OL Reign 2 - Racing 0 Analysis
Courtesy OL Reign
If you have noticed my writing style, I write from a fan’s perspective and almost always ignore Racing's opponents other than my Know Your Foe and preview posts. I focus my energy on Racing during the analysis posts. While I will continue to do that here I wanted to come at the analysis from the opposite direction…how to play against Racing.
I watch enough soccer to know that there is more than one way to win a match. Louisville's two major soccer teams, Racing and City both believe in possession football. The philosophy is to dominate possession and put the other team on the back foot. This often includes high pressure. They want to build possession from the back and score as a result of that possession. When done correctly it looks like their first goal against Chicago. The highlight of this goal cuts out the early buildup, but the move started from a recovery from Martin, a pass to Betos who fed it quickly to Bonner. You can watch the rest here:
So when it works it's beautiful. However there are three things that building from the back requires: good positioning, quick ball movement and accurate passing.
If I were planing to play against Racing here is what I would tell my team: let Racing possess the ball in the back and wait for a loose pass in midfield to counter. Here's the thing, the possession numbers don’t mean much once you're behind and they really mean next to nothing when you're down by more than one. Now the possession stats will say that possession was equalim last night's match, but the Reign had 26 more passes in the opposition half. Possession in your own half frankly doesn't mean much.
The other thing I would tell my team is to attack from the left. Emily Fox according to some terrible analysis on Twitch could soon be a centerback, but for now locks down the right side of attack. Simon has put in some decent efforts, but she's not Fox. Is it any surprise that most teams attack Racing from the left?
That’s it. That's the winning formula against Racing. Score first and your pretty much guaranteed a victory. My verdict: Racing need to be much harder to figure out. I think the recent increase in Racing's shot and possession numbers are due to improvement to some degree, but also due to teams figuring out that Racing are more dangerous in transition than in possession and that they are prone to a mistake in midfield.
From the beginning of the season, I thought Racing's best chances for points would be to set up to defend and counter. Now I am all but totally convinced of it. However, Racing just simply isn't built for this. I think Coach Holly simply doesn't think he has enough healthy, viable options at centerback to play a back 3. I’m not sure I disagree. In the off-season I expect this to be addressed. For now Racing is stuck with a back 4. The midfield is under staffed as well. Simply, the roster isn't balanced. That's a difficult thing to overcome. There are too many players not playing in their natural positions. That's how an expansion roster is going to be, so it's not really anyone's fault. For the remainder of the season, Coach Holly will have to figure out how he wants to play. I am fine with him sticking to his guns. The team will continue to improve, but there may not be many points to come from it.
I am a huge fan of relegation, and since the overwhelming majority of the football world has this system it tempers my analysis. However, since the NWSL will not have this in the foreseeable future I might need to adjust my thinking. For the rest of the season, points aren't as important as they would be in a league with relegation. That doesn't mean they aren't important at all. Winning is good for morale and Racing technically aren't eliminated from the playoffs, yet. If Coach Holly has found a formation that he likes, then by all means he should stick to it through the learning and mistakes. He has switched it up a bit recently through his own admission. I am sure he wants to win every match, but he has to decide what is more important at this point, learning and improving or accumulating points. I still think accumulating points is still the way to go, but I obviously will defer to his judgment. I would only say this: while winning is contagious, so is losing. I would hate for this team to have too many more losses where they played well and lose by two goals.
Which brings me to last night. Racing was beaten by 2 fantastic goals by Le Sommer, which can happen. However, I would have considered a 2-1 defeat real progress. Racing have to learn how to come from behind. A goal would have showed progress towards this. As a fan, it seems like all hope is lost for a win or draw if Racing doesn't score first. At some point this team needs to figure out how to score against a team that has a lead. They were close a few times last night and will surely get one soon. I think that would show true growth.
