No. 9 Tennessee soccer played to a scoreless draw with Mississippi State on Thursday night at Regal Soccer Stadium. Here is everything Lady Vols head coach Joe Kirt said after the match.
Opening statement
“Yeah, good to be back home in Regal. Good to get a shutout. That was about the best of our performance tonight was those two things.
“Not our team. I didn’t get our team prepared to show up and represent this program and department accordingly. Thankfully, we got a point out of it, put some things together in the second half where we were more competitive, but performance overall was subpar and starts with me making sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Did that feel more like a point gained or two points dropped?
“Based on our performance, a point gained. I don’t think we deserve to win anything tonight based on that performance, from everyone affiliated with our program, starting with me.”
What does better preparation look like going into a game?
“I think it comes down to making sure our team’s ready to compete from the opening whistle, and we didn’t do that for certainly 45 minutes and tried to work our way and do it a little bit in the second half. So obviously we gotta look at what we’re doing match day minus one. But our players need to do their job. We’ve gotta organize them, but they need to compete and that was not a performance to be proud of. Not like us.”
After having such quick starts all season, other than not being prepared, what was the real issue in the first half? I’ve never seen this team this year not have a shot.
“Yeah. You and I both. Again, it starts and ends with competitiveness. We can organize, we can talk about different shapes and where we wanna try and attack, and how we wanna break teams down, but if we’re not gonna compete, none of that matters. And it starts with that. We got out-competed from the opening whistle.
“Credit to them. I mean, they were tremendous at it. Mississippi State took it to us on our home field and gotta have a little bit more pride in representing this field and this stadium. And again, it starts with me making sure they’re ready to go and they got to do their job and compete.
“So that in and of itself will allow us to get a shot or two. We can talk about the spaces we wanna get in and how we want to attack based on what they’re doing, but the effort, the fight, the work, the selflessness, that all needs to be there if we want an outcome in terms of a shot.”
Was the message at halftime more about tactics or more about the competitiveness and nature of the night?
“I think it was pretty direct, that they need to step up and compete and get stuck in first and second balls. We need to trust each other and give them the ball. Front players need to be able to hold the ball. It’s pretty straightforward, but like you said earlier, the tactics don’t mean much if the competitive fight isn’t there.”
With tonight’s outcome and the lack of competitiveness, you look forward to Sunday with No. 3 Vanderbilt. Do you hope they take tonight and apply those lessons?
“100%. I mean, obviously Vandy’s a huge rival for us. If you can’t get up for that game, it’s gonna be a long year. Obviously they’re really talented, but to get them at home should inspire us and hopefully come out and do the things that we didn’t do at a high level tonight.
“They’re certainly capable of it. They’ve done it all year. Obviously teams have tough nights. That’s the reality of a season. We got a point out of it, so that’s definitely a positive. But we gotta get it right and get back to us, and we weren’t us tonight, and that starts with our effort and our fight.”
