We’re a little less than halfway through the NWSL intermission to allow the big names of the league to compete in the Other World Cup (aka the 2024 Summer Olympics).
The news from France has been good for most of our internationals.
The USWNT had one real worry, last Saturday’s match against Germany. They’d crushed the poor Zambians and so long as they could get some kind of result against the Frauenmannschaft the final group stage match against Australia was kind of a nothing.
I don’t think anyone expected – I know I didn’t expect – the 4-1 win the US tore off.
To be fair, I didn’t see the game itself as lopsided as the scoreline. The US was in control, yes, but Germany got some looks, and at least one of the US goals – Sophia Smith’s second and the US’s third – was a weird looping deflection that was fairly lucky to go in. But the point is that provided they don’t completely shit the bed against Australia today the Nats will go through top.
Spain still looks like the team to beat, mind. But that’s for later.
Closer to home the “Summer Cup” continued last weekend, with the Thorns traveling to Utah and Seattle playing at home against Club Tijuana.
Okay, so remember that while I liked a lot of what I saw that I didn’t want to infer too much from the Replacements’ beatdown of the poor Xolos?
That’s just as well.
Because the things I liked – free flowing play, crisp passing, intelligent off-the-ball movement – against Tijuana disappeared like a turista’s wallet in Utah.
In their place were shambolic defending, midfield sterility, poor judgement, and an utter drought of attack. Kelli Hubly was a hot mess in a shambles of a backline, poor Lauren Kozal was brutally exposed, and the forwards…Izzy D’Aquila had two shots (one on frame), Sinc one (blocked), Ana Dias none.
That’s how you lose, and they did, 3-1.
The frustrating part of this is that Coach Ken had to know his troops had a tough hill to climb. Shitty roster building sometimes has weird rewards, so while Portland was missing the top of their starting XI Utah was intact playing at their mile-high home.
A more clever manager might have tried a different approach then the same 3-4-3 that worked against Tijuana. Tried to drop a bit deeper, keep Utah under control until his game-changers like Olivia Moultrie could come in. Tried to run out a faster forward line to forecheck press and disrupt Utah, tried a four-backline to counteract the Hubly Effect.
But I don’t think Ken is that manager. He’s neither the genius he looked against Tijuana nor the dummy he looked in Utah, just a replacement-level coach and a fun guy that his players enjoy.
Give him a stacked roster or a poor opponent, he’s okay.
Give him a hill, and he’s not the sort of gaffer who’ll figure out a way to climb it.
He’s what he is, and he’s what we have until the end of the season.
Weirdly enough, even rolling over in Utah didn’t kill us, because Tijuana beat Seattle in Seattle and everyone in the Group of Life is sitting on three points. Between that and the +5GD Tijuana gifted us a win tonight might get Portland into the knockouts.
Is Seattle bad enough to allow that?
Dunno. But they might be. Will that matter? I dunno that either.
Thoughts?
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Well we beat Seattle, but it wasn’t enough as Utah’s goal difference came out on top of the group, by 1.5 goals: if we’d scored one more goal along the way we’d still have lost out to Utah on the next tiebreaker, goals-for, so we really needed two more. Who would have expected, a few weeks ago, that Utah would outscore ANYONE? They’re currently in a spot to advance in the tournament, but they need one of KC, Angel City, or Gotham to lose their game in hand; ACFC is most likely to lose because they play San Diego while the others play Liga MX teams.
As for the Thorns: Oh well. This Summer Cup was never the main event anyway. It was a revealing contest for us, in that it showed how steep the drop-off is from our starters to our replacements, and therefore how much we need to upgrade the latter. KK, you listening?
As I said in the Utah writeup; shitty roster building has weird upsides. Everyone else is gutted by the loss of their internationals (well, okay, Seattle is shit, too…) but Utah is intact, and played like it.
And, yeah. I’m not particularly arsed about going out of this thing. It’s pretty revealing of our roster, tho.
What I am kind of baffled by is reading Coach Ken getting big props for his work in it. Yes, he’s trying things he wasn’t. But I have to wonder if it’s just 1) he HAS to, because his roster is so bereft, and 2) these games are WGAF. Why not?
The weirdest theory I read is that he was in “caretaker” mode until the interim tag came off, which freed him up to all this tactical creativity in the Cup ties.
WTF? Why would he want to do that? Norris’ work got him canned. If Gale wanted to get the full-time gig…why keep doing the same lame-ass shit (and get handed his ass by Orlando and KC in the process???) when you were “on trial” THEN go nuts when the pressure is off?
Maybe…but I won’t buy it until September and the full side returns. If he’s still running wild then? Okay.
Yeah I didn’t buy that theory much either. He’s experimenting now because it’s the Summer Cup and, well, why not. When we get back to league games is when the rubber meets the road. So far I think he’s a middling coach – got the new-coach bounce but hasn’t been so good since then – but there’s not a lot of real data yet and I’d be very happy to be proven wrong. Ditto for KK, as I remarked over on Stumptown.