks.

Michael King scored the first. He broke downfield and got his right foot on a crossing pass from Hector Marinaro a step away from the right post. Marinaro got the second. He streaked down the other side of the field and got his left foot on a crossing pass from Karic a step away from the left post.

“That’s one of the major tactics they use,” Banks said.

“And they’ve got it down to a fine art,” midfielder Brian Quinn said.

Added Socker Coach Ron Newman, “I think they have players who read it very well and take advantage of their breakaways. And that’s the big thing--to take advantage. If you don’t score, it doesn’t look like a breakaway.”

Along with speedy and skilled players such as King, Marinaro and Karic, successful breakaways need one other ingredient--good outlet passes from the goalie. And Cleveland’s P.J. Johns has emerged as one of the best this season.

“The link-up in their breakaways is P.J. Johns,” Newman said. “As soon as he gets the ball, he comes out to the edge of the box and he has that quick, deliberate throw-out. He’s always looking for it.”

His coach, Trevor Dawkins, who took over at midseason, spent a couple months instilling in Johns the importance of quick outlet passes.

“It took a while to get him to think about it,” Dawkins said. “At first, he would only dwell on making the save, as opposed to getting the ball and getting it moving in the other direction.”

Now that Johns has become the premier playmaking goalie, the rest of the league is adjusting.

“Your first instinct when the goalie gets the ball is not to sprint back right away,” Banks said. “You think he’s going to hold on to it a bit, then roll it to one of his defenders or midfielders. But P.J., whenever he grabs it, he throws it straight away.”

Added defender Ben Collins, “If I go up and take a shot, they (Crunch players) take off and P.J. gets it and sees them wide open. They’ve been scoring some easy goals off us, and we can’t continue to let them do that.”

Goals have been only one result of Cleveland’s counterattacks.

A second is the frustration that set in among the Sockers in Game 2.

“Everybody’s getting a little concerned,” Collins said. “Every time a defender goes forward, a midfielder is supposed to fall back, but the last game, the midfielders didn’t fall back a couple times.”

As a result, Cleveland was able to breach the Sockers’ goal line.

“So (the midfielders) were getting mad and saying instead of defending, (the defenders) were trying to be heros, go forward and score goals,” Collins continued. “After that, we didn’t want to get blamed, so we started to hesitate.”

However, the Sockers’ style calls for all players, forwards, midfielders and defenders alike, to mix into the attack. When that stopped happening in Game 2, the Sockers’ offense vanished.

“We started to have a bad spell when the defenders stopped going forward,” Newman said. “They just started getting nervous. Of course, there’s no point in holding back. You’ve just got to have confidence in the players around you that they will read the game right.”

Now the series moves to the Coliseum in Richfield, Ohio, for Game 3 tonight (5:05, live cable TV, delayed radio on XTRA 690 at 7:25). The Coliseum has the longest field in the league and one that plays to the Crunch’s style.

“That big field gives them even more running strength,” Newman said.

If the Sockers are to solve Cleveland’s counterattack, they are going to have to go back to doing what they do best--getting everyone involved in the offense and, at the same time, getting everyone back on defense.

“If we play our own game, we can win,” Quinn said. “But we have to be more intelligent with the kinds of shots we take. Rather than taking the first shot we see, we should take an extra pass, move it around a little, find the open man and force Zoran to come back.”

“We’ll find a way,” Newman said. “We’ll find a way.”