“I’d love to do it and you know you’ve always had it coming”
Courtesy of the NWSL
Match Haiku
Angel’s nemesis
For a fourth time in a row:
Brace for a new star.
“I’d love to do it and you know you’ve always had it coming.”
“Shoot You Down” - The Stone Roses, 1989
Racing just seems to have Angel City’s number at the moment. It is a match where Angel City will look at the stats and will feel that they should have gotten a point and possibly all three. The most confounding stat for Racing’s opponent in this match will be Racing’s 60% passing accuracy. How do you lose a match like that? As Bev always says, goals change matches and the key to matches are in the moments. Racing came up bigger in more moments than Angel City did in this match and that was the main story.
One of the side stories was obviously a brace for Lardner, who I feel like just needs minutes to show off how good she can be. Given 60 minutes (pre-planned) she scored twice and in a different week might have been left out there to get a chance for a third. Bev and the coaching staff managed this match masterfully, especially considering that Weber had to come on for Hodge in the 7th minute. I thought that Weber would immediately go up front and that Fischer would drop into the midfield, but thankfully that didn’t happen. Weber got about the same number of touches as O’Kane in the midfield and filled in nicely.
Racing deployed a tactical back 5 again based on how they expected Angel City to set up. Prior to the match, as “My Close Personal Friend” Lianne Sanderson noted as well, Racing specifically targeted Sams as the matchup they wanted to exploit. Bev liked the speed matchup of what she thought was going to be Sears versus Sams, but an illness kept Emma to a 30-minute appearance. Lardner found a different way to exploit the Angel City back line by being in the right place at the right time. Don’t expect Maja to win many headers as a routine, because she shared after the match that she almost never scores that way.
The collective defensive performance was really good for about 80 minutes, but Racing just isn’t capable of keeping a clean sheet, so Angel City made the last 10 minutes nervy. Bloomer made a good save during the period that ended the match but also got beaten twice and was lucky that one just hit the crossbar. The good news is that the “chunks” of good play that Bev likes to talk about were larger in this match and netted Racing 2 goals. This wasn’t a “turning the corner” performance, but it was a continued step in the right direction.
Post Match Moment of the Match
Like I mentioned above, don’t get used to Larder scoring headers. She said that she doesn’t think she ever scored that way in college. I do think Racing will look to continue to exploit her pace versus using her as a target for crosses. Ellie Jean returned to the lineup and took up the role of the right center back in the back 3. She was pleased to get back into the lineup and thought the team’s defensive performance was good enough, despite not keeping a clean sheet.
I was mostly curious to ask Bev about the things I mentioned above:
Were the 60th minute subs preplanned and was she tempted to leave Lardner out there for a potential hat trick? “Yes” and “No” on those.
Why did she choose Weber as the early replacement for Hodge? The team has been working with her at the 10 role. She did add that she was disappointed that Hodge didn’t get to play more against her old team.
Was she pleased with the big moments in this match? Of course she was, pointing again to importance of taking your chances when they come.
The Taylor Flint Honorary Yellow Card of the Match
Racing picked up two yellow cards in the match:
45th Minute + 3: Maja Lardner - Time Wasting
90th Minute + 3: Rachel Hill - Foul - Reckless Offence
Maja’s card is why people hate officials and there is a special circle of hell for them. Time wasting cards are given so arbitrarily and with zero consistency match to match. I have seen several of Racing’s opponents kick the ball away in the exact manner that Maja did and it has never been consistently called. This type of offense was a point of emphasis in multiple leagues a couple of years ago then completely abandoned again. Shame on Laura Rodriguez for giving it. It was an awful judgement call. There will be ZERO accountability for it.
Hill, who always looks willing to mix it up, got her money’s worth at least, so hers is the pick of the match.
Madchester Song for Celebration
“This sensation, a celebration. I won.”
“When the day is done and it all works out”
It’s great to see Racing start to put things together again and show themselves capable of planning specifically for an opponent. This does however beg the question of “why not sooner"? The focus in the earlier part of the season seemed to be pushing on from last season and working on the finer details. When Racing’s technical staff has at least been more open about planning for specific things that an opponent presents, the performances have looked better. I am sure that the planning hasn’t changed all that much, but from the outside it looks like night and day. A new formation is always going to be a glaringly obvious way to signal change. I think it is understandable that it took the staff about a dozen matches to figure out how to pull the strings for this team due to the number of changes to the players and their availability (forced or unforced). I just think most of us wish that the team could have held on to more key pieces.
Everyone is auditioning at this point. Bev isn’t signed past this year. She has been more ruthless in her lineup selections recently, which I believe is a signal to everyone that you are going to have to fight for minutes. Bev is also showing tactical flexibility and good roster management in a tough situation, which I am sure many clubs (including Angel City) are noticing. I still believe this season is a write off at this point, but maybe a winning streak can convince ownership to wake up from their coma and pretend like they care about the long-term viability of this team.
FREE EMMA SEARS
Emma was listed as questionable for the match in Los Angeles, and I will say that I wondered if she came down with a case of the “transfer flu”. However, she came on for the final 30 minutes and played decently, if not great. In the short term, this team has shown that it can win matches without her (and amazingly Flint too), so I don’t really get keeping her around. She is eating minutes (probably not in this 3-match week, but in the long hual) that could be used for McKeen and Larnder. She has handled herself well.
I can guarantee you that there are individuals in the Soccer Holdings ownership group that are tired of owning a couple of soccer teams. The group collective definitely acts like it. These owners lumber around like dinosaurs begging for an asteroid to put them out of their misery. Their inaction has made them irrelevant and doomed for extinction. They entered one environment and made no real effort to adapt to the ever-evolving one. They are likely to be confronted with an even harsher reality when Lou City inevitably joins the USL Premier in 2028. It’s time to put up or shut up.
