2025 nwsl week 18: xG race charts & g+ pass networks

the explainer

The xG charts are straightforward, but the pass networks include custom data from American Soccer Analysis in order to spotlight passing and receiving impact. These are measured using ASA’s goals added (g+) metric, which calculates how much each touch—in this case passing & receiving—changes their team’s chances of scoring and conceding across two possessions.

(If you want to fully nerd out, here’s a deep dive into the methodology of g+.)

the goods

Week 18

Both teams cracked 1.0 xG (which hasn’t always been a given for these two), but it took 37 combined shots to do it. Only a total of 11 of those shots were on target, so that’s how you also get all that leading to the first goal in the 72nd, and the second at 90’.

rahsing louisville

Houston should feel some type of way about Louisville feeling like they could do this to them. This is not what we’ve come to expect, and they bullied the Dash in midfield. DeMelo, Flint and Sonis put up quality passing g+, while Sears ran the go route.

houston dash

Louisville stuffed Houston’s midfield in a locker. Bully behavior.

This looked much more like the Gotham we knew instead of the Bateman version we’ve been watching most of the season.

Several folks are worried for Orlando but I’m not there yet. Losing Banda was brutal and it’s going to take a minute to see how Seb Hines re-balances the squad. Good news is Jacquie Ovalle should be available soon, and they just signed Elyse Bennett too. I’m interested to see what Hines can do to get goals into a team that’s scored just two in the last five matches.

orlando pride

Tiny bubbles and not a lot of green, ok I’m considering taking it back I might be a bit worried now. If the Pride still look like this after a couple starts with Ovalle I’ll be mashing the panic button with my forehead.

gotham fc

Gotham got their perfect situation: an early goal, then a second before halftime. It allowed them to dictate the match and focus on disrupting the Pride, which they did mercilessly.

Conversely, I am rather shooketh for the Wavé. Laura Harvey’s Seattle Reign is not the team you want to see when you’ve only scored three goals in your last five and well yeah now it’s just three goals in their last six.

seattle reign

Nobody focused on getting forward except left wingback Madison Curry, and no one really focused on progressive passing except 2/3 of the back 3 and the right wingback. Only pre-approved fun shall be had, and only in the presence of a chaperone.

san diego wavé

Kenza Dali and Trinity Armstrong were the only outfield players with positive passing g+, as all other fun was restricted. Particularly from you, NWSL assist leader Delphine Cascarino.

I thought Laurina Fazer was a high key excellent get and would help in games like this. But making your first start against a stubborn Laura Harvey team is like registering for a graduate level course as a freshman.

Portland outshot Utah 23/11, with the Thorns having more shots on target (12) than the Royals had shots of any kind — and it straight up didn’t matter. Utah created two huge xG chances, scored half their shots on target, and beat Portland straight up on non-penalty xG.

portland thorns

One of the reasons this hasn’t been happening more often is because Jessie Fleming has said ok fine I’ll be the one to do the tough stuff so everyone else can float around and do other stuff. Despite her literally doing this, and it working, Rob Gale trotted out a lineup without her and also evidently without the instruction for someone else to do the out-of-possession defensive work and in-possession rest defense work.

utah royals

The only downside for Utah is that they didn’t really do anything super replicable in terms of their buildup. Portland left lots of open space to hit them on the counter, and Utah took advantage. Most teams won’t be as silly.

Kansas City is tough enough to play against without an awkward .03 xG “shot” that was definitely a cross opening the scoring and a soft penalty making it 2-0 at halftime. But that’s what happened, and North Carolina didn’t have a single shot inside the box in the second half. Yup.

kansas city current

Contain.

north carolina courage

Contained.

The Spirit couldn’t get the dang ball in the net more than once so it only took one mistake to gift Chicago their best chance, and as a result, a point.

washington spirit

The Spirit are high key struggling without Ashley Hatch or Ouleye Sarr when it comes to goalscoring, but also missed Rose Kouassi a lot in this game. They couldn’t find width while maintaining a central presence, which eventually led to a switch to a back 3 after halftime so wingbacks could help pull apart the defense. Still, they created enough chances to get a second goal, and should have.

chicago tsars

Chicago did what they’ve been doing the last five matches: hanging around waiting for a mistake and punishing it. I dunno how long that gameplan will work, but it’s been good enough for five consecutive draws, with them coming from behind to secure a point in four of them.

Someone give Ella Masar a permanent head coaching position, I’m tryin to see something.

Bay’s xG was massively inflated by the value of Hill’s goal (.75), otherwise Angel City bossed this game. But in true Straus Struggleball fashion it took until the 77th to find a second goal. Despite only 2 of their 18 shots being taken outside the box, Angel City managed just two shots in the box (out of 16!!) that were above average value.

angel city

This may have been the game that we finally saw what Straus wants to do with this team. They were able to maintain numbers defensively while sending three (well, 2.5; welcome to your defensive winger era, Sveindís) attackers forward into space. It worked, but there are still caveats.

As mentioned above, it didn’t really lead to many good shots in the box, and the limited numbers made combining in/around the box quite difficult. The other caveat is that it was against Albertin Montoya’s Temu Barcelona.

bay fc

Beautiful futbol if you define beautiful futbol as lots of passing without really doing much in the final third. In general, this works when you have elite finishers. In the NWSL, I’m not sure if it works at all. NWSL opposition tends to be a lot more aggressive with pressure, which limits the time and space required to do this effectively.

Also, Bay does not have clinical finishers, they have high volume chance creators. Montoya often laments that if [insert thing] had gone differently or [insert chance] had been scored, they could’ve had a better result. But at some point saying that repeatedly should signal that there’s a root cause that has nothing to do with luck.

In partnership with