RLFC v Chicago -1
There has been a lot of uncharted territory that Racing has traversed this year. All of this feels new and somewhat precarious. It has been a gloriously weird season. It’s hard to overstate how much I underestimated this team. Now, with 3 matches left things can still go great or horribly wrong.
I will tell you that I would feel much better if Racing was able to have more than 7 subs on the bench on Friday, but I am afraid that is likely to be the case again with Weber presumably returning and Flint being unavailable. There’s thin and then there is thin. Racing will likely list 9 players as “out’ once again, with 3 out those being SEI.
That puts a lot on the shoulders of the healthy players and Emma Sears is carrying her fair share at the moment. Having reached 10 goals in a season for Racing puts her in a one-member club. With that accomplished I asked her what the next goal was. Her response was, “maybe 15? We’ll see…you never know.” We can only dream…
Ellie Jean has thankfully been available for most of the year. Now, she is the only person on the back line in her “natural” position. I asked about if she felt responsibility to keep the back line stable. She said that she was happy to be able to step up and be a leader on the back line. Quietly, and maybe not so quietly now, she has probably become the key defender on the team.
Bev has already out achieved every previous Racing head coach including the year-one version of herself. In a roundabout way, I think she is likely pleasantly surprised to be where Racing currently sits in the table. She has framed up the last 5 matches as a set and both Emma and Ellie mentioned this. It’s good to be 2 for 2 so far.
Everybody says that they are not underestimating Chicago. I believe them, but the Stars has a prominent goal scorer in Ludmila. They almost always seem to have a goal in them as well. The key for Racing will be to decide if a little more possession against Chicago is prudent or if it will be better to concede more possession like they have been doing to great effect. Chicago does tend to give up goals (an average of 2 per match), so what Racing can’t do is fail to capitalize on good chances, because there will likely be at least a few.
