2025 nwsl week 9: xG race charts & g+ pass networks

Week 9 included more bonkers stuff (complimentary) as well as some bonkers things (derogatory). Laura Harvey played a cruel joke on Louisville, Keeping Up with Teal Man was frequently interrupted by a good soccer game, Portland and San Diego’s kids went off, and the Spirit still can’t find the off button for yakety sax first half defending.

Here are xG race charts and g+ pass networks from week nine.

gotham 0-1 san diego wavé

Contrary to several preseason predictions, mine included, the Baby Waves are legit. From an expected goals standpoint this isn’t exactly impressive, but it is impressive from an expected goals allowed perspective. Gotham’s press and talent in attack usually generate decent looks at goal, and even when they don’t, they have players who can score low xG chances.

The Wavé are similar, and in this case they were able to cancel out Gotham’s strength, and were the ones who got the banger. Even wilder is that on a pitch that included Midge Purce, Ella Stevens, Esther, Geyse, Delphine Cascarino, Kenza Dali and Adriana Leon, it was 17-year-old Kimmi Ascanio who did the madness.

There’s not a ton that stands out about the pass connections or positioning, but what does stand out is the size of the player bubbles. San Diego scored early and somehow still only allowed Gotham 38% of the possession.

The only players with thirty or more pass attempts were the entire backline, Nealy Martin in defensive midfield, and Ann-Katrin Berger. Oof.

San Diego, meanwhile, scored in the 30th minute then played an intense game of keepaway against one of the league’s most rabid pressing teams. This is not at all how I would have predicted this game to go, but it will be a massive confidence boost for the Baby Waves, and yet another thing they’ve proved they can do that we were not so sure they could do.

orlando pride 0-1 kansas city current

No disrespect to other teams in the league, but if we decided to make this a best-of-7 for the championship I’d break several pens trying to aggressively sign the contract to make it happen. These are tense, highly emotional games, with so much talent on the pitch that the deciding moments could come from any- [camera cuts to Teal Man for some reason]

Ah, well, nevertheless.

It looks like Seb Hines attempted to solve their width problem by getting Banda on the other side of the pitch, with Marta roaming higher on the other side close to left wingback Carson Pickett. Banda used the space to put up outrageous pass receiving g+, but her pass g+ was slightly below average—likely due to that isolation.

I don’t even know, but when you consider that .35 of the Current’s 1.14 total xG was Temwa Chawinga’s goal, well, it makes sense. Orlando’s back five was successful at isolating Chawinga, and the result was very uncommon negative pass and receiving g+. But the thing about Temwa Chawinga is that she only needs a moment, and a poor moment of indecision from Emily Sams turned a frustrating and uncommon performance into a match winning goal. Pure menace.

houston dash 1-4 portland thorns

Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it: Houston, we ha-… {vaudevillian cane yanks me off stage}

Anyway, Houston’s flatline to start the match, which lasted damn hear until halftime, is less than ideal. In fact I’d go so far as to say that it is not good. Bad, even, if I may. It’s clear that Houston are still in a rebuild and will need time, more roster development and investment. But still, oof.

Houston’s pass network looks ok, they just weren’t able to go anywhere or doing anything to be consistently dangerous. Over half their xG total came from a big chance from Messiah Bright that was missed. If the high possession, low chance creation volume is gonna be the game, they’re gonna need more clinical finishing.

So, basically, Portland just did whatever they wanted and their young talents did the rest. It’s not a bad gameplan, in fact it is one I endorse. Caiya Hanks and Pietra Tordin scored outrageous goals, and Payton Linnehan added one too. Having wide players positioned narrowly helped keep pressure on Houston anytime they received the ball. Hanks had low pass and receiving g+, but still got behind to score.

On the other side Linnehan had positive pass and receiving g+. But my favorite performance was Tordin, who played center forward, roamed deep, and still posted an absurdly strong receiving g+. That sort of movement and impact should warrant more starts.

rahsing louisville 0-1 seattle reign

Laura, I do not understand you.

Maybe the gameplan shifted after the delay and they didn’t want players out of routine having to commit to too much, but this was a strange display from a team that, performance-wise, looked to be putting things together.

Or maybe Laura was correct in that if you just give Louisville the ball to see what they’d do with it, they’d probably do something weird. Louisville had 63% of possession, over 400 passes, and put up their highest pass completion percentage of the season so far—and it was only 74%. They used all that to create twenty shots with an average xG per shot of .06, far below league average. Extremely funny from Harvey, and extremely disappointing (and also a bit funny) from Louisville.

In possession Seattle didn’t do much by design. The highlight was Sa Meza, who’s starting to look like the Sam Meza we knew in college. Her perfectly dimed assist for Maddie Dahlien should be up for assist of the week, and would win my vote.

north carolina courage 2-0 chicago tsars

Chicago put up its fifth sub 1.0 xG match of the season, but the good news for GM Richard Feuz is that this has had no impact on their SoccerDonna market value. Anyway, North Carolina got Jaedyn Shaw in their new formation, had a solid enough game defensively, and got two open play goals from Manaka Matsukubo—both from above average xG chances.

It wasn’t perfect though. This is a bit wonky and more disjointed than we’ve seen them since switching to the 3421 formation. Matsukubo’s receiving g+ being lit up bright green is impressive, and I like O’Sullivan and Jackson both pulling strings with positive pass g+ from midfield. Jaedyn Shaw and Ashley Sanchez had 31 and 24 touches respectively, with half of Shaw’s coming in the attacking third and 11 of Sanchez’s coming in that area as well.

Given that, I would have expected more chance creation, which is probs why it wasn’t the best approach to switch formations then stick Shaw on the bench for multiple games. Hopefully they can both cook in it before it gets found out as most three-back formations do.

So, how’s that we can have more possession and control of games thing going? In attack it turned out to be the Ludmila show, with her putting up all three of Chicago’s best chances. On another day she scores, but also wasn’t all the chatter about finding a way to be a more balanced team? If it’s still Ludmila & prayer then I guess there’s more work to be done.

washington spirit 3-3 utah royals

What in tarnation. The Spirit at Audi have been the best show in the NWSL this season but for the complete opposite reason it was also must watch last season. Utah’s goals were the result of calamitous defending by the Spirit, and perhaps another exposing of their intended style of play.

The Spirit went bonkers trying to rescue the game, which appeared to have become 100% futile when Ashley Hatch missed her first penalty since, I think, Grover Cleveland’s second term. But in the end the team was rescued by Casey Krueger, who was absolutely not going to have Caleb up past his bedtime to watch his mom lose.

Monday and Carle being so close was a necessary adjustment to an outlet the Royals found early. The match really changed after Krueger came on at halftime, which swapped Carle to right back. Before all that though, Rose Kouassi was an absolute menace. She created an assist and was routinely giving Utah players nightmares.

The attack cooks, and is full of terrors for anyone defending, but the Spirit have to find a way to stop conceding goals. They let in 28 total goals last regular season, during this recent four game stretch they’ve been scored on twelve times. Oof.

Early, Utah were able to squeeze their way through a pretty disjointed Spirit press to find a reliable avenue of attack. Once the Spirit shut that down, they never found a plan B, or C, or Q or whatever.

bay fc 2-1 angel city

No real analysis to be had here. Angel City players have had to deal with a lot over the pasty two games, and were completely let down by league decisions. Players are human, and humans have to process, and processing looks different and has a different timeline for everyone.

Thankful the procedure wen well and prognosis for Savy King looks good. That’s the most important thing.

Despite the result, still a bit weird from Bay.

Sending an unlimited amount of good vibes to Savy King.

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