re: Shady soccer tactics that are surprisingly not used

Just to clarify, I have seen this work personally, but it requires a couple of things:

1) The other team must be playing a high line.
2) You must have a winger who has considerable pace advantage over the left/right back
3) He or she cannot linger on the ball; the cross must be quick


For us, we were playing co-ed, where girl goals are worth two. We were up 1-0 with about 15 minutes left, but the other team was bound to score. So we said, screw it, we'll drop a girl back by the goal, throw our fastest player at left wing, and exploit their high line. This girl wasn't doing much defensive work anyway, occasionally contesting a CB, but that's it. With the other team pressing forward, they were ripe for exploiting.

We won the ball back, and played it to the flag. They had thrown just about everybody forward, and the sweeper tried to catch him off. From there, our winger won the uncontested ball, and their deepest player veered toward the ball, leaving our girl unmarked about 15 yards from the back post. He sent it in, the keeper came out and whiffed, and she had a tap in. 2 points and a victory for us.

It's a bit of a hailmary: rarely works, but when it does, it's pretty awesome, especially when your girl goals are worth double.