Racing v Current Preview
The last Racing practice of the year definitely had a “last day of school” vibe (credit to Julie Twaddle for calling that out). The players mostly wore long sleeves as it was a nice, sunny early autumn morning. The generally feeling around practice was relaxed. Prior to practice, NWSL commissioner Jessica Berman spent about 30 talking to players and staff. Berman has now visited all 12 cities in the NWSL markets. The media, which today just included Bekki Morgan and I, got to ask her some questions about the things on the top of our minds, but more on that later. The team definitely had the look of a squad that had won a few recent matches and had a couple of days off from training. Racing will be looking to play spoiler again on Saturday as the KC Current can still finish anywhere from 1st to 5th. Due to its proximity and having played 3 times already this year, the Current seem like a semi-natural rival and it’s always good to beat those.
Everything looks on track for Lauren Milliet to make her 50th NWSL start for Racing and for Emily Fox to make her 50th NWSL appearance for Racing on Saturday evening. The weather forecast looks great for Saturday evening too, so there is no excuse not to show up and support Racing one last time this year. I am somewhat torn about how much benefit there is for Racing to finish 9th and get the 4th pick in the upcoming college draft vs. finishing 11th and getting the 2nd pick. I think it will ultimately boil down to who Racing end up selecting at 2,3, or 4. If they get the player they want at 4 then it’s definitely a win. If they miss out and get a different player, that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing either. All we really have to go on is that Fox and Howell were game changers at 2 and DeMelo certainly was at 4. However, Racing need defense and particularly more central defense, so that makes their need to get the right player more important in this draft. I will be happy with a central defender at 2, 3, or 4, but would be happiest to get the best CB available. I asked Coach Björkegren about the importance of momentum being carried over into next season, to which he replied, “I think we can build on this (momentum).” That will require more roster stability and the need to integrate new players in February and not June, but I am optimistic that the core of this team is here (minus maybe one more young central defender).
Jessica Berman was nice enough to answer some questions. I thought she gave mostly encouraging answers on the following topics:
2023 World Cup’s impact to the NWSL schedule: First, the NWSL Schedule has a habit of being released late. To that she said, “It’s been a high priority since I joined in April…We are definitely committed to avoiding (a late schedule release) in the future.” On the World Cup conflicting with the NWSL season: “We are going to do everything we can to minimize those conflicts so that our league can thrive and those players who are going to play for their country are going to be able to perform at the highest level.” The was no specific update on possibly holding the Challenge Cup during the World Cup window, which has been rumored.
On Kits: “We recently hired a new executive at the league office, a new Chief Marketing Officer who spent time this week in Portland with Nike. There were many topics on the agenda: the kits and the uniqueness of that opportunity to create a connection with fans is among the topics being explored with Nike and with their input about how do we partner to use that opportunity for merchandise as well as marketing to drive engagement.” That is a lot of words and not much detail, but it was encouraging to hear that the league saw its relationship with Nike as a way to improve fan engagement around kits and other merchandise. Now if we could just get a Lavender kit for Racing’s home and a pink one for San Diego’s away, I would consider that progress and a better fan connection than the Wave’s tremendously boing year one kits.
On VAR: Not much of an update on specifics, but the league has started the training for “those who will be responsible for executing VAR next season.” Berman shared that ”it’s a very intense and cumbersome project, both at an enterprise level from a strategic perspective, but also tactically with the connectivity to the local stadiums from the broadcast.” Now there is quite a bit of nuance in those statements. I have shared before that the prevailing opinion is that is takes around 30 or so cameras to implement VAR at the level you see in Europe’s top men’s league. I think we can safely assume that each NWSL stadium won’t be getting 30 new cameras. Based on what she shared today, I think fans can expect an improved broadcast experience due to the level of reliable connectivity required for VAR. However, I don’t expect a whole lot of new camera angles to be available to conduct a VAR review. My best guess based on what I heard today is that VAR will be executed from a central office, and it is equally possible that it will be entirely done from a central command center or done with the field officials’ input through a pitch side monitor and communication with the central VAR officials. I don’t expect any non-broadcast cameras to be used, so if a current replay doesn’t clear up matters, neither will this VAR system. I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. The Premier League seems to be caught in a never-ending controversy around over analyzing close calls. I don’t think the NWSL’s system will be set up to correct anything other than a blatantly obvious incorrect call. That actually would be an improvement over the Premier League’s current system of nitpicking every possible decision. However, that means expect very few to no overturns on things like fouls in the box or fouls on the keepers. If VAR ends up only being used for clearly missed offside decisions and handballs in the box, I will consider that a win. Berman said to expect a more detailed update either late this year or early next year.
On Player Development/Player Pipeline: This is what I will call “The Ella Sanchez question”. I am in the extreme minority when I say that the other three topics were of much greater interest to me. Berman didn’t give much detail at all other that highlighting the hire of Tatiana Haney (who I could find very, very little about, but I will take Jessica’s word for it as a ”former head of Women’s Football for FIFA” who hasn’t worked for FIFA in the last five years) to lead the development of the strategy on the player pipeline and player development. “Part of that will be how academies fit into that model”, according to Berman. Don’t hold your breath for any news there. Feel free to waste your breath asking though, as Berman is scheduled to make an appearance at the Lavender Legion tailgate on Saturday. For me, the simple math is that it is very, very unlikely that Racing’s academy reach is vast enough to bring in and nurture an NWSL level talent very often. The issue will not be solved in time to impact Ella, and I seriously doubt that the next Ella Sanchez is around the corner, but you never know. If you view the academy’s role as a means to bring in talent, I think you may be missing the point. LouCity’s academy seems to be doing a decent job of finding and preparing USL level talent, but the LouCity and Racing academies’ mission is to give youth the chance to learn and play soccer while learning life skills. As a “pipeline”, I’d rather be looking to find the best players available anywhere because the geographic realities of trying to find players from a pool of 1 million people vs 330 million are quite daunting.
