“Don't matter how many times you get burnt, you just keep doin' the same.”

Courtesy Nikita (LLC)

Everyone wishes Sav a full recovery. You are perfectly within your right to want to forget all about this match. If that is the case, I bid you adieu. If you are still around, I expect you want me to be me, so I will do just that.

Stolen The Wire Epigraph

“Don't matter how many times you get burnt, you just keep doin' the same.”

For those of you who haven’t seen The Wire, it is a soapy drama about an elite clique of socialites who move from Texas to Baltimore and become obsessed with, you guessed it, heroin.

Even with the match split over 2 separate days due to Savannah DeMelo’s unfortunate health issue, Racing succumbed to familiar frailties that I had hoped were an anomaly. Racing’s lack of clinical finishing has reared its head again, and as much as coaches and players want to discount it for whatever reason, it remains a problem. There were golden opportunities in this match both on Sunday and Tuesday. The Reign and specifically Jess Fishlock made hers count. There is a lot to be said about experience and composure, something Fishlock has in spades. Racing just seems to lack something in front of goal at the moment. Fotmob had Racing with 3 big chances and 3 big chances missed. One thing that coaches and players will point to are ‘creating opportunities” and see this as a good thing. Racing leads the league in “big chances missed” along with Portland (32). They are 3rd in “big chances created” with 46. Kansas City and Portland are tied with 50. I have used this analogy before, but I like it, so I will use it again. Creating chances is half the battle, but unfortunately it is only half the battle. Guess who is last in the league in big chances missed? You guessed it. The Reign who has only missed 12 big chances. A better statistic to look at is probably the % of big chances converted. Racing has converted 14 out of 46 (30%) this season and the Reign has converted 15 out of 27 (56%). The point is that the Reign collectively finish their good chances better. Racing is surviving on its volume of chances.

I am not sure that there is anything that the players and coaches can do about it, honestly. The solution isn’t to create less chances, the solution is to just “be better” which is infinitely easier said than done. I do think that Racing tends to rush on big chances. That is potentially something to work on.

The continued conceding of late goals is likely tangentially associated to the team’s lack of clinical finishing. The Reign took advantage of Racing’s directness in this match. For a counterattacking team, sometimes the directness of your opponent plays into your hand. The Reign was not really in the match until the last 15 minutes. Then they threw their haymaker. It’s a cliche because it’s true but you have to score when you are in the ascendency. Racing too many times this year hasn’t been able to turn good or even great play into goals.

It’s too late in the season to make any big tactical changes, so Bev will have to figure out a way to get her players to convert what have obviously been good game plans into results. The room for error has pretty much vanished at this point.

Post Match Moment of the Match

I often feel like the oddball. Most of that is by design. After the match I wanted to talk about soccer and the rest of the media who asked questions didn’t really want to. I probably should have read the room sooner, but I did ask Janine Sonis some soccer related questions, but I don’t think any of them are worth of any particular note here. When the media talked to Bev, all of the focus was on Sav. That is fair. I didn’t think much of it was insightful or surprising. I mean, what can you really say if you’re Bev in a situation like this? Listen to the interviews and maybe you will have a different takeaway. Mine was that it is a difficult and sad situation that everyone logistically handled in the correct manner and that everyone emotionally will have to handle in their own way. I guess the only other thing I will say here is that if you are trying to handle it on your own and are struggling, please reach out. Some of us like to process things on our own because we want to. Nobody should feel like they are processing things on their own because they have to.

Were the Announcers Good?

Maura Sheridan was on the call and Jordan Angeli was on the color on Sunday. They were very good at handling a tough situation and authentic in their natural response. It’s unfortunate that they had practice earlier in the season as they were on the call of the match where Savy King collapsed. Josh Eastern and Gary Bailey were on the call on Tuesday night.

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/Eastern/Bailey: Pretty much spot on, most of the time.

Sheridan and Angeli were very, very good during the first half and great during the medical emergency. Eastern and Bailey were also solid.

I do have one tiny nit to pick with Jordan Angeli on something that I find symptomatic of how broadcasters and fans sometimes infantilize the NWSL. In attempting to rightfully praise Jordyn Bloomer, she made a comment along the lines that Sam Coffey shouldn’t be criticized for missing her penalty against Racing when Bloomer saved it because of Bloomer’s form. This is misogyny through benevolent sexism. If a man had taken that penalty, it would have been fairly categorized as a poor one, as i should have been for Coffey. It is insulting to Sam Coffey to say that it wasn’t. Any professional player will say they should be judged against a 100% conversion rate for penalties. I am sure Coffey holds herself to that standard. It is a minor thing in the grand scheme of things, but I made note of it.

TV Kit Rating

Elizabeth and I had this kit ranked at 4 in our preseason rankings. I like the sponsor-less look and the shorts are a nice compliment to the white top. Kudos to the Reign for making Racing play in their “cursed” green kits. I forget where I saw it or heard it, but the Racing players do associate a little bad luck with these kits. Hard to argue with that assessment after this match. NO MORE GREEN! Anyway, the Reign’s kit reads well on the screen and like I have said before, when the badge can do the heavy lifting, you should let it. 8/10

The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match

I might have to rename this section if Taylor Flint keeps this up. She had a delightfully unnecessary and aggressive obstruction foul called on her right after the Reign scored. Sportsmanship be damned! Her surprised reaction at the referee’s decision to give her a yellow card was equally hilarious. The laws of the game clearly define obstruction, and this was an easy call. Flint pulls into the outright lead for the league! WOO-HOO, I guess…

“Stranger things have been, stranger things have gone. I find it hard right now to name you one.”

“Nightingales”/From Langley Park to Memphis/1988

To some degree, Racing’s inability to close out matches has become a comedy of errors. It just seems inevitable that bad things are going to happen in the 90th minute or later. I thought fatigue might be a factor, but that can’t be an excuse in this match. I do wonder about Racing’s ability to move the ball slowly but effectively. Racing goes from defending to attacking so relentlessly, that I am I not sure if they have the ability to grind out possession. Look no further than how the Reign played the stoppage time minutes after scoring. They made it so Racing couldn’t really get anything going in attack. In the one instance recently where Racing has held on to a lead, it wasn’t due to the Wave’s lack of possession or opportunities from corners. In an American football analogy, Racing can’t run a 4-minute drill to kill the clock and end the match. Other teams seem to know how. in the last two matches, the scenario was different, but it was similar in that in those circumstances you needed to kill the clock and have a long field goal attempt with 0:00 on the clock, just to prevent the other team from winning. It’s not a perfect analogy, but the message seems to fit. Maybe this works better: There is a reason “One nil to the Arsenal” is a beloved chant.