Racing v Courage Preview
The North Carolina Courage come to town on Saturday as a bit of an enigma. The Courage are last in the league with a single point, but surprisingly won the preseason Challange Cup. Racing’s opponent leads the league in possession (57.6%) and number of completed passes per match, but are dead last in shots on target per match and next to last in goals scored per match. FotMob gives out Player of the Match awards based on their statistical performance player ratings and no NCC player has won the award in a league match so far this season (as a comparison Racing has 3 with Fox having 2 and DeMelo the other).
However, for Racing the Courage are a puzzle that they have yet to solve. The teams have faced each other 4 times with the Courage winning all 4 and the aggregate score line is 13-3 in North Carolina’s favor. When the season started, I thought that the Courage were going to struggle, but they played really well early on. It’s possible that the team benefited from surprising the other team’s in their group, or maybe their group was on the weaker side as those team currently occupy 4 out of the bottom 6 positions in the table.
Likely, the truth is that we don’t know who the Courage are yet. I suspect that they are probably in a group of teams that will be challenging for a playoff spot, but based on early returns that group could include all of the teams. In fact, it could be argued that there are no excellent or really bad teams in the league this year. That means that every team should be taken seriously and that every team has a legitimate chance to win every match. Racing had been on a run of really good performances, but Coach Björkegren conceded in his press conference today that Racing’s performance in the last match wasn’t up to their usual standard. Hopefully the most recent match was more of blip vs. a trend.
The big news on the Racing front is that Nadia Nadim is now available for selection. Both Björkegren and Nadim said that it would take a while for her to be up to full match fitness. It will be intriguing to see how Nadia is used as a sub. I could see her as a like-for-like replacement for both McDonald and Kizer. It’s also entirely possible to see her subbed on as an extra attacker if Racing trail after 60 minutes, but we all hope that doesn’t happen. I believe Nadia will have to get a few substitute appearances under her belt before she is under consideration for a start and Nadia also said that she expected to have to earn her way into the starting lineup and to fight for a place in the match day squad. Jordyn Bloomer is still in a walking boot and is “weeks” away from returning according to Coach Kim.
If you read my piece from earlier this week or follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed that I have become a bit fascinated by how teams perform when scoring first. Here is the lowdown on the Courage:
This season the Courage are averaging .25 points/match when scoring first which is below the league average
Conversely, the team is averaging 2.25 points/match when scoring first which is right at the league average
If Racing can jump out into a lead vs. the Courage (something they achieved on a 24th minute goal by CeCe Kizer in their first ever meeting), I like their chances at taking all 3 points. Racing has scored first in 6 of their matches in 2022 and the Courage has scored first in 8 (7 in the Challenge Cup and only once in the league) which may be the key stat in the shifting of their form. Here is the updated graphic through Wednesday’s match between the Spirit and Red Stars.
