2025 nwsl week 6: xG race charts & g+ pass networks

I love this league (*terms and conditions apply). We not only saw the bottom table side give the top of the table team their first L courtesy of two late goals, we saw Gotham extract revenge (and Esther enter into her villain era), Angel City fumble a result in the most predictable of ways, the Baby Waves keep cooking, Loovull run their spread offense, and more.

*An underlying story in at least two matches was inadequate refereeing. Two games featured a total of over 35 fouls calls and just five yellow cards. This style of refereeing interrupts the flow of games and doesn’t offer a deterrent to repeated fouling. Instead, games because stop-start annoyances devoid of a fluidity that’s central to the sport. If that many fouls are happening without yellow cards, the threshold for a foul is probably too low, or, a referee isn’t adequately punishing yellow card-worth actions. Either way ruins games as entertaining contests.

Anyway, onto the xG race charts and g+ pass networks.

orlando pride 3-2 angel city

Angel City’s lead was no fluke. They were all over Orlando early, and at one point I swear I saw them go from their defense to the final third, against Orlando Thee Pride, in three passes. It was wild to see. Then, at halftime, Sam Laity looked at this gift the players gave him and said ‘I’ll take it from here’, and well.

They had us in the first half. Call the ambulance but not for me. Do you feel in charge? A few moments later. Choose your favorite pop culture meme of the genre and there’s your match summary.

Defending Banda once she has the ball is usually just practice getting your feelings hurt. So instead, the trick some teams have figured out is to focus more on limiting her service, and when she does get the ball, limiting who she can combine with.

In this game Angel City had that working exceptionally well. Banda’s typical bright green ring (representing positive g+) was instead turned red (negative receiving g+). Marta has positive pass and receiving g+, but very little connection to Banda, and instead much stronger passing lines to players behind her.

A lot of work went into getting the early lead, which is what made it so heartbreaking (then funny) when it was lost. Katie Zelem and Riley Tiernan had positive receiving g+, and linked well with one another. Tiernan, specifically, was very impressive.

She’s starting to figure out where and when to run, rather than just running around. We’re also seeing her take chances created for her, and create chances herself. Angel City has the type of wide talent that makes a straight up pest at center forward the last type of problem a defense needs, but that’s what Tiernan is proving to be.

It’s also about time for a conversation about whatever Sam Laity thinks he’s doing with Christen Press. She, by all accounts, is healthy and has been since the start of the season. Despite this, she has played a total of 48 minutes this season, and hasn’t been on the pitch longer than 17 minutes. If I was trying to salvage any points from a game I’d just fumbled away I’d get one of the best shooters ever into the game. I don’t get it, and I don’t like it.

houston dash 1-0 utah royals

For some reason Jimmy Coenraets has committed to making Utah the most boring team in the league. Weird goal but ok job done I guess. Utah has only had over 1.0 xG in three games, but even that doesn’t tell the whole story because they’ve achieved 1.2 xG in exactly zero games.

Unfortunately in this game they drug a ‘still trying to figure it all out’ Houston side into the mud with them.

Houston started the season routinely finding ways to isolate their wide players and get in behind defenses. But after a tough stretch of games they’ve dropped their line, gotten disjointed, and as a result haven’t been able to find a similar success—even against not-so-tough teams.

It’s a growing pain of new players/new coach/new system, but it’s something they need to figure out soon. As much I am President & CEO of the Bangers Only Fan Club, .04 xG Delanie Sheehan bangers are unlikely to lead to three points very often.

It seems fine, but it is not fine. I like Cece Kizer as a wide player but I’m not sure she’s ever displayed the skillset necessary to pull strings as a #10, so putting her there was a weird decision. Also, Ally Sentnor—the most star attacking talent on the field for Utah—spent more time farther away from goal than any other attacking player. We might be in previously uncharted territory of ‘raise my rent’ soccer.

One positive was Ana Tejada finally out of the backline and into midfield. One of her strongest attributes last seasons was completing throughballs from midfield, a thing Utah desperately need again. Hopefully Coenraets hasn’t made such a thing illegal.

washington spirit 0-3 gotham fc

When you’re about to face a very pissed off Gotham with not only the incentive for revenge but to bounce back from a humiliation, it’s best not to start that match with sleep crusties in your eyes. The Spirit did not heed that advice, and as a result Esther made herself the main character at Audi Field.

The thing that should be the most frustrating for the Spirit is that Gotham didn’t really do anything exceptional, they just executed three things at an average or slightly above average level, and major errors from the Spirit helped them become goals.

The one thing I think Gotham did successfully was target Heather Stainbrook, whose negative passing and receiving g+ is ungood. Esme Morgan’s passing g+ is the lowest, and that’s due to her errant pass leading to the scramble in the box that became a penalty.

Portilho, Esther and Schupansky all have positive receiving g+ just a week after the Spirit managed to force Barbra Banda into a negative receiving g+ game. The Berger-Reale-Sonnett triangle is fun, and led to Reale being a key part of their buildup, and picking up an assist.

nc courage 3-2 kc current

I love this league. North Carolina hadn’t won a match all season and Kansas City hadn’t lost. The Current were (and still are) top of the table, and North Carolina was deep sea diving at the bottom of the table. So, naturally, the Courage won.

The thing that makes this league so fun is that while a bottom table team can sometimes (though very rarely) bother and maybe even get points from a top club in other leagues, the formula is always the same—drop deep, defend, hit on the counter. The Courage went toe to toe, machine for machine, and won in dramatic fashion with two goals after the 90th minute. That right there is an NWSL exclusive.

The Courage switched to a more intentional 3-4-3 but were essentially still in their compact mid block and gameplan of not committing numbers forward or getting behind the defense. The benefit seems to be that it simplified a few things spatially. The overall xG wasn’t extravagant, and the Courage’s shot total was in line with their previous games, but by total and percentage they had their most shots on target (7 of 12) so far this season.

That’s the type of game head coach Sean Nahas wants, and when it works it’s effective enough to down one of the best teams in the league (though isn’t a consistent answer when facing non-top of the table sides). Finding a way to make this consistent enough to get the goals the Courage need has been a longstanding problem of the post-Kerolin era Courage. This result will help lower the volume, but it’s still a problem Nahas needs to solve.

A fairly shocking performance tbh. Not surprising to see Temwa Chawinga or Bia Zaneratto with positive receiving g+ but it is surprising to see their average passing position be so low. All midfielders had zero or negative passing g+ too, which also doesn’t happen often.

It seems the Courage are built to frustrate big teams by clogging the middle of the pitch and rarely taking risks in attack, so probably not surprising in the end that they were able to knock off a big team with this formula.

Also the Current were put in a bit of a unique situation given the start of the season. They got an early goal but the Courage fought back to equalize. Once Kansas City got the lead again in the 57th minute, they only managed three shots after that while the Courage managed six (half their match total).

chicago tsars 0-3 san diego wavé

We might need to have a conversation about the baby Waves. Beating Chicago isn’t necessarily a shocking thing this season, but they’re managing games well and scoring—a lot. They’re currently tied for second with 12 goals scored, only behind KC and Orlando who are tied at 14.

Their non-penalty xG is bang average though, so this could just be a bit of a hot streak that will even out over the course of the season.

After allowing themselves a bit of freedom against the Royals last week, the Tsars were back to their more familiar ‘low block and counter ‘ selves. They also managed to outshoot San Diego, but not with very high quality chances. Only two shots ended up being above the average of .10.

You know how a team’s formation is often just their out of possession shape and everyone tries to find unique ways to commit numbers while using rest defense to prevent or slow counters one possession is lost? Well San Diego spent so much time in possession (63%) that is is basically their in possession formation of 3-2-5.

Pretty fun to see it show up like this, and shows how San Diego hasn’t been afraid to press high out of possession and commit numbers high in possession. Again, I do not know this Jonas Eidevall, and I just saw Sinners, so I am wary.

bay fc 1-1 seattle reign

This game was a scrap. Taylor Huff and Asisat Oshoala are both probably still annoyed given they had to late chances to win it with .23 and .47 xG strikes respectively. Though the entire team should probably be a bit frustrated. Of Bay’s twelve shots only three were on target. That ain’t good for the ol’ conversion rate.

Nicely organized from Bay. Maybe a bit too much of a gap between the two deep midfielders and the 10, but that was likely to help defend the threats of Biyendolo and Dahlien in behind. I’m not sure I get why Montoya has recently preferred Conti over Oshoala. In the pass networks she often drops too deep, which may help defensively but isn’t ideal in possession.

What in tarnation.

portland thorns 3-3 rahsing louisville

There is so much wild behavior happening here. Both teams’ xG is over 2.0, which is my kinda shit. Hilariously, the team that had two (2!) penalties is not the team with the highest xG. Thirty shots in total between the two teams, with both averaging a stratospheric .18 xG per shot. This is either elite attacking play, or, [/checks notes, sees teams] the result of calamities.

With Sam Coffey out for an excused absence the Thorns returns to having a midfield full of midfielders who wanna do the same things in midfield. Curiously, this did not work. Outside of the penalties, only one shot from the Thorns registered as an above average chance (.17 xG, Perry 56’).

Louisville has had an extremely bad time connecting passes, and have (by far) the lowest pass completion rate in the league. So Bev Yanez apparently said who even needs a midfield anyway. Rahsing had more touches in the attacking third than the middle third, only by one (135-136) but still hilarious and highlights the gameplan.

Janine Sonis and Emma Sears’s 26 and 23 touches in the attacking third were the most for any outfield player in any other third. Also, several attacking players have bright green receiving g+ and/or passing g+ values, so not only were they able to get the ball forward, they were able to make it stick as well.

While still much lower than most teams, 68.4% pass completion was their second highest total of the season. If you’re gonna lose the ball a lot anyway, might as well play the high risk/high reward game and try to get it to your forwards as quickly as you can. Bev Yanez is in her spread offense era.

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