Current v Racing Pre Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Sports Images
Louisville and Kansas City meet on Saturday evening with a 13-point gulf between them. The Current are at the top of the league and Racing finds itself in a familiar spot near the bottom of the table. This trip is an opportunity for Racing to turn heads or reinforce their league reputation as an also-ran.
For me, Kansas City’s performance this year encapsulates the most frustrating part of my four years of Racing fandom. The Current have seemed to turn things around in a rapid fashion. There is definitely an argument to be made that the Current way underperformed last year, and that hiring a big-name coach sped along their progress. That doesn’t necessarily make me feel any better about where Racing sit at this moment in time. I asked Bekki to pose the question on the latest Butchertown Rundown episode to assess where Tom and Kaitlyn (but unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear Bekki’s own take) stood on the scale of “Trust the Process” vs. “Law of Holes” scale. I would categorize their attitude as mostly in the “Trust the Process” category and I would have to agree with that for the most part. The concerning part for me was that the concept even popped into my head and neither Bekki, nor Kaitlyn, nor Tom thought it ridiculous enough to dismiss from the outset. I think Bev is doing a fine job. I think the attitude of the players is upbeat and correctly so. The piece that bothers me it that maybe I don’t have realistic expectations.
Frequent and long-term visitors to this site know where my soccer fandom was born and where my deepest loyalties lie. I am not going to rehash any of that, but it did get me thinking “this is what it must be like to be a Crystal Palace fan.” That club has a long, but not necessarily successful history. Their most recent teams have been prone to moments of absolute brilliance and have featured some very, very good players, but they never are consistently what I would classify as “good”. No sane person without of some kind of connection to South London would ever think it was a good idea to be a Palace supporter. Therefore, their club is characterized by fiercely loyal, but long-suffering fans who are mostly from South London. It you asked me to summarize what I thought their club identity was in a single sentence I would say this: It is a club that can be dangerous on their best day, but they are hardly ever going to threaten to win any kind of major trophy.
I don’t want that to become the identity of this club. However, lacking any other option, I would have to say that through what I have seen so far, my assessment of Crystal Palace kind of sums up this team too. Honestly, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I will gladly attend every home game and write about every match they participate in. I just can’t imagine any scenario in the near future where this team wins a major honor. I hope someday very soon they prove me wrong. For me, proximity is the main reason I support this club. They really haven’t given me any other one yet.
With that huge bummer out of the way, I do have to say that the attitudes of the players and coaches in this club couldn’t be better, at least in public or in the media. They have had a rough start to the season that was somewhat masked by an undefeated run but have kept a positive attitude. However, this isn’t the Disney Channel, so that doesn’t always work. Another minor bummer…the team just can’t seem to get healthy. The news is as good as it can be on Borges, but even if an optimistic June timetable works out for her, she would likely head off to the Olympics with no real chance to find her form. Davis is participating in practice, but I do not believe she is near contact yet. Once she is fully fit, it will probably take at least a month for her to find some form. Coach Yanez has definitely not been dealt the best hand when it comes to injuries. In Racing Louisville’s pre-match media today, Bev shared this on the squad depth when I asked her if we had seen her best XI: “You have to have belief in the whole group because opportunities will present themselves and you need the confidence of those players to be able to step in and execute.” I think the squad has shown its depth and there really hasn’t been a huge drop-off. Maybe the results point to the tiniest bit of drop in quality (or the realization that you would have gotten a similar result with everyone available.)
I will stick with the bummer theme to hopefully get it out of my system. I am not a fan of the “peak at the right time mentality”. It implies to me that non-peak performance is acceptable at points. I think Racing missed huge opportunities at the beginning of the season to pad their point total. One would much rather experience a dip in form with some padding in the table when it comes to placement and points. Unfortunately, Racing didn’t take full advantage when they got leads and now the table is rather daunting. The playoffs are always going to be a crapshoot (Gotham had dreadful pre-playoff from last season) and 3 points in the first match count just the same as 3 points in the final match. Louisville might have dug themselves an early season hole too deep to escape. The good news is that there is still time to turn things around.
Let me say this about the mentality of “peaking”. I think it’s soft. I prefer the mentality of “constant and continuing excellence.” I realize the nobody starts there, but it’s the mentality that the top clubs in the world have. They can recover from dips in form because the can mentally picture success either through their own experiences or through the club’s history. The odd thing is that I would classify Lou City as having a true winner’s mentality. There are people in the combined Soccer Holdings group that clearly have it. I just wish they could bottle it and donate some of it to Racing. I hold out hope that Racing gets there, but as I frequently attest, I just haven’t seen evidence of it yet.
