Tag: nwsl

soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Chicago: No recap for now

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’m not doing a recap of the Spirit-Red Stars game for the following reasons:

1. I had family things this weekend.

2. Though the Red Stars have just posted the archived video, I’d really like to keep an eye on the Euros right now.

3. The facts of the game are well-established. Three starting defenders were injured. Tiffany McCarty was forced into service at the back. Ashlyn Harris made a terrific series of saves, just as she did in the early part of the season before the defense improved. Then, because soccer karma still hates McCarty for some odd reason, an own goal went in off her head.

4. It’s clearly more important for me to get the deeper story at this point than it is for me to analyze this particular game in excruciating detail.

That said, I don’t want to oversell the book with promises of behind-the-scenes explosions. This isn’t magicJack. It’s an injured, inexperienced team that has nowhere to go but up. We just don’t know when “up” will happen, and it may be in the trainers’ hands as much as the coaches’ at this point.

That said, sure, you’ll learn more in the book about this streak than you will now. I’d better get back to work.

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Seattle: The vigil continues

Posted on by Beau Dure

That’s what it is now, isn’t it? A vigil?

A vigil for the first win since May or even the first run-of-play goal since May. A vigil for Conny Pohlers to convert one of the opportunities she’s getting in increasing numbers. A vigil for Stephanie Ochs, lauded by every broadcaster as a fantastic talent, to turn one of her near-misses into a goal. A vigil for Diana Matheson to be as influential as she was in the Spirit’s promising start.

It’s no longer a vigil for personnel. Pohlers and Toni Pressley have arrived, and Mark Parsons has taken over as coach. For all the knocks on the Spirit’s reliance on young, local players, the only such players in the lineup yesterday were Julia Roberts and Kika Toulouse. The other second-year players in the lineup — Pressley, Ochs and Tori Huster — didn’t go to high school or college anywhere near the SoccerPlex, and they were key players for the WPSL Elite champion Western New York Flash last season.

It may be a vigil for health. Caroline Miller and Colleen Williams are already gone for the season. We don’t know when Robyn Gayle will return. Yesterday, Ali Krieger went off after a clash of heads, and Candace Chapman was down for a while after twisting awkwardly on the turf. Wouldn’t it be just the Spirit’s luck to see their offense come together at last, only to see the defense run out of healthy players?

Going back to preseason, I thought the Spirit would have the season the Reign is having — a dreadful start, then a promising streak. The Spirit surprised a lot of people early. Now all those same people are clucking, “I told you so.” I hate cynicism.

The slump’s timing was bad. Had the team hit the reset button going into its three-week break, everyone would have had time to work together on a new direction. Instead, the Spirit came out of that break playing terribly, and the reboot started after one game of a murderous stretch of five games in 17 days. As the sharp Fox Soccer broadcast team of Steve Cangialosi, Lori Walker and Heather Mitts pointed out, this team has had no time to practice.

But in some respects, the Spirit’s path forward is clearer. It’s about next year now. Chicago and Seattle now believe they can make the playoffs. After seeing both of those teams and the Holy Cow Did You See The Thorns-Flash Game in the past week, I’m not sure the Red Stars or Reign can rise to the level of the top four. Maybe another team will drop — FC Kansas City could implode in the wake of Chicago’s comeback yesterday, or Portland could become as bad as its critics think — but I’m still of the mindset that Boston’s the most likely team to sneak into the playoffs if someone collapses.

Building for next year, though, could further tax the patience of the Spirit’s terrific fanbase. Despite all the losses, the team has terrific chemistry now, and if the lineup stayed intact, it should get a couple of wins by the end of the season. But are those couple of wins the goal? Or is it a thorough evaluation of the players on hand, throwing out a couple of unusual lineups to let players audition to keep their places for next season?

One irony here: There’s an Internet meme that Spirit management doesn’t care about winning as long as the seats are full. Let me see if I can put this nicely: That’s ridiculous. You don’t bring in Conny Pohlers and Toni Pressley, then fire the coach, if you don’t care. If it’s all about the fans instead of the record, you don’t cut Domenica Hodak. They expected some early struggles, and perhaps they were too confident they could weather the storm until reinforcements arrived. They may have overpaid on particular players. But they care about winning. (And we have to repeat — the allocation process was not kind to them. They were playing catch-up from Day 1.)

And yet they’re in a place now in which winning now may be less important than preparing for next season.

So which do you emphasize? (I don’t know — that’s why I have comments here.)

I do have one bit of advice for Spirit fans. You’re underdogs. Embrace it. Keep up the constructive criticism, but don’t just look for easy ways to place blame within the organization. The allocations were unfair. The refs are unfair. The injuries are unfair. And people from elsewhere sneer about this team, griping all week that the Spirit game shouldn’t have been on TV. Everyone’s written this team off (except the Fox Soccer commentary team). Blame them. Certain WNT players thrive on striking back against mysterious “haters” — maybe it’ll work for the Spirit as well.

You’ve already built a terrific fan experience. It’s the best party in western Montgomery County.

So call it the Beer Garden Vigil. Down but not out. Patient but defiant.

In the meantime, here’s yesterday’s recap: Good 25 minutes for the Spirit, with Matheson converting a deserved penalty kick. Two defensive lapses in three minutes. A lot of chasing the game after that, with a couple of good opportunities squandered. 2-1 Reign. Game over. Time for rest, recovery and rebuilding.

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Chicago: Spirit willing, flesh weak

Posted on by Beau Dure

It’s getting difficult to write about the Washington Spirit. The options are:

(A) Piling on to a team that’s obviously in an epic slump.

(B) Appearing to be in denial.

Not that it really matters what we the punditocracy think. What matters is what the team thinks. And if you’re a Spirit fan looking for a ray of hope that the team can at least finish strong, it’s this: I sense that the team buys into the notion of a “fresh start” and believes in the direction Mark Parsons is leading it. Ashlyn Harris spoke with the media tonight and buried nothing but this game, saying she’s done with it and ready to move on to the televised game in Seattle.

Tonight isn’t a night to make excuses. In New Jersey over the weekend, the Spirit deserved a result. Not tonight. Yes, the Red Stars’ second goal was a fluke that may have been offside, and yes, the Spirit could’ve earned a PK late. But the ref was erratic, not biased — I couldn’t believe some of the grappling holds the ref allowed Spirit midfielders to use. The Spirit may not have deserved to lose 2-0, but 1-0 would’ve been more than fair. The only team that could feel robbed tonight was the Spirit Reserves, which had 30-plus shots to Fredericksburg’s three but still tied 1-1, which means they’ll have to play their conference playoff in Virginia Beach against the ultraphysical Piranhas.

(Not that “soccer karma” exists. Ashlyn Harris making a tremendous save on a dubious PK call may have been poetic justice, but not soccer karma. That’s a rant for another day, though.)

This wasn’t the Spirit’s night. The positives were Candace Chapman’s steady climb back to her 2010-11 form and a few good stretches of possession. They were often one good pass or one good shot away from a goal or really good chance. But those final touches weren’t there. Diana Matheson hasn’t regained her early-season explosiveness. Conny Pohlers is still slightly off.  As Parsons put it, the last two teams the Spirit played never had them on their heels, but Chicago did.

So what was this “ray of hope” I mentioned? Why is Harris so willing to forget this game so quickly? Why do I get the sense the team is buying into its new direction?

Back up to the Spirit’s draw with Kansas City. Parsons said everyone understood it would take a couple of games to get going with the team’s fresh start, and points in that stretch would be “a bonus.”

It’s not just going to take a couple of games. It’s going to take a few practices. And with five games in 2 1/2 weeks, they’re not getting any practices.

I have to admit it didn’t hit me until I spoke with Parsons after the game. I asked if through balls and finishing were next on the training agenda. He ran through the schedule for the rest of the week: Recovery, flight to Seattle, etc.

The schedule isn’t just exhausting the team. It’s giving them no time to adapt to their new system and their new players. Stephanie Ochs talked a bit after the game about how the attackers still aren’t quite in sync. Fix that, and you fix a lot of problems.

In the last few games, the Spirit has played pretty well for 60 minutes but can’t convert, and the defense eventually gives way. If they can take a lead, the game will look a lot different.

Might help if they could catch a break or two. But again, soccer karma doesn’t exist.

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Sky Blue: The final third

Posted on by Beau Dure

For two-thirds of the game at Yurcak Soup Bowl last night, the Washington Spirit controlled two-thirds of the field.

The last-place team in the NWSL turned the first-place team (albeit a team weakened by key absences) into a counterattacking team on its home grass. Toni Pressley had a breakthrough game in central defense, keeping everything under control. The midfield of Julia Roberts, Lori Lindsey and Diana Matheson had the better of the action, moving the ball forward with confidence.

But the Spirit simply could not convert in the final third of the field or the final third of the game. Sky Blue’s counterattacks grew progressively more dangerous and got a nice deflection when a ball landed straight in the path of Monica Ocampo, who had a frustrating game but has been an in-form scorer. 1-0 Sky Blue, and that’s how it ended.

For casual fans, I could see the game being a frustrating stalemate. Sky Blue only generated four shots on goal, and the first-half effort could hardly be more harmless — a Taylor Lytle effort that sailed straight to Ashlyn Harris, and a 35-yard Coco Goodson free kick that was surely intended as something else. The last two were actually one scoring chance — a shot, a deflection, and a goal on the rebound.

The Spirit was only credited with one shot on goal, but that’s deceptive — and possibly incorrect. Watching live, I thought this Diana Matheson shot was on goal — Brittany Cameron certainly was in no mood to let it go wide. The play-by-play calls it a “shot” (and mysteriously ascribes it to Toni Pressley). The Spirit immediately reclaimed possession, and then Stephanie Ochs didn’t miss by much.

Then came the chance Conny Pohlers would surely love to have again. Candace Chapman chipped the ball from midfield and caught Pohlers in stride, but the German striker’s first touch was too heavy, and Cameron came out to smother it. That, officially, was the Spirit’s only shot on goal.

Those chances were all in a six-minute stretch in the first half. Later in the half, we had what the Spirit has seen every game — an officiating howler involving Tori Huster. The Spirit’s utility player, lined up again at left back, made a clever passing combination and wound up free with a one-on-one opportunity against Cameron, only to be called offside.

Yeah, about that …

Huster's in the yellow circle. Two Sky Blue defenders are in the red circles. Thanks to @soccerforbev for the photo.
Huster’s in the yellow circle. Two Sky Blue defenders are in the red circles. Thanks to @soccerforbev for the photo.

I was there — I can assure you the lawn-mower lines were running parallel to the end lines. And you’re welcome to check out the video.

(Other officiating tidbits: The ref added no stoppage time in the first half despite lengthy injury delays/water breaks, and players from both teams had to tell him several times the game ball was flat and needed to be replaced. PRO might want to consider making some sort of statement about what they’re going to do to fix NWSL officiating. We’re not just seeing bad judgment calls in split-second situations; we’re seeing basic failures of game management, and that’s inexcusable at this level. Some of these folks seem to understand the Laws even less than the typical TV commentator.)

The Spirit had to be deflated at halftime. They had 45 minutes of beating the top team in the league and nothing to show for it. They were playing their second game in four days, this one in 90-degree heat and high humidity. Worst of all, Colleen Williams had played only a few minutes in front of a crowd padded with her friends and family before falling with a terrible injury. We’ll wait for the MRI, but it doesn’t look good.

The visitors still managed another 15 minutes or so of good play before Sky Blue’s counterattack started to pay dividends. Jim Gabarra said he was planning not to play recovering national teamer Kelley O’Hara, but circumstances dictated her introduction, and she made the Spirit defense pay attention. In the 72nd minute, Goodson put a header just wide on a corner kick. Ninety seconds later, the winning sequence started. The Spirit managed very little in response.

Gabarra was gracious.

“I know they have some good attacking pieces, they’re very good in midfield. I think it’s just a matter of time for them to kind of figure it out.”

That would actually be bad news for Sky Blue, which will face the Spirit twice in August. Can the Spirit make enough progress to play spoiler?

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. FC Kansas City: Meet the new boss

Posted on by Beau Dure

A promising performance against a talented team. A second-half setback. Then a controversial call late, with Diana Matheson stepping up to convert the penalty kick.

That was the Washington Spirit’s April 20 game against Western New York. And it happened again last night against FC Kansas City.

So in a sense, the Spirit has simply gotten back to where it was at the beginning of the season. But after a five-game losing streak and scoreless streak, it feels like progress.

And it is, in many ways, a different Spirit team. Not just on the sidelines, where new coach Mark Parsons keeps up a constant stream of instructions in sharp contrast to the laid-back Mike Jorden.

– Candace Chapman is finally healthy, and she and Toni Pressley had a strong game in central defense.

– Conny Pohlers, in her first home game, had trouble getting the ball where she wanted it. But she showed her quality a few times and had a terrific shot off a nifty combination with Matheson. (Nicole Barnhart wasn’t awarded a save on the play, and it’s tough to see on the video, but people who saw it from different angles say Barnhart seemed to get a touch on it. The Spirit did get a corner kick, and KC didn’t argue.)

– The late tactical switches were creative. With Pohlers tiring, Parsons didn’t go for the obvious substitution of bringing in a fresh forward like Jasmyne Spencer. He sent in Kika Toulouse, who appeared in her usual outside back spot but also ran around up front. At the same time, Ali Krieger was pushed forward into midfield, to the delight of the Internet’s “Krieger to midfield” activists. (We didn’t see this formation long enough to evaluate it, which Parsons noted afterwards.)

– Colleen Williams, the only Spirit player other than the recently added and recently injured Lupita Worbis not to start a game under Mike Jorden, started this one and drew a nice roar from the crowd upon her introduction.

– The Spirit possessed the ball and had some creativity in the attack. I’d love to see passing stats for this one.

– Matheson has never taken a penalty kick quite like she did last night, chipping it down the middle (Panenka is the official slang term) as Nicole Barnhart sprawled to one side. (Yes, we asked Matheson. No, the shot was not “rifled” into the net. Not sure who gave the KC Star reporter that impression, but take a look at the video, which was indeed up and running at that moment.)

So despite the similarities between this game and the Spirit in April, the “fresh start” mantra has some validity. Parsons conceded that the team knew it might take a couple of games to get going, and he regarded this point as “a bonus.”

Kansas City coach Vlatko Andonovski might refer to it as “bogus.” He told the assembled media, “We can play against the team but not against the referees.” And he hoped referees watch game tape like coaches do.

The YouTube video, unfortunately, cut out when Tiffany McCarty was or was not fouled inside or outside the box. Maybe that explains why, on my way out of the SoccerPlex, a man in an FC Kansas City shirt raced up to me and asked if the people who do the game filming were still around. I told him I didn’t know, so he kept sprinting.

(UPDATE: The Spirit’s highlight package includes the play in question. UPDATE 2: I’ve fixed the link, thanks to the alert from Kevin Parker, who has a game recap with a photo that may prove the call was legit.)

Not sure he got to the film in time, but Andonovski did expound a bit more to the KC Star, saying McCarty may or may not have been fouled but definitely outside the box. “I don’t the referee was in a good position,” he said.

And he reiterated: “We can’t compete against the referees.”

Spirit fans might say, “Well, neither can we.” The referee didn’t blow her whistle very often, letting KC get away with mauling Pohlers. And for some reason, Tori Huster gets flattened once a game with no call. The Spirit was long overdue for some karmic payback for a lot of things this season. (Matheson, for the record, said the PK call was legit, though gutsy.)

And if soccer karma actually exists, then maybe FC Kansas City won’t have anything nasty happen in the playoffs in which they will certainly participate. They’re a terrific team, even without Player of the Month Lauren Cheney (or Holiday?) in the lineup.

Soccer karma would also say a 1-1 result here was just. Kansas City created chances, most of them through speedy and shifty winger Merritt Mathias, but Ashlyn Harris had one of her quieter games for the Spirit. (The stats are deceiving.)

Now the Spirit have to deal with another bit of bad luck — the schedule, which gave the team a three-week break but now gives them five games in 17 days. Somewhere along the way, the Spirit may take another step backward. But the busy schedule also gives them an opportunity to take another step or two forward.

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Questions, answers, guesses on Spirit’s Taylor and Hodak deals

Posted on by Beau Dure

The Washington Spirit apparently isn’t done making news today. The team traded for Lindsay Taylor, yet another young forward with a good resume but someone made expendable in Seattle with Renee Cuellar’s acquisition earlier in the day. The Spirit and Reign also exchanged draft picks — Washington got a “conditional” fourth-rounder from Seattle, the Reign got a second-rounder from the Spirit.

The deal put the Spirit over the roster cap again, so they had to waive someone. And that has stolen a lot of the Twitter discussion. Domenica Hodak had apparently won over a lot of fans. (Or a couple of other players were on the fans’ bad side.)

To analyze this, I’ll make a composite character out of various reactions I’ve seen today.

Q: Is the Taylor deal a good one for the Spirit?

A; Hard to see how it’s not. A second-round pick isn’t that high a price for one of the top players on Stanford’s awesome 2011 championship team, someone who was drafted sixth in the 2012 WPS Draft. (The Spirit is loading up on 2012 draftees — Stephanie Ochs was No. 3, Taylor No. 6, Tori Huster No. 8, former Spirit player Ingrid Wells No. 9, Toni Pressley No. 13, Jasmyne Spencer No. 21.) Even with Conny Pohlers on the roster, another scoring option isn’t a bad thing on a team that hasn’t scored in five games.

And she has scored in a Spirit game already! (Opening goal for Seattle in Washington’s lone win, the 4-2 decision at Seattle.)

Q. But why did they waive Hodak and not Roberts, King or another player I don’t like?

A: Maybe a combination of practice habits and a couple of times being out of position, such as the goal in Kansas City in which Lauren Cheney was wide open on Ashlyn Harris’ doorstep.

Roberts completes tons of passes. Go ahead, check the games out on YouTube.

Q. Why not waive Tiffany McCarty? I don’t like her!

A: You don’t, but a lot of people in soccer do. She was the No. 2 overall pick for a reason, though Chris Henderson ranked her ninth (second among pure forwards after the Spirit’s second-round pick, Caroline Miller.) She’s a U23 mainstay who scored a ton of goals in college.

If McCarty leaves Washington, it’ll be by trade. Not waivers. It’d be stupid to waive someone who has value. Other coaches think they can coax better production out of her than Washington has.

(I know — the Spirit waived Ingrid Wells, who may also have trade value, but there are extenuating circumstances in that case that will be more fully revealed later. Nothing that reflects poorly on her.)

Q. Well, why not waive another attacker? Isn’t the Spirit thin on defense?

A. Remember that Miller is out for the season, but still, that’s a valid question. The defenders on the Spirit: Ali Krieger, Candace Chapman, Toni Pressley, Robyn Gayle, Kika Toulouse. Then Tori Huster, the midfielder who played a lot of outside back for Western New York last year and picked up center back pretty well this year. That’s six. After that — maybe Holly King?

Q. Why not waive Caroline Miller? She’s injured, so that frees a roster spot.

A. First – waiving her means losing her rights for next season. This team intends to be here past August.

Second – waiving a player for no reason other than her injury is a pretty crappy thing to do, it would piss off players and fans, and it would make free agents less likely to come to Washington in the future.

Q. So is that the end of the “Krieger to midfield” movement?

A. Within Spirit camp, I have no indication that it ever begun.

Q. Did the new coach make this deal?

A. Doubtful, at least in terms of the trade. Nothing happens that quickly.

Q. So who’s starting Wednesday?

A. I have even less idea than usual.

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soccer

Washington Spirit fires coaches

Posted on by Beau Dure

The Washington Spirit, mired in a five-game losing streak in which the team has been outscored 13-0, has fired head coach Mike Jorden and assistant coaches Kris Ward and German Peri.

(Updating: The press release just came out with this comment: “I feel everyone at the club has, and will continue to have, great respect for Mike as a professional and as a person,” Spirit general manager Chris Hummer said. “But the poor results of the past six weeks have pushed the team into last place, and that’s just not something we can accept. We have the best fans in NWSL, and they deserve a winning team.”)

Spirit Reserves coach Mark Parsons will move up and coach the senior team. JP Sousa, who has been coaching the Spirit’s Super-20 team, will replace Parsons with the Reserves, who are in second place in the W-League’s Northeastern Conference.

Jorden was a holdover from D.C. United Women, the W-League team that morphed into the Spirit this season. Picked by many (OK, everyone except me) to finish last in the NWSL, the Spirit had a promising start to the year, playing close games with nearly every team in the league and posting a record of 1-2-3 through six games. With Seattle posting its second win of the season over the weekend, Washington has slipped to last place, albeit with two games in hand.

Parsons spent six years coaching teams at Chelsea, including the Chelsea Ladies reserve team. He led D.C. United Women’s Under-20 team to a national final. Like the rest of the Spirit’s coaching staff, he also coaches youth teams in the D.C. area.

The Spirit has little time to adjust to a new coach — the team has games July 3, 6, 10 and 14.

In the Spirit’s costly streak, the first three games were easily explained. Portland is one of the top two teams in the league, and the Spirit put up a decent effort on the road. A tired Spirit team lost its next game in Boston. After a three-week break, the Spirit came out flat against Western New York.

The last two games were more troubling. New forward Conny Pohlers was starved for service. Defensive lapses led to easy goals. Ashlyn Harris carried her frustration to the postgame press conference.

As the old saying goes, it’s easier to fire the coach than the players.

So what now?

The move creates more pressure on the players. Jorden already had thrown competition for starting spots wide open, juggling his lineups over the last few games. That competition will intensify now.

And ultimately, a coaching change won’t magically make the team play better. It’s going to be up to the players.

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Western NY Flash: Rock bottom

Posted on by Beau Dure

The bus ride was, by all accounts, pretty good for a change. Then the wheels came off.

You could make the case that the Spirit played better in Rochester than they did in greater Kansas City, where FC Kansas City’s wasteful finishing kept the score to a respectable 2-0 margin. Washington showed a little more offensive creativity Friday than it did on Sunday, and the Flash wasted few good chances for a 4-0 final.

But the defensive lapses that led to those chances were devastating.

– A midfield giveaway, leaving Robyn Gayle with two players on the wing, then an utter failure to track Carli Lloyd as she strolled right through the box and waited for the cross. That was reminiscent of the Kansas City goal in which Lauren Cheney could’ve caught the ball and autographed it before shooting.

– The second goal was the only one with some bad luck involved, a deflected cross. But still, Lloyd had a step on a defender.

– Another midfield giveaway, and then again Carli Lloyd runs unimpeded through the heart of the defense for a 1-on-1 with Ashlyn Harris.

– A prototypical garbage-time goal, though give Brittany Taylor credit for a superb finish.

Offensively, the passing combinations were there. Gayle, freed to play outside back with Candace Chapman going 90, got forward on the left and started some terrific sequences. But somehow, the chances wound up at the feet of players not known for their offense — Domenica Hodak and Holly King.

Conny Pohlers will get there. But she’s not a fan of artificial turf, and she has not yet adjusted to the speed of the fake grass and the defensive pressure. On her one good chance Friday, she took just a split-second too long. She has the best potential for breaking the Spirit’s epic scoreless drought, which dates back to their 4-2 win at Seattle.

That said, she still needs to get the ball. If Diana Matheson is able to return on Wednesday, that should help — defenses will have two proven scoring threats to deal with, and though they haven’t trained together, they have the veteran savvy that should help them connect.

Elsewhere on the field, the Spirit’s lineup shuffle has yet to turn up a winner. We have some evidence now that Julia Roberts wasn’t the problem in midfield. The Flash commentators raved about Stephanie Ochs from her tenure in Western New York last summer, but she wasn’t starting. Given the busy schedule over the next two weeks, the Spirit may have to rotate some players in and out of the lineup, but they’re struggling to find a combination that clicks.

I’ve almost jumped on the “Ali Krieger to midfield” bandwagon. Yes, she’s fine going forward, but I think good attacking outside backs are something teams shouldn’t give up easily. The problem that we’ve seen a couple of times is that she’s not able to get all the way back on defense. Rewind a couple of goals the Spirit has conceded, and you’ll find her caught upfield. She may be the best right back in the world, but she’s not Superwoman. Maybe she’d be better off at midfield with a defender behind her who only occasionally overlaps? Perhaps. Now who’s that defender?

And it’s fair to say Ashlyn Harris is fed up. See video part 1 and part 2 (thanks to @RocDevo for posting those).

A couple of excerpts:

Some Twitterati think she’s addressing coach Mike Jorden. But it’s clearly more than the coach. You could have me and my E license out there running the team, and the defense shouldn’t give Carli Lloyd those opportunities. In some cases, the players on the field may be the wrong players for the job. That falls on the coaches and personnel managers, but Harris isn’t one to say, “Oh, it’s OK, the coach never should’ve put you on the field.” Tori Huster never expected to be a center back marking Abby Wambach early this season, but she stepped up and did it. Harris wants the rest of the team to set the bar that high, if not higher.

The Spirit’s slide has given a lot of people a chance to say “I told you so.” But the season has really been backwards.

On May 17, the Spirit’s record was 1-2-3. The team looked clearly better than Chicago and Seattle, though the Reign had two world-class players coming in, and roughly even with Boston. And the immediate future looked bright: Young players like Caroline Miller were making progress in picking up the pro game, and Candace Chapman would surely be healthy any day now. We didn’t know the names of the reinforcements who turned out to be Conny Pohlers and Toni Pressley, but the team clearly had plans to plug a couple of holes on the field.

Now Miller is out for the season. Chapman is back but not herself. Diana Matheson, the revelation of the season’s first few weeks, has been out. Teams have to be able to react to such adversity, and the Spirit has not.

Another comment to single out:

Certainly that was the case early in the season. The alarm bells weren’t ringing when the Spirit followed up the 4-2 win in Seattle with an 0-2 loss at Portland. Travel problems and some bad luck made the 0-3 loss in Boston look worse than it was.

But since the three-week break in the Spirit’s bizarre schedule, the team hasn’t been there. In the home loss to the Flash, the Spirit played a good second half, but Jorden conceded “the team didn’t come out ready to play in the first half.” Then came KC, then this game.

If you flip the last four games with the first four games of the season, you could say the Spirit’s season has gone as expected. But as former D.C. resident Bob Mould once put it, expectations only mean you really think you know what’s coming next — and you don’t.

The Spirit should avoid falling to Atlanta Beat depths. Matheson should come back and provide the missing link between the midfield and Pohlers. Chapman and Pressley should figure it out in central defense.

But in this backwards season, “should” means nothing. And it has a nasty way of becoming “should’ve.”

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Things you didn’t know about Alex Morgan

Posted on by Beau Dure

I don’t see Grant Wahl’s story on Alex Morgan online yet, so you may need to rush out to grab last week’s Sports Illustrated before it disappears from newsstands. (The cover is “A Coach’s Courage,” referring to another worthwhile read inside.) Grant’s story is a good read for all levels of women’s soccer fan, from those vaguely aware of someone named Alex Morgan to those who regularly rant about the injustice of Portland getting her AND Christine Sinclair in the allocation process.

That leads us to the first of several things we all learned from this piece:

1. Did the entire existence of the NWSL hinge on getting Morgan to Portland so that Merritt Paulson would follow through on starting the Thorns? Here’s the passage (any typing errors are mine):

Portland investor Merritt Paulson was in talks to buy into the operation. He wanted Morgan, and he had leverage: He knew that the league wouldn’t exist unless he brought in the eighth and final team. Asked if he exacted any promises — say, being awarded Morgan — Paulson laughs and offers and exaggerated wink-wink. “Oh, no, no, no … Look, when the owners put in their requests for national-team players, there’s no doubt that Alex was Number 1 on everybody’s list.”

That won’t make fans from Washington state to Washington, D.C., feel any better about the allocation process.

2. The younger players on the women’s national team have stepped up their studies of the game, watching a lot of Champions League and EPL games.

3. Morgan also sought out Mia Hamm to come out and work with her at the Complex Formerly Known As The Home Depot Center.

4. On a related note, Morgan is sick of the split between the current group of players and the old guard.

It’s been cool closing the gap with the two generations. With [the current] national team it’s almost us versus the ’99ers, which I hate. I want us all to be one team.

Taking her game and the team’s to a new level. Trying to unify all parties. Future captain?

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soccer

Washington Spirit vs. Kansas City: Time to patch things up

Posted on by Beau Dure

On the surface, the Washington Spirit’s 2-0 loss at Kansas City doesn’t look horrible. Playing without five injured players, with one center back still adjusting to new teammates and a star forward barely getting time to meet the team, a loss on the road against one of the top NWSL teams doesn’t look too bad. Perhaps even one of the team’s many moral victories on the season.

But a closer look at the game turns up a grimmer picture.

Collectively, the team may had valid excuses. World-class midfielder Diana Matheson and utility midfielder-defender Tori Huster joined an injury list that already included emerging striker Caroline Miller and Mexican attacker Lupita Worbis. Center back Candace Chapman showed in the previous game that she’s still not ready to go 90 minutes. By game’s end, the Spirit had fielded all 13 healthy field players, all on a hot day on unfamiliar turf. That included the new player, Conny Pohlers.

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Individually, the breakdowns in this game may not be as easily brushed off.

The stats say a lot. After a promising start — through 17 minutes, the Spirit had two shots to Kansas City’s zero — the Spirit had little possession and therefore no offense.

The problems started with Kansas City’s 18th-minute goal. Somehow, in the Spirit’s midfield shuffle, pesky forward Jasmyne Spencer was left to rotate from one player to the next. The “next” in this case was U.S. international Lauren Cheney, whose hard, high shot smashed off Ashlyn Harris’ fingers and the crossbar before nestling in the net.

Ashlyn Harris is Superwoman.
Ashlyn Harris is Superwoman.

From then on, Harris was busy. She finished with eight saves. Robyn Gayle saved another shot, getting behind Harris for a vital clearance. Between their heroics and some dreadful Kansas City finishing, a game that could have finished 4-0 or 5-0 was held to a respectable 2-0.

The other end of the field was hardly used for the 47 minutes between Kansas City goals. Conny Pohlers, the great German forward making her Spirit debut, claimed a loose ball in the midst of five defenders and at least forced Nicole Barnhart to make a save in the 34th minute. Spencer recorded a shot in the 57th minute, but that stat says more about the stat-keeper’s generosity than the run of play.

The Spirit’s first corner kick finally came in the 63rd minute, and Pohlers may have set herself up for a decent chance if the ball hadn’t slipped away from her on the fast turf. Instead, Kansas City countered. Then this happened:

– At the 63:37 mark, KC’s Renae Cuellar took a long pass at midfield. The Mexican star, who surprisingly came off the bench in this game, ran first at Domenica Hodak but then went to the middle against Robyn Gayle, the only other Spirit defender staying back on the set piece.

– As Cuellar drifted right, Gayle stuck to her. And Hodak drifted into the middle. That left an acre of space for Lauren Cheney to race forward on the left.

– At the 63:46 mark, Cuellar found space past Gayle and shot. Harris parried it to KC’s right.

– 63:49: Gayle has gone out to face Merritt Mathias, who has collected the loose ball. Holly King has returned to the area to mark Cuellar, who’s still in a dangerous spot. Stephanie Ochs also has made it back, but she and Hodak are gathering at the right post.

– 63:52: Remember Lauren Cheney? Yeah, she’s still wide open inside the 6-yard box, a few feet inside the left post. Hodak’s at the right post, and Ochs has just realized the danger a second too late. Ali Krieger is returning but is still 10 yards behind Cheney when Mathias’ cross lands on Cheney’s foot. Harris would need Star Trek teleportation technology to get across the goal in time. 2-0

“Where was the marking?” asked my friend in soccer and MMA, Sean Wheelock, who was soloing in the KC commentary box. I’m sure the Spirit coaching staff would like to know.

The Spirit pressed forward in the last 20 minutes, getting two chances that each flowed through substitute Colleen Williams. In the 72nd minute, they had their best sequence of the game. Spencer swiped the ball from Kristie Mewis (whom some Twitterati think the Spirit should have drafted ahead of Tiffany McCarty) and played it back to Holly King. Immediately, King played ahead to Williams in the middle of the field. Williams took a couple of touches in space and played a beautiful through ball to McCarty, whose shot beat Barnhart … and glanced off the post.

In the 81st minute, the Spirit got its sixth and final shot (third on goal). It was Williams to McCarty to Spencer, who rolled a meek shot straight to Barnhart.

A few weeks ago, the Spirit had a legitimate claim to be the sixth- or maybe fifth-best team in the league, and they had a chance of getting better with the younger players catching on and Pohlers and Pressley coming aboard. To get back in the mix, they’ll need to get healthy. And they’ll need better luck. But they’ll also need to show a bit better than they did in Kansas City.

Like the photos? See more on Latda Siharath’s Flickr feed — and thanks for permission to use them here!

Match report with quotes from the notables at Pitchside Report.

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