Pride v Racing -1
Orlando is Racing's next hurdle in their effort to climb up the table. In many ways this will be a litmus test to see how serious Racing can be towards moving up the table. The players have embraced the new formation and McMahon expressed that she was especially pleased by being able to play in the left wing role. It was the first chance for media to talk to Maja after she received the Player of the Week award from the NWSL. She gave lots of credit to her teammates.
You can tell Bev is already thinking about the 3 matches in 9 days stretch that is coming up after the Orlando march because she mentioned it multiple times when discussing the recent 3 macthes in 7 days stretch. She isn't looking past Orlando, but I think you can tell that the schedule this season for Racing has been a challenging one. The upcoming stretch is not as daunting, but one does wonder if the middle match of that stretch (Wednesday at home versus Seattle at 6:30) might be the one where Bev roles the dice on rotation.
As always Bev called Orlando “a respectable opponent” but they are not nearly as intimidating as they are with Banda. Orlando isn't typically a tremendously hostile atmosphere so Racing chances for points are decent. When asked about her favorite Disney attraction she said Splash Mountain. I am definitely in agreement on that.
The bigger “news” of the day was John Neace's comments from the Venture Connectors luncheon recently reported in Louisville Business First. Essentially he said that the ownership group “will be forced to do something” if the attendance numbers don't improve. It wasn't the best choice of words because many fans would say that ownership “doing something” was needed to prevent the current situation. Neace isn't wrong in that the attendance numbers need to improve. They 100% do. However, the ownership group is doing more to alienate current fans than to gain new ones.
I think Racing might have had a chance to succeed in Louisville if the ownership group loved soccer. When you fall in love with the beautiful game it can be all consuming and make you do irrational things like continue to be willing to lose millions of dollars per year. When you aren't in love, rational thought takes over and you get the kind of lame but accurate excuses that Neace provides. He became temporarily infatuated with soccer. He never fell in love like the rest of us. He isn't one of us. He never was.
Therefore he gets to do whatever he sees fit. This ownership group was never worthy of an NWSL franchise. The just found themselves in the perfect situation to get one on the cheap. It isn't their fault, but it became our problem.
