If I hear music, I'm gonna dance
Photo by Elizabeth Shaw
Link to Elizabeth’s gallery of the match
Stolen The Wire Epigraph
“If I hear music, I’m gonna dance.”
I am never going to read too much into a three to five match string of results, but I also don’t want to read too little into it. Racing outplayed Gotham on the night. That is a statement that I don’t think many people would disagree with. Gotham has had some good performances this season but, on this night, they were definitely more Bateman than Batman.
A Lavelle-less Gotham (which all of her club teams should know that they have to plan for) looked toothless for large portions of the match and you have to say Racing was the reason.
Racing did an excellent job of making sure that the early press rattled Gotham enough to put them off of their game. I was most impressed by the commitment by the Racing players to the coordinated press. It didn’t yield a goal (which I don’t necessarily think was the point anyway) but it did delay Gotham’s ability to find any sort of rhythm until about midway into the first half.
The league table is too jumbled up at the moment for any team to be considered a clear favorite to win the league. In fact, we are probably a couple of matches away from it even reflecting a true reality for this season. However, Racing’s reality for the moment is that they are in this thing (the playoff race). Based on last night, if they hear music, they’re gonna dance.
Post Match Moment of the Match
Everyone in the Racing-sphere was exciting. All of the post-match interviews were full of energy, but the best moment came from Jordyn Bloomer in the club.
I love the way she switches from “Party Jordyn” to “Role-model Jordyn” when she sees the kids.
A close second was Sonis and Fischer throwing cold water or Gatorade (on not the warmest of nights) on Taylor Flint during her post-match interview on Amazon Prime. The Gatorade bucket was unavailable.
And a good time was had by all!
Lightning-in-a-Bottle-O-Meter
Whenever Racing wins a match, I will rate how much of it was down to catching lightning in a bottle versus Racing just doing the things they do well.
Racing won the battle of styles, which is something they have done in the last three matches. I really did expect Gotham to do better especially after they seemed to weather the first 15 minutes. However, Racing had no problem defending Gotham when Gotham had long spells of possession. There wasn’t anything tremendously flukey about this win. The only lightning-ish thing was Flint’s thunderous strike. Even though I believe Gotham is a better team than Houston (on the night Gotham was pretty poor), this felt like fewer things significantly aided Racing other than their preparedness and effort. 1.5/5
It's not easy being green, so let's just be lavender
Ding-dong, the kit is dead! Which old kit? The wicked kit!
Hooray! Racing stopped wearing the green kit at home! Let’s retire this thing until forced to wear it. Some kits are just cursed (not really, but let’s pretend). You definitely shouldn’t switch kits for no reason during a streak. Racing’s next opponent has an actual witch on their badge (work with me here). That rain witch will definitely curse Racing if she sees a color that reminds her of the wicked witch. NO MORE GREEN! NO MORE GREEN!
Instant “Un”alysis
I really don’t mind when the crowd gets on the refs, but can we stop it with the over belligerent yelling at assistant referees on offside calls? Boo if you like but keep it quick and don’t try to start a conversation with the assistant referee. If there is one thing that assistant officials are good at (there actually might be just one thing) it is getting offside decisions a) correct and b) flagged at the appropriate time.
I will once again repeat this PSA:
Please do not yell at the officials when you are wrong. It cheapens when I yell at the officials, and I only yell when I am right.
Heel of the match
Jae Howell was slightly fortunate not to get sent off in this match. She teetered in “orange-plus” territory for much of the second half. Her 7th minute yellow meant that she would need to be careful, but she sure wasn’t. She even had a few fouls after it appeared that the center referee gave her the final, final warning. Jae’s been gone long enough now to be a full-on villain.
Ella Stevens was a close second. If I had been the assistant referee and she said the things to me that she said to him, she would have seen yellow and received a stern talking to. Screw it, this whole club, their fans and the media that cover them are all heels! Go back to…
All kidding aside…maybe don’t fly back through Newark.
Did the stadium have good food?
I was pleasantly surprised by the vegan pepperoni pizza in the premium club. We had an extra person in our loge box with us on the night which meant that a) I stood for most of the match (an experience I didn’t hate) and b) Elizabeth gave her club pass away. She had a corndog instead, which she actually prefers (I think). I have had the stadium corndog. It is good with mustard and the cheese cup. I also got Ehler’s for a few of us. It’s hard to mess up ice cream, so that was a win too. The Chicken Boscaiola in the club was good as well.
The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match
Yes! Fischer again! However, she managed to go nine more minutes than Jaelyn Howell before picking up her yellow card. Let’s not be too harsh on her because I thought her card was harsh in and of itself. I was likely an accumulation card (I know, in the16th minute?) but to be fair, she had been fouling quite a lot in the press. It is probably no coincidence that Racing’s press was less effective after this card.
“Playing for blood as grandmasters should”
Cue Fanfare/Swoon/1984
There aren’t too many songs about chess, but “Cue Fanfare” is one of them.
Bev won the chess match on the night and frankly I was a little disappointed in Juan Carlos Amorós. He did appear to hold his players in the locker room a little longer at halftime, but that didn’t seem to help Gotham much. After the match Amorós talked about the need for Gotham to be better in front of goal, but that wasn’t their problem. The problem was that he let his team get suckered into a defensive-oriented, ragged match when that isn’t their forte. For once the opposing coach played right into Bev’s hands AND the players made it work for her.
“In shock they stare and cue fanfare”- For me this was an unexpected result. I am not so shocked that Racing was able to pull off a win against Gotham, but I was surprised at how easy it seemed. I don’t mean easy in a low effort kind of way, but more in the “free from worries or problems” way. Racing never looked overly concerned or bothered by anything that Gotham threw at them. If this team can win this way more often, then I may have completely misjudged them.
It was great to see how everyone celebrated this win. There were toasts and smiles and fireworks and maybe best of all, the feeling of (credit to Tom Benson) “that was fun, let’s do it again!” I teased Jenna Tonelli via Bluesky about her pre-match assessment of Racing as “struggling”. That might have been painfully accurate after the San Diego match, but that assessment is miles off base now. Maybe teams will continue to underestimate Racing and be as shocked as Gotham was.
“The sweetest moment comes at last.”- To finally win at home in front of your fans for the first time this season had to feel great for the players. The sweetest moment for Flint was the payoff of her near miss in the opening home match. After this match the media were stepping all over themselves to ask about her post-match quote from the North Carolina match where she said, “I would have retired if I made that.” Thank goodness there was no retirement talk after this match because Racing’s consistently best player had her best ever match for Racing. As I said in my player ratings, that is no small feat.
The rest of Racing’s squad played well last night too. There wasn't a bad performance in the bunch. I am starting to wonder a bit what Kanu and Pikkujämsä have to do to get some real minutes. I think we all would like to see a Sears/Kanu/Fischer front line at some point in a match, but honestly that is now probably only going to come in a match where Racing trails. Pikkujämsä seems tailor made to see out a 1-0 win, but O'Kane's performance kept her firmly on the bench. These are good problems to have.
They'll be no talk from me about “turning a corner” yet, but you have to start somewhere, and Racing is on a nice mini-run. It is critical that you pick up points while you are playing well, because there will naturally be patches where you don't. In the past Racing made a habit of getting draws from well-played matches. If they can keep the 3 points coming, they could find themselves in excellent shape come the July break.
