“Business. Always business.”
Photo by Elizabeth Shaw
Elizabeth’s photo gallery from the match
It’s fall, so bye-bye AC! Racing 1-Angel City 0 — Fleur-de-lis FC
Stolen The Wire Epigraph
“Business. Always business.”
For those of you who haven’t seen The Wire, it is a light-hearted mystery where three unlikely friends work together to score heroin without leaving the abandoned row house they occupy together.
Most of the match wasn’t a ringing endorsement for NWSL soccer, especially the first half, but Racing ultimately put together a good enough chance for its goal and defended strongly enough to take home all three points. It was scrappy and will likely have to be scrappy from here on out. Once again Racing did not have enough healthy players for fill out a full bench. If I was in the league office, I would seriously look at a way to fine clubs for doing this repeatedly. Racing doesn’t have any options to get up to nine players really, but in my opinion, you always end up paying the piper one way or another when you try to do “more with less”.
On this day however, Racing had just enough to get the ball over the line as it were. Angel City rarely, if ever, troubled Racing. The decision to drop Flint into the middle of the back four in the final 10 to 15 minutes (which actually ended up being 20 to 25 minutes) was a nice wrinkle (more on that later). For once, Racing was able to bring in fresh defensive legs off the bench in the form of Lo Milliet and her energy and focus definitely helped the back line stay solid during those last several minutes of the match.
Angel City’s strategy, at least in the first half, seemed to be to try to make Racing play through them. Racing doesn’t really want to play that way and frankly without DeMelo in the midfield, I think every future opponent will try to make Racing do the same. Fortunately for Racing, Angel City let them press a little too easily in the second half and ended up making a mistake that cost them. Sears did the high effort work and Weber finished it off with a highly skilled shot. It was Sears’ first assist of the season and only her second ever in a league match. As a footnote, this was Racing’s 100th goal scored in Lynn Family Stadium by my accounting methods, but yours may vary.
The ultimately overturned penalty seemed to be the correct decision, and it set up a tense and nervy finish for the home crowd once again. Twelve minutes of stoppage time seemed like a joke, but it played out anyway. Maybe the most encouraging part of the night was that Racing never seemed to lose their nerve collectively or individually. Ellie Jean was so calm and effective, that for large portions of the match I kind of forgot she was out there. Usually, she is having to make tackle after tackle to prevent attacks. She didn’t attempt a single one in this match.
It was definitely business-like performance in front of 6,000 fans and a couple hundred dogs.
Post Match Moment of the Match
Photo by Elizabeth Shaw
Taylor Flint was awarded for her 100th league appearance in the company of her family, including her dog. There were lots of dogs on the pitch after the match, which always makes things extra fun. I am a cat person, but other people’s dogs are great! Sarah Weber handed out praise to Sears for her work rate in dispossessing Angel City in order to set up the goal. She also said that she prefers scoring “instinctually”. Milliet talked some about the impact of going to a back 5 in the last several minutes of the match, but honestly it was just good to see her in uniform in person once again that she could have said anything I would have just nodded along.
I really, really wanted to ask Bev about the maneuver to put Flint in the middle of the back line. I don’t think I have every been more excited to ask a question. She shared that the move was something that the team had been working on for a while and actually had a hand signal prepared in order to utilize it. I had not noticed Racing use this tactic before, and I am excited to see if they deploy it again with a lead. Bev indicated that they may, but she also indicated that it would be dependent on how the opponent was set up.
Stink-O-Meter
Home fans have had a nice run of odor free nights in Butchertown, but for about 15 minutes tonight the stadium reeked of pig. By the end of the evening, it either dissipated, or I got used to it. However, at its peak, it was very high on the offensive odor smell. It was a 🐖🐖🐖🐖🐖 out of 5 in my opinion. This comes off of a Lou City match where it was also faint, but apparent. It might be time to remember the essential oil nasal inhalers again.
Did the stadium have good food?
It seems like as the season winds down every year, the club starts to run out of new ideas, so it relied on old standbys for the evening. They did expand the dessert section to include peach pie/cobbler. I have never been one for warm fruit. I stuck to the standard, dip/sausage/Caesar salad combo with some pork barbecue to sample. The club did have a salmon option for once. Nothing against salmon, but I think it is over relied upon and personally I could happily live the rest of my life without it.
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 didn’t seem particularly fortunate or unfortunate on the evening, but the twelve minutes of stoppage time made the hurdle slightly more difficult. Weber’s goal could just as easily have been miss hit, and I seem to recall a ball going close for Angel City in stoppage time (it must have been a touch from Racing, because it didn’t register on Opta’s shot chart) that made me jump a little. On the whole Racing won the match in the manner that they are built to win. 1.5/5
The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match (brought to you by Taylor Flint)
Flint is back in the league lead for yellow cards. In this match, she picked up a pretty soft one from Shawn Tehini who I thought called the contact a little too close, in the first half especially. This is what drives fans nuts in my opinion. In the previous Racing match the officials let all kinds of contact go. It was internally consistent but diametrically opposed to how this match was called. I think the league would be way better off if they suspended card accumulation rules until they figure out their consistency issue. If Flint picks up a yellow card in any of the remaining four matches she will have another suspension. Personally, I think picking up one in either the next match at North Carolina or the following one against Chicago is the way to go, because I don’t think she would be missed as much in the Chicago match, and the Gotham match is likely to be a tough one anyway. In an ideal world, she would go yellow card free, but based on recent evidence, “that ain’t happening”.
“‘Chance being a fine thing’ brought us together”
“The World Awake”/Protest Songs/1989
I don’t think this starting XI is one that Bev would have ever dreamed up when she started the season. However, I think most coaches in their career have this happen to them if they coach long enough. This line up might be enough to squeak out a victory against Angel City and possibly a few other teams, but I think a playoff win is likely beyond this set of current players. The roster at the beginning of the season definitely didn’t seem like a playoff worthy roster in my opinion, and with the healthy players available now, it barely seems like a functional one. I am getting the message loud and clear from Soccer Holdings. They want to invest just enough to be the chicken but not the pig. It is their right. It just feels disingenuous to ask the players and coaches to be committed to breakfast like the pig is, when the owners just want to supply enough eggs to “be competitive”. I have never shied away from my opinion that sports team ownership is a public service as much as it is a business venture, and I am sorry if that offends your capitalistic sensibilities (not actually sorry). I am fairly certain that Soccer Holdings loses a significant amount of money investing in this team. I am 100% certain that I do not care. They knew what they signed up for.
So…that leaves us with a coach working her tail off with one hand tied behind her back, and players doing the same and playing out of their natural positions. “Next woman up” makes for a good rallying cry and a good story, but in reality, it doesn’t win you much. My opinions are rightly summed up as “just the way I am” and Racing is also just left being “just the way we are” which isn’t a super encouraging way to be heading into the final four matches of the season. However, on the night they were good just good enough.
