Racing v Dash Preview
Courtesy Connor Cunningham
It’s the Dash for Racing again, and there is probably not a team that Racing wants to play simultaneously more and less. These teams definitely know what to expect from each other now, so it will be up to execution on the field. Instead of previewing the match in a traditional way, I wanted to give a few tidbits from last night’s fan Q&A with the coaches and from open practice today, and then tie that back into how it impacts the upcoming match.
The Q&A session was comprised of Kim Björkegren, Mario Sanchez, Serge Gonzolez, and James O’Connor. One of the questions that was asked last night was in regard to how Coach Björkegren has been slowly building up the team through a back-to-basics approach. If you listened to the most recent Butchertown Rundown podcast, Bekki and Tom talked about how this plan was going. The consensus was that Björkegren was probably most focused on attack at the beginning of his process, because that was where the most significant gains could be taken. Racing obviously has made gains in attack and has a clear philosophy and style. Then Bekki and Tom wondered how much time had been spent on defensive building blocks. Before I get to that, let me share that Coach Kim gave a really clear explanation about how and why he trains the team the way he does. He made the analogy that building a team was like building a house. You have to have a plan and do it in steps. One particular piece that stood out to me in his answer was that when you are teaching your team a new system that you shouldn’t force things because if you try to implement too many things at once, it becomes difficult for the players to remember what they should be doing in a specific situation. Getting back to Bekki and Tom’s question about how much time is being spent working on defensive building blocks, I don’t think I would be giving any trade secrets away by saying that in the most recent practices that I have attended, there has definitely been dedicated time spent to defensive shape and specific defensive situations. Based on all of this I asked Coack Björkegren today where he thought he was in the “house building” process. He said that the foundation and walls were up, and now they are focused on the details. I think this is a really strong analogy because if you have ever seen a house built, you know that it starts to become recognizable as a house much more quickly than it is ready to be lived in. There are all of the interior details that have to be finished. That is where Racing is at this point. They are recognizable as a coherent team with a clear philosophy, but they are still far from a finished product. The finished product will take more time, and how quickly the players get the details will determine how successful the team is.
One of the early questions was around Coach Björkegren’s take on the NWSL and how it differed from the other leagues he coached in. He said “Transition, transition, transition.” I tend to agree and just about everyone says this. The European leagues are much more “technical”. I wonder if there is a way to unlock the cheat code to win in a league where you know there will be so much transition. I have my own thoughts, but they are counter to the Soccer Holdings philosophy. It will be interesting if some smart coach can figure out a way to exploit the transitional nature of the league in both philosophy and practice.
One of the questions that surrounded the team at the launch is “why isn’t the team called Louisville City?” That question came up again last night. In case you didn’t know, the NWSL owns the rights to the names of its teams. Soccer Holdings owns the rights to “Louisville City”. It would be foolish to cede those rights to the NWSL, so they had to choose a new name. Basically “Louisville City FC” was never an option for the women’s team playing in the NWSL.
James O’Connor said the most challenging thing about getting involved with the NWSL was the restrictions put on building the team. All things being equal, I truly believe that if the club didn’t have to adhere to the league’s rules, it would have put together a much more competitive team up front. Of course, this assumes that the club would be able to negotiate with any player not on a current contract, and that just wasn’t how the league worked. Basically, the team worked within the rules they had to, but felt they would have been more successful it they weren’t (in my opinion, severely) restricted.
The W League Team, which obviously carries the Racing brand, starts on Friday. Since the club has a clear philosophy for all of its academy and professional teams, expect to see that philosophy carry to some degree over to the W League team. However, since many of the players haven’t even been in town more than a few days and the fact that the season isn’t terribly long, it may not fully translate on the pitch immediately.
There was a really good question about how the USWNT uses Emily Fox vs. how Racing uses her. Coach Björkegren said that the USWNT is better than every other team they play, so they use Fox pretty consistently in one position. Since Racing is in a battle every week, he thinks Fox’s flexibility has to be taken advantage of. He also said that he expects to get 7 to 8 points (goals and assists) from Fox this year.
There was another really intelligent and observant question asked about the keeper’s positioning in the men’s game vs. the women’s game. Coach Gonzalez said that in the men’s game, the ball if often delivered on a much flatter arc which requires the keepers to play off their line more frequently. Conversely, in the women’s game the keepers tend to stick closer to the line due to the risk of having a looped cross sent over their heads. I hadn’t made that observation and learned something new, which I always appreciate.
Both Chidiac and Holloway participated in practice today. If either of them sees the pitch, it might be the advantage that Racing needs to get over the hump against Houston. I think Julia Lester demonstrated that a player for which a team doesn’t have much film can throw their opponent for a loop. Maybe Racing can catch Houston napping and get all three points on Saturday night.
I asked Coach Björkegren about only using 2 subs in the previous two matches and asked if we could expect more with 3 games in 8 days. He said to expect some rotation and fewer players playing the full 90 minutes. Alex Chidiac and Rebecca Holloway were both available for interview after practice. On Chidiac, she is still recovering a bit from jet lag, but should be available for selection. On her decision to come to Racing, it sounded like a spur of the moment thing with Racing reaching out late in the A League season. If you follow her on Twitter, you know that when she found out she was coming to Louisville, she asked for some facts about Louisville. Her two favorites were that 90% of the disco balls are made in Louisville, and that Louisville is home to the Pope Lick Monster. Conversely, Rebecca Holloway said she had been making plans to try to be a Racing player pretty much since the inception of the team. Having attended Cumberland University in Tennessee and having played in Nashville for the WPSL team she was familiar with the area. Even though Chidiac has been with the team longer, I get the sense that Holloway may be closer to game action, but that is mostly based on need, not readiness.
I promise that this will be the last time I mention the missed illegal keeper handling on Sunday vs. the OL Reign, but I started to wonder how prepared Racing would have been for an indirect free kick in the box. I asked the coaches during the Q&A last night, and Coach Gonzalez specifically said that the team had worked on that scenario. I have only even seen it once in a match that I watched in real time. That non-call prevented us from seeing something like one of these.
So, how does all of this relate to Racing’s upcoming match vs. Houston? In a nutshell, I think that the responses to the questions during last night’s event and the continued addition of quality players demonstrates that Racing is building to win. I mentioned to Jeff Greer last night that one of the things that is great about the Premier League is that the level of performances usually translates to points. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, there are 38 matches so the probability that a run of form, either good or bad, will completely misrepresent the quality of the team is pretty low. Mid-table quality teams don’t get relegated, really good teams finish in the European spots, and the best team almost always wins the title. Second, the gap between the top and bottom teams is vast. Teams usually end up where the quality of the overall club dictates. In the NWSL, the margins are finer and due to the randomness of officiating decisions one could picture the table playing out in all kinds of different scenarios. That being the reality, all that a team can do is to build to win. If you build to compete, you will compete. If you build to sell tickets, you will sell tickets. If you build be a nightmare to play against, you will be a nightmare to play against. Racing has been clear that there are building to win. James O’Connor was clear in reiterating this yesterday and when Björkegren was asked today how long before he expected the team’s effort to translate into 3 points he answered, “it depends on how many hours to the next game,” and then he stated clearly that he expected to win. That’s what you want to hear.
