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I Love the First Day
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Stolen The Wire Epigraph
“I love the first day, man. Everybody all friendly an' #$%@”
For those of you who haven’t seen The Wire, it is your standard crime procedural where the police are devoted public servants and solve a juicy case each week.
What a gorgeous day for a match! Racing played to a standing room only crowd (well everyone in my section was standing) and came away with a point against the North Carolina Courage. Despite the result and “dropped points”, it was hard to have too many complaints about the match.
First matches are tough, but they can be an indicator of how the season might go. In this case, I think it is pretty safe to be encouraged. There will be plenty of time for discouragement later and I quite often lead the charge on that front, but all-in-all…not a bad start.
Instant “Un”alysis
At some point in the second half Emma Sears was flagged for being offside as the play was allowed to develop to its conclusion. Somebody in the Estopinal End yelled at the side official to complain. When I say the Estopinal End, I do in fact mean the area of the stadium when you have a view that is not conducive to making any kind of judgement call on offside offenses. The person was a) clearly wrong because Sears was at least a yard offside and b) very loud due to the lack of people in the crowd.
Please do not yell at the officials when you are wrong. It cheapens when I yell at the officials, and I only yell when I am right.
Post Match Moment of Match
Taylor Flint gave one of the best 1-1 draw press interviews in my memory. Watch it here. I think maybe she was happy not to give it in the rain. Regardless, when I asked her about hitting the post she gave a terrific answer filled with honesty and joy at what might have been saying, “I would have retired if I made that.” She felt in her gut that it was going to go in. For anyone who has ever played, you know that you remember the near misses much longer than the ones that go in.
Did the club/stadium have good food?
It was your standard club fare in the premium club this week. The chimichurri ribs were a nice touch and there was hot chocolate available! The line was self-service which was a bit of a change. We will see how that goes. For busier matches they might have servers dishing out food as in the past, but the rain may have thrown off the staff bookings. Also, an unnamed 5-year-old kept drinking water from the ledge in our loge box and held her mouth open to catch what I hope were raindrops and not runoff from the overhead sections.
Stink-O-Meter
Mercifully, a zero on the Odor Awareness Scale that runs 0-6. For those of you who never go to matches, Butchertown is known for its colorful smells. All you have to do to imagine it is read the name of the neighborhood again. If there was a positive to the rain, it is that it kept the odor in the stadium to a minimum.
A few days earlier when Elizabeth and I visited the stadium for the food sampling, I think I would give is a 5. Having not been in Butchertown since last November, the odor hit me like a sock of nickels that had also been sitting in a rendering plant floor for two weeks. Elizabeth and I carry essential oil nasal inhalers with us when we go to the stadium. They aren’t a bad investment but only really provide brief relief on a bad night. Anyway…
0 for 1 home matches with offensive odors…
Let’s keep the streak alive, but maybe without the rain next time.
The Kayla Fischer Honorary Yellow Card of the Match
Goes to…NOBODY!
Bev was frankly stunned when I told her that Racing played a match without picking up a yellow card. The unit played cohesively, and the players didn’t put their teammates into positions that usually produce yellow cards, so I think that is a win. I fully expect this to not be the case for the entire season. I like a good strategic yellow card.
Elizabeth’s Commentary
Every so often, Elizabeth will have comments about the match. Find them here:
“I forgot just how much I missed the Racing games. Except for the weather. I always forget that there’s weather to deal with.”
“It sounds like a pocketful of rain”
“Green Isaac”/Swoon/1984
Yeah, I don’t really know what that means either, but I liked the sound of it. I am going to interpret it as experiencing something purely. That’s probably not quite it, but for our purposes it will work.
Racing looks to be a much more polished team and has smoothed out some of their rougher edges. Taken with or without its previous baggage, the performance was assured and disciplined. Here are some thoughts:
“Forget the style and chose from 12 notes”: Racing’s tactics and approach wasn’t anything too fancy, and it was similar to everything we had seen before, just done better and more assuredly. One thing that certainly stood out was the set pieces and especially the set piece delivery. Petersen put in a terrific ball on the corner from which Sears ultimately scored. Her other deliveries and the ones of her teammates were also good. Racing is going to have to “steal” points to make the playoffs and set piece proficiency is about the best way to do it in my opinion based on this team’s current setup and composition.
“I hear you ‘re still wet behind the ears”: The young players will be a deciding factor in how far Racing goes this season. There were good signs from Sears (still young if not a rookie), O’Kane, and “Sweb/Swebs" (Weber). Swebs (I think I like the “ending in s version”) does that thing where you are on the right attacking side and cut inside and shoot with your left foot. That is one of my favorite “things”. I will be looking forward to getting looks at some of the other younger players.
“The most eloquent way to speak or to pray is straight from the heart”: Look, I am still “me” and realism is surely coming right around the corner, but I don’t have anything bad to say about last night’s performance. I think the goal Racing conceded is just one of those goals that you end up giving up to good teams when you are trying to build on a lead. It’s too early to talk or think about “dropped points”. In this league, it’s hard to consider a 1-goal lead as anything approaching a guarantee especially one taken so early. The signs of a decent team are there. Racing just has to keep building.
Racing 1 NCC 1 Player Ratings
Photo by Elizabeth Shaw
It was a familiar pattern but with encouraging signs. The first 30 minutes were really good for Racing, so that is something to build on.
Lund-6: Solid as usual. Not at fault for the goal.
Petersen-7: I think this was one of her better performances in a Racing kit.
Wright-7: It will be interesting to see how the defense does with her leading the line, but it was an encouraging start.
Jean-6: Had her usual nervy moment, but played well otherwise.
Milliet-7: Typical good performance.
Flint-8: Unlucky not to score on a thunder strike. Still Racing’s best midfielder at the moment.
Borges-7: Got knocked down a few times but kept getting back up.
DeMelo-7: Won a few important free kicks to help Racing keep possession.
Fischer-6: Not really involved but avoided a yellow card, so that was a positive.
Sonis-7: Racing looked good on set pieces in no small part to her delivery on corners.
Sears-8: Off to a good start to hopefully be Racing’s first ever double digit goal scorer for a season.
RLFC v NCC Matchday -1
Photo by Elizabeth Shaw
Opening matches are always unique. Everyone, including coaches, players and fans never quite know what to expect. Coaches are never going to let you know too much about what they have planned, but it seems to be especially relevant for the first match of the season. Coach Yanez spoke about being prepared to the point of almost being over prepared for the season opener on Saturday, since no team has any game footage on their opponents yet. The change that I really appreciate compared to the first couple of seasons at Racing is that even if we don’t know how the team has performed in the preseason, we know that they have faced NWSL competition in the warmup (in Racing’s case their opponents were Washington, Kansas City and Chicago. Like everyone, I am mostly curious as to how Racing might line up on Saturday. In particular, I am interested in the defense. I hesitate to even say “back 4” because while I assume that to be the case, I simply do not know.
Captain Arin Wright was a little more upfront (without being transparent). I inferred (she didn’t explicitly state but I follow Sutton’s Law for most situations) that the back line will be a back four with experienced personnel. One thing that she did comment on that took me a little off guard in its frankness, was that she discussed with her teammates that they have to be okay with not having the majority of possession on Saturday. I think that is something that anyone who has seen Sean Nahas’ Courage play would rightly assume. One thing that I have been tangentially critical about toward Racing is their sometimes bizarre lack of self-awareness. I think admitting that you don’t expect to win the match by out possessing the Courage is a nice step forward.
I expect teams to key in on Emma Sears. When I asked her about it, she appeared to be expecting it as well. “I do now think people know who I am which definitely presents different challenges,” Sears said but continued on to say that she will continue to play to her strengths, which is all that any of us can do. I expect to pay a little bit of extra attention to Sears in this first match, unless Bev comes up with some completely unexpected formation or lineup. In previous years, the mantra has probably been that Racing will go as far as DeMelo carries them. I think that ended up being true, for better or for worse. Maybe with an additional focal point for opponents (in Sears), DeMelo can recover some of her form from previous seasons.
I want to go to there
2025 Menu Tasting at Lynn Family Stadium
By Elizabeth Shaw
I recently completed an imaginary poll* of first-time visitors to Lynn Family stadium for a Racing Louisville or Lou City game.
*Okay, this was actually based on qualitative data from friends and family who visited Lynn Family stadium for a ‘24 Racing or Lou City game. It’s just as accurate as President Trump saying “everything’s computer” about the inside of a Tesla.
Their top reactions were split as such:
40% were just wowed by the amazing stadium. It is pretty Wow.
30% were excited to see their favorite players in action and maybe get an autograph. Since this is my 5th time being a season ticket holder, Lauren Milliet has signed pretty much everything in my house except my fridge because security wouldn’t let me bring it into the stadium.
10% were hoping to run into Jack Harlow (and did!), since the Louisville native is a part-owner and attends games of both teams.
5% of you have noticed this doesn’t total 100%…see above for poll accuracy levels.
10% were all about the Ehrler’s ice cream.
If I imaginary polled kids everywhere about their favorite part of any sporting event, they would 103% say “THE FOOD” because who under eight doesn’t love popcorn, nachos, ice cream…basically all the non-vegetable food groups that really love to shine at ballparks, arenas and stadiums everywhere?
Consider the Yum! Center, where UofL, the 13th ranked NCAA men’s basketball team, plays, coached by the ACC Coach of the year, Pat Kelsey. (As a Louisville, KY resident and UofL alumni, I am legally obligated to mention this team three times in every media piece and social media post from here to eternity, amen.) Our friends, Susan & Rick, love to host friends and family as they are long-time season ticket holders. Last week, after we watched U of L (that’s 2) pound on Cal for two glorious halves of basketball, I asked Susan how the grandkids were enjoying the games. She said they are all about the food. Her two oldest, Lincoln (4) and Carter (3), have already discovered the ice cream and require it at every game. Well played, young Cardinals.
And travel back in the time with me to the days of the Louisville Redbirds baseball team (before they were the Bats). If this minor league club was playing a home game at Louisville Redbird Stadium circa 1985, you would be sure to see my sister, Emily, and me sitting in the stands, ignoring the game while we devoured ice cream from tiny plastic baseball helmets before moving on to nachos or popcorn.
So, for children and grown men everywhere, the usual ballgame staples at Lynn Family stadium are “chef’s kiss”. There are also specialty concessions if you want tacos, burgers, or alcoholic drinks, but people don’t usually drink at ballgames. (Pause for laughter.) For the fan who prefers something beyond the usual 2000-cal ballpark snack, Lynn Family has introduced and reinvented several items for the 2025 season. Michael and I were super excited to eat some free food (and Michael’s specialty is judging), so here are the rankings of the food we sampled tonight.
The images below align with the rankings, left to right, top to bottom. Bonus photo is Jonathan Lintner, VP of Marketing & Communications for Racing Louisville & Lou City, pictured with Levy Head Chef Mark Heil.
The yummiest thing I’ve eaten all week was the Vegan Crunch Wrap. While this has been available previously at Lynn, it was likely just a vegan wrap. This year, it will be served on the concourse, made to order, crunch included at no extra cost. Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of soy-rizo - if you can imagine eating a flavorful beef-bean-cheese quesadilla, then you can appreciate the deliciousness of this creation. Oh, and there’s tomatillo dipping sauce on the side that can totally skip if you want. Michael only ranked this at 2, despite giving it a “big thumbs up.”
A very close 2nd was the inspired Funky Lou, a brilliant take on the sloppy joe. I don’t know where pimento cheese was hiding all my life, probably somewhere all alone being yucky, but pair it with harissa-seasoned sloppy joe and look out! This was Michael’s fave.
Let’s jump to dessert! But I would call the S’mores Nachos an “adults-only” dessert because (a) it would sell better and (b) you really don’t want your kids eating this unless you’re the type of parent who has wet wipes on their person at all times. This was a yummy, sticky mess of cinnamon crisps with chocolate sauce and toasted marshmallows. I ate the marshmallows, then the crisps, and left the chocolate for the racoons who will feast tonight outside the stadium.
The Honey Sriracha Chicken Sandwich was a’ight. I hope I spelled that right; I’m trying to sound like someone cool enough to eat sriracha because my vanilla palette is very anti-spice. The honey definitely tamed it, but I’d take a #1 from Chik Fil a everyday and twice on Sunda- never mind.
I think it’s hard to dress up a hot dog. (Is that where the saying “put lipstick on a pig” comes from? If not, it should.) I appreciate the idea of adding cream cheese as a condiment for the Derby City Dog, but at the end of the day, I’d rather have a corndog. (Ed. I enjoyed it, but it definitely was due to the “dog” and not necessarily the extras.)
Here I’m going to drop in the BBQ Nachos that Michael ranked #4. He said these had a “good kick” and that you could just skip the jalapenos if you want less spicy nachos. I skipped this one altogether because it combines several of my least favorite foods into one messy pile - shredded pork (nope), BBQ sauce (extra no), and house kettle chips (why when we have Lays?).
Now for the Drinks! They were definitely higher than #7 but here we are. The Porch Swing by Rivergreen should come with a giant warning label that his innocent looking 12 oz can is 12 percent alocohol and will kick your butt. (Ask Michael.)
The Racing players help choose the blackberry-blueberry flavor of the Top Bins Hard Seltzer and it was pretty good for a seltzer. Where I will usually try two sips, I managed to get down four of this one.
Why did I abandon the seltzer so quickly, you ask? I was excited to try to Capri Sun-looking drink, AmiracleAde. This will be amazing on a hot day if I can remember the name of it, and the label makes it look like it has Vitamin C or D or maybe Z. Sold!
This Saturday, you will find me on the Concourse with the vegan crunch wraps. Remember, all of these items are only available at Lynn Family stadium, right down the road from where the UofL men’s basketball team (that’s 3) just wrapped up their regular season.
People Can't Stop Saying "Everything's Computer" Because Of Donald Trump
Michael’s PSA
DO NOT DRINK A PORCH SWING BY RIVERGREEN AT LAST CALL!
I don’t drink a ton, but don’t consider myself a lightweight either. However, I had two Porch Swings and Elizabeth had to drive home and I am still buzzing at almost 10 pm when I finished off my second at 7:30.
Listen up, fives, a ten is speaking
Coach Bev Yanez shares her excitement about Racing’s home opener this Saturday at Lynn Family Stadium
Coach Bev Yanez shares her excitement about the home opener this Saturday at Lynn Family Stadium
By Elizabeth Shaw
It was smiles-all-around at Racing Louisville’s media day, Monday, March 10th, just five days out from the season opener. And Coach Bev has four specific reasons to be excited: Racing picked up four promising players in the off-season/ pre-season and they are already bringing their unique energies to the team. Allie George, Ella Hase, Katie O’Kane, and Sarah Weber are each impressing Coach Bev in different ways, including one who isn’t afraid to charge down the field and shoot with either foot. (I’ll leave it to the fans to discover who I’m speaking about here; we wouldn’t want the NC Courage getting any advance notice of our special talents.)
Self-Reflection & Relationships
Bev shared how she spent a lot of time in self-reflection in the off-season. She’s continued her commitment to building relationships by providing interactive activities for the team. Music to my ears! After observing some player disconnects during the first season, I would regularly comment to Michael that the teams needed some good old-fashioned team building to learn more about each other and thus how to play well together.
Having spent over twenty years at Fortune 100 companies that live or die by culture, I’ve developed a passion for genuine self-discovery and team bonding. (Alternatively, I have a gag-reflex when a new leader dusts off a Myers-Briggs personality assessment and forces their employees to take the test (again) and share with their colleagues, even if they are an ISTP who clearly hates this type of exercise.) Otherwise said, it has to be done right!
How do you know if you’ve done it right? You issue a survey at the end of the session and ask for feedback. (Kidding, please, for the love of soccer do not do that.) You will just know. Like if teammates start opening up to each other in new ways. Coach Bev wants her players to “go the extra mile” for each other. And if you know someone and care about them (maybe because you realized you’re both Swifties), then you’re more likely to step up for them.
New Captains
This season, Coach asked her players to vote on their captain. I cannot imagine how hard that must’ve been given the candidate pool here. If this had been a popularity vote, I think we would’ve seen Lauren Milliet or Olivia Sekany as winners, which would be a problem since Olivia isn’t the starting keeper. Since this was, however, a captain vote, we’re looking for different qualities (that Lauren Milliet also possesses, but I didn’t get to vote).
Congrats to Arin Wright (captain) and Janine Sonis (nee Beckie) (co-captain)! Look forward to hearing Arin inspire the team in the pre-game huddle on Friday.
Intensity
I loved Coach Bev’s response to the question “what do you want fans to see from the team this year?” Without missing a beat, she said “Intensity.” For a minute I was reminded of the word-of-the-year bracelets that women of a certain age used to create for themselves as part of their New Year’s Resolutions and Related Activities to Quit Mid-January. But if you put that word on a bracelet and wear that bracelet everyday - or until you catch it on your car door and it breaks into a million beads in your garage that you’ll step on the rest of your life - then yeah, it can make a difference. You’re forced to think about that word every day, how you can incorporate that into your personality.
And Coach was not talking about bracelets. She was talking again about culture. They established a good foundation last season and plan to build on that. She smiled as she talked about a recent bus ride with the team where they shared their playlists and song picks for this season. (I think it’s a missed opportunity if we can’t find a way to parody H-O-T-T-O-G-O with “R-A-C-I-N-G-O” or something much better.) Music can be very personal, so I think the bonding activities are working.
Let’s goooo
We’ll find out soon enough how the new players are integrating with the veterans, how Captain Arin embraces her new role, and what songs get the players hyped up on game day. See you all Saturday for the 5pm kick-off against the NC Courage at Lynn Family stadium (or Ynn Family Stadium if that L light is still out on the north side.)
"It don't matter that some fool say he different
…cuz the only thing that make you different is what you really do.”
If you consider yourself “progressive” and you haven’t seen The Wire I don’t know what I could say to you at this point to convince you to watch it, so I won’t waste my breath. (If you consider yourself “conservative” I assume that if “Bawlmer” didn’t scare you off, the sheer number of black cast members would have.)
I know someone who named their dog “Avon Barksdale”. That is the greatest dog's name in the history of mankind, however the above quote comes from his nephew D’Angelo. It’s essentially his take on The Great Gatsby. Back in the previous century this would have been considered mandatory reading for a high school student, but that concept is a thing of the past.
Any who… D’Angelo’s point (before it is brutally evident to viewers that it serves a dual purpose as jailhouse literary criticism and a clearly foreshadowed last act) is that the narrative isn’t as important as the results.
I really have no idea if Racing is saying that they are different because they really aren’t saying much of anything. In previous years I would have been invited to see some action in the preseason, but that was reduced last season and has basically petered out to nil this season. I won’t project my opinions on why that might be because the reasons are probably numerous, practical, environmental, and necessary.
However, we are only a few weeks out from a first match and them team looks like it is going to be what it is at this point in the preseason. What it is, frankly, is uninspiring.
Tactics
No clue. Zero. Zilch.
I feel like this is probably by design, but the coaching staff kept things close to the vest last season and I wouldn’t say that they surprised anybody or broke new ground from a tactical perspective. Since there are not many new players that will likely break into the starting XI, this may be the place of most interest when the season starts.
The defense is unproven at best, so Racing will likely need to score multiple goals to win. Teams that do this are typically a) better at holding possession and/or b) have a game changing goal-scoring threat. Racing don’t control the possession particularly well nor do they have what I would consider a real top-of-the-line goal scorer (that definition changed for the league last year so leave your “9 goals/season striker” mess at the door). Best of luck outscoring opponents with that setup!
Goalkeeper
Katie Lund.
End of discussion. Jordyn Bloomer will have to prove to me that she can stay fit off the pitch before I would even consider her as an option on it. Racing will live or die in some matches based on Katie’s level of focus. The good news is that the defense might be porous enough that she won’t have the opportunity to lose focus or get distracted.
Defense
I expect a regression back to Racing 1.0 or Racing 2.0 defensively. I am not sure who is going to “lead the line”, but the recent injury to Ángela Barón definitely limits Racing’s already not great options (Update: the injury doesn't look serious). There is a reason why good centerbacks have long careers and that reason is scarcity. While nominally a midfielder, Flint will likely need to double down on her already tremendous effectiveness for Racing to have any defensive success.
Midfield
If Bev Yanez is going to get a third season or full second one, the midfield has to play better. I think the feeling around the club and fans is that this is where Racing is best, at least from a talent perspective. Racing's midfield gets consistently outplayed in matches where their opponents want to control possession. Racing has never had an answer for this. I can’t think of any successful soccer endeavor where the midfield wasn't at least above average.
DeMelo hasn't shown herself to be consistent enough to be “the answer” leading the midfield so maybe Racing should stop putting so much on her shoulders. I do feel like Bev did a decent job at rotation in the midfield last year when most players were available.
Attack
I hinted at this above, but “attack” in 2025 isn't what “attack” was even a few years ago. I'm sorry, but having a leading scorer (or even multiple players) have a goal tally for the season of 5 goals screams “bottom half of the table team” to me. North Carolina kind of got away with that last year, but they were much better defensively and actually had a bad season compared to their high standards.
Once again Racing seems to be going all in on a player that has had one good rookie season. Emma Sears may turn out to be great. She may also turn out to be good, average, or bad.
There is decent talent up front, but not game-changing talent. If the defense is as porous as I expect it to be, I don't think decent will hack it.
“I swear at you 'cause I believe that sweet talk, like candy, rots teeth.”
I have never been accused of being overly optimistic, but the preseason is the most optimistic of times. Then why do I feel so down about Racing’s chances this season?
I guess I just believe in honest assessments. The club could be feeling really good about this season, and I imagine that most clubs do in their own protective bubbles and echo chambers. I just wish I had something to go on other than 4 years of failure. There hasn’t been enough positive change in the offseason to offset even the losses that needed to come. I listened to the BTRD podcast today, and there is something admirable in Tom Benson’s Pollyannaish optimism but that’s not me. Who I am is a realist who hopes for the best. At this point, I think avoiding last place might be a rosy as I can be based on the current evidence. Don’t get your hopes up. It is looking to be a very long season.
Esoterica
Back in the dark ages, or the 1990s as it was also known, my teal Chevy Beretta only had a tape deck. Most of my music was on CD, so you can see how this might have presented a problem for a college student looking to drive back and forth to work 45 minutes each way. I made a lot of mix tapes. We'll, that isn’t quite true. I made a lot of tapes that I recorded from a newly purchased CD (almost always from ear-X-tacy). Honestly, I considered myself more of an “album” guy back then. That is a fairly quaint notion today. The only a actual “mix tape” I remember making was a Prefab Sprout one. That previous sentence may require some googling, but let me stop you before you are tempted. You won’t be into them. I prefer it that way.
I have always preferred discover things on my own. Growing up in the absolute middle of nowhere in Kentucky, that meant discovering something English that was somewhat popular there, but none of my friends had the slightest idea existed. It isn’t lost on me that something needs a certain level of popularity to even be discovered. I am sure that there were undiscovered garage bands within 10 miles of where I grew up, but I am also extremely confident that nobody was missing anything by them not being discovered. There was absolutely nowhere to even play in public other than the annual high school talent show. You could probably guess the kind of music I was into. It was definitively “not what anybody else was listening to”. By anybody, I meant anyone I would meet in a town of 2000 people. Of course, as I moved away to college, I did meet some people who had actually heard of the stuff I was listening to. I even learned to take recommendations from people. The Smiths and the Cure became beloved by proximity to hearing it. I did kind of get into Blur own my own before they had any kind of American audience.
However, Prefab Sprout belong to me and me alone. Well, at least their 1984-1990 catalog that comprised that mix tape does. I hadn't listened to them in a while, but the urge hit me and I basically downloaded and created that mix tape again (although the exact order is lost to time). If you have made it this far, you wouldn't be wrong in asking how any of this is relevant to Racing Louisville.
It isn't, but it will be.
“If you have a problem with this, I understand completely.”
Racing has had what I would consider a pretty boring offseason. Not once have I even felt the slightest urge to write something. The players that left needed to go, and the new ones are speculative signings. Ryan Dell left for a better opportunity, and I think Jeff Greer did too. I will miss Jeff. He cared about his job and did it well in my opinion. Honestly, there hasn't been much to write or talk about.
I go into the 2025 with the absolute lowest of expectations. I can’t envision how this team will be good. They may be competitive. If they do turn out to be decent, it will be counter to most of the previous evidence.
I don't get paid to write, so it has to be fun for me. I don't see Racing Louisville as a “serious enterprise” in this city for the long term. The owners can't afford to own a sports team that loses money. I feel like there is less enthusiasm than ever because the writing seems to be on the wall with this club.
However, I will forever be grateful for its existence because it has given me an excuse to write. Now, I am going to take the opportunity to take the owners’ and city's general lack of commitment to or interest in the club to change how I write about this club. This isn't a serious club. It's going to get unserious writing.
Not exclusively mind you. I still intend on doing player ratings, which I do with sober analysis. Everything else will be less serious. I am not a silly person by nature, so it won't be goofy. Think esoteric. I fully intend to pepper in Prefab Sprout lyrics that make sense to me (but surely not to you). I will use The Wire epigraphs with abandon. I have a list of ideas of things to sprinkle into my pre and post match pieces like “Kayla Fischer card of the week” and “JOC unaccountable moment of the match”.
Anyway…consider this fair warning. If any of my frequent readers (which don't number many) aren't down with this I will point to the quote above and assure you that, “If you have a problem with this, I understand completely.”
“To shine like Joan of Arc you must be prepared to burn.”
It would be disingenuous to say that this blog hasn’t been mostly about “me” all along. It has always been my take and my opinion. However, what I get out of it is the process of writing it. After that is done, it doesn’t belong to me anymore, at least not completely. I know what I want to say, but that doesn’t mean that it makes it to the reader’s conscious unaltered. That’s impossible anyway and not something that has ever concerned me much, but concerns me even less now. I have never felt the weight of Tom Benson’s description of this site as “the paper of record” for Racing Louisville. That is such an antiquated notion today that it is so hard to even fathom in today’s media climate. I want this to be fun, so I have made changes to make it fun…for me. I realize that these changes may not be “fun” for you. With all due respect, that isn’t my concern. My readership may drop to zero this season. I can live with it. There will be sometimes you may not have a clue what I am on about. I am okay with that too.
Back to my original thought. There is a beauty in the esoteric. Racing Louisville was never intended to appeal or even be understood by all. It does require specialized knowledge. That is part of the fun. As with all esoteric things, you hope it is just popular enough to be sustainable. There are sections of NWSL fandom that want to wallow in its esoterica. I completely understand that, but it puts a time limit on things. Prefab Sprout were just popular enough to be a working enterprise for 8-10 years, although their lifetime went beyond that. I feel like Racing’s time in Louisville may be limited, but I want to deeply enjoy whatever time is left. The football hasn’t been very interesting or much fun to write about recently, so I am going to marry some other bits of esoterica and unseriousness into this space and wrap it up in a Racing Louisville package. I hope you come along for the ride, but if not I understand completely.
2024 Season Wrap-up
Courtesy Connor Cunningham
Sometimes it is hard to remember why you do certain things. Oftentimes, the reason you start something is different from the reason you continue it. I started this blog simply because I thought Racing needed a site specifically dedicated to covering the team. Now, I mostly keep it up to date out of habit, to record my thoughts and get them out of my head, and to give Jeff Greer or Jonathan Lintner an extra chore during the day to make sure that I am behaving myself. The other thing that I can’t quite remember the reasoning behind is the decision to split my coverage into content that I thought was best suited for this site, and content that was suited for a broader audience on The State of Louisville. At first that decision seemed to be crystal clear, and I often saved the pieces of which I was most fond for that site. Now, I really just post my quarterly reviews there. Again, this is simply out of habit, and I don’t have any real intent on changing this unless the guys over there kick me out. This rather long preface is simply here to say that I wrote my 4th quarter piece first, but that it will likely be published after this.
That means that this piece serves as somewhat of a catch-all piece for the thoughts that enter my head during the season, but don’t really have a place in the context of a match or are more appropriate for after the season is complete. I will likely have forgotten some of the things I wanted to talk about, but the important ones have surely made their way here. There are all kinds of ways to handle a wrap-up piece, but I think the following format will prompt me to remember most of the things I want to talk about.
If Racing are serious about winning, there are things that need to be addressed. I wrote this for my forthcoming State of Louisville piece, but I want to dive deeper here: “I believe that Racing's issues are multiple and deep-seated. In simple terms Racing
Plays in a small market
For an ownership conglomeration without truly deep pockets
Who are hesitant to take on a financially disastrous loss that includes
Improving the team's staff
In order to find and pay the right players
To play in a system that is unique enough to cause their opponents problems”
Let’s break down that run-on sentence into each of its parts.
Before I get to that, let me just say that I fully expect to hit some nerves and say things people don’t agree with or flat out hate in this piece. Actually, I will probably write some things that I will ultimately disagree with myself as time passes. Try not to take it personally.
Racing plays in a small market
This is an environmental issue/problem. Unless you want the team to move, this specific challenge has to be dealt with creatively. I always got the sense, and maybe I got it incorrectly due to my own biases, that the organization has always thought that if they could get every USWNT fan in the Louisville area to attend Racing matches, that attendance would be a breeze. Yes, the USWNT “sold out” Lynn Family Stadium, but there is “sold out” and sold out. It sold out without breaking the Lynn attendance record. That’s a neat trick. The attendance is nothing to sneeze at, and Louisville represented itself quite well. I don’t fault the effort or the result of getting a USWNT match here. However, we now kind of know the upper limit on attendance. 13,000 is likely the absolute maximum you can expect if Racing go undefeated for 5 straight years. Here in the real world, the practical limit is about 8,000 (barring an air show or some other event that divides fan attention). My proposal is that the Racing matches at Lynn should be configured to hold 7,000 to 8,000 fans by strategically closing large sections of the stadium. I had this idea before the San Diego match, and now we know it is somewhat feasible. Thing that will make some people mad #1: I think the Estopinal End should be closed for Racing matches as part of a 7,000 to 8,000 seating configuration. The Estopinal End works for Lou City. It doesn’t for Racing. The Lavender Legion (of which I am a paying member and former board member) has been given 4 years to try to create an atmosphere. It has not worked. What has worked in more recent matches are simple chants stared by sections of the crowd with enough people to start them. Five elementary school aged children got a chant started in Section 125 with only 2100 or so people in attendance on Sunday. Their lack of rhythm made me pine for the days of mandatory music education in the public school system, but they got it going. Organic is always going to work better than manufactured. People need to be in close confines to create an environment. Let’s close some sections and get people closer together.
What I hope this will achieve is thing that will make some people mad #2: Make Lynn Family Stadium “Hell on Earth” for Racing’s opponents. The good people of section 107 have been trying very hard (myself included) to make Lynn into Hell on Earth for officials for a few seasons now. I frequently embarrass my wife with some of the things I say to the officials (all of the are well earned and clean by the way). However, opponents continue to come into the stadium way too relaxed. I can’t prevent a section of the fanbase from fawning over the opposition players, especially the international-level ones, nor would I want to. I just want to harden the environment to a degree that the opponents don’t feel like they have just been invited to Sunday tea.
I expect the fans to be polite, to a degree and respectful and I would never want any real abuse hurled at opposing players or coaches, but there is a difference between hospitality and reverence. I would prefer mute disdain with the goal of eventually heading toward open hostility (good natured of course). I believe that people know the difference between booing an opponent and attacking them verbally. I wlll get to the second part of this in section 6.
For an ownership conglomeration without truly deep pockets
Racing is in a financial mismatch against virtually every other team in the league. The valuation of the franchise might be greatly higher than the investment, but that is only beneficially to ownership on the day they sell it. I believe that every team in this league operates at a loss and with the new salary cap developments, Racing’s wage bill is only going to become a larger burden on the ownership. I simultaneously have some degree and very little sympathy for ownership. On the one hand, you can’t be continually dumping stupid money into an investment that is years away from paying off (hopefully) but you are also rather arrogant to think that you get to own a top tier sports franchise without being willing to invest stupid money into it. Thing that will make some people mad #3: The current ownership group can’t be successful other than to cash out. Of course, cashing out puts the team at risk of moving. One of the most irritating things about fans is their bravado when it comes to spending ownership’s money. I don’t think there is a single person in the current ownership group wealthy enough to own an NWSL franchise by themselves. In fact, that person might not exist in the city of Louisville or the state of Kentucky. Fans can come up with all of the lists of potential rich owners they want to, but unless you want to convince some sporting uber conglomerate to purchase the club as is, a single owner is likely to move the team.
Who are hesitant to take on a financially disastrous loss
The team needs monetary infusions that are simply not going to give you a return on investment. I would love to see Racing’s books and the books of other NWSL teams and I am sure that it would be a fascinating insight into their operations. However, I seriously doubt that any team turns a profit. Which leads me to thing that will make some people mad #4: Women’s sports have to become more than just an investment vehicle for rich narcissists at some point, or it risks becoming a charity. This is a tough one. I think that many men’s sports franchises and clubs operate at a loss on paper, and it is extremely unfair to expect women’s sports to be profitable on a short time frame. Then again, if you can’t afford a loss should you be a sports owner? Honestly, the only way most professional sports teams seem to be profitable today is either when they are inherited through generational wealth or sold to the next rich person. There is no real solution to Louisville’s problem here other than a drastic increase in attendance which doesn’t seem to be on the horizon. That doesn’t mean that is still doesn’t affect their day-to-day operations. Long story short: if you want the current ownership to invest more, you are going to have to give them a really good reason. We all need to work together to increase attendance (and/or the value of the tickets) by (almost) any means necessary.
Improve the team's staff
Racing is lacking in technical staff. I frankly don’t care what other teams have, but Racing needs some real help here. I have always felt that they have cheapened out on hiring staff. That doesn’t mean that they don’t have good coaches, but I do think it means that there is a limit for what the organization is willing to pay for coaching excellence. That mentality has to chance. The head coaches in this league are leaps and bounds above what they were even two seasons ago. The league cleaned house to some degree and replaced the bad actors with at least better coaches and hopefully better people. Thing that will make some people mad #5: I feel like Racing made the wrong head coaching decision at almost every turn. Bev may turn out to be great, but she isn’t there yet. I am unsure of who else was being considered, but Racing ultimately made the safe choice. It cost them a year of progress. They can’t afford another lost year.
Find and pay the right players
On this one Racing has no choice but to change their way of thinking. They won’t have the draft to get players like DeMelo and Sears anymore. This will somewhat force Racing to pick players that fit the system they want to play. Whether that is the right system is up for debate, and I will make my case below. I spend some time in my 4th quarter review for the State of Louisville on this topic, so I won’t rehash things here.
If you don’t want to read that piece, I will give you the brief version. The talent gap in the league is increasing at the top of the table, and what was good enough last season, is not good enough this season and definitely won’t be good enough next season. Racing needs to be very, very careful on the international players that they sign, especially if most of the game film on the player is in a league that is not up to par with the NWSL (or NCAA for rookies). Thing that will make some people mad #6: fans need to stop falling in love with the players. This level of devotion is only going to hurt the fans. Racing has proven itself to be brutally ruthless recently, and I don’t expect that to change. Do a job or find another team. The time for sentiment is over if you want this franchise to survive in this city. The players should be treated respectfully, but nobody gets a free pass.
Play in a system that is unique enough to cause their opponents problems
Where the real “Hell on Earth” needs to take place is on the pitch. Louisville (unless something changes) is always going to have a financial challenge compared to other teams in the league. That is why I believe that thing that will make some people mad #7 has to be a change in style that makes the opponents dread playing Racing. I would like to see a style where every player is Kayla Fischer-level aggressive. That might lead to multiple suspensions, but something has to change. Louisville hasn’t succeeded by attempting to play attractive football, so don’t attempt to play it. Find a style that makes the game an absolute nightmare on the other team. This doesn’t have to be completely ugly or use the “dark arts” 100% of the time, but the dark arts shouldn’t be ignored. Everyone wants to play beautiful football now. Racing needs to find a way to make them pay for it. I refuse to believe that there aren’t some coaches out there plotting against the current wave of play-out-from-the-back, possession football. Find one and bring them to Louisville to help implement something unique. The harsh truth is that Racing Louisville can’t stand against the current cream of the crop in this league playing a similar style with lesser players. They need to win the chess matches.
And alternatively, what if Racing isn’t all that serious about winning?
Be okay with 9th place (or worse). It is sustainable and not the end of the world. I am not a fan with infinite patience, but I can't picture myself ever stopping supporting Racing. There is still a whole bunch of fun to be had at the matches. They could catch lightning in a bottle every once in a while without many changes. Not everyone gets to be a fan of a consistent winner and sometimes you end up supporting a perennial doormat. It's fine. The owners are perfectly within their rights to make the minimum required investment and watch the value of the franchise continue to grow. I just think we need to be honest about what the ambitions of this club are going to be. This offseason will be key. If the club is going to be unserious about winning, I am perfectly happy to cover the club in an (even more) unserious manner. I mean, I let a pirate preview a match this season and Racing are undefeated when that happens. Maybe the pirate should take over. And seriously, what’s the big deal if Racing is never a winner in Louisville. For those of you that follow me closely you know that I love to quote The Wire, especially the line “Deserve got nuttin’ to do with it.” What that essentially means to me in this instance is that nobody is promised anything, and you shouldn't expect any great reward past the agreed upon terms. Racing agrees to play football and we agree to watch it. Past that, you get what you get (and don't throw a fit…couldn't resist).
The Racing players are always able to produce a smile after the match, win, lose or draw and they make the fans proud either way. That might just be enough to sustain things for a few more years.
Racing 1 Wave 3 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy NWSL LLC
The season is mercifully over and if I am being honest, this season has been the most disappointing (on the pitch) so far in Racing’s brief history. Nothing quite clicked for this group, and the season was poor enough that no single aspect of the team deserves all of the blame.
More in-depth analysis of the season is coming (if I can stomach writing it) but it's hard to read too much into this match. Racing has been prone to bad starts, especially recently so it wasn't surprising that it happened again. However, it was a bizarre set of circumstances that led to Sunday's match so let's just leave it at that.
The most interesting moment of the match was the Beckie offside call. It was obviously a ball call. The linesperson should have waited for the phase of play to end before raising her flag, but the center official didn't have to blow the play dead. For once, I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the official in this situation. I am fairly certain that when you train to be a line judge you get drilled into your head “stay in line with the offside line” or some version of that. Beckie clearly was in an offside position, but since a Wave Player made a deliberate action to play the ball backwards, her offside position should have been irrelevant. I think the official just saw that Beckie was clearly offside and for a split second didn’t consider the other criteria for an offside offense and raised her flag. The offside but not illegally offside condition specifically like this one is somewhat rare, but something I see a few times and season. My guess is that the linesperson simply lost track of the ball in the phase of play and made an incorrect assumption. Honestly, I did as well, as I too was watching Beckie and not the ball. It was such a bone-headed play by the Wave player that I think it took everyone by surprise.
The officials will surely rewatch the match and kick themselves for missing that call. My hope is that the linesperson carries that mistake with her so that she doesn't make it again. I still remember a bad call that I made in a match refereeing a church league for 7-year-olds. I failed to play an advantage where a player scored, but I had blown the play dead. It was a beginner’s league and technically we didn't even keep score. Neither the players, coaches, nor parents complained. I am probably the only one that even knew that I screwed up. I am definitely the only person that still thinks about it. However, I carried that mistake with me every time I officiated a match after that, and I think it made me a better one in my brief career. I would like to believe that officials hold themselves accountable. Honestly, I think they do. What I wish for is that someday there will be more transparency so that we know what the consequences are when officials make mistakes. Their frequent silence comes off as arrogance and being above the consequences. Kudos to Bekki Morgan for getting us an answer on this one because there are too many times where we get none.
When Sav McCaskill came into the match I turned to my wife and said, “well, she is definitely scoring.” She isn't as beloved as some ex-Racing players, but I for one hate when Racing plays against her.
In case I forget to mention it later, one of the most frustrating things to me during this season was the number of times I watched Racing’s opponents play admirable football and the virtually zero times I could say the same about Racing. Sometimes the football was effective, but the success seemed labored. I am all for winning ugly, but the operative word in that phrase is “winning”. I have less tolerance for boring football when the results aren't there. To my eyes, Racing played boring football this season. I will be the first to admit that personal preference will vary and maybe you think differently and enjoyed the football. My least favorite frequent occurrence was to watch Racing try to play out of the back very deliberately. There were too few line-splitting passes during these build-ups. Again, maybe you like that and if you do there is no judgment here. Just because I could never quite figure out what Racing was trying to do doesn't mean it wasn't effective from a coaching point of view. All that I can say is that I didn't find it particularly entertaining. I am perfectly willing to sacrifice some entertainment for results. Maybe year two of BevBall will yield some better ones.
Racing 1 Wave 3 Player Ratings
Courtesy Connor Cunningham
Over 2000 fans showed up to help Racing unexpectedly close out the season at home. Unfortunately, nothing was on the line and the effort and result was all too familiar.
Lund-6: Not to blame on any of the goals and kept it from being any more lopsided.
Petersen-5: Racing signed her to be a semi-replacement for Pickett but in her limited appearances she has been a poor facsimile.
Erceg-5: San Diego found too much joy in Racing’s box for her to rate any higher.
Jean-5: Not the answer at RCB
Milliet-6: As much as I would love her to spend her career here, I would hate to see her never play regularly on a semi-decent team.
Flint-5: Put in a perfunctory 45.
DiGrande-5: If she plays 1700 minutes for Racing next season, something has gone horribly wrong. She just doesn't produce enough to warrant those minutes.
Fischer-6: Decent, but has to figure out a way to cut out the yellow cards.
Beckie-5: Lost every single one of her ground duels.
Sears-6: The attacking answer can't be have Emma run 80 yards and pray.
Balcer-7: Found a way to score, but can’t be the primary option next season.
Racing v Wave Pre Match Thoughts
Courtesy Connor Cunningham
There was no real point of writing anything about this match until we knew if Racing had anything to play for. Now we know that there isn't really anything to play for and that Racing will finish in 9th place for the 4th season in a row.
It will be interesting to see what kind of crowd turns up for the San Diego match. I don't expect attendance to be announced, but I should be able to track it down afterwards.
Racing can not really have any complaints about missing out on the playoffs because Bay won 6 points off them. The home match was the killer loss. That occurred in June. I will never accept the mentality of “peaking at the right time” even if I completely understand it. If Orlando doesn't win the Championship this season, people will accuse them of peaking too soon. That is frankly nonsense. The Shield continues to be the real accomplishment in this league because the schedule is balanced (or mostly balanced if you can keep your field in playable condition). You always take your chances with playoffs. Losing in them should never diminish a good season.
I am ready for this season to be over, but I will try to put a bow on it on this site and on The State of Louisville website. I will go into this in more detail but someone needs to take the blame for a 4th straight 9th place finish. I kind of don't care who it is as long as it's someone.
Racing 1 Thorns 0 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy Connor Cunningham
Racing put in their best defensive performance in quite some time and used a late winner to take all 3 points at home against the Thorns. The late-night result in San Jose means that Racing still needs help to make the playoffs.
In my opinion, this is exactly the type of match that Racing should be striving to play at this point: Nullify the first 60 minutes or so and win the final 30. You are never going to turn down an early lead, but you shouldn't play like the scoreline is 1-0 until about the 80th minute if you are a team like Racing. They needed a clean sheet to win this match. They also needed to know that they were still capable of one as a unit.
This really was a team effort to keep a clean sheet. After the match the Thorns coach Rob Gale bellyached about what he thought his team “deserved”. He must have skipped over the part of the match where Racing won the “Duels” category (Racing won 62% of the duels, and 78% of the aerial duels). Racing won this match the old-fashioned way in that they used their taller players to play over the top of the Thorns. Racing played 27 accurate long balls (51%) compared to just 4 (9%) for Portland. This is anti-modern football, and the reason I think more teams need to try it is that it can nullify a talent disadvantage AND teams are not used to seeing it as often. Everyone wants to play beautiful football and stick to playing out from the back. At this point that stubbornness to play out of the back at all costs is more reflective of dull conformity than rare beauty. Racing got this match 100% right.
I really didn’t think any player for Racing particularly distinguished themselves last night, and that isn’t a bad thing. To be honest, Flint had some sloppiness to her game (64% percent accuracy including a couple of real head-scratchers) but got the goal in the end. Beckie, Flint, and Bev all commented on how this was a specific change in set piece work this week to focus on Talyor as the target on that particular piece. The Fischer for DeMelo sub was a good one. DeMelo didn’t have a particularly poor match, but Fischer brought enough energy to change things up. It was a cohesive performance for the most part and that has to be encouraging to the coaching staff.
It was a good win, but it was a win that you get from time-to-time where your team gets the single big break. I don’t think the team we saw last night was drastically different from what we have seen in the last few matches. There were fewer mistakes, which is good, but it was honestly just a random win. Racing could go out to San Diego and play about the same and get a win, draw or loss. This is a C-student level team. From time-to-time you will get an A-level effort and an A-level result, but you will also get some Ds and Fs.
I don’t know why the league decided against another “decision day” schedule like the one last year. It is rather unfortunate. Anyway, Racing will know when they kick off next Saturday if they have a shot and exactly what they need to do. The most “fun” scenario might be Racing needed to win by a 3-goal scoreline to overtake Portland, but the easiest would be for Bay to lose. Either way, Racing still needs help. A-students get the job done early and sometimes get to opt-out of the final exam. C-students sometimes have to cram and hope nobody blows up the grading curve. Humility is not my strongest asset, so I don’t have any hesitation letting you know that I was consistently an A-student. Maybe that’s why I never got Racing’s mentality this year. I never wanted to just scrape by and “peak” in time for the last six weeks or a final exam. From a mentality perspective, I just don’t think you can go wrong with pushing yourself early and often and leaving nothing to chance. Racing wrote off the first part of the season as a learning and growing exercise and the A-student in me just finds that frustrating and mind-boggling. I will admit that it could have worked, but why even set yourself up to squeak into the playoffs. None of this was deliberate by Racing. Very few people want to set themselves up to be C-students. I think they just misjudged where the bar was ultimately going to be set. Only the players and coaches will know if they gave it their all. If they did and still fall short, then it was a noble season if it was ultimately unsuccessful.
Racing 1 Thorns 0 Player Ratings
Racing kept their playoff hopes alive with a late winner. After the Bay FC match tonight, they could find themselves in the driver's seat.
Lund-6: Had a good match but didn't get tested at whole lot to be honest.
Petersen-6: Solid in her return to the starting lineup.
Erceg-7: Nervy a time or two, but first clean sheet in a long while deserves praise.
Wright-7: Kept the right side locked down when Lo ventured forward.
Milliet-7: Always works so hard.
Flint-7: Her goal redeemed an otherwise mediocre performance.
DiGrande-6: Solid once again.
DeMelo-6: Better, but Racing could use more out of her.
Sears-7: Looked to be the best attacking threat all night.
Beckie-7: Hustled tremendously and kept Racing’s pressure on Portland at a good level.
Balcer-6: Fought hard to win her aerial duels.
Racing v Thorns Pre Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
Racing has the opportunity to put real pressure on Bay this Saturday if they can somehow come up with a win. Alternatively, if they continue their pattern of capitulation, Bay may only need to scratch out a point to eliminate Racing.
The theme early in the season was improving in order to peak at the right time. Racing never peaked. Even if they were able to scratch out a couple of wins in their last two matches, I would doubt very much if we could attribute it much to “the plan”. Be good all of the time sounds like an overly simplistic idea, but it is the mentality of champions or teams with a championship in their crosshairs. Racing never seemed committed to anything other than clawing their way into the playoffs. That could still happen, but the organizational mentality has been all wrong this season. However, I don’t think the team has necessarily underperformed. I now realize that they simply didn’t commit the resources to improving enough over last season when compared to the teams ahead of them in the table. Portland has only just pulled themselves out of their slump, but they are guilty of it too. They got worse but started in a better position so that the fall didn’t cost them the playoffs (but I don’t think they have a shot at winning the trophy and this is surely a disappointing season by their standards). This year’s Racing team might beat last year’s 3 or 4 times out of 10 (they would probably draw 5 and lose 1or 2) but that level of improvement simply isn’t good enough.
Honestly, without some significant change (not necessarily in club personnel) I don’t see next season being much better. Does anybody really think Racing got drastically better from March to October? You can point to the addition of players and that was a temporary, marginal help, but do any of the players that were getting significant minutes in March seem to be playing better or more cohesively with their teammates now that it is October? They sure don’t to me.
I believe that this club has to commit to being different and doing things differently going forward. I have ideas (that of course will only be implemented by pure coincidence) that I will lay out after the season is actually over. Let’s be clear here. Unless they somehow make the playoffs and that doesn’t seem likely, there have been 4 years of failure and that is long enough to either admit to being a doormat or stop being one.
Spirit 4 Racing 1 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy David Mucker
At this moment Racing just doesn't look like a very good team. Typically when you aren't a good team, your opponent merely has to wait and pounce on your mistakes, which the Spirit did with Ruthless efficiency.
I really did hold out hope that the moves in the summer transfer window were enough to get Racing over the hump. I liked all of the moves, and I still do. It is now apparent that they had too many misses in the winter window and it is just too steep of a hill to climb at this point. Racing doesn't have any real depth, and some of their critical players just are not stepping up when it matters. Let's be honest: DeMelo has been poor and based on her 2nd half performance, you can hardly blame Bev for dropping her. Lund still makes too many mistakes. She can be great one match and then terrible in the next. The drop in Erceg’s play has been noticeable but we know that Yanez doesn't have any better options. Borges hasn't been consistent. Sears can't defend reliably enough to play 90. The real problem is that there are not many other options. I don't know how we end up in this spot every season, but there are only about 16 players on the roster that can be trusted to put in any real minutes.
Yanez is getting consistently outcoached. That isn’t a real dig at her, but more of a statement of quality in the other technical area. I mean look at Jonatan Giráldez's resume. I often get the feeling that Racing are playing checkers and their opponents are playing chess. Racing's terrible decision to hire a sexual predator to lead the club means that they have to err on the side of caution when hiring coaches. It sickens me to even have to write that sentence. It is unfathomable to me that the league/sport let things get so bad for so long. I don't ever want to assume that the problem is “solved”. Any coach could be exposed as a dirtbag at any point. Believe me, I get it. I think Racing feels like they have to make safe hires. However, I still think you can find experienced tacticians that aren't scumbags. At least I hope you can. I am not saying that Racing shouldn't be patient with Coach Yanez, but I do think she needs more help. Her system simply isn't yielding results.
Racing is just so stubborn as an institution. They always have been. Playing out of the back is a luxury, that few teams can really afford. I am sure that they still see it as the way forward. I am convinced that the next evolution will be flexibility. So many youth teams are playing out from the back now that pretty soon nobody will even remember how to defend route one football. I believe that the teams that can adapt to their opponents, and even adapt inside of a match will be the future. If you follow a good team and you watch a team that isn’t very good stubbornly try to play out of the back against them, you start to salivate. It's exactly what the good team wants. I have to think that the Spirit were begging Racing to stick to the plan. You witnessed the result.
The season isn't technically over, but it feels like it is. A win next week would potentially change things but Portland seems to have been able to pull themselves out of their slump. Anything is possible but it is more probable that Racing ends up in 9th or 10th and stuck with a roster that cannot be dismissed as “too young” anymore. The defense needs an overhaul, but that is easier said than done. The tactics are stale and predictable even when the formation changes. For me, an offseason will be most welcome at this point.
Spirit 4 Racing 1 Player Ratings
Washington dictated play and defeated Louisville fairly handily. A consolation goal for Sears helped the scoreline, but the outcome was never really in doubt.
Lund-4: Guilty of conceding an unnecessary corner on an awful pass and mostly guilty for conceding the opener.
Wright-6: She is needed on the interior.
Erceg-5: Didn't always give Lund the best options for a pass by setting up at poor angles.
Jean-4: Played herself out of a job, so I don't know why she was considered a good option here.
Milliet-5: Too high up the pitch at times, but at least she gives her all.
Flint-5: Has to be the one to break up play against teams like the Spirit.
Borges-5: Her passing was too sloppy in the first half.
DiGrande-5: Puzzling decision to start her over DeMelo.
Fischer-6: Decent and avoided a yellow card.
Balcer-5: Missed a fairly decent chance to pull Racing close at the start of the second half.
Beckie-4: Conceded one of the dumbest penalties you will see this year.
DeMelo-5: Invisible.
Sears-7: Scored a terrific, meaningless goal.
Spirit v Racing Pre Match Thoughts
Courtesy Connor Cunningham
As the season winds down, Racing finds itself will little apparent margin for error. Washington isn't a great team to face with your backs against the wall, especially on the road.
Racing has taken some hard-fought points off the Spirit in Washington in the past. The two previous trips to Washington have seen Racing pull back a point from losing positions. I think this is a better Washington team, so any points here would be a positive.
If I am being completely honest, the end of this season doesn't feel much different from the end of the last two. My enthusiasm related to Racing has dropped, but maybe that's just me. Racing has never won 3 in a row, and while 7 points might be enough 9 would be much better. The team still seems to lack any kind of consistency, so a winning run just doesn't seem like the most likely scenario.
After I called Racing “a well-coached team”, they have put together a couple of dismal performances. I hardly ever go out on a limb, and I will be even less likely to do so in the future. I wouldn't soley fault the coaching because I think the players have not been at their best regardless of the plan.
Racing’s season-long lack of urgency will likely cost them in the end. I never felt like they were in a great hurry to get results. Until they are ready to treat the macthes like battles instead of games, I don't see how much will change.
Racing 0 Current 2 Post Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
The effort for Racing last night oscillated between indifferent and non-existent, so the result is hardly surprising. Kansas City never seemed too bothered by any of Racing’s counter punches and ultimately cruised to an easy victory.
There was a huge Taylor Flint-sized hole in the midfield last night, but I am not sure how much difference it would have made. Racing’s back line without Flint in front of it looks labored and slow. Temwa Chawinga scored so early and easily that I felt like she powered down into 2nd gear after the first few minutes in order to save her energy for a tougher opponent. Truth be told, I think she could have scored 2 or 3 more if she was in the mood to do so. Wright was no match for her pace, so when it was Chawinga vs. Wright instead of Chawinga vs. Milliet I thought a goal was inevitable. Thankfully Chawinga didn’t score but the one.
The defense needs some upgrades in the offseason. Wright is not quick enough for the league’s speedier attackers, and Erceg has lost enough of her fastball that she needs a quicker partner. Petersen was off of her game last night, so I won’t judge her too harshly, but it was definitely her worst performance in a Racing kit that I have witnessed. The back line as a whole misplaced too many passes in their own half, especially early, to build any real momentum after the early Current goal.
One of the reasons that I do player ratings is that I believe that stats-based models that sites like Fotmob uses miss quite a few nuances and reward mediocrity. However, last night I think Fotmob kind of encapsulated the effort. The entire team hovered in the “average range” between 5.9 and 6.9. In essence, no player last night did much to distinguish themselves. Milliet ran after a few lost causes, but they were just that, lost causes. Sears’ physical gifts means that sometimes she looks like she isn’t exerting maximum effort when she is. However, last night she quit on some balls and lost focus multiple times. Racing is in trouble when she is expected to play 90 minutes of defense because I don’t think she is fully engaged on that side of the ball yet. DeMelo looked so out of place in what I think a lot of us assume to be her best position, that I bet quite a few of us are rethinking her impact through the middle. Personally, I don’t think Wright should be playing 90 minutes against the league’s top opponents.
The glass half full view is that due to the other league results Racing did not really lose any ground. If the team can get something positive in Washinton, they still have a shot. The glass half empty view, which I tend to frequently hold with this team is that regardless of if Racing squeaks into the playoffs, they don’t have much shot of winning a match against a top opponent.
Racing 0 Current 2 Player Ratings
Courtesy Elizabeth Shaw
Racing got off to the worse possible start and never quite recovered. There isn't much to takeaway other than the better team won.
Lund-6: She was fine.
Petersen-5: Her worst match for Racing.
Erceg-6: Decent enough.
Wright-5: Got beaten for pace multiple times.
Milliet-7: Hustled her tail off, along with Fischer. Racing needs Milliet-like efforts from more players.
DiGrande-6: I thought she was fairly effective in the midfield.
Borges-6: Better than she has been recently.
DeMelo-5: Caught on the ball too many times and disappeared a few times.
Sears-5: Sometimes her best attributes overshadow her mistakes, which were frequent tonight.
Beckie-6: Needs better delivery from Petersen to be more effective.
Balcer-6: Needs better service in general.
Racing v Current Pre Match Thoughts
Courtesy USA Today Sports Images
The playoffs haven’t started yet, but Racing has to be in “play-in” mode in the next 4 matches to have a realistic shot at making the post-season for the first time. The club is also pulling out every trick in the bag to try to get more fans in the stadium, but that may also be too little to late.
I posted on Twitter (never X) that I was not going to watch or comment on the Utah loss, and I stood by that this week. I listened to BTRD to get a sense of the match, and I think that listen combined with a quick look at the stat sheet gave me enough context to avoid a dreadful watching experience. It appeared to be another in long line of momentum-killing matches. Racing just cannot seem to win 3 matches in a row.
Bev Yanez took The Courier Journal to plead with fans to attends these next couple of matches. The irony was not lost on me that the club decided that the local newspaper was the right avenue for this. I feel fairly confident that The Courier Journal won’t be here in 50 years (and I probably won’t either so nobody should be able to call me on it if I am wrong), but Racing’s lifetime in Louisville appears to be in so much jeopardy that I would count 5 years as a blessing. I would not fault Soccer Holdings if the team wasn’t here in 5 months. Other (mostly significantly larger) cities have figured out how to make their teams sustainable, if not quite profitable. Profitability should not be a major concern for owners of sports franchises, but the teams have to be somewhat sustainable (and sustainable within the rules…I am looking at you Angel City). It would be a local tragedy if Racing didn’t make it in Louisville, but it wouldn’t be a league tragedy. I would argue that it wouldn’t even be a league failure. I am sure the league would much rather have a team in Miami pull 6,000 fans over one in Louisville. Louisville was very, very fortunate to get a team in the first place. I would hate to see Racing leave, but at this point I blame the populace. The last I heard, the USWNT had not sold out Lynn Family Stadium for its match. I think that likely says all that needs to be said about this city. The appetite isn’t there. I enjoy Racing win or lose. However, I am part of a minute minority. If you are reading this, you are part of a miniscule one.
While the club is still hear and has something to play for, I guess I should move on to the soccer. Racing has a decent history against Kansas City, so I give them a fighting chance on Saturday. I will not have too much harsh criticism for the match in Utah, but based on what I heard on BTRD it seemed like Racing had very little control of the match. One should never strictly equate control with possession. Racing was in control of large sections of the match against North Carolina whether they had the ball or not. They were fine with North Carolina possessing the ball on certain spots of the pitch. That is control as well. In the first match against Kansas City, there were several times where the Current seems to have the match put away and were dominating. However, Racing pulled out a point in the end by staying close and Kansas City shutting off a bit. Kansas City is firmly a top 4 side this season, but they are not a team that you count yourself out against if you go behind (where they are about league average). On the other hand, they are never put away if they go behind first (they lead the league at 1.83 pts/match when the other team scores first). Basically, the team scores goals and plenty of them. If Racing are to win, the safe bet is on winning a shootout.