Chicago 1 Louisville 0 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
I figure that any person that comes to this space to read my ramblings appreciates my honest opinion on the performance of this team. This post, while still my opinion, I will file under the “hard truths” category. They may not be your truths, but it is only the sum of what I am seeing and how I think this team should move forward.
This group of players gives the impression that they no longer want to listen to the coaching staff as currently comprised. Nothing on Saturday night looked cohesive. The players were individually trying to win the match, but if there was a plan to do it together, it didn't translate to my screen. It reminded me of year one of this club. I was 100% not surprised by this performance either. There are too many players on this team that give the impression that they can't wait for this season to be over.
I don't believe the playoffs are in the cards, and I don't think the team will make a coaching change until the end of the season. The current setup gives them a realistic shot at the bottom of the table and the number 3 overall pick in next year's draft. That may seem harsh, but at this point there is way more value to the club in getting a better draft pick than trying to achieve some imaginary achievement like “not as bad as last year” or “in the playoff hunt”. The psyche of a professional athlete is surely strong enough to overcome the temporary negative effects of finishing 11th or 12th when weighed against the value of the 3rd or 4th pick vs. the 7th or 8th pick you get for finishing 7th or 8th. I don’t know what the club leadership will do, I only know what I would do: politely roll out a respectable team for these last two matches, thank the coach at the end of the season, not renew his contract (and maybe not just his), and quietly expect that the status quo will generate the expected results and if things go the right/wrong way (depending on your perspective) get a decent pick in next year’s first round (anything after the first 5 or 6 picks is just as likely to be bust vs. boom). I suspect there is a portion of the fanbase that will take the apologetic view that a playoff push is “not impossible”, but I will always take the more evidence-based approach to say that this season is effectively over.
I am a huge fan of getting the calls on the pitch right, but the day I feared when VAR arrived in the NWSL arrived last night. Subtract the intervention of the VAR officials in last night’s match, and I think it was a decently officiated match. All three VAR reviews were called correctly on the field in my opinion and if VAR had not been in play there would have been few complaints. All VAR did in this case was look at the wrong footage, overturn a correct on the field call and waste four minutes at the end of the match when it was effectively over. On the first instance, the broadcast and I have to assume the VAR itself was showing a completely irrelevant offside decision to the on-field official. Who knows if it was a technical glitch or incompetence, but neither is a good look and both could be true. The second was a VAR nightmare. The correct call was made on the field in real time. There is this fallacious belief that a zoomed-in frame-by-frame examination is a closer reflection of the truth, when actually the real-time occurrence is more accurate. I maintain that it is irrelevant to some degree whether or not the defender got the first touch. Anywhere else on the pitch, it is a foul and you move on. The defender made illegal contact on DeMelo, and that should have been the end of the story. On the last review, once again I think the non-call on the field was correct. In this case I think the relevant rules are “serious foul play” or “violent conduct”. In practice, this sometimes gets translated to “dangerous play”. In my book, this one is fairly simple when held up to this standard of officiating: who initiated the dangerous play. In the case of last night, it was clearly the player attempting to head the ball off of a high boot that initiated the situation moving into dangerous play. A high boot in and of itself is not illegal and Kanu has no clear view of the defender when she raised her boot. The non-call was the correct one.
VAR aside, Louisville’s performance was typical of the last few matches and therefore not good enough for 1 point, let alone 3. It is true that 2 shots hit the crossbar, but I see that more as a sign of a desperate offensive mindset versus evidence of “bad luck”. Both of those goals would have been truly great, and neither of them would have made me feel any better about the team’s offensive cohesion. Only individual brilliance was going to achieve anything last night, and they were close to achieving that brilliance but not close enough. Defensively, they lacked a bit of organization, and a better team would have made them pay even more dearly.
This is also the point of the season where I have to decide whether or not to be mentally invested in these last two matches. I think the answer for me right now is that I will once again “run out the string” and post my normal items, but don’t expect anything super inciteful from me until the offseason.
