"Tear me apart and boil my bones"
Photo by Elizabeth Shaw
Match Haiku
Summer draws nearer,
But performances stay cold.
Time for a rethink.
“Tear me apart and boil my bones”
“Elizabeth My Dear” - The Stone Roses, 1989
The song chosen for this match is a song about regicide, based on the Scarborough Fair, a traditional English ballad. Most people know the Simon and Garfunkel version. “Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme” is the familiar refrain. It’s the recipe meant to mend something broken beyond repair. In contrast, the lyrics list a set of impossible tasks that need to be undertaken in order to fix a broken relationship. Infer from that what you will.
We’re all watching a last-place team, and this last-place team does last-place things. It’s frankly astonishing that Racing only lost by a goal when you look at the stats. By not taking a proper beating, Racing as an enterprise is allowed to continually point to one-goal defeats and pretend like things are under control and that they are losing by fine margins. Every single piece of evidence taken by itself can be explained away, but the overwhelming preponderance of evidence says that this is simply just a bad team. Honestly, I am a little sad that there is no relegation in this league because there is literally nothing else to play for at the moment.
A break could do some good, but things don’t seem fixable to me. I previously thought Bev pulled off a miracle last year and then convinced myself that I had misjudged the team. Now, I really do think she pulled off said miracle and that this season is the norm. My favorite stat of the moment is accurate passes. Racing completed 208 (68% accuracy) and Denver completed 382 (81% accuracy). Racing’s accuracy is embarrassing for a team happy to concede 60% of the possession. I don’t think it’s asking too much to expect that a team consistently complete 75% of its passes (league average is around 76%). Racing’s team percentage is around 70%. Based a couple of passing accuracy statistics, I don’t think it is overstating things to call Kayla Fischer one of the least accurate passers in the league. Using the ASA xPass model Kayla completes about 22% less passes that one would expect. Plus, the ones she attempts are riskier than 90% of the league. That’s our number 10 folks!
It’s unfair to heap blame on one player because there is plenty of underperformance to go around. Other than the odd bright spot, almost every returning Racing player is having a worse year (Weber is probably the only clear exclusion). If I am being honest, I am tired of watching this team and will be glad for the break.
Post Match Moment of the Match
I am going to spare you anything from the interviews after the match and get this section pointed back to its original intent, which is to highlight something that happened after the match that was fun or interesting (to me at least). There are a few to choose from this week.
Maddie Prohaska’s parents got to see her start. After chatting after the match and heading back to the pitch Maddie told her parents to “drive safe and text me when you get home”. It was a sweet moment that we all can relate to.
I talked to Janine Sonis for about 30 seconds and got an unexpected half hug from her. I wished her luck the rest of the season.
I caught up with my close, personal friend Lianne Sanderson (her description of our relationship may vary) after the match and got to chat about Manchester United with her for a few minutes. She is definitely Team Carrick.
Thing I bought at ear X-tacy back in the day
Artist: New Order
Album: The Best of New Order
Year: 1994
Format: CD (Import)
Store Location: 1534 Bardstown Road
Today, New Order are definitely guilty of having way too many “best of” compilations. In 1994 this still seemed like a money grab, but to be fair New Order were probably hilariously broke. It’s too long to go into why that was the case in this space, but if you really are interested plenty has been written about New Order and is readily available. That begs the question, “why did I buy this album?” This answer is a very Gen X one.
By this point, I owned just about everything New Order and Joy Division had released. I actually bought New Order’s first (and still best) compilation album “Substance” at the mall in Elizabethtown. This was so long ago that I bought it in a CD long box (I bet that even if you know what that is, you forgot that they existed). Anyway, one song that I was missing was “World in Motion”. It had never been released on an album until the "Best of" release, but it's video had been released on a VHS compilation. I had heard the song but there was no good way to listen to it in my car...a very late 20th century type problem.
If you are unfamiliar with “World in Motion”, it was the 1990 FIFA World Cup song for the England national football team. If this seems like an odd concept for you, maybe think “Super Bowl Shuffle” and if THAT doesn’t register either WHY are you even reading this? England had semi-official World Cup songs in the past and all of them were embarrassing. The song was actually released with “ENGLANDneworder” as the stylized artist on the CD single cover. It went to number one in the UK and is New Order’s only number one. New Order being New Order, had originally tried to sneak in a (barely) veiled ecstasy reference into the song and wanted to call it “E for England” with lyrics to match. New Order has always been prone to bouts of self-sabotage, but in this case, they were rightly convinced to go with “World in Motion” as the title.
As a song, it is a bit of a hilariously catchy mess. Comedian Keith Allen wrote most (all?) of the lyrics. The verses stick to football (“It’s one on one”, “Create the space”) but the chorus could fit into any love song and isn’t about football at all as far as I can tell (“Love’s got the world in motion, and I know what we can do.”) Then, there is the infamous rap. As part of the “charm” of the song, the footballers that showed up to record “vocals” all got a shot at recording the rap section. Ultimately, legendary Liverpool player John Barnes was dubbed to be the least terrible of the bunch. 35 years later this is the thing that people remember most. John Barnes still gets asked to perform it from time to time and he will likely get asked to do once again this June with England’s hopes high.
Also, I beg you to go on a brief tangent and hear what might have been!
Ultimately, the outro is my favorite part. Berand Sumner sings “We’re playing for England” and the players respond with the 3-syllable “Eng-er-land” several times as the song fades and the commentary from England’s 1966 World Cup win plays, just as it did to introduce the song. All of this may sound like a disaster, but when you listen to it, it really isn’t. This is almost certainly due to the quality of the actual music from New Order, who despite their frequent mismanagement of their career, almost always got the music right.
The Taylor Flint Honorary Yellow Card of the Match
Milliet got the only yellow card in the match:
47th Minute: L. Milliet - Foul, Reckless Offence
I am handing out a bonus yellow to the Racing home fans for dissent. There were a couple of delayed offside calls that the assistant referees got 100% correct in their decision making and adjudication. Officials in leagues with VAR are always instructed to let a phase of play run out before lifting their flag to signal an offside offense. I know that some fans hate this delayed call, but there isn’t a real alternative if you want to use VAR correctly. Fans can boo whatever they choose to, but I can also chide them for it.
The Louisville (Draft?) Kings Sports Betting Corner
It’s going to be some time before you can see Racing in action again, but if you’re looking for the other type of “action” here are some things you can wager on until the NWSL returns in early July.
I think the bottom spot in the league is turning into a 4-team race. Here is how I would set the moneylines for teams finishing in 16th Place:
Racing +110
Boston +110
Chicago +150
Bay +175
I still think the safe money is on the expansion team. Chicago has Mal Swanson so they always have a fighting chance at points. Don’t sleep on Bay though. They definitely could end up in 16th.
When it comes to Racing’s end of the season leader in G+A, I think these are the right lines:
Emma Sears +125
Sarah Weber +150
Katie O’Kane +200
Kayla Fischer +250
I think this bet all hinges on what number you think Sears will end on. Right now, she is on 5. If that ends up being greater than 12, I am not sure that anyone catches her. If you think it will be less than that, I think wagers on Weber and O’Kane might be worth a shot.
One final one…Total points for Racing on the Season.
Under 22 +150
22-25.5 +125
26-29.5 +125
30-34.5 +200
35 or over +250
On current form, Under 22 looks tempting, but I think Bev’s baseline form gets them to 28.
“I'll not rest”
Just kidding, I will do exactly that. I need a break from soccer. Elizabeth informed me that she may watch some of the World Cup, and I won’t change the channel or leave the room if it is on, but I am taking most of June off to try to recharge my soccer fan battery. Lou City has one home match in June, so that should be fairly easy to accomplish.
Winning never gets old, but losing gets old quickly. If I thought change was on the horizon, I might be more excited. I also don’t want you to think I am advocating for change either. I am advocating for improvement. I do know from experience that improvement rarely comes out of the blue. There have to be signs. Right now, I am not seeing any on this Racing team. I am seeing a team stuck in a system that isn’t working well. I don’t think you have to abandon the system, but I do think switching out a few parts and tweaking a few things is worth the effort. I rarely present myself to “die on a hill” with my opinions, but I will come close with this one:
Racing will not succeed with the midfield in its current configuration.
I have enough evidence that it is broken. Racing needs to stop pretending that Kayla Fischer is the answer as a creative force. She does many things well but playing her in the coordinator role hasn’t worked. I can all but guarantee you that it won’t. Much like moving Flint to the back line, it is a move born of seemingly having no other options, but it also does her a great disservice. Positionally maybe she can remain there, but the attack cannot run through her. It just doesn’t work.
I have kept most of my criticism of Sears confined to my player ratings posts. Personally, I think she could be doing more, and I will just leave it at that.
A counter attacking team like Racing can’t be this trigger shy. Racing has to shoot quickly when they get into the final third. I wish it wasn’t this way, but as far as I can see, it is the only way for them to be successful. Too many times, players are passing up shots to try to get a better one. Racing isn’t a good enough passing team to work the ball for better shots. Either get better in possession or shoot earlier. What they are doing now isn’t going to work.
See you in July.
