Racing 2 Bayern 2 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy EM Dash Photography
If I were the head coach of Racing Louisville FC, I would have made a list of priorities for Saturday's match. My priorities would have been in this order:
Rest as many starters as you can.
Use the match to evaluate talent you normally don't get to see in a match.
Don't have any major injuries.
Win a trophy.
This is what I call “The Cup Strategy”. It is the tried and true method that the biggest clubs in Europe use in their domestic Cup competitions. The league is always the primary focus. If you have a European competition it is usually 1a. In England you have 2 domestic cups so those get to be used as chances to see younger players and fringe squad players. Since the cups clog up the schedule quite a bit, you have to rotate your squad. If you're lucky, you advance while saving your best players for more “important” competitions. Of course, if you continue to advance ultimately you use your best players to try to win a trophy.
Unfortunately there is no direct correlation for women's club soccer in America. The Challenge Cup is not played during the regular season, so there is no need to rotate for it. I wish their was a Cup competition. Maybe one day when there is a true Women's soccer pyramid in America.
In Racing's case you have the Women's Cup. How do you rank this trophy? If you played 6 matches over 5 months and survived and advanced, I think you would really value it, but probably not as much as a league trophy. To win this trophy Racing “won" two matches on penalties. It was exciting. It was good for the city. It was Racing's first “trophy”. It probably isn't super important. Or maybe said better: Racing's goal as an organization is to make this trophy less and less significant. It will always be remembered fondly, because it is the first trophy. Racing now has something even better than a trophy. They now have belief.
Don't get me wrong. I’m sure they had some belief prior to this: belief in the system, belief in their coaches, and belief in each other. Now the belief they have is the belief that than can win every match. Of course they won't win every match, but they should believe they can. I’m not sure that the team that took their first trip to Portland really believed they could win that match. Now they believe and know that they can.
But back to the match…
Every decision that Coach Holly made for this match seemed right to me.
He rested most of his regular starters, with only Betos and Simon starting. Betos never “needs" to rest and Simon rarely plays 90 minutes, and both were subbed off.
With Matthews struggling with what appeared to be cramping, and Bayern overwhelming the midfield in the last part of the first half, he brought on Freja Olofsson and changed formation.
He learned these tbings by his use of rotation:
Jorian Baucom probably deserves more playing time, but the strikers in front of her make her a victim of the numbers. Jorian was one of the big winners in my mind because her value to the team increased in everyone's mind and she will look pretty tempting to San Diego and Los Angeles in the expansion draft if she doesn't get much more playing time here.
Hendrix and Martin can still be counted on at center back.
Taylor Otto can give Freja an occasional break in the midfield.
Lauren Milliet has not had a drop in quality or effort, even if she has been dropped from the starting XI.
Your can trust Katie Lund as your backup keeper. Coach Holly said in a post match interview and reiterated when I asked him directly after the match that the plan was always to give her some game time in this match. It turned out better than anyone would have dared dream
He sent on some regular starters when the trophy was there for the taking. I was 95% certain that as soon as Racing went behind a goal, that Katie was getting minutes in goal. Coach Holly had her warm up almost immediately and gave her specific instructions. I don't want to put thoughts in his head that he didn't have, but if it was me I would have been thinking “We’ve played well, but now it time to see what I have in Katie, and it’s much easier to send her in down a goal.” Of course before she could come in the game was level. I think he decided to go for it at this point. On came Yuki, Savannah, Riehl for Hendrix and Lund for Betos.
He put the pressure on late. Early in the match neither team seemed too interested in pressing. Bayern pulled the trigger on their pressing in the later part of the first half. Racing reciprocated with extra pressure late, but with fresh legs.
The fans will always want to their team to win a trophy and beat a big name team. Fans want memories, but coaches want progress. Christy Holly was brave in his selection, but it was the right decision to rest starters in the grand scheme of things. If Racing would have lost, it still would have been the right decision. His team rewarded his decision with a nice victory.
There is one more thing needed to make this victory complete and that is to win Wednesday night in KC. There cannot be a trophy hangover. Win in KC and this victory will be even sweeter, because this victory was a very happy ancillary benefit of preparing for Wednesday.
