Stolen The Wire Epigraph

“No one wins. One side just loses more slowly.”

For those of you who haven’t seen The Wire, the 4th season is basically just Abbott Elementary, but with 8th graders.

I was so close to handing out my first ever “10” player rating to Jordyn Bloomer, but I could not bring myself to do it in a match that Racing didn’t win. Prior to the match, I said that any points here would be good, and I stand by that. Play that match again 100 times and there is no way Bloomer saves two penalties and likely doesn’t even get the chance to do so. As this season marches on I do believe that the above epigraph (which actually might be my least favorite in the entire series as it seems overly pessimistic, even for David Simon) probably does apply to every team that isn’t Kansas City. They look to be clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the league at this point. All of the other teams, including Orlando, are in a race to lose more slowly. A win has me writing other things here, but one thing stuck with me that I will go ahead and propose. “Are we sure that Racing isn’t at least the second or third best team in the league at this point?” Now I know that sounds overly optimistic for me but after watching some of the other teams recently, I really don’t think any of them are better than Racing other than Kansas City and maybe San Diego.

Racing handled Orlando for much of the match. The first penalty was unnecessary but soft. The second was a joke and softer than the first. That Bloomer saved both of them is a little bit “ball don’t lie” but the same could be said for the own goal. Part of me does wonder if the late subs of Fischer for Weber and Ary for DeMelo were the right moves, but hindsight is always 20/20. All of the players worked hard and all had good moments, so I won’t worry too much about what might have been. At the end of the season there will be only one winner, but this match will always be memorable even if no one won.

Post Match Moment of the Match

Once again, I skived off my usual post-match duties for Racing to catch the last few minutes of the Lou City match as I was watching the match from the LFS press box. Bev was still rightfully pumped after the match, dropping 3 f-bombs during the 7-minute video. She called Bloomer “F-ing amazing” (we all agree). Bloomer shared that she enjoyed engaging with the Orlando fans in each end after she made the saves. (Bloomer F-bomb count during the press conference: 1). She signed off with “90 plus nine…I need to go lay down now.” Marissa eschewed the f-bombs and said she was “proud of the group”, a sentiment we can all get behind.

Were the Announcers Good?

JP Dellacamera and Jill Loyden were on the call. Once again, I was not in my normal friendly confines at home for this match. I watched the Racing match in the Lynn Family Stadium press box as Lou City battered Charleston 4-1 in front of 13,611 fans.

Subsection: How was their “Louisville”?

Louisvillians are persnickety on the pronunciation of their beloved hometown. I will be monitoring the broadcaster’s commitment to getting it right.

Jill: Always spot on. Two syllables. Honorary Louisvillian.

JP: When will this dude just retire? The one I caught was French…again. JP pronounced Sonis wrong…again but got nearer to the correct pronunciation as the match went on.

JP and Jill are remote when calling the match. JP seemed to not understand that the first penalty was given until at least a minute had passed. He seems generally ill-prepared for the matches he calls. Get Jill a better partner please. Close personal friend, Lianne Sanderson (alright we’ve met once, and she once liked a tweet I made about our meeting) made the snoozefest at Gotham earlier in the day much more palatable from a broadcast perspective. More like her please, NWSL.

TV Kit Rating

I said nice things about this kit in the kit rating piece earlier in the season, but Elizabeth didn’t care for it, so it ended up 11th. I think she had the better take in retrospect. On some screens, the kit reads as dark periwinkle more than a pure purple. I don’t like it. The pattern doesn’t read either (although to be fair neither does the pattern on Racing’s kit.) It was a bit confusing to watch two matches at once where Louisville is in a dark purple kit in one and essentially a white kit in the other and their opponents basically wore the opposites. Anyway, the Orlando kits are fairly meh. 5/10

The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match

Sav DeMelo picked up a good tactical yellow in the 55th minute stopping a promising attack by Banda. It was a nice, firm tug back that stopped her in her tracks. It was a “clean” yellow in that it didn’t endanger anyone. Good job Sav!

“Some of us shout ‘Cheats’ for cheating on the deal.”

“When the Angels”/Steve McQueen/1985

Technically, there is nothing stopping me from giving Jordyn Bloomer a “10” ratings other than some self-imposed rule about saving a “10” for something truly special in a win. Bloomer saved two penalties in an NWSL match and that has never been done before. Why couldn’t the soccer gods let us have this one? As the great poet once said, “if they can dance of the head of a pin, don't that tell you something about their skin?”

The soccer gods are really “heart-faced little bastards.”

I will forgo the angel imagery now and say that it was an encouraging and uplifting performance. I feel better about Racing’s chances for the playoffs now more than ever. They can do it. They are going to do it (reminder: whenever I get too up on this team bad things happen, but I am the least superstitious person I know so I said it anyway).

I really did mean that Racing is in the second tier of teams in the league. In a league with a one-team first tier, that isn’t a terrible place to be. The next two matches will show if my declaration is correct or too hasty.

“No One Wins…”