Houston 0 Louisville 0 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
Houston and Louisville played to a fairly entertaining draw, with neither team really controlling the match. It was a pretty typically opening match with both teams looking disjointed at times, which was to be expected. Here are my takeaways
Louisville drew 8 times last season, so in order to make the playoffs this season they are going to have to turn loses to draws and draws to wins. However, last night seemed like a good result for an early season road trip to an opponent that made the playoffs last season. I think a good barometer for making the playoffs in this league is getting half the available points, so in the 30-36 range. Six home wins and four road wins would do the trick in my opinion, so a road point against a top half side isn’t go to derail you on that path.
Louisville is at the stage in development (as most NWSL teams are) of being a collection of players not yet playing as a unit. Last night was a good demonstration of the team being pretty much equal to the sum of its parts. The encouraging piece is that individually, the new and returning players showed their quality. It would be too much to ask at this point for the new pieces to fit seamlessly into the team, especially with seven starters that were not on last year’s opening match squad. However, the lack of cohesion is what stood out to me. If a goal was going to come in the match on Sunday evening, it was going to be a piece of individual brilliance, and not through any team engineered move. Kanu has two great chances, but couldn’t put her first half effort on frame, and had her brilliant shot in the second half saved by Campbell. Ary Borges couldn’t put her shot on goal either. McDonald tried to create a few more team-oriented chances, but her best effort was a first-time shot that produced another good save from Campbell. Pickett put the ball in dangerous places especially on Borges’ effort, but there wasn’t anyone there to get the decisive goal. All-in-all, there just weren't enough players on the same page from an attacking perspective to make Houston pay.
Conversely on the defensive side, Louisville ultimately put in a very solid performance. It just isn’t a Louisville match without some kind of heroics from Katie Lund whose double save about midway through the second half was the highlight of the match. It was followed closely by Lund and Milliet coming together to smother a loose ball in the box in the first half with Lo basically covering the ball with her legs until Katie could grab it. As great as Lund was, the center backs really caught my eye. Rebecca Holloway had about as bad a start to her stint in Louisville as you could have. She went straight into the starting lineup and made some glaring errors and then pretty much spent the rest of the season on the bench or out of the squad. I didn’t think she would make this year’s roster, let alone start the opener. It wasn’t a perfect match for her. There was a least a few times her inexperience at center back appeared to cause her to want to sit deep when she needed to push up, but after the first 30 minutes or so she appeared to settle in and got a clean sheet for her efforts. She is a good story for perseverance and working hard. She doesn’t start if Howell isn’t injured, but she also doesn’t start if hadn’t put in the work and impressed the coaches enough to get the nod over Murray. Once Howell and Lester are both healthy, we may not see her start again but on this night, she was good enough playing out of her preferred left back position and that’s all you can ask for in a squad player. Well done, Rebecca!
Abby Erceg. I don’t know really how to say much more, but it was the most assured performance by a center back ever for Louisville and I don’t know if it’s even close. I feel much better about the back line after seeing her out there. There wasn’t anything fancy, but you don’t want or need anything fancy on the backline. She was captain on the night and I don’t think her behavior will change at all once Howell assumes the armband. She is like having bonus captain.
All of the debutants had nice first matches. Elli Pikkujämsä got a little winded at the end and required substitution but didn’t look like the environment was too big for her. Borges and Kanu both impressed too, but will be disappointed that they didn’t finish their chances. One of the things that I am really excited about is that I think the burden on DeMelo and Howell will be lifted a bit and therefore will allow them to have even better sophomore seasons.
One of the criticisms of Coach Björkegren last year was that he didn’t use his subs enough. I didn’t agree with that criticism last year because most of the substitutes he would have made last year would have weakened the team in the close matches where he was criticized. This season will be different, and you could see that every substitution last night probably increased the team’s chances of finding the breakthrough goal, even though it didn’t ultimately come. I watched practice on Friday, and he scrimmaged with the starting lineup he put out on Sunday night. Within the first 15 minutes of the scrimmage, the starters had given up two counter-attacking goals and I thought he might have gotten it wrong with his lineup. Fortunately, he is the coach and not me because I might have panicked and told Borges to sit deep. He got the lineup and tactics right for this one. The other team is always going to get their chances, but Louisville never seemed disorganized and always seemed dangerous in attack.
