Racing v Red Stars Preview
Courtesy ISI Photos
This match serves double duty as a league match and a semifinal for The Women's Cup. There is also another NWSL match-up tomorrow that will not count in the standings when the Dash take on the Thorns in Portland in the Women's International Champions Cup. Barcelona and Lyon are the two European giants participating in that competition. Before we get to the preview let's talk about meaningless trophies. If Racing win this competition it will be a meaningless trophy, but one that I would be proud to celebrate. These type of tournaments have become more and more prevalent over the lasts few years, so there is plenty of meaningless silverware to go around. However, you would have to have a pretty empty trophy cabinet to celebrate it much…
Couldn't resist a dig at the Spuds
Being a new team and not one that hasn’t won a “major" trophy in nearly 5000 days…
Arsenal is so bad, I have to celebrate something.
…I think an exhibition trophy would be a nice addition to the trophy case at the Fam. If Racing advance I expect a strong starting XI in the final. If not, expect wholesale changes.
Now on to the next opponent: Good ol’ unpredictable Chicago. The Red Stars followed up a frankly embarrassing performance against Racing in Chicago with 3 straight wins and moved up the table. They then followed up their hot streak by losing 3 of 4 and slid right back down into the packed mid table logjam. Based on the stats, 5th place is probably even too high for Chicago. The Red Stars are last in possession, and accurate passes per match. They are also next to last in goals conceded at 1.4 (with Racing being last at 1.5). This team is entirely beatable, but just as capable of scoring 3 goals on their opponents.
It is unclear (to me) at least if their Olympians will be back. They have been announced as returning for the next home match.
I think this means that they won't be in Louisville, but who knows.
On the Racing side, the team has been playing pretty well over the last few matches, with the last 2 matches producing points. Racing will be faced with quite a few matches over the next few weeks. I expect that we might see a change or two, but not more than that for Wednesday. I think Salmon could use a break and Racing have plenty of attacking talent to replace her in the Starting XI. We could see Simon get a rest too. Of course, as soon as I typed those words it pretty much guaranteed that both players will play the full 90.
No prediction this time around. I don't have a good read on how the match will go and I’m never right anyway, so no loss there. A couple of things to watch will be a) the weather with a possibility of storms and b) the crowd with hopefully all 4 teams represented well in the stadium. Hope to see a packed stadium!
