Louisville v Gotham Pre Match Thoughts
All Photos courtesy of Elizabeth Shaw
Louisville prepared for its upcoming match vs Gotham on a beautiful Saturday morning with kickball matches being played on the surrounding fields. One of the interesting things you start to see at practices later in the season is Julie Twaddle becoming more creative with her warm up activities. Today's activity was the outfield players split into 4 groups of 5 and having to move the ball with 2 players, strictly through the air and scoring without the ball touching the ground. Here are some pics from that exercise.
It was a close competition but Jae, Thembi, Abby, Carson, and Ary were in the winning group. Jae was super excited to win and solidified her spot as the most competitive player on the team.
I expect the upcoming match against Gotham to, if not define the season, pull it into sharp focus. Louisville surely need all 3 points to keep the teams above within enough striking distance to mount a late push for the playoffs. I keep going back and forth on the math, but 21 points seems like the safe number, with 18 points being the “cross your fingers” number of points needed from the last 11 league matches. The match is on “big” CBS, so it will be a showcase game for the team and for the city.
Howell and Björkegren both spoke about the challenge of playing a team with so much attacking talent as Gotham. Björkegren pointed out the Gotham and Louisville play similar styles, but didn't think that impacted their preparation all that much. Jae spoke at length about how Louisville's midfield has gelled, but also said that it would be a challenge to replicate the connections that she, Ary, and Sav have made when the World Cup inevitably shakes up Louisville's midfield. It will be important for Fischer to continue to get minutes because she is now likely to see her minutes increase drastically with DeMelo now presumably being a late addition to the US's World Cup roster. Baggett will surely slide into Borges’ spot, so she will need to build up her match stamina as well.
It might be a but early to think about managing the World Cup break, but it's nice that the roster is the healthiest it has been in months. Nadim wasn't involved today, but had been involved earlier in the week and is still on track for a return sometime this summer. With Murray's departure signifying that the club is happy with its defensive options, Louisville is likely looking to add more midfield and attacking talent to help during the World Cup, and potentially beyond that as the summer transfer window opens soon.
