Know Your Foe with Jason Anderson of Black and Red United

Racing and the Spirit already know each other pretty well due to a couple of early season meetings, one in the Challenge Cup and Racing's improbable first ever victory back on May 21st. A bit of time has passed between their last meeting, so I wanted to catch up with Jason Anderson, who runs Black and Red United. Jason is also a Podcaster in addition to being a member of the NWSL Media Association.

Going back through the results for this year, the Spirit have seemed to have a chance at points in every match they played, yet they sit 7th in the table. To be fair that's only 4 points from first. What's your assessment of on field performance related to where they sit in the table?

It's been an interesting season. The Spirit have some truly impressive performances (the recent win over the Courage, plus road wins against Houston and OL Reign stand out), but they've also pretty clearly let some points slip through their grasp. They've had at least two opportunities to climb into 1st place with a win, but couldn't get the job done on both occasions. I think they're a top 4 team in the NWSL, but the Spirit sometimes struggle to reward themselves for their good work. It's been a mix of reasons: they haven't been that great at converting good performances at home into actual wins — they've taken more points on the road (8) than at home (7) — and seem to have one substantial mistake (never the same player or same kind of mistake) in the back in most games. Ultimately I think they're going to address that tendency to not reliably convert good performances into good results, but we have to be realistic and note that the season is nearly halfway over, and the solution hasn't arrived yet.

Fotmob rates Trinity Rodman as the Spirit's best player this season, slightly ahead of Huster and Sanchez. What's your assessment?

I've voted for Tori Huster in the league's Team of the Month poll twice, and I think she's been the team's most consistently good player. But Trinity Rodman has been outstanding too, and has often been the player that breaks the defensive scheme for their opponents. Ashley Sanchez has also been ramping up her play, becoming more consistent within games since a move into a false 9 role a few weeks ago. One player not mentioned here that I think has to be brought up as well is Andi Sullivan, who on top of setting the tempo in possession and organizing the midfield has also been the main source of dangerous balls over the top for the Spirit's forwards.

Racing was frankly really lucky to hand Washington a loss in Louisville last time around. Do you think Washington will stick to the same formation/plan?

Broadly speaking, yes. Richie Burke is going to try to out-possess the opponent whenever possible, and the Spirit are going to go about this game the same way they did last time in terms of the big-picture tactics. Washington's offseason plans were really about moving into a 3-4-2-1 or 3-4-3 formation, but they dropped that plan before the Challenge Cup was over and have played a 4-3-3 since then. However they have adjusted a major aspect of that 4-3-3 since playing Louisville: Sanchez was playing as an attacking midfielder in that game, but has for the last 5-6 weeks she pushed up as a nominal center forward who drops off the front line to create for Rodman and Ashley Hatch. I mentioned what this has done for Sanchez above, and I'll add that Hatch has been able to find more space slashing in off the wing, and is now tied for the league lead in goalscoring with 5, so the adjustment has worked quite well.

Washington has been in the league since its inception I believe, but have yet to win any silverware. What are their chances to change that over the next few seasons?

The Spirit came as close to winning something as you can without doing so in 2016, when they lead the league for weeks only to opt to rest players in a couple games right at the end and let the NWSL Shield slip away. They then went to the championship game, took a 2-1 lead in extra time, got past the 120th minute...and gave up a goal to Lynn Williams with what was essentially the last play of the game, and then lost on penalties. It was brutal, and I apologize to any Spirit fans who happen to read this for even discussing it.

I do think their chances of changing that are pretty good, though. Washington has built a very young core group, where you can safely argue that seven starters still have plenty of room to grow and they've shown that they can play as well as anyone in the league at this point. That's created a pretty long window right now where, as long as that group is largely kept together and continues to grow, the chances at a title somewhere in there feel pretty realistic.

What does Washington need to do to close out the season in a playoff position?

I think the main thing is more consistency. The Spirit have shown that they can, at their best, match anything other teams in the league can put together. The last three games illustrate the problem, though: they played at their best against the Courage, but that game is sandwiched by losses to Chicago and Gotham. Against Chicago, they controlled possession but couldn't create chances, while against Gotham they were unlucky to get a very early red card that has since been overturned, but still gave up two goals on corner kicks. I think it's reasonable for the Spirit to still strongly expect to end up in one of the six playoff spots out there, but this is a team aiming for the top, and they'll have to be able to regularly match good performances with good results if they want to host a playoff game.

Thanks to Jason again. Check out his website blackandredunited.com and follow him on Twitter @JasonDCSoccer