Reign 2 Racing 2 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
Racing grabbed a decent result in Seattle on Sunday Afternoon all things considered. When asked about Emily Fox’s absence on the pitch, Coach Björkegren stated that she would be missed whether the team was Racing Louisville, Barcelona, of the USWNT. I don’t disagree, and it would have been easy to imagine a path to 3 points with her on the pitch. Both of the Reign goals came from attacks where the Reign had too much space on the right-hand attacking side. I will disagree slightly with the coach’s and players’ assessment of these goals and say that more credit is due to the Tziarra King for her finishing over blame for Racing’s defending. I mean honestly, can’t almost every goal be traced back to an error by the opposition team if you go back far enough? Speaking of errors…
I know I may get some negative feedback for this, but I can live with it…the NWSL’s legitimacy is hurt by its poor officiating. In fact, if someone was new to the NWSL and asked me if they should watch the league, first I would tell them to go to a Racing home match and have a blast like I always do. And then I would tell them that I can’t recommend watching the league as a neutral observer. This has nothing to do with the quality of play or the players and everything to do with how the match is presented on TV. The officiating is so bad sometimes I wonder why the teams even keep score. The league is so competitive and the margins are so tight that a single officiating decision can, and often does influence the outcome. So far this week I have seen obvious fouls in the box not given as penalties, bad and dangerous challenges not even called as fouls, blatant handballs not called and in the Reign v. Racing match an official possibly not understand one of the laws of the game. In the 7th minute of the match, Racing nearly scored when Sofia Huerta cleared the ball off her line INTETIONALLY WITH HER FOOT and the keeper HANDLED THE BALL. This is supposed to result in an indirect free kick at the point of the offence or if inside the 6-yard box at the point on the line closest to where the offence occurred. I went back and watched the replay. The official has a clear view of the incident and either A) Didn’t understand the law of the game that applied or B) understood it and chose to ignore it. Let’s be entirely clear here. This was not a judgement call. It was a complete miss. There were other calls in the match that were close and went in Racing’s favor like the own goal and Lund’s yellow card over a red. I thought the own goal crossed the line in real time and I’m not really interested in a forensic dissection of that call because of course there isn’t a good angle in the broadcast by which to judge it. Goal line technology is expensive as well as VAR, so I am not clamoring for those. I just want the officials to know the rules and apply them correctly. In this league, they don’t so why should I spend any more free time watching matches where the officials have more influence on the outcome of the matches than the players. By the way, I am mot blaming the NWSL here. They are clearly the victim and so is every fan that watches. I like to keep my life free of unnecessary stress, and watching the officiating in these matches is infuriating and stressful.
Racing is going to have to outscore teams to win. Coach Björkegren famously guaranteed more goals this year, but he didn’t guarantee less goals allowed. I am almost sure that Racing will improve on its goals allowed number this year, but it will probably take at least 2 goals to have a chance at 3 points. By starting Lo Milliet at left Björkegren basically conceded that he doesn’t think his current set of defensive players fit the style he wants to play. In his press conference, he stated that he doesn’t really care which formation he plays and this wasn’t his first time stating that fact. He cares that players run and play full of energy. It was a message to the team and to the fans. If a player is capable of playing in his style, she will get more minutes. I think we can infer that Holloway will go straight into the mix if she can demonstrate the pressing style that he wants to play. It is also of note that Racing has only used 2 subs out of the 5 available in the two league matches so far, so read into that what you will.
Sav DeMelo had an excellent match by almost everyone’s account. She seems to be relishing her role within the team as more of an right-sided attacking midfielder. Here is her heatmap for the match vs. the Reign.
Sav’s free kick that created the 2nd Racing goal was outstanding. It put the keeper in the precarious position of making an initial movement for the ball, but then immediately backpedaling. It was a nightmare ball for the Reign to have to handle. A Racing player (probably Howell, but I can’t quite tell) made an attempt to head it and that threw off the Reign defenders even more. Ultimately it was a dangerous ball put into a dangerous place and it resulted in a goal (and goes into the stat sheet as a 0 xG opportunity).
It thought Jess McDonald’s goal took a deflection on the way in, not that it mattered. It was a real striker’s type of goal. The tough part on this one is how to code it for my pie charts. Jess called it a “transition” goal and since she said as much I will use the “In Transition” classification. The other classification I was debating was “In possession from transition with opponent shape integrity”, but I don’t think Racing had possession long enough or that the Reign defenders had quite recovered their defensive shape yet so “In transition” seems like the right call there.
