“The sky seems a little lower”
Courtesy of the NWSL
Match Haiku
Familiar Story:
Racing scoreless once again.
Bay the better team.
“The sky seems a little lower”
“Where Are They Now?” - Drawn to the Deep End, 1997
It was an all too familiar sight on Sunday evening. Racing struggled to impose much of themselves on the match until it was way too late. Racing looked tentative in the press (I will get into the reasons in the next section) and Bay controlled the first half with ease. The good news was that Racing was able to get to half still level at 0-0. We have seen that story before and have often seen Racing come out of half the more energized team. This time the more recent trend of giving up an early second half goal was on display.
It was difficult for this observer to figure out exactly what Racing’s plan was. Sometimes you can watch a match and see what a team’s plan is fairly clearly. In this one, I really couldn’t see it. It didn’t help that McCall Zerboni kept pushing the narrative that “this doesn’t look like Racing”. To me, it looked exactly like Racing in the last few matches. What I think McCall was talking about was that there was no aggressive press (again, I will get into this later). It’s nearly impossible, unless you mute the broadcast or really concentrate, to not let the opinions of the broadcasters have some influence on your perception. The NWSL broadcasts remain asinine, bar the rare exceptions.
I thought Racing looked particularly vulnerable defensively in the first half, which is not saying much. I don’t want to chalk it up to a lack of organization or preparation, but to me the unit clearly seems to be lacking confidence and cohesion at the moment. We continue to see the good individual performance here and there from the defenders, like Wright’s last evening. However, the togetherness in defending has been lacking all season. Petersen has worked her way back into the lineup, which is good for Racing’s attack. However, she had a bad giveaway in the first half that ultimately didn’t cost her, but reminded us of her vulnerabilities. Jean had a nightmare on the right side of defense. Racing’s new back line formation provides more central cover but leaves defenders in more isolated in the buildup. Bay took advantage of this.
Then again, we know Racing needs to score to have a chance. The match might have been different if Fischer could have held her run just a fraction of a second longer on the goal that was chalked off for being offside. That was really the best opportunity for Racing until they trailed 2-0. Petersen’s set piece deliveries late in the match demonstrated her danger in those situations, but it was too little, too late by that point.
Post Match Moment of the Match
For some real insight into what Bev thought about the match, I suggest a listen here:
It’s a long one, but pretty insightful I thought. I will try to hit the highlights as I perceived them.
Bay rotated frequently in the build which threw off Racing’s design for the press. Bev frequently talks about looking at the last three matches to plan for an opponent. Based on what she saw in those matches, she planned for one thing, and Bay showed more rotation in their buildup from the back. Bev goes into specifics if you are interested. Bloomer described Racing’s press as more patient in its design which could look to the untrained eye as low energy or an isolated pressing technique. Several times, Racing appeared to have a single high presser, and Bay’s rotation made Racing’s players have to adjust their assignments.
Bev talked about ball security more than I have ever heard her discuss it. In her parlance, what she means is the set of passes completed to clearly establish possession. She said that Racing couldn’t effectively secure the ball in the first half. I think we all saw that. One of the items she mentioned is that Racing’s lack of possession didn’t really give the players a chance to get any reprieve from Bay’s attack in the first half. I have pointed to the lack of possession wearing out the Racing players on multiple occasions. Bev acknowledged as much in this discussion.
I asked if the style of play makes possession more difficult to achieve. If you can hear an answer to that question in what Bev said let me know. I wasn’t any clearer on her stance after I asked the question than I was before.
“Never a work ethic question” was Bev’s take on the performance as a whole and I think we take her word on that. Racing set up to play a certain way and it didn’t work. Bev stated that the team that executed better on the evening won, and that is usually the case.
The Taylor Flint Honorary Yellow Card of the Match
Arin Wright picked up a rare yellow card on a pretty clear jersey tug right at midfield. It was a smart foul.
35th Minute: Arin Wright - Foul - Tactical Foul
The match was one of the cleaner ones that I remember from this season. I don’t recall a single head-scratching decision from the officiating team. Good job Amin Hadzic and all!
Madchester Song to Make You Feel Alright
I never got into James. If “the algorithm” would have existed in the early 90s, I am sure it would have suggested them to me repeatedly. This one sounds like a prototypical “Madchester” song. It’s alright, I guess. I would rather just stick to The Charlatans.
“I am tied to the winter”
Racing has five matches left and even though the season has been a failure, there are still interesting storylines as the season wraps. Let’s put relocation to the side for now. Here are the leading footballing things to watch for as the season wraps.
Savannah DeMelo’s anticipated return: Things could still change, but I expect that DeMelo will be available for selection against San Diego on Friday. The big question will be what to expect. No one is expecting a start. I am unsure if we should even expect minutes from her quite yet. What I do expect is some sort of media focus on her return, if the plan is still on track to have her available for San Diego.
Her return could represent all kinds of things, but the most important one will be the narrative she creates for herself. Therefore, I won’t do anything at this point other than wish here a safe return to the pitch.
The Emma Sears transfer saga: It ended up being one of the most boring storylines of the summer. There has been no hint of anything yet. That could still change. In the bigger picture, I have a suggestion for the next round of labor negotiations. I don’t believe that the CBA between the league and its players has any restriction on how real (not allocation) transfer dollars are spent. If I were on the players’ side (spoiler alert: I am always on the players’ side) I would demand that any money received for player transfers be put in a separate bucket that has restrictions on how the money can be spent. I think every penny should go to either other player transfers, signing new players or extending current contracts. I highly suspect that any money that Racing would receive for Sears would go against the spending deficit that the club has already incurred. One could argue that much of that deficit IS spending on players’ salaries, but I think the CBA could be written in a way to make sure transfer dollars are spent against future costs that are not associated with a player on their current contract.
Bev’s contract extension: Personally, I don’t think Racing will be able to find a better coach. You may disagree. Racing is definitely not in the situation where they need to make a change for change’s sake. I never like switching coaches unless you think you can get a better one. Losing Bev isn’t and will never be addition by subtraction. If you think Soccer Holdings would ever pay for an external coach to come in and bring the staff they want and the players they need then you are out of your gourd. What Soccer Holdings might be prepared to do is give Bev an extension and a nice raise to get her to stay. I get the feeling that nobody in the organization wants to see her go, so essentially our opinions don’t matter and if that is news to you, I’m sorry.
Can we learn anything in these last five matches? I go back to the first season when I was new at this, and I thought I learned something in the last 3 matches that Racing played that season. Even if I did, the roster changed so much going into next season that it didn’t matter. I don’t think the roster will change a lot, but I am not sure you learn as much on the pitch as one might think. However, it is the only thing we have to go on so I should would like to see more of the younger players. There is no need to play Flint the rest of the season even if she is healthy. It’s the same with Milliet (although you would likely have to force her not to play), Bloomer, Wright, and Sears. You learn absolutely nothing about next season by playing them. Now, Old Man Neace may not like that because he evidently is of the opinion that you have to play your best players regardless of the consequences (based on his treatment of Sears), but he doesn’t get to select the team. I would much rather take 5 more loses than roll out a group of players that I already know all about. Racing isn’t bringing in any new fans at this point in the season.
