The Importance of Being Sav DeMelo

Courtesy USA Today Sports Images

I called her Louisville's Ms. Everything in my player ratings last night and I 100% meant it. This team goes how Savannah DeMelo goes. This made me ponder in the grand scheme of things if this was a good thing or a bad thing for the club and for her personally and professionally. Let me start with a rhetorical question. Is a team's best player always its most important one?

For Louisville there is no doubt. We've seen what this team looks like without her and it isn't pretty. That loss in Orlando had a glaring Savannah-sized hole right in the middle of it. I shudder to think how much worse last season would have been without her. It would have likely been borderline unwatchable. This season she definitely has more and better help which is a very good thing, but still hasn't changed the fact that Louisville's best and most important player are one and the same.

That isn't the case for all teams. I asked around (Bekki, Kaitlyn, Zach) for examples of NWSL teams where the best player might not be the most important. They collectively identified Portland and North Carolina as examples. While Smith and Kerolin are likely the best players for Portland and North Carolina, a player like Klingengberg or Sauerbrunn might be more important for Portland and for the Courage it might be O’Sullivan. It's easier to picture Portland winning without Smith than Klingengberg or Sauerbrunn and the same goes for Kerolin and O'Sullivan.

Obviously the fact, that you can’t choose Klingengberg over Sauerbrunn or vice versa is kind of the point. Their team strength is somewhat down to the fact that they aren't overly reliant on a single player. In soccer, you can't win by yourself, but your absence can be the thread that makes the sweater unravel. If you try to do the same exercise for the USWNT, it would be hard to identify a best or most important player, let alone her being the same individual which again is a good thing.

The good news for Louisville is that I believe that Kgatlana, Howell, and maybe Borges could prove to be up to the challenge of being either the best or most important player alongside DeMelo. I believe that this would be a huge relief to Savannah too. Having to be “on” for every minute or every match is a burden no player should have to carry by herself. It's better for her and the team when another player can help her move from being Ms. Everything to simply Sav DeMelo because we've seen that just being herself is good enough.