"Come at the king, you best not miss."

Aug 2

Stolen The Wire Epigraph

"Come at the king, you best not miss."

For those of you who haven’t seen The Wire, it is a show based on Shakespeare’s penultimate play, “The Listener” about a Danish prince who sells his “white horse” to some forest nymphs or something…

All in all, that went about as expected.

Racing hung tough for a while but couldn’t convert when they were in the ascendency, and Kansas City ultimately cruised to a 2-goal victory. Like last year when I thought Orlando’s dominant run was good for the league, I thnk having a clear powerhouse is a good thing. One difference between this season’s Kansas City and last year’s Orlando is that this year’s Current team is just intuitively unlikeable (at least Kaitlyn Whiteside and I don’t like them). Kansas City’s sports landscape had been downtrodden for so long, that now that they have some success, even more seems cruel and smug. It looks like they are enjoying themselves being the “villains” so no hard feelings really. It’s good for narrative to have bad guys.

My big takeaway is that Kansas City is a patient team when they need to be. Ultimately that could be their downfall. If by some small chance Kansas City and Racing find each other matched up in the playoffs, Racing has a blueprint to beat them. In this match however, Racing didn’t really have too many opportunities that turned into shots. Their real opportunities came from times that if they had just been a little sharper or a little quicker, a dangerous chance might have presented itself. It takes a valiant effort and a little luck to beat the best of the best. Racing wasn’t quite ready for the challenge on the night.

Post Match Moment of the Match

After the match, Sonis, Jean (who now must be at the top of two lists: my favorite players to interview and Racing’s Free Agent extension list) and Bev were all disappointed but upbeat. This didn’t seem like a momentum killing loss, just a blip in the journey. Bev concurred saying, “I think we’re different, we’re just different.” Many times, in earlier seasons a decent performance in a loss was explained away as “almost there”. That felt optimistic and not really genuine. This time there was disappointment but not dread, which seems much more believable, and I think you can use it to fuel improvement. When Bev took off her mic from the Amazon Prime coverage, I joked with her to see if she wanted to wear it a bit longer so Amazon could follow her around during the rest of her week. Of course, they didn’t. It’s a shame because unknown to her I caught a sweet moment between her and her daughter as they were walking on the concourse. Bev the coach is great, but Bev the human being is even better. I am thrilled to have her around for another year.

Did the stadium have good food?

It was andouille night at the club. There were the sausages themselves as an option for the rotating hot dog/sausage on a bun offering. There was also jambalaya with and without meat, and the veggie option was just as good as the meat option. Two-thirds of BTRD were my guests at the club, but I believe Tom may have also had Bekki bring him a beer. The club was busier than usual, which is a good thing.

The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match

Last night Fischer picked up a what I thought at the time was a harsh yellow card on a play that a) was really rough b) probably could have been avoided. On the replay it looks like Fischer probably could have pulled out of the challenge, but that isn’t her. It was one where she definitely initiated the contact. Kayla and former Racing captain Jaelin Howell are leading the league in (lack of) discipline with 4 yellows and a red apiece.

“New broom, this room, sweep it clean”

“The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll”/From Langley Park to Memphis/1988

First things first. Racing attracted a good crowd on the night. The fans were there early, and I think you have to applaud Soccer Holdings for pulling out most of the stops to get a crowd of over 8,000. The pre-match activities were done well from what I saw, and the atmosphere was good. It’s really a shame that the result wasn’t better. The club needed a big crowd for the showcase match, but I also wonder if the performance convinced any newbies. That is always the danger when you put the focus on getting people to the stadium for a high-quality opponent, but it surely was a "no regrets” move by the team. You have to shoot your shot.

You also have to move on quickly. In truth, there isn’t much interesting football to discuss in this match on the Racing side. They gave up two goals that were well executed by a good team. The regret should come from allowing the amount of sustained possession that led to the goals and likely not the goals themselves.

In the highlights were:

Plenty of solid defending stepping in front of shots
Sonis’ speed on defensive recovery runs
Jean’s assuredness in defense

There just weren’t enough attacking highlights. Even though the Current is a great team, Racing has always seemed to be able to get goals against them. The Current’s defending on the night was excellent, which probably bolsters their confidence even more. I thought Hase may have turned a corner last night as an attacker, but you would like to her get off a shot with 5 touches in the box. Sears touched the ball 14 times. That is definitely not the recipe for success. Fischer didn’t have much luck either. If there is a worrying trend, it does seem like the attack is now the weak link. Kanu always looks lively when she comes on. Balcer didn’t make an appearance. It might be time to mix things up a bit up front.

Anyway, it’s time to move on and Racing must do it quickly against an Orlando team that is likely looking for revenge and Racing has never won in Orlando (I don’t count the Liga MX cup penalty shoot-out thing from last season). Racing shouldn’t be intimidated however, so I give them a decent shot for points.

Michael Shaw