2025 S-2 Briefings: Middle Ground

Last time we took a brief look at five prospective opponents, starting from the bottom of the 2024 table. The tl:dr version was:
Houston: still pretty crap,
Seattle: a bit better? But didn’t look much improved, so not that much better,
Angel City: probably got the horses, but is Big Sam Laity the right wrangler?
Utah: Like ACFC, some nice pieces but still looking like a pretty big reach for playoffs, and
San Diego: real headscratcher; promising new gaffer, some player upgrades, but ugly rumors of toxicity inside.

This time we’re going to peer at four clubs from midtable; three that finished below Portland (Louisville, Chicago, Bay FC) and one above (North Carolina), beginning as we did with the lowest finisher…

Racing Louisville

What happened last season?
Racing has been somewhere between “meh” and “pretty crap” for their entire four-year-long existence, starting with their bizarre 2020 expansion draft (where they wasted picks on Tobin Heath’s and Christen Press’ rights knowing that both players had been fairly explicit about not wanting to play there…). They’re on their third head coach in five years.

The club started out mediocre (nine points from nine matches) in 2024 which included draws against three top-four clubs – Orlando on Opening Day, at Gotham on Matchday 6, and in Kansas City on Matchday 9 – but also draws against cans like Utah and Houston (and us…).

From then it was an odd, up-and-down-but-mostly-down run – six wins, ten losses, no draws – to the end of the season. From 7th of 14 on Matchday 11 Racing yo-yoed between that and 10th until they gradually slid out of the postseason, finishing 9th (again! this club has finished ninth every year), ending up 7-7-12, 33GF, 39GA, -6GD.

The big difference? In 2021 ninth was next-to-last. In 2022 and 2023 it was mid-bottom half (9th of 12).

Last season? It was juuuust below the red line, four points adrift of Chicago.

Up front Racing was a fairly low-scoring side; they bagged more than two goals a match only twice all season (dropping three on Kansas City – 3-3 draw – and Chicago – 3-1 win) and were shut out nine times.

Almost half of their goals came from three players with five goals each; Emma Sears, Uchenna Kanu, and Savannah DeMelo (four more came from now-traded Reilyn Turner).

The Racing attack was fairly speedy and, as you’d expect, favored direct play more than twice as often as they built up their attack deliberately:

Defensively Louisville were just kind of “not-awful”. Katie Lund was perfectly average against the shot (-0.01 PSxG-GA/90), and while her backline tended to give opponents chances (13 shots/game, fifth-worst in the league) they did tend to make those chances fairly poor (about 31% shots on frame, second-best in the league…).

But Racing kept a clean sheet for Lund only four times, and two of those were scoreless draws against cans Houston and San Diego.

Despite the disappointing finish head coach Bev Yanez returns in 2025.

Significant changes from 2024?
Out – Elli Pikkujämsä (D), Abby Erceg (D), Reilyn Turner (F)
In – Janine (Beckie) Sonis (MF – arrived late in ’24), Bethany Balcer (F – arrived late in ’24)

Thoughts?
This side just seems to lack…something. A coach, a player, some small tweak or insight or combination of…something that will put them over the playoff line. They’re not going to be top four; the roster isn’t strong enough unless a full season of Sonis and Balcer show something neither one has to date. Yanez hasn’t shown any Sir Alex, either, but…I can’t pin it down but I just can’t help thinking that at some point a combination of Racing improving a skosh and a couple of other sides having bad seasons could put them into the playoffs. Just barely! But for these poor schmoes..?

Prediction?
Seventh to ninth. So two-thirds a chance of playoffs.

Can we beat them?
We couldn’t last season, one point, no goals for, one against. But…the draw was in the Norris Meltdown, and the loss was in the last-season KenCollapse, so it’s hard to generalize from that.

I think this series will depend more on Ken & Co. this season than ever and more than Racing itself. If the Thorns play up to their roster’s individual abilities they are better than Racing; there’s a lot of journeywomen and replacement-grade players in Louisville.

But last season the donkeys were leading Portland’s lionesses, so…

Chicago Stars FC

What happened last season?
Having hired former Jamaica national team coach Lorne Donaldson after 2023 Chicago came out of the gate hot; 3-1-1 by late April.

That was deceptive; all three wins were cans (Utah, Seattle twice). From there it was all downhill; 7-1-13. The Red Stars scraped into the playoffs (10-2-14, 31GF, 38GA, -7GD) only to be punted all the way back to Chicago by Orlando in the quarterfinal.

And 2024 was actually worse than the raw numbers suggest, since all Chicago’s wins came off cans (Utah twice, Seattle twice, San Diego twice, Houston twice) except two; Bay FC in May – when BFC was still struggling so pretty much a can, too – and, sadly, us here in September during the KenCollapse.

Chicago was only fairly fast but very direct; “quick, huck it up to Swanson!” was the rallying cry from the Red Stars in 2024.

Obviously their big gun was Mal Swanson (seven goals). Between her and Ally Schlegel’s seven they nicked damn near half of the clubs GF. Penelope Hocking added four and Ludmila three, so there’s 68% of the total from four players.

Offensively Chicago was, by a very large margin, the most “fiddlefuck-passing-around” squad in the league. The problem being that most of this passing? Was in their own defensive third:

(FYI, the blue rectangles are “Chicago possession”, the red are “opponent possession”, the gray are “contested”)

Donaldson ran the lowest of low blocks, which meant that to an absurd degree he nerfed the hell out of his big weapon, Mal Swanson. As our vaudevillian cane blogger pointed out before the quarterfinal:

“(Attacking) (t)he Pride were second in the league in shots per 90, Chicago was last; the Pride were second in xG per 90, Chicago was second to last (Houston); and the Pride had the second most shots created from a high press, Chicago was last. Defending is more of the same as well. Orlando conceded the fourth fewest shots per 90, Chicago the highest; and the Pride conceded the third lowest xG per 90, Chicago the third highest.”

So basically Chicago sat back and got hammered more often than not. Part of that was the backline as Carlisle-sensei pointed out above, but part of that was Alyssa Naeher having a (for Naeher) very meh season (-0.17 PSxG-GA/90). Chicago kept six clean sheets, but, again, only one was against a decent opponent (us, sorta) and were shut out six times.

Significant changes from 2024?
Out: Sam Staab (D -SEI), “Red Stars” (Name)
In: Manaka Hayshi (MF), Maitane López (MF), “Stars” (Name)

In what may be the most bizarre “this is the 2025 that gave you the Reign of Elon Musk” fuckery, in the NWSL the Chicago organization dropped the “red” from the “Red Stars” name because…fucking communism? Whuuut? Seriously?

Yes. Or something equally idiotic, since the whole “red stars” symbol comes from the civic flag of Chicago. The club is now “Chicago Stars FC” which reminds me of the original New York/New Jersey MLS team, the “MetroStars” which 1) was nearly immediately re-nicknamed “Stars”, because it 2) was a joke, since the club was a notorious trashfire for years.

Chicago isn’t that bad, so that just makes this as sad as getting pissed off because someone else puts their pronouns in their email signature block.

Thoughts?
The club 1) still has Swanson, one of the best players of her generation, while 2) still has Donaldson, whose style of play is uniquely unsuited for her. This club also has a clutch of excellent players, though, including Ludmila and Ally Schlegel up front, Julia Grosso and Cari Roccaro in midfield, and (unfortunately for us) Natalia Kuikka in the backline. So…

If Donaldson can bring this club out of it’s defensive crouch? They might be really dangerous. But can he? He didn’t last season except seemingly at random, and in the end got pasted all over south Florida in the quarterfinal.

Can we beat them?
We split 2024 with them, winning 2-nil there – but that was Match #2 of the six-win Dead Cat KenBounce. Once Ken was fully socketed in place they came to Portland and ran wild on the Thorns, pushing up (crazy, right?) and punishing our mistakes like a boss.

So this, again, depends a lot on Ken & Co. If he and the squad improve markedly on 2024? They should be a good matchup against Chicago. If not? The “Stars” are very likely to be similar to last season’s outfit, so…not so much,

Bay FC

What happened last season?
Well, they were the only 2024 expansion side that made the playoffs, so there’s that.

When I wrote them up for the 2024 S-2 briefing I noted that they had gone big on signing African forwards including Princess Marfo (Ghana), Asisat Oshoala (Nigeria), and Racheal Kundananji (Zambia), but that:

“So, yeah, on paper? The African forward line looks pretty terrifying. In practice? Under Montoya, a gaffer with little or no recent paper trail to suss out..?”

As it turned out, it was kind of a little of both.

Montoya’s club took the first third of the season to figure things out.

No. Actually, Montoya just plain got things wrong at first, trying to play cute little triangles and tika-taka while sitting his defense deep and absorbing pressure they couldn’t handle. During that time they were hammered: 4-0-8, 15GF, 23 GA, and 12th of 14 after Matchday 12.

From there, though?

Montoya rejiggered the club’s style over the Olympic break, adding Abby Dahlkemper helped a lot to upgrade the defense, which had been a real problem, and (in the words of Carlisle-sensei):

“…essentially they went from ‘zoomies no good, zoomies bad’ to ‘ZOOM ALL DAY ZOOM ALL NIGHT’. Their pace towards goal literally went from the slowest in the league to the fastest. The difference in attack, with several high volume shooters, was drastic. Their xG per 90 went from 1.15 to 1.46, counterattacking shots nearly doubled from .56 to 1.0, and they drastically increased their number of clear shots from 1.75 to 2.2.”

With the advent of ZoomBall Kundananji and Oshoala ran wild, BFC went 7-1-6, 15GF, 17GA, and sprinted into the playoffs.

(and I note here that Decision Day was epic for the bottom three playoff teams; we beat ACFC and jumped from seventh to sixth, BFC beat Houston and jumped from eighth to seventh, and Chicago lost to Kansas City, dropping from sixth to eighth.)

There, though, BFC ran into the Spirit buzzsaw and were ground out of the playoffs but only after overtime, and on a Caprice Dydasco own goal, at that.

It’s a cruel game.

So the “style” chart we’ve been using? Is deceptive, since what it shows…

…is an average for the season, while by October BFC probably looked more like this:

So the go-go-scary Bay FC that played in the quarterfinal is probably the one we’ll see in March.

Significant changes from 2024?
Out: Alex Loera (D), Savy King (D), Deyna Castellanos (MF)
In: Kelli Hubly (D)? Not sure I’d call this “significant”, but we love you, Hubs, so…

The bottom line is that BFC really stood pat this offseason, other than unloading Castellanos who was a poor fit for Montoya’s system.

Thoughts?
Before 2024 I was unconvinced of this outfit.

Now? I’m sold. They’re the real thing. I think they could be pushing for the top third of the table this season…if they can remain consistent to the go-go style that works for this roster. It’s worth noting that Gotham dropped five goals on them last October and BFC responded by kinda reverting to their tika-taka/early-season crouch. So long as Montoya keeps them facing front and keeps that from happening, though? They’re going to be a caution.

Can we beat them?
Our win came in May, part of the six-win-run, and was hard fought, needing a late goal to claw back the points after BFC pulled level 2-2 at the hour. The rematch here was a straight-up whipping, 1-3, and it would have been worse if BFC keeper Kate Rowland hadn’t effectively gifted Sophia (Smith) Wilson a goal.

So…it’s gonna be tough. I’m not particularly confident.

North Carolina

What happened last season?
The Damned Courage made the playoffs (12-3-11, 34GF, 28GA, +6GD, 5th of 14) for the sixth time in it’s seven-season history. It was what it did along the way that made their 2024 season so fucking weird.

In Cary the Damned were a monster: 9-3-1, 22GF, 8GA.

On the road the Damned were a disaster: 3-0-10, 12GF, 20GA.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a home-road split that definitive, but it was the single biggest factor in Carolina’s 2024 outside the fact that you could time The Damned with a goddamned sundial.

Slow, slow, slow – Nahas is kind of the anti-Riley (spit!) – and deliberate. They luuurve them some possession (I love how Carlisle described it: “They want the ball, they cherish the ball, they don’t want to give it back, it is safest with them.” I have a mental picture of Nahas cradling a match ball crooning: “We loves it, my precioussss…”) and love to pass it amongst themselves to share the bliss.

They also score by committee; Ashley Sanchez was their top gun with five followed by Tyler Lussi with four…but three players knocked in three each, three more tallied two each, and eight more had a singleton – more than half the roster got on the scoresheet.

Worth noting that for all that the Damned weren’t exceptional snipers; their “non-penalty goals minus xG” – a measure of how much “better” than their expected goals their shooters were – was -1.2. “Double Bird” St. Georges was outstanding (+1.7) but Sanchez was pretty average (+0.3) and everybody else was pretty meh or worse.

Defensively the Damned pressed hard (9.7 passes per defensive action, tied for third in the league) and high:

They were also fairly stingy; opponent “goals-created actions per 90 minutes” were only 1.62, third-lowest in the league behind Orlando and Gotham. Casey Murphy was solid in goal (+0.18 above her post-shot xG against). Denise O’Sullivan and Narumi Miura were tough in midfield in front of centerbacks Kaleigh Kurtz and Malia Berkely.

Unfortunately for the Damned Kansas City scored early (Temwa Chawinga, whoodathunkit..?) and that was enough to turf Carolina out of the quarterfinals.

Significant changes from 2024?
Out: Narumi Miura (MF), Kerolin (F), Haley Hopkins (F)
In: Shinomi Koyama (MF), Hannah Betfort (F), Jaedyn Shaw (F)

Obviously Kerolin is a loss – though we’ve yet to see how well she recovers from injury – but Shaw is a huge, possibly/probably offsetting gain. I feel odd throwing Betfort in there but, well, Betfort. You’ll always be a Thorn, Bets…

Thoughts?
Another club, like Bay FC, that seems to 1) have done well in 2024 and 2) unsurprisingly stood pat for 2025, with the caveat of swapping Shaw for Kerolin.

I’m really unsure what to think about the bizarre extreme home-away break. To some degree it has to be pure random chance, like coming up heads ten straight time in a coin-flip. But…how much so? Why was last season’s Damned so freaking bipolar?

Regardless, sheer probability suggests their fortunes will even out this season…and, if so, this is a solid top-third squad. If they could get so much as a point on the trot per match this season they’d go from 9 points to 13 on the road, and 43 points overall. Still not enough for top four, but further above the seething proles below them to laugh down at the seething scum.

Prediction?
Probably fifth again. Might be sixth if BFC catches fire. Fourth? Hmm…don’t see it.

Can we beat them?
We split the season series; they whipped Norris 2-nil in Cary and (tell me how shocked you are that) then they folded 1-nil here two months later (shocked, I tell you! Shocked!).

This season I doubt they’ll be as bipolar, so both meetings will be real dogfights.

So.

Next: You’re the top, you’re the Mona Lisa