A Chimpanzee Probably Not Writing Hamlet (A Third Quarter Review)

Editorial note: These quarterly review pieces used to run on the State of Louisville website and were written for that broader audience. Due to the State of Louisville combining with the 1912 Society, I have decided to continue these pieces here but written with my normal readership in mind.

Four wins and four losses highlight the good and the bad as Racing briefly makes a charge towards relevancy.

Hey! did you see that they are releasing a new adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities?

Just like the infinite monkey theorem a mediocre team can put together a good, and in fact record-breaking, run of matches every once in a while. A quick aside, this has to be my favorite thing I have seen on Wikipedia in a while:

Anyway, Racing fans had the best of times if not quite the “blurst” of times during this eight-match stretch. Hopes were raised (although I don’t think anyone lost their heads and used the p-word too much) before Racing started to face some better competition and a brief, deadly cameo from Mal Swanson.

The Matches

Current 5 – Racing 1

Best Bit: Bev strategically rotates to save Racing’s legs for the more winnable match against the Stars at home.

Worst Bit: Giving up 5 goals is never a good look.

Takeaway: It was the middle match of a 3-games-in-9-days stretch. With a heavily rotated lineup, nobody should to read too much into the performance.

Racing 2 – Stars 1

Best Bit: Gacioch scores her first professional goal from a well-worked set piece.

Worst Bit: A Bloomer blooper makes the last 10 minutes nervier than they needed to be.

Takeaway: Bev can feel slightly vindicated with her choice to heavily rotate against the Current, but some people will always bellyache about it.

Pride 1 – Racing 3

Best Bit: McKeen scores her first professional goal from a corner via a header.

Worst Bit: Sears has a close call offside decision rule out a goal, or she might have had a hattrick.

Takeaway: Racing likely benefits by having Banda absent due to AFCON, but you can only play the team in front of you.

Racing 4 – Legacy 1

Best Bit:‍ A Fischer brace sets a meaningless league record for the highest number of players to score a brace for a single team in a single season.

Worst Bit: Racing gets so close to keeping a clean sheet and Boston had already quit on the match when a stoppage time goal goes in.

Takeaway: Boston stinks.

Racing 2 – Reign 1

Best Bit: Sears completes the comeback and her brace on a nice pass from Milliet.

Worst Bit: Racing comes out flat and Seattle dominates the first 20 minutes.

Takeaway: Racing falls behind early but fights back for its first ever league victory against Seattle.

Stars 3 – Racing 2

Best Bit: Twice, Racing equalizes to pull themselves back into the match.

Worst Bit: The third time is the charm for the Stars.

Takeaway: The defending from Racing looks really shaky when they are up against an elite attacker like Swanson.

Wave 3 – Racing 2

Best Bit: Milliet and Flint capitalize on a very sloppy first 25 minutes from San Diego.

Worst Bit: The Wave pull one back early in the second half and they are off to the races.

Takeaway: Racing is probably better off being level at half against good teams so that Bev can win the halftime adjustment battle.

Racing 0 - Angel City 2

Best Bit: Lardner comes on and looks dangerous.

Worst Bit: Racing lets a defender score a brace.

Takeaway: The match is flat and Angel City’s moments of brilliance outshine Racing’s missed chances.

How did Racing (briefly) turn things around?

It was the formation and the competition, mostly.

Racing doesn’t have blistering pace on the back line, so in order to compensate, adding an extra central defender seemed to be an answer to solve that problem. This pushed Milliet into a more central midfield role, and she has been excellent there. Racing has always struggled in the midfield control battle, so they solved for that by overloading the midfield in a 3-5-2 formation. Against competition where a skilled and speedy attacker wasn’t always the primary threat, Racing was able to either counter or move quickly enough in attack to catch out their opponent’s back line. When that wasn’t an option Racing used the great equalizer, the set piece, to score a few times.

Not to be overlooked, a big piece of the turnaround was Racing’s attackers stepping up and finishing off chances. In the stretch beginning with the draw at Houston, Racing’s attackers have scored 13 of the 19 goals (Sears, Fischer, Lardner, McKeen and Milliet are who I am calling the “attackers”). Forwards need to score goals to stay engaged and be effective, and Racing’s forwards have been good. Fischer had been consistent, but Sears stepped her production up tremendously during the winning streak. Racing is still playing without a traditional number 10, but Milliet has taken up the pressing, creative, and energy part of that role, if not the control. The lack of a need to create control probably created enough unpredictability in their attack to make their opponents commit errors.

In the stretch where Racing took 13 points from a possible 18, it was only the heavily rotated squad that gave up more than one goal in a match. When Racing limits the opposition to one goal, their offence is usually good enough to give them a fighting chance. Racing played with great resolve and great confidence…against mostly mediocre to bad teams.

What happened to bring Racing back down to Earth?

It was the players in the formation and the competition, mostly.

When Racing changed to a three center back system against Houston, it took the league a while to catch on…maybe. Against the good attacking teams, the system didn’t seem to yield better results. Against the poorer teams, Racing’s attack just seemed to be better on the day. Racing doesn’t have any elite on-the-ball defender, so when you come up against elite players or really efficient attacking systems, there is always the risk that the defense is going to bend until it breaks. In the 3-5-2 system, it doesn’t matter how much you overload any line if you can’t actually control enough sections of the matches. One can counter all day, but the cumulative effect of having to defend when you aren’t particularly good at it, is very frequently going to result in the dam breaking. Why does Racing give up so many late goal historically? I chalk it up to the fact that they defend too much for too long.

Racing’s best defensive talent on the team is Taylor Flint. She packs the stat line with duels won and interceptions. Who does she look for to progress possession when she wins a dual? When she intercepts a pass, does it end up coming right back the other way when she can’t find an outlet? Out of all of the defensive midfielders in the league who have played more than 500 minutes this season, Flint ranks 36th out of 41 in pass completion percentage. On the team, Flint sits in the middle of the pack. However, Racing as a team has the worst passing percentage in the league. I don’t care what style you play when it comes to possession, but you need to be completing around 75% of your passes, regardless. Racing’s pass completion percentage currently sits at 69.8% according to American Soccer Analysis. For you stat nerds, that sits three standard deviations below the median. For everyone else…that really, really, really sucks. It’s outside the realm of any real possibility that a percentage that bad has anything to do with any random factors. I can definitively say that this is the worst passing team in the league by far. You might beat some mediocre or bad teams with numbers like that, but you definitely aren’t going to consistently beat the top ones. Racing cannot continue to pass the ball this poorly and be taken seriously.

This is especially true if the team is going to average conceding 2.0 goals per match. Chicago concedes 2.3 but just like “How does NASA organize a party? They planet.” Chicago is a hilariously joke. To avoid being next season’s hilarious joke, Racing needs to drive that number back to respectability. To do that I think they have to keep more possession, regardless of what they ultimately do with it, and pass the ball better. A cursory glance shows that Racing’s players are average to below average at every position when it comes to pass completion percentage. I don’t think they can all be that bad, so it must be a style thing. That may be correctable. There has to be a happy medium between pressing and possessing. Of course there is. Plenty of teams do it.

Can Racing make a late push?

No.

I would tell you to come watch anyway, but it could be unbearably hot like it was on Saturday and you don’t need that. Or you could have the Racing players warm up in front of you so that you can’t see the field (my situation, but the Lou City players find a way to not do this). Maybe you need a quiet place to read a book, and I have a nickname for Lynn Family Stadium (“The Library”) when Racing is playing a particularly dull match. Maybe you are getting kicked out of your seats and want to enjoy those for a few more matches. If you want an excuse not to show up, I get it. The club has given you plenty.

Usually, I would follow this up with a “however”, but I don’t feel like it at the moment. I’ll leave that to the “Racing ‘til I Die” crew. I am Racing while convenient and fun. Other than this recent blip, this season has been fairly inconvenient and not a lot of fun.