Current 1 Racing 0 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
Much of the post game chatter yesterday surrounded Coach Björkegren's comments regarding the field conditions of the practice facility in Kansas City. The response from the Current was: “We take this matter very seriously. The field Louisville was provided is the same field that all teams have been provided when traveling to KC, without incident. We will look into any issues that occurred during yesterday’s training session.” There is no reason not to believe this. However, whether or not a visiting team takes advantage of this practice field is completely dependent on how early the teams arrive for the match. I understand that Racing has practiced at Swope Park on previous trips, and their earlier arrival for this trip meant that they needed to use the other field.
Regardless of the reason, the reality is that Racing did not look as sharp as they had looked in the previous 4 or 5 matches. Falling behind early again could have something to do with that as well. Interestingly, I have been laboring under the false assumption that Racing was uniquely prone to needing to score first in matches to influence their results. I looked at all of the non 0-0 results this year (Challenge Cup included) to see which teams were benefiting the most by scoring first. All of the analysis that follows is based purely on non 0-0 matches. There are a few ways to looks at this. Kansas City has the highest deviation from their average points taken with a perfect win record when scoring first and an average of .55 points when not. San Diego also has a perfect record when scoring first, and have a dreadfull avcerage of .29 points when not (SD is averaging slightly more points in non 0-0 matches with 1.41 compared to 1.31 for KC). The OL Reign and Courage have scored first the most (8 times). Angel City haven't taken a single point without scoring first, something it took Racing pretty much all year to accomplish last season. The only category where Racing is at the extreme is that they only average 1.83 points when scoring first, which is tied for last with Chicago. Obviously it is still greatly advantageous to score first (teams average 2.29 points vs. 0.45 points when doing so), but Racing doesn't benefit as much as other teams in the league when they do. Falling behind pretty much dooms your chances of winning with only 4 matches (6%) being won by the team that trailed first, and none of those teams trailed later than the 56th minute.
The stats will say that Racing completed 74% of their passes, but their passing yesterday was far from sharp. Perhaps the most telling stat was that they only really were successful in completing passes in their own half. In their previous 4 matches (all undefeated) the percentage of total passes completed that occurred in their own half were 50%, 59%, 60%, and 61%. Yesterday that percentage was 68%. Said differently only 32% of their completed passes occurred in the opposition half. I believe partial credit is due to KC for keeping Racing pinned into its own half, but Racing seemed to get pressured against the touch lines and thus created an “extra defender” for KC by not playing longer balls or trying to work the ball across the pitch.
On the positive side, Racing haven't conceded a goal from open play in 3 matches. KC didn't really look close to scoring other than the excellently taken penalty by LaBonta. I believe Lester and Bonner are starting to compliment each other well, and we'll chalk up Holloway's performance to first game jitters. The penalty was a bit soft, but probably fair.
