Red Stars v Racing Preview

Racing play their first away match of the year today at 7:30 vs Chicago at Seat Geek Stadium in Bridgeview, Ill. Racing have a 1-1-0 record against Chicago, and the draw ended in a victorious penalty shootout that sent Racing to the Women’s Cup Final vs Bayern Munich. This match being the middle match in a 3 games in 9 days stretch, look for some squad rotation, especially since Coach Björkegren guaranteed as much on Tuesday. Emily Fox is fully available for selection, so look for her to start since she only played 29 minutes vs. Houston. Here is a list of the minutes played so far, so that you can draw your own conclusions about who might get a rest.

My suggestion would be to assume midfield and forward rotation as more likely than defense.

I assume that the Red Stars might rotate their squad a bit at well (note that Davidson is out due to a season-ending knee injury:

Racing probably need a win in this match to have any hope of advancing past the group stage in the Challenge Cup. I think more importantly for the team, the next 4 matches will give them a chance to continue to adjust to Coach Björkegren’s style. I asked him if he was pleased with how the players were adapting to his style and he said, “I’m happy, but we still have a lot to learn”. The first half of the match vs. Houston was a step in the right direction. Last year’s team was guilty of not being able to clear their lines at critical points in the match and this tendency crept up again in the second half Houston, but Chicago is a different animal. The Red Stars play a back 3 almost exclusively, so that will be a new look for Racing. Chicago pretty handily won the possession battle in their first 2 matches and were right at 50% last season, although at times they seemed to be quite content without the ball especially in the playoffs. Chicago is comfortable in defense, so this might be a good chance to see what Racing can do as a team offensively with longer spells of possession. I think Racing matches up well vs. Chicago, so look for this to be an entertaining match.