Racing v Angel City Pre Match Thoughts
Courtesy Elizabeth Shaw
Saturday is the annual “Pups at the Pitch” match for Racing and the team doesn’t have much room to “dog it” (audible howl). Every dog has its day (I’ll stop. I promise) and Racing needs to be a “lucky dog” (I lied) at this point to pull themselves back into the playoff race or find themselves in the doghouse with fans again.
That dog won’t hunt: Racing’s recent defensive efforts and structure while not bad might not be the way to go against Angel City. That team is full of one-on-one attacking specialists and Racing’s recent tendency (regardless of what the nominal formation is) has been to press the fullbacks into attack especially Milliet. Against Bay, Milliet found herself backpedaling to get into the right defensive position on the counter. Ultimately that didn’t result in a goal for Bay, but the opportunities were definitely there. Angel City likes to possess the ball, and Racing doesn’t typically fare well against the more possession-oriented teams. I expect Racing’s back line (including Milliet) to be a bit more reserved in their attacks. You definitely don’t want to be giving up too many counterattacking opportunities to Angel City.
New Dogs/Old Tricks: The recent additions to Racing’s roster brought immediate success, but not much afterwards. Arguably the performance against the Reign was good enough, but the Bay performance was pretty awful, especially in the second half. It’s an old refrain with me: I don’t necessarily think Racing isn’t good enough to win, but they aren’t really good enough to avoid the random nature of results in this league. I think Orlando completely changed their makeup and identity this season to shed some of the baggage that had been plaguing them since their inception. Racing swung big during the transfer window but after a few matches it still feels like the same old team. I warned that a Mal Swanson-less Red Stars would make pretty much any team look good. Since then, Racing played two matches where luck/randomness helped determine the outcome. The sun doesn’t shine on the same dog’s butt all the time, but Racing seems to have seen nary a sunbeam this season. However, it’s hard to justify consistently coming out on the wrong side of things as luck. I don’t know any other way to describe Racing’s circumstances other than they feel perpetually unlucky. Being who I am, I know that to be nonsense. Probabilities simply won’t allow such things. There has to be something causal that makes them feel so unlucky, but I can’t tell you what it is. The only thing I can point to is that maybe the players lack collective belief at this point, and I happen to think that such a lack of belief is contagious.
A bark worse than its bite: Listening to some of the Racing coaches’ and players’ soundbites this season, one would assume that Racing sits comfortably in the middle of the table. Even yesterday, there was a lack of urgency in their answers relating to this specific match. From the coaches’ and players’ perspective I am sure they mean to convey a lack of panic and honestly how gloomy can you be when you have spent the morning holding puppies. 840 WHAS’s Paul Miles asked both Yanez and Erceg about what it meant to play a team that is directly competing for a playoff spot. It was a question that I would have asked as well. The two-word phrase that I didn’t hear was “must-win”. I get why neither of them said it, but every match at this point could be an elimination match. You just might not know it until the end of the season. All season we have heard encouraging words from Bev and positive responses from the players. They talk a good game, but the play on the field has never quite matched it. I always recoiled at the tacit dismissal of lost points early in the season as part of some learning process, or “peaking at the right time” platitude. Racing has yet to consistently convert the confidence they convey off the pitch to results on it. I still think there is enough talent on this team to make the playoffs, but there is no longer time for patience. A switch must be flipped at this point. I hope this team has it in them.
