A more detailed two-gamer this week. As always, thanks to Andre Carlisle and his xG charts (https://btvc.beehiiv.com/) and nwslstat on Twitter (https://x.com/nwslstat) for the data vis.
Game 1: Angel City FC 0-0 San Diego Wave
Thank goodness it gives me tremendous pleasure to rag on the duo of Southern California NWSL teams, because it sure as hell gives me no pleasure to watch either of them. The Jordan Angeli-dubbed "Barbie Derby" finished 0-0, with neither team likely overly pleased with the final result.
Thursday night's marquee matchup at BMO field was a more interesting game than the scoreline would indicate, but the quality on both sides remains limited. Angel City's backline has been decimated by injuries: With MA Vignola's slow return to fitness came an injury to team MVP Sarah Gorden, which, when combined with the bizarre decision to banish Paige Nielsen to the Texas gulag, meant that rookie FB Madison Curry partnered Megan Reed inside of Jasmyne Spencer and teenager Gisele Thompson. At times, Angel City built out of a 3-back, their attack-minded FBs pushing high up the field and six Madison Hammond dropping in between Curry and Reed.
For San Diego, I would argue that their trip North was a step in the right direction. With the security the return of first choice CBs Naomi Girma and Abby Dahlkemper offered, manager Casey Stoney got a little feisty, sending a relentless first half press at the makeshift Angel City backline. SD's high line of confrontation was almost bizarrely unlike Stoney, but it was an intelligent tactical move against Angel City's inexperienced backline. The insertion of Elyse Bennett (finally allowed to see the field) and rookie Mya Jones (who has done well to separate herself from the Wave's fleet of C+ wingers) gave Stoney the requisite speed next to Maria Sanchez to put pressure on the ACFC defense.
Taking notes during the game, I wondered whether Shaw was playing as a second striker, or whether SD's press and ACFC's inability to play through the midfield made it seem as though Shaw was playing higher than she actually was. The pass map seems to indicate the former: Stoney's traditional 4-2-3-1 virtually played like a 4-2-4, with Shaw pushed right up on the shoulder of Bennett inside Sanchez and Jones. SD's press was suffocating throughout the first half, with the 2-4 (the two CMs and the front four) press doing well to keep the gap between the "4" and the "2" tight. Stoney's gamble was that ACFC would be unable to figure out the press and play through midfielders Rocky Rodriguez and Hammond. For the most part, the gamble paid off: On the rare occasion an ACFC CB played an accurate pass into the midfield, Danielle Colaprico and McCaskill were on their backs immediately. On the Wave left, Shaw and Sanchez double-teamed poor Madison Curry, and Bennett and Jones did the same on the right. With Gisele Thompson and Spencer consistently playing high the CBs and GK Didi Haracic rarely were able to find an out ball.
Angel City did have periods of joy when the Thompson sisters combined with ten Clarisse Le Bihan and managed to sneak behind the Wave's press. Prodigious teen sisters Gisele and Alyssa Thompson have given manager Becki Tweed the occasional jolt of energy over the last few weeks, with the younger Thompson in particular seeing a lot of the ball and combining well with the elder. Gisele already looks more polished than her older sister, who seems to have plateaued under Tweed. Gisele has a ways to go defensively --she gets caught out of position up the field frequently-- but she has some of the physicality and nuance going forward that her sister lacks. Most of Angel City's best moments came when Gisele inverted and created space for her sister.
Alyssa remains far too wasteful with the ball at her feet and her lack of strength allows defenders to sit off and give her a cushion to mitigate for her her electric pace. Her decision-making is consistently poor inside the opponent's penalty area in particular. She has no problem getting into dangerous areas, but she has a tendency to over-dribble and let the defense reset after she's done the hard work. Her radar chart tells the story: A lot of self-creation, but not a lot of end-product. The well-below average "open play shots created for others" metric is particularly concerning.
Compared to a player like Sophia Smith or Mallory Swanson --both perfectly reasonable player comps for Thompson's high end range of outcomes-- Thompson remains too small physically to allow her pace to do as much of the work as she seems to want it to. Whereas Smith got noticeably stronger after her rookie season, Thompson still looks like a high-schooler. She's still 19 and has plenty of time to improve, but I (and ACFC fans, I'm sure), had looked for a bigger Sophomore jump.
Despite the Wave's first half dominance, they were unable to find a way through. Without Alex Morgan, their attack is even more profligate than it was with Morgan. Sanchez in particular was wasteful, missing two wide open headers from close range. Once the Wave tired and the press wore off in the second half, the last 45 minutes were relatively tame until a late Angel City flurry gave way to a last second Wave chance foiled by an impressive Haracic double save. Will failing to secure the three points on the road make Stoney re-think her tactical change, or will will see a little more of the high press from the Wave? We'll have to wait until after the international break to find out.
Quick Hits:
Tweed's persistent refusal to play Messiah Bright remains baffling. Veteran Sydney Leroux has been perfectly competent this year, but Bright is a complete striker and was one of the surprises of the 2023 NWSL season. After bringing Bright in from Orlando, I figured we'd see a lot more of the TCU product. I'm not sure why we haven't.
The Savannah McCaskill SoCal career renaissance has continued in SD. Consistently one of the hardest working players in the league, McCaskill was excellent as an advanced eight in SD's newly-instituted press.
Boy, do ACFC miss Sarah Gorden.
Dahlkemper and Girma started together for the first time since April.
Rough start for Rocky Rodriguez (through no real fault of her own). Hammond is a hard worker, but lacks the spatial intelligence that Amendine Henry brought.
Sanchez still hasn't quite clicked with her new side. She'll contribute when she gets the ball, but has been mostly pretty invisible. A lot of the Wave's best attacking moves went down the right (with Jones) instead of the left.
Game 2: Bay FC 0-2 Gotham
Gotham's march up the NWSL table after a relatively inauspicious start to their super team era continued Saturday night in San Jose, suffocating a disjointed Bay FC side 2-0 courtesy of a quick-fire first half double from, of all players, Ella Stevens. Stevens, the most under-the-radar of Gotham's offseason free agent splurge, has added goals to a lineup that had been surprisingly impotent through the first third of the season. Both her goals had xG values of nearly one --her first came on a tap in and her second from a horrific Katelyn Rowland mistake-- but "right place right time" has been Stevens' MO so far this season, and the reason why she's broken into Gotham's starting eleven despite lacking the star power of the players she is currently keeping out of the side.
It wasn't as though Gotham was beating down the Bay FC door all match. Their xG chart, shows a cumulative match xG of nearly zero outside of Stevens' brace. They have struggled to get much going throughout the season, scoring only 10 goals through their first ten matches. While they have slightly underperformed their cumulative xG of 14.5 (good for 7th in the league), they rank behind only the dumpster fire in Utah and the depleted Wave in goals scored with 10, albeit having played one fewer match than their competitors. They have very clearly been missing the pace and creativity of Midge Purce, and haven't gotten much production from marquee signings Rose Lavelle and Crystal Dunn, the latter of whom has been unable to consistently convince manager Juan Carlos Amoros that she should be starting over either Delanie Sheehan, Lavelle, or Yaz Ryan in central midfield, or Lynn Williams or Stevens on the wings. At times, Gotham's build-up has looked labored; and the typically smooth rotation across the front line has crowded an attacking line devoid of pace. Amoros hasn't quite been able to capture the fluidity of last season, but he hasn't had to do so.
The reason Amoros hasn't had to worry too much about Gotham's goal-scoring woes is because his defense has been a steel trap. Gotham has been throttling opposing attacks. Smothering. Choking. Strangling. Gotham has conceded a league-best seven goals through their ten matches and have the second best cumulative xGA in the league. Much fuss was made about the the signings of Lavelle and Dunn in the offseason around the NWSL media landscape, but it has been and Sam Hiatt and Emily Sonnett who have been crucial to Gotham's recent rise, especially with early season injuries to Maitane Lopez, Davidson, and Kelly O'Hara. Gotham's defensive depth is, frankly, absolute absurd. Maitane, a mainstay of Gotham's back four after arriving in summer 2023, is coming off the bench having been replaced by Hiatt (seriously, HOW did Gotham get her for nothing and WHY did Seattle dump her for nothing?). Jenna Nighswonger, rookie Maycee Bell, and Bruninha have all been excellent at FB, and newly signed GK Anne-Katherine Berger has been immense behind the back four. Even Davidson, recently returned from injury, hasn't broken back into Gotham's 11.
It isn't many teams (and exactly zero NWSL teams) who have the luxury to bench their projected starting CB duo because their other two starting-caliber CBs have been playing so well, but that is exactly the situation in New Jersey. Hiatt has been brilliant since being called upon, doing all the things Amoros asks of his CBs: Win headers, play progressive passes, and limit balls into the final third. Sonnett, who makes perfect sense as an Amoros CB due to her on-ball capabilities hasn't been quite as impressive metric-wise as Hiatt, but has physically dominant and complements Hiatt perfectly. Sonnett was my WOTM of the match against Bay, stuffing attack after attack by using her strength to win the ball off Bay wingers Rachael Kundananji and Scarlett Camberos before calmly playing Gotham out of trouble.
On the Bay FC side....whoah boy. This is a team many --including myself-- had high hopes for entering the season. A seemingly intelligent build-the-roster-from-the-back philosophy combined with the high-priced attacking trio of Kundananji, Asisat Oshoala, and Deyna Castellanos should have given the San Jose-based side a floor, even if their midfield was about as deep as the shallow end of a kid's pool. Manager Albertin Montoya promised a structured, fluid brand of attacking soccer, and it seemed Bay FC's starting eleven had the ability to play as he wished. Well, it hasn't been pretty through eleven weeks.
Montoya's side's issues are numerous, but most of them can be traced back to two key problems:
First is their defense. Laden with well-regarded NWSL and WSL veterans and promising rookies alike, the back line has been punctured consistently and often. Bay FC have conceded the most goals in the league with 23 (yes, in a league that contains both Houston and Utah), good for an average of over two per match. Their cumulative xGA of 18.8 paints an only-slightly prettier picture, as the 18.8 xGA is still third worst in the league. So what gives? Neither of starting CBs Emily Menges or Kayla Sharples look clearly off the pace. Rookie Savy King and vet Caprice Dydasco have both been fine, if unremarkable.
The second issue -- and I'd argue the one more responsible for the sieve-like nature of Bay's early season structure-- is the midfield. The loss of captain and starting six Alex Loera to a torn ACL just games into the 2024 season was catastrophic. Loera, who was playing as a lone 6 in Montoya's preferred 4-3-3, carried an almost untenable amount of responsibility on her shoulders. She was responsible for all the defensive work (Joelle Anderson and Deyna Castellanos certainly aren't about that life), acted as the single pivot in Bay's build up, and even got forward when needed to contribute to the attack.
Offensively, Bay have been mostly fine: They rank in the middle of the pack in possession, progressive passes, and most other key stats. Their poor starts to games have hurt them and allowed opposing teams to sit behind the ball, but they have stretches where Montoya's principles look to be sinking in, particularly when Tess Boade --arguably their best player so far this season-- gets on the ball. It certainly hasn't been the start many expected from their big-money attack, but some of the cohesion issues Bay are going through are those typical of expansion sides.
Quick Hits:
Tess Boade is a fun player to watch. She's got a distinct, aesthetically pleasing upright glide to the way she moves. Very much looks like she was raised in the Courage system.
Bay rotated in and out of their double pivot depending on game state. These rotations are typical of teams playing the 4-3-3, but Montoya's side doesn't quite have the timing down. Pickett or Anderson was left isolated against Gotham's overload too many times.
As observed by Lori Lindsey on the broadcast, Gotham splits their CBs wide and makes space for the attackers to drop deep, while pushing the FBs wide. It's a distinct way of playing out of the back, and it clearly discombobulated Bay FC's attempts at a high press.
Emily Sonnett at CB = GOOD. Whoda thunk?
Awful mistake by Katelyn Rowland for the second Gotham goal and looked completely immobile side to side. After a great first match from Proulx, Bay have a real keeper issue on their hands.
Player of the Week: Emily Sonnett, Gotham FC
Goal of the Week: The electric Emma Sears vs. Chicago:
Comments