Chicago 0 Louisville 2 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
It's hard to properly evaluate Louisville's performance on Wednesday night as the Red Stars were so poor on the evening that Louisville was never in any real serious danger of losing the match. However, there is no need to apologize for easily picking up 3 points and heading to the top of their group.
As well as Louisville played on the evening, it's hard to see what the plan was for Chicago. The Red Stars seemed intent on playing out from the back which is exactly what Louisville wanted them to try to attempt. For long sections of the first half, Chicago looked happy just to make it to midfield at times. They were slightly better in the second half, but only just. Unless some miracle happens, they will finish bottom of the table by a wide margin. I would say their fans deserve better, but what fans? Very few actually showed up to the match and it was so quiet that you could frequently hear the players talking. It remanded ne of one of those closed-door COVID matches. The Red Stars are bad but if a team sucks in an empty stadium…well it's kind of like that tree falling in the forest type thing.
Enough on the terrible Red Stars because Louisville had two pretty interesting goals, and many more missed chances. I will leave the complaining about the missed chances for tomorrow when I preview the Washington match where it will matter. The first goal was one that you felt coming the moment Howell stepped in to intercept the pass that started the break. Louisville had been susceptible to over passing and under finishing up until that point, but a counter that left the Red Star players frantically tracking back was just what the doctor ordered. I always feel like you don’t have to be as clinical when counterattacking because they are almost always fewer players in the box which leaves more of the goal open. Louisville had some earlier transitional attacks but this one was different in that the impetus came from the middle of the pitch. Too often the balls out wide to Monaghan on the earlier breaks either lacked precision, or were slightly mishandled giving Chicago the chance to recover. However, on this break the ball from Howell to Monaghan was simple and direct and Monaghan's ball to Kanu was simple and perfectly weighted with precision as Kanu hit a nice first time ball to beat Naeher. Each piece of the buildup was simple and predictable and Chicago could do nothing about it. Conversely, on Goins’ goal she didn't even see it go in initially as she thought she had hit it over the bar. Suffice it to say there was a little bit of luck in the trajectory, but Parker fought to get open to make contact and couldn't have walked up and placed it any better. It's her second goal against Chicago this year.
The rest of the match was basically Louisville dominating possession and opportunities. Kgatlana came on with Louisville in the lead once again and had some good chances. As good as it was for Kanu to score, I think Kgatlana is likely going to scored and create more goals so it would have been nice to see her get one to start her Louisville account.
