Louisville 3 Kansas City 2 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy David Mucker
After a bit of a disjointed start where Louisville seemed to be simultaneously feeling out their opponents as well as feeling out how to play together with this specific set of players, they ultimately dictated the match and used effective pressure to get 3 points in their opening Challenge Cup match.
In my opinion, this match was won by the way Louisville imposed its style on the opponent. Even after, and maybe even due to going a goal down, they relentlessly pressed Kansas City until they could barely get a foothold in the match. We could possibly be seeing Louisville turning a corner (but I don't think they are auite there yet). The Howell/Baggett/DeMelo midfield was particularly effective, but Borges ended up having her say shortly after taking the pitch with a neatly executed chip of Franch (who was particularly poor on the night and honestly not great on the season). Louisville probably wins this match going away with a more lethal goalscorer up front. Kanu still is finding her place and hasn't quite clicked with her teammates yet. Alex Chidiac should be getting more minutes based on her display. She probably isn't as technically gifted as Wang, but gives the team something different from an energy perspective. I think she and Wang should be doing 30 and 60 minutes shifts in rotation to help keep Louisville's opponents off balance.
For as good as the result and the performance was, I still have some doubts about this team. They have showed that they can be successful, but still don't quite know how to handle success easily. Around the 80th minute mark, I thought to myself that if they can see out this 2-1 lead by playing on the front foot that maybe their chosen style could be classified as an unqualified success on the night. Instead it ended 3-2 and for me will fall into the qualified success category. Once Louisville went up 3-1, the match should have seen a relaxing finish. Instead, Louisville just couldn't take “yes” for an answer and made the frankly baffling decision to run a normal corner in the 88th minute up 2 goals. There is absolutely no excuse for that ball to go into the box. Of course on the next corner they learned their lesson, having givien up an unnecessary counterattacking goal. This apparent disdain for even the slightest bit of pragmatism prevents me from saying that Louisville has turned the corner fully.
However, it is starting to become clear to every corner of the NWSL landscape that when DeMelo is playing for Louisville she is the x factor and will always give the team a shot to win. She just finds herself in the right spots. Her finish on the first goal with the outside of her right foot is the type of finish most players can only dream of. Of course, being Sav she found herself in the right spot for the second goal too. Selfishly I want her to skip the World Cup and take advantage of the weakened squads rolled out by the other NWSL clubs during July and August, but she has likely earned a spot on the roster. It will just be a shame if all of her time is spent on the bench.
I want to say this very particularly…the number of goals that Louisville continues to give up is not sustainable in my opinion. They can't be relying on scoring 3 times every match in order to get 3 points. I don't want to lay this problem completely at the defense’s feet. Louisville is stuck in a state of “Live by the sword, die by the sword” at the moment. I feel like with just a bit more positional discipline and disciplined decision making they could make things much easier on themselves. But as always, you take a win any way it comes.
