i got five on it: best & worst from the woso weekend

Alright my good people I’m gonna try something new. As you may or may not know, I consume an ungodly amount of woso pretty much every single day but it’s magnified ten-hundred million fold on weekends. Undoubtedly, when one (I) consumes that much there will be lots of things said person (me) will want to discuss.

I truly can be an insufferable person to talk to in real life lol, but since you’re here I’m assuming you’re here for it, and bless you for that. This will be a potentially weekly writeup in which I review five good things (The Good Shit), and five not-so-good things (Ugh, Why Tho?) from the woso weekend. The hope is that the ‘not-so-good’ section shrinks, but let’s be honest with ourselves, there’s a ways to go, and fresh new fuckery always seems to sprout somewhere.

Last thing, pls don’t hesitate to drop a comment letting me know whether you love or hate this. Alright, enough chatter, there’s plenty to get to. So let’s.

The Good Shit

Banda’s hello

After bagging a hat trick in back-to-back games at the last Olympics everyone wanted to know where Barbra Banda would end up. Well we all had to wait three years but she’s finally made a move to a more accessible league, and that just so happened to be the NWSL, via a massive transfer fee.

In her first official start in the NWSL she showed the Spirit, and league, that Orlando underpaid. On a night when Orlando racked up a measly .69 non-penalty xG, Banda helped them bag three goals to beat Washington 3-2 — and she was the central figure in all three.

First, she showed off her speed and awareness by beating center back Ana Bütel to a ball then curling a sweet cross into the box that Angelina put in the back of the net. The second came from a quick reaction after a short corner to be first to head a flicked on ball by Aubrey Kingsbury. The last was terrorizing Bütel yet again, as a dribble across the top of the box baited her to dive in for a no doubt penalty that Summer Yates converted.

A lot of players come to the NWSL and get their ‘welcome to the NWSL’ moment, instead, Banda welcomed the league to her.

Soph makin em dance

Soph didn’t have to do this but I’m so glad that she did.

She had an immediate narrow window to shoot but decided that wasn’t good enough, so shifted and danced for another opening, but that still wasn’t what she wanted. So she continued to force her unwilling dance partner into another series of steps before identifying a suitable window and walloping a shot by Alyssa Naeher into the far corner.

Soph postgame hilarity

Smith capped her performance with a delightful postgame interview in which she became incredulous that her team was taking a photo without her, and shouted to them mid-interview. After recognizing what she’d done she apologized by saying “that was so disrespectful.”

It was a fun, genuine and honest moment that was amazing to see. Though I also saw it as a seemingly perfect microcosm of who Smith is. She’s incredible, fun to watch and thoughtful, but also hyper-competitive and, sometimes, disrespectful in the very best ways.

Emma sears Gotham

This run made me stand up in my living room and cackle hysterically. It’s not dissimilar to the run Midge Purce went on in the NWSL Championship game, except this time it was not an NWSL vet doing the cooking, it was a rookie who was playing for Ohio State just a few months ago.

One day media and maybe even the NCAA will figure out what they have in the college system. It’s wild that, broadly, neither have figured it out yet, considering every year a slew of first-time pros enter the league capable of absolute villainy on the pitch. Please stop making me sound like a woso hipster, I beg of you.

Anyway, back to Sears. It’s one thing to be fast, but being fast and in control is a devastating combination. I wanted to see the sideline view for exactly this reason. Rahsing delivered, and as suspected, the run was even more terrifying. Watch Sears’ face and her strides, she’s not huffing and puffing, running with her head down or in a rush. Instead she’s calm and calculating, despite moving at approximately 900mph.

It really shows in how she setup Emily Sonnett in the box. Sears drove hard inside then chopped back toward the line once Sonnett took the bait and shifted her body. It was a diabolical bit of footballing, and my only request is that it continue.

Selma Bacha’s bullet

More on the UWCL later but I just need everyone to see this goal again. Bacha is known for ripping these sorts of shots, but to sneak the ball in near post, from that angle, with that dip, and with that amount of power signifies an outrageous strike.

Watch, and be moved.

Ugh, Why Tho?

Utah playing soccer

Or, trying to. Over the weekend they played the NWSL’s other struggle queens, Houston Dash, and the xG race chart tells you most of what you need to know about how it went.

What it won’t show you, however, is this extremely funny moment of Utah defending. Goalkeeper Mandy Haught missed a deflected, rolling shot but rookie Lauren Flynn was in position to take control in front of the goaline. Technically, Flynn did her job. There was no goal, but in the process of clearing the ball she wound up and yeeted the ball directly into Haught’s collarbone.

Haught received treatment and was ok, which is important to say on the front end because the way she started crawling back to her line was simply hilarious. It must’ve hurt, and I am sorry about that, but also this was just extremely funny and a terrifically tragic and comical representation of how Utah’s season is going.

Club América signing Alisha Lehmann for

América are one of the top teams in Liga MX Femenil. They have a global fanbase, iconic kits, and play homes games at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City — an iconic venue. When it comes to money and recruitment in woso, they’ve been solid but have failed to attract solid international talent the same way Tigres and Pachuca have, and Rayadas are starting to.

After the head scratching signing of Kheira Hamraoui, América are reportedly following it up with another confusing waste of an international slot, this time by signing Alisha Lehmann.

Lehmann will likely do well against some lower caliber teams, but an academy player could provide a similar spark. What América really need is someone to help close the gap on the three teams above them — not coincidentally, the aforementioned Tigres, Rayadas and Pachuca.

This season for Aston Villa she’s been a poor shot taker and even worse passer. Anytime you can sign a winger who doesn’t shoot, score, dribble or create chances you simply must do it.

This can’t even be chalked up to a bad year. Lehmann’s best year was in 2018/19, when she first arrived in the WSL. Since scoring six goals and dropping three assists that season, she’s yet to hit either number again. Villa even went bonkers last season and scored 47 goals, somehow Lehmann only scored five of those and managed only two assists, despite playing in 22 matches and starting 18.

The reason this is such an annoying signing is that Liga MX Femenil is on the rise and has been. Its top teams focusing on investment into the women’s game has seen a fantastic boom in the domestic product that has fueled a(n about time) resurgence of the national team. Decisions like this aren’t in alignment with where the league should be heading, and is a bit embarrassing from a top club.

To be fair to Lehmann, she’s still only 25, so maybe something clicks and the style of play suits her. However, I still can’t get beyond the thought that América could have used those resources on a player that’d help them on the pitch more than Instagram.

Savannah DeMelo’s concussion test

This sucked. After a nasty collision which resulted in Savannah DeMelo banging her head on the turf, play was halted while she groggily rolled about, waiting to receive treatment. Eventually trainers came to assess her and perform the requisite concussion test.

Somehow, she passed and continued playing. Eighteen minutes later, and after a couple more tumbles that jarred her head, she was back on the ground, with glassy eyes, and finally being subbed off.

I am obviously no doctor, and I am also not slighting the trainers in this particular situation, they seemingly performed their job. But we’ve seen too many times when a visibly dazed player “passes” a concussion test the same way a visibly glassy-eyed DeMelo passed hers, and that might just mean the test needs an update.

It seems that because there’s not (yet) an NFL-caliber problem with head injuries in soccer, and woso specifically, they’re not taken as seriously. But they should be. These impacts can look awful in the moment, but with repeated hits over time, particularly when a player is already in a fragile state, the effects can grow beyond ‘looking scary’ to impactful on quality of life, physical and mental health.

Head injuries ain’t no joke, science has taught us all that over the years. Protecting the players means this sort of stuff, too.

Club León needing a million people to tell them to do the right thing

Ana Campa is a former León player who took a hard shot to the face that left her with permanent vision impairment. Since the injury, she has reported that she’s felt alone, and that the club has not supported her. They gave no guidance as to her injury or treatment, and had been trying to handle it herself for seven months before finally speaking publicly.

Since she came public there has been lots of support and people spreading her message to highlight the situation and force a response from the club. Players this past weekend wore shirts that read ‘Contigo Ana’, similar to the support Jenni Hermoso received post-World Cup.

The pressure worked, as Campa posted a video stating that León had finally agreed to do the right thing and are sending her to a specialist.

hough this is a good result, it’s in the ‘Ugh’ section because it’s obnoxious and wrong that someone has to grow so exhausted that they have to scream, and hope that others help them scream. There is beauty, camaraderie and community in lifting up causes, but players must be exhausted.

León could have simply helped their player, who gave her body and career for the team and was injured in a substantive way while performing her duties to the club. Instead they chose to leave Campa to deal with it all on her own, as though she had no more value, didn’t exist and didn’t deserve fairness as a player, employee or human being.

For more on this situation (and to keep up to date with Liga MX Femenil) I strongly suggest subscribing and listening to Our Futbol.

UEFA, plus Iuliana Demetrescu’s no good very bad god awful day

Ok, I am a fan of Chelsea Football Club’s women’s team. Good, glad that’s out of the way.

Now, having said that, the referee for their second leg UWCL semifinal against Barcelona was atrocious. I know it’s a hard job, but the decisions she made changed the game in a dramatic way, spoiling it as a contest. Chelsea could have finished their chances, and even won, and the referee’s performance still would warrant heavy scrutiny and review.

One decision was flat out farcical, and the other was extraordinarily soft, but even more so than those decisions, the real problem seemed to be Demetrescu not being ready for a match of this importance.

I don’t agree with people claiming she is corrupt, instead it looked and felt like she was in over her head. When it came to the big decisions, she leaned into moments where she felt she needed to do something, rather than actually accurately assessing what was happening in front of her.

The key question to ask is of UEFA, and why they felt like she was qualified to referee a contest of that caliber. This is not a group stage, or even a round of 16. This was a second leg of an intense battle with a trip to the final on the line, to secure a place in the biggest game in football. To this point it was the biggest game of the season, the most anticipated matchup that we’d been waiting months to see. This was no time for trial.

Yet, with only one (1) group stage game and one (1) quarterfinal match under her belt, UEFA thought it was fair to the game, the players and Demetrescu to give her the biggest assignment of the season to this point. The result was predictable: inconsistency, rushed yellow cards, an unreviewable red card, and a ruined contest whose 150 minutes of maximum intrigue was deflated by someone who shouldn’t have been on the pitch at all.