Racing v Thorns Pre Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
Racing has the opportunity to put real pressure on Bay this Saturday if they can somehow come up with a win. Alternatively, if they continue their pattern of capitulation, Bay may only need to scratch out a point to eliminate Racing.
The theme early in the season was improving in order to peak at the right time. Racing never peaked. Even if they were able to scratch out a couple of wins in their last two matches, I would doubt very much if we could attribute it much to “the plan”. Be good all of the time sounds like an overly simplistic idea, but it is the mentality of champions or teams with a championship in their crosshairs. Racing never seemed committed to anything other than clawing their way into the playoffs. That could still happen, but the organizational mentality has been all wrong this season. However, I don’t think the team has necessarily underperformed. I now realize that they simply didn’t commit the resources to improving enough over last season when compared to the teams ahead of them in the table. Portland has only just pulled themselves out of their slump, but they are guilty of it too. They got worse but started in a better position so that the fall didn’t cost them the playoffs (but I don’t think they have a shot at winning the trophy and this is surely a disappointing season by their standards). This year’s Racing team might beat last year’s 3 or 4 times out of 10 (they would probably draw 5 and lose 1or 2) but that level of improvement simply isn’t good enough.
Honestly, without some significant change (not necessarily in club personnel) I don’t see next season being much better. Does anybody really think Racing got drastically better from March to October? You can point to the addition of players and that was a temporary, marginal help, but do any of the players that were getting significant minutes in March seem to be playing better or more cohesively with their teammates now that it is October? They sure don’t to me.
I believe that this club has to commit to being different and doing things differently going forward. I have ideas (that of course will only be implemented by pure coincidence) that I will lay out after the season is actually over. Let’s be clear here. Unless they somehow make the playoffs and that doesn’t seem likely, there have been 4 years of failure and that is long enough to either admit to being a doormat or stop being one.
