Pride 3 Racing 1 Player Ratings and Match Thoughts
Courtesy ISI Photos
You have to score when you're in the ascendancy. That's the big lesson here. Prior to the two Pride goals in quick succession Racing had the bests chances. Racing fought back to get a second half goal, but conceded again to end up on the wrong side of a 3-1 loss.
Player Ratings
Betos-6: Her initial save on the build up to Leroux's goal was great and exactly what she had been practicing on Thursday when I was there. The actual goals were not her fault.
Fox-8: Racing's consistently best player was great again, almost scoring in the first half.
Riehl-7: Looking back, it's hard to understand why she ever was on the bench. Her play has gotten better and better since she rejoined the starting lineup. It could be argued that she has been the best CB option this season.
Bonner-6: A fairly average performance in a string of average performances.
Martin-5: Should have done better on Marta's goal. It's unclear to me why she is preferred at left back at the moment.
Olofsson-6: A little drop in quality from her last match.
McCaskill-7: Did standard McCaskill things and her corners are getting better.
Millet-7: Played the full 90, and had a decent match.
Kizer-8 (Player of the Match): It has to be said that CeCe seems to have a pretty good instict about how to place the ball on her shots. On the goal she opened up her posture to receive the ball and had the option to go left of right of the keeper. It was fabulous positioning.
Nagasato-7: Yuki had a good game as the replacement for Nadia. Her pass to Kizer on the goal was great.
Baucom-6: Had a decent effort that was wide of goal.
Other Thoughts
Nadim most likely has a torn ACL and if that is true, then her season is over. It's tough to know how much contact there was or how much it led to the injury. I didn't see anything egregious in the contact and there wasn't a card issued. I didn't think there was any ill intent in the challenge.
The officiating in this league is flat out terrible sometimes. Worse than that, it's horribly inconsistent and keeps being terrible in new and confusing ways. There was a missed offside call, which happens. The most puzzling thing was the 3 added minutes of extra time in the first half. Nadim was down for at least 3 and a half minutes. In most every other league in the world, officials add time for each goal scored. Most fans would have assumed at least 5 minutes of stoppage time was needed. I think most officials would have added that much. The other frustrating thing is that the officials are inconsistent about when to let play go on and when to stop it. I am fine with letting play go on and not calling every foul, in fact I prefer that advantages are given. However, sometimes the officials just seem to not call fouls when a team simply retains possession. These should be called consistently.
I don’t think either coach has gotten the starting XI right. This unchanged lineup looked less cohesive in its second time out. I still think the roster is too unbalanced. Racing is likely to have 2 of the top 4 draft picks in the college draft. They have to use those picks to transform the team into a group of players that wants to play how the head coach wants to play. If this team is going to insist on pressing, then the top two picks better be equipped to do that or provide cover for it.
The team and players can insist that they are still in the playoff hunt, but any reasonable person has surely given up on that by this point. With Nadia likely out for the rest of the season, Racing surely can move to talent evaluation mode.
There are 6 matches left and the organization should use those to prep for next year and beyond. I would be looking to try out some different looks and player combinations.
