Racing v Summit -1

Racing’s final match for a while will be in the rear-view mirror before Friday ends. The Summit is a fun team that scores lots of goals but also concedes their fair share, like Racing. The possession battle will be an interesting one to watch. Neither team is above 50% average possession for the season. Denver does complete about 100 more passes per match than Racing, so they find themselves in matches that are more fluid than Racing typically does. The Summit’s two most recent wins against Orlando and Houston had them beating their opponents handily and winning the possession battle. Orlando and Houston are low possession teams, so I expect Denver to come into this match to try to out possess Racing and dare them to show that they can string together some possession.

Racing sorely misses Janine Sonis, and she has been exceptional for Denver. Their left sided attack has produced 8 goals (4 from Kössler and her delightful umlaut and 4 from Sonis) so if Milliet finds herself behind the ball in transition against Denver like she has against Utah and North Carolina, expect bad things. This might be a match to have the more defensive minded Morris start on the right like she did against Portland. I am not advocating for benching Sears but potentially swapping her to the left because Morris had no joy on the left side against North Carolina and her heat map looked like she was playing a really defensive left back role. Racing’s coaching staff needs to figure out her best position soon or she risks being relegated to a utility player.

There is no official word on Bloomer, so well will have to wait for the Availability Report. At this point I am more concerned with Racing’s defensive structures than the defensive personnel because only one of those issues can really be addressed in the short term. It might be good for Racing to set up different defensively if Prohaska is called on again, to give her some extra protection. She performed well but wasn’t tested all that much because she really could do nothing on the goal that occurred while she was playing.

Mitch subbed for Bev today at media availability and did share that Racing is looking at the film to see where the breakdowns are occurring for the type of counterattacking goals that Racing is currently susceptible to. My very rudimentary analysis is that they are finding themselves unbalanced due to their lack of precision in the final third. Racing needs to focus on making sure that any attacking foray ends in a shot or the ball going out of play. They currently aren’t defensively sound enough to risk any loss of possession when 8 or more of their players are in their attacking third. I think this team needs to set a goal in this match of having a clean sheet at halftime at all costs.