Spirit 3 Racing 0 Post Match Thoughts

Courtesy ISI Photos

Racing are now officially eliminated from NWSL playoff contention. Saturday's loss was similar in scoreline to the last few losses, but the performance was improved.

Racing's top 3 draft picks in the 2021 NWSL College draft were for once all on the field and healthy. The 198 combined minutes played by Fox, Otto and Ekic were the most minutes played by the top 3 draft picks in a match. A few words on each:

Fox: Emily started in midfield for the second consecutive match and was just as effective in this role as she has been at left or right back. I believe that she will almost certainly start there again in the next match with McCaskill picking up her 5th yellow card of the season which requires her to miss the next match. As I said before, the decision on where she plays in the future will depend on need.

Otto: Taylor played a full 90 for the first time in her professional career. She looked solid on the ball and completed 86% of her passes. This was the first time that I have had the chance to see her play more than 45 minutes. It's easy to see why she is so highly regarded. I believe we might see a Fox, Otto, Olofsson midfield next match.

Ekic: Emina has been getting sporadic playing time, but in the last couple of matches has looked more like the player she did earlier in the season. I’m convinced that 2 of her shots would have found the back of the net if not for timely blocks by a Spirit player. Her other shot produced a nice save from Bledsoe.

Cheyna Matthews once again looked dangerous off the bench. In fact, the subs all looked sharp. I am not going to dwell on the negatives, but I will say the to some degree disorganization led to all three goals and leave it at that.

I still think this team has a few points left in them this year, but even if they don’t, they can be proud of how hard they have fought under difficult circumstances.

Courage v Racing Preview

Courtesy EM Dash Photography

It's hard to know when to resume “regular” or “normal” activity after the news of last Thursday. I hate to even consider what “normal” is in this league given the continuous parade of stories reporting heinous and despicable behavior. This league needs transformation not normalcy. However, unless you want to “burn the thing down” (which I don’t think is an unreasonable idea) the NWSL is going to try to press on while attempting to fix its many problems. I decided since there is going to be a return to game action on Wednesday that I would resume my usual cadence of posting a match preview the day before the match.

First off, the women on these teams are professionals and will do their jobs, which should solely be the game of soccer by the way. On the other hand, they are human and completely within their rights to have their minds on other things. I believe we will see focused performances on the field from both teams, even if part of that focus is just to escape the outside pressures of the current environment for 90 minutes.

On the Racing side, here is the depressing injury report:

D ADDISYN MERRICK (OUT/SEI)

F NADIA NADIM (OUT/SEI)

D GEMMA BONNER (OUT)

F CECE KIZER (QUESTIONABLE)

Not having Bonner usually means a greater struggle on the defensive side.

As for the Courage, they will be under the guidance of Sean Nahas as their interim coach. The Courage will have to adjust to a new coach, but if that is the most difficult thing the women on the team have to deal with this week, I’m pretty sure they will count in as a win.

No prediction for a scoreline, but I predict a good effort from both clubs.

Racing v Gotham preview

Courtesy ISI Photos

Sometimes you just want to write a match preview and the dumpster fire that is the NWSL just won't stop burning. Oh well, I am going to set said dumpster fire to the side, knowing that it will continue to burn into the foreseeable future and write about the match-up between Racing and Gotham tomorrow.

What is happening indeed?

Racing has a clean injury report for once, with only the known season ending injuries to Nadim and Merrick listed. I hope that means we see either Bonner or Riehl or both return to the starting XI. I think I have changed my mind a bit about how much talent evaluation I believe the team should do in the last 5 matches. I think wholesale changes make the team hard to evaluate. I would like to see Lund get a start with Bonner and Riehl. We already saw what a backline of Hendrix and Martin combined with Betos looks like, so it would maybe be nice to also see a Hendrix Riehl and Betos setup one more time, but honestly there is game film on that lineup from earlier in the season. I also think we've seen enough of the forwards to know the strengths there. The one other thing that I would like to see is Fox in the midfield, with maybe Ashley and Martin in as the right and left back. Either way, I expect the strongest possible starting XI against Gotham.

I spoke with Gary Gibson from the Soccer Over Gotham podcast earlier this week, so I am going to let him do the heavy lifting on the Gotham side:

Gotham has gone through a lot over the past month or so. They lost 3 starters to injury (Freeman, Purce, Monaghan) and had a coach pulling double duty and experimenting with formation changes on her way out. Our new coach Scott Parkinson did what our previous coach didn’t, which was put our players in positions to succeed with a 4-3-3 formation and playing aggressively. We already know how stout this defence is. It's time to take the restrictor plate off the offense. Midge Purce is the player that makes everything go offensively. She can burn defenders, demand attention, draw penalties and most importantly hold the ball up and allow other players to get forward into the attack.

I also asked about Gotham's position for a move up into a playoff spot:

Gotham is in a great position to make the playoffs. They are currently sitting right below the line with games in hand, 4 points away from 3rd place with a game in hand on NC (who they just beat and play again) and 2 games on hand on the 4th and 5th place team. With the return of starting attackers Midge Purce and Paige Monaghan who both scored in their return there is very little doubt that not only can Gotham make the playoffs but can make a run at the title.

While on the Soccer Over Gotham podcast I predicted a 2-0 victory for Gotham. I will stick with that prediction knowing full well that it pretty much guarantees that the scoreline will not be 2-0 Gotham.

September Fleur-de-lis-fc.com Player of the Month

Courtesy Connor Cunningham

Each month I will conduct a Twitter poll to let people vote on the Player of the Month. I will pretend to consider input from this poll then award the honor precisely to who I think deserves it.

There were 3 matches in September with Racing only winning a single point. That makes the player of the month a tough call. Since I have no really strong feelings about a player for this month, I will go with the winner of the Twitter poll, Emily Fox.

Emily has been good all season (although she did have a rare substandard performance against Houston). Her switch to right back from left back was a notable occurrence in September. Her flexibility has been a strength for the team, but I hope that next season finds her in a more permanent role.

In case you are wondering who my personal choice was, it was CeCe Kizer. CeCe had the top rated performance according to Fotmob in 2 of the 3 matches. I'm not quite sure why I didn't just award the Player of the Month Award to Ms. Kizer other than my general indifference to the performances in September. The lesson here is that next time I should probably just ignore the Twitter poll.