**Stolen The Wire Epigraph**

For those of you who haven’t seen The Wire, it is a documentary about a struggling newspaper that decides to shift from filling its print edition with AP articles to reporting on the best corners to score heroin.

Racing will look back on this road trip as a nightmare in every conceivable way. They got 0 points out of a possible 6 and will end it in 10th place. They lost 2 key players, and one may not see the pitch again this season (no inside knowledge here, just conjecture). Injuries and bad form have coincided to hit this club at once and are likely related. There was some good news in that Lauren Milliet was back on the pitch for a few minutes, but that really is one of only a few bright spots.

I wrote a few times prior to the trip that I thought Racing was short on its roster. It is so short now that Racing recalled Allie George back from loan early. She will likely not see minutes here, so the minutes she was getting in Ft. Lauderdale were going to be key to her development. Racing as a club likes to “run lean”. Its technical staff is small, and its roster is on the smaller side too. If I haven’t said it so bluntly before, I will say it now. Racing is carrying too much dead wait on its roster. Without being specific, there are too many players with too few minutes. One can only assume that their quality isn’t up to requirements. Filling in a back of a roster is hard, I will grant you that. However, it is killing Racing now. Every player that has taken the pitch for Racing in these last few months has absolutely been worthy of taking it. There are just too many square pegs in round holes at the moment to say the roster is constructed appropriately. On Friday’s back line, there was one only player who was in her planned position from the start of the season. As a unit, they struggled. One other item of note: Baron, who has been a mainstay on the bench, was not in the squad.

This is the currently reality unfortunately. Personally, I think if Racing is to have a prayer at recovery it’s going to be on the younger players. Weber came on and made an immediate impact when she replaced Fischer, who looks lost for whatever reason at the moment. Unfortunately, Hase and O’Kane didn’t have matches of the quality that they have demonstrated in the past. In is unfair to put so much burden on them, but Racing has done so through its roster construction.

If (and now I am squarely in that "if” mindset) Racing is to make the playoffs, this needs to be Emma Sears’ team starting right now. She scored her eighth goal of the season on a steady and composed finish (something Fischer completely botched in the first half). Sears is going to have to be excellent from here on out if Racing is to get back in the playoff hunt. This is the time of the season where big players step up and pretenders fold. I will be watching how Sears responds in the next few matches.

Post Match Moment of the Match

The national media’s interest/empathy is good for exactly one news cycle it seems. For those of you who didn’t catch my deliberately under publicized recap of the last match, the national media was out in full force to ask Bev and players questions that focused them on Sav and not the match. That was fair, expected, and they performed empathy fairly valiantly. The rest of us will continue to be concerned about Sav long past any deadline or new cycle. You show you care by showing up in my opinion. I show up every time its humanly possible. Sometimes I wonder if Bev and the players would prefer it if I was less diligent. However, there is only one reason I do and that is because I care and care deeply. That also means I tend to ask questions that I know that they would prefer not to answer, but somebody has to do it. You’ve seen the state of the first amendment in this country at the moment. It needs all of the help it can get.

First things, first while on the record Bev didn’t want to say much about Sav other that she is “doing well”, I do know that she is expected back in Louisville soon. I don’t know how soon, but that is good news regardless.

Emma Sears as a goal scorer and Janine Sonis as a goal scorer and captain drew the short straws last night and had a paltry crowd of media to which to answer. Both Emma and Janine were clearly disappointed in the result and proud-ish of the second half performance. Emma was glad to see Milliet back on the pitch and called Lo her “wing woman” which I found amusing even though I knew that she (probably) was limiting that to the pitch. Sonis, who I like more every time I talk to her, gave a fair assessment of the team’s and her own performance. She owned up to being at fault (partially in my opinion) for not getting closer to Lacasse on her goal. She did confide that Emma essentially told her to go for it on her wonderful free kick goal. She did add that the team misses Arin Wright “a lot”. That was painfully obvious to all of us.

Bev talked about Racing not winning the second balls much in the first half and that really being the key to their huge deficit at half. Bev won’t make any excuses but did talk about the “clear reality” of the position in which Racing now finds itself. She praised Weber’s energy when I asked her about it. She did also share that she thought that in this case that the quick turnarounds for Racing were more taxing emotionally than physically.

Were the Announcers Good?

Maura Sheridan was on the call and Jordan Angeli was on the color on Friday once again.

Subsection: How was their “Louisville”?

Louisvillians are persnickety on the pronunciation of their beloved hometown. I will be monitoring the broadcaster’s commitment to getting it right.

Sheridan: 3 syllables a few different ways, but none all that distracting.

Angeli: Pretty much spot on, most of the time.

The pairing is astute most of the time when calling Racing matches. This time was no exception. After Utah caught Racing in offside traps a few times I believe that it was Angeli that said, “Do you think Utah knows that Louisville likes to go long?” Why yes…yes they do. I chuckled. They also correctly called out the abomination of a performance by the center referee in the second half who got whistle happy and forgot how to manage a match. I could happily live with this crew continuing to call Racing’s matches.

TV Kit Rating

Utah decided to go with their 2024 primary kit and forced Racing into their cursed green kits again. Good idea Utah. I think you all know my opinion on the green one at this point

I like Utah’s kit. Yeah, I wish the blue was royal blue. That seems like a missed opportunity, but people like navy over royal blue for some reason. The mountains on the kit don’t read, but still, I like it. One of these seasons Utah is going to kill in on their kits. This one is still an “almost” one. 8/10

The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match (brought to you by Taylor Flint)

There was nothing too shocking in the discipline department for this match. Sears got one for a rough tackle and now sits on 3 yellow cards for the season. DiGrande’s was more cynical but still it stopped a potentially dangerous attack, so it was worth picking up. For a brief second it looked like Flint picked up one for dissent, but that was just broadcast misattribution. On the Utah side, while Tanaka had a wonder strike, she also ran afoul of the center referee enough for the official to make a hand gesture to her with her fingers about an inch apart after she made a careless foul while on a yellow. I am shocked that Utah didn’t sub her off after that, but she managed to keep her nose clean, something the Utah staff must have known she was capable of doing.

“Equating elegance to real estate”

“Elegance”/Swoon/1984

Racing’s precarious position in the table is now gone. Truth be told, their position in the table disguised some shortcomings for a while (lack of finishing in both senses of the word being the glaring ones). As fans of Racing, we hope this is rock bottom, or the floor of who they are as a team. The first half performance was flat, evidenced by Racing’s previously mentioned lack of winning second balls. Optimists will point to the second half comeback, but I think that was fool’s gold to some degree. First, Utah didn’t really need to do much other than not fall apart completely. They just about managed it. Racing was always going to be the aggressor after half and Utah was going to let them. Utah has been better recently, but they still aren’t that good.

Tenth place is a rather inelegant place to find oneself after what has been Racing’s best season to date. True, they are missing key players, but if you are supposed to have a tough mentality, “next player up” has to be part of that and recently they haven’t been up to it. Racing is experiencing death by thousands of tiny cuts at the moment. They have to find a way to pull out of this tailspin and fast.

"Ain't never gonna be what it was."

Stolen The Wire Epigraph