“A man must have a code.”
Stolen The Wire Epigraph
For those of you who haven’t seen The Wire, it is the story of 3 friends who either a) spend their free time hunting demons, or b) use hunting demons as code for scoring heroin.
After a rather dull and uneventful first half, where it looked like the clash of styles between the Courage and Racing was only succeeding in putting the viewer to sleep, the style battle kicked into high gear at the start of the second half. Announcer Jill Loyden commented that Racing’s opening goal was “against the run of play” which is an odd thing to say in a half that is only 5 minutes old, but I guess I get her point. Racing’s style, or code if you will, is all chaos and pressing and disrupting, and the Courage likes to string together passes and play “beautifully”. The Courage had been winning the style battle, or so they thought, running into halftime. These types of matches have always been fascinating to me because of the great difference in attitude and style. Admittedly, given infinite time and resources I think most fans would prefer to watch a team win beautifully. That isn’t going to ever be Racing’s style. Their code, and I agree that this is the right way to go for them, is to win, not ugly exactly, but through wearing down their opponents physically and mentally. Their code is definitely more “Barksdale/Stanfield” level street code versus an aspirational code of ethics about “doing things honorably and with grace.” That does not work for this team.
The most important thing about a code, however, is to stick to it. It is particularly relevant if your code is more “streetwise” than “collegial”. Maybe more than any other player, Kayla Fischer is the embodiment of the positives and negatives of Racing’s code. She has a very eventful 75 minutes: goal, assist, yellow card, making Courage defenders complain to officials. She is always on that razor’s edge. Racing will likely be on that edge too for the remainder of the season.
Post Match Moment of the Match
Sears, Fischer and Bev spoke after the match. Sears has no really good explanation for the discrepancy in her goal scoring on the road versus at home. She did talk about having friends from Charlotte in the crowd. Compared to Charlotte, Raleigh probably does seem like a bit of a destination. (Reminder: I find North Carolina charmless).
Kayla said that the team had a good week of practice and created the goals from pressure. Agreed. She also commented on being prepared for North Carolina to play the ball through the middle and to be ready to pounce on mistakes.
Bev talked about Sears being a special player. Once again, agreed. She also talked about halftime adjustments in spacing, which obviously worked. Bev praised the work ethic, which is virtually always present. She commented that Racing had even more chances to expand the lead before they ultimately did on Emma’s second goal. Finally, she praised the “type of result” that this ended up being.
Were the Announcers Good?
JP Dellacamera and Jill Loyden were on the call. Yet again, I was not in my normal friendly confines at home, which oddly seems to happen when this duo in on the call. I watched the Racing match in the Lynn Family Stadium press box as Lou City won 2-0 against the Indy Eleven.
Please retire, JP. Or NWSL, please retire JP. I assume this guy had a fastball at some point but has clearly lost it. In every match he mispronounces Sonis as “So-niece”. He obviously doesn’t care about getting it right and nobody wants to correct him. He kept saying that the Manaka goal that was ruled offside, was a VAR overturn. It was reviewed by VAR but as a confirmation of the on-field call. I am not a friend to officials, which regular visitors to this space know, but I do think that officials get offside calls right most of the time (because it is objective, my beef with officials are usually with their discretionary decisions). It’s lazy and insulting to the officials to not credit them for getting it right the first time.
Usually, I like Loyden, but this wasn’t her best match either. “Comfortability” is making its way into the vernacular and new words don’t bother me. Language always has and always will evolve. However, the way she used it seems odd and off-putting.
The duo seems overly fawning on the Courage’s play in the first half, but adequately self corrected when the match slowly swung in Racing’s favor.
Go home, Fotmob. You’re drunk.
Fotmob as an app isn’t 100% reliable, but it does help me with real time stats and if I miss a fact, it usually gets those facts correct…at least eventually. This however, seemed like a real “glitch in the matrix” type moment. I might be the only person in the world who caught this, which is way I grabbed a screenshot. At about the same time as Sears scored the third goal in Cary, Damian Las was sent off in the Lou City match in Louisville for a DOGSO. I don’t know exactly how Fotmob ingests real time information, but it seemed to take two “Louisville-themed” events and get the logic confused. It would be interesting to know if this was human error or some kind of AI confusion occurring. Anyway, for a brief moment Damian Las broke the laws of physics according to Fotmob and scored a goal in Cary at virtually the same time as he was heading to the locker room in Louisville. Only one person is Louisville is allowed to break the space-time continuum and that is Jordan Rivers who is often on the radio when I turn off my car upon arriving at Lynn Family Stadium while also voicing an announcement from inside the stadium. Sometimes, I swear he is also voicing an announcement and then I immediately run into him on the concourse. I have confronted him about this, but he remains dodgy. Just be sure to continue to use your powers for good, Jordan.
TV Kit Rating
For the second time this season, I found myself watching Racing play an opponent in the same color that Lou City was playing in. The first time was purple and purple for the Orlando away match. This time it was pink (hot) and pink (salmon, maybe?). Anyway, the details on the authentic version of this jersey do not read on TV and it just seems pink. From my kit rankings:
“I do enjoy the irony of having “Aesthetics” written on such a boring and dull jersey, so kudos, I guess? I would say that the fans deserve better, but have you ever been to Cary, NC? Don’t bother if not. It sucks. Cary definitely doesn’t deserve nice things, so I am done complaining about them not having them.”
I will always take the opportunity to take a shot at Cary, and its joke of a stadium (the pitch is nice though, to be fair). I am delighted that Racing finally won there.
Rest in pieces, North Carolina Courage. And your terrible kit. 3/10
Lightning-in-a-Bottle-O-Meter
Whenever Racing wins a match, I will rate how much of it was down to catching lightning in a bottle versus Racing just doing the things they do well.
Racing played the way that they wanted to play and so did North Carolina. There have been so many times in past matches when it seemed like Racing outplayed the Courage (and plenty not) and didn’t even get a point. This one seemed beyond fair. The Courage are short key players but so is Racing. Racing could only seat 7 players on the bench. The facts and previous evidence were against Racing coming into kickoff. Then for 45 minutes, bar one pretty poor defensive letdown, they had the Courage right where they wanted them. Racing didn’t seem to benefit from any call or decision. The second goal was a gift, which might be the only thing you could point to. Racing dictated the match and fooled North Carolina into thinking that they were the ones in control. 1/5
The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match (brought to you by Taylor Flint)
Flint’s card, which will see her miss the next match, was softer than a Letterkenny birthday party. The only real explanation may be that it was given for dissent instead of the intensity of the foul. Bev was not forthcoming on if she received an explanation but did lament that the card was on Flint’s first foul. If it was based purely on contact the center official should be embarrassed and resign immediately because it was a terrible judgement call not based on anything other than reputation. Fischer got a typically Fischer-esque card. It was 2 minutes after she scored and not really necessary.
“Does heaven wait all heavenly over the next horizon?”
“Cars and Girls”/From Langley Park to Memphis/1988
I think we are all prone to overreact to individual results no matter how much we know intellectually that we shouldn’t. Three losses in a row plus all of the other stuff that went with it felt like hell. Why shouldn’t a couple of wins in a row feel like the exact opposite, not only because of the immediate gratification, but also because it might ultimately lead to more. I will leave facing the harsh realities for another time.
Sears was fantastic as was Fischer. It is the first time in a while that I felt like the good chances either found the back of the next or had to be stopped by an opponent. For the most part, the defense was solid and in a match like this, the midfield did what is needed to do.
Maybe the most encouraging takeaway is that Racing seemed to want that 3rd goal. They may have felt as if they needed it, but the entire team felt elevated after Fischer’s goal because it prevented them from reliving that “here we go again” feeling. Racing has to maintain discipline and focus in its last three matches to ultimately get where they want to go.
