i got five on it: the year of the hater

My life has been totally consumed by the rap beef between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. If I’m honest, as a longtime side-eyer of Drake, I’ve been waiting for this day. What Pusha T did was incredible, but it took a real hater like Kendrick Lamar to deliver a requisite and pure concentration of hate.

Since he did, the only songs I’ve intentionally listened to over the past week have been ‘euphoria’, ‘Not Like Us’, and the absolutely perfect and hilarious comedic banger by some dude named King Willonius, ‘BBL Drizzy’. I literally cannot stop randomly blurting ‘BEE BEE ELLLLL DRIZZAYYY’ from my diaphragm, for no reason at all other than it makes the hater in me happy.

In the spirit of this, I’ve decided to bring a semi-theme of hate to this edition. Not all hate is toxic, sometimes it’s in the job description and can lead to incredible moments deserving of celebration. Other times it’s persuading a scientific law into hate by association. And sometimes it’s Mother Nature, a football federation, the natural career cycle of club legends, or a referee all being wack.

Let’s get into the good and bad of the week.

The Good Shit

Croix Bethune truthers, celebrate

Bethune’s tricky, silky, downright villainous style of play was on display for several years in college, making her one of the most intriguing prospects to enter the league. A handful of games into her professional career she’s already been named Rookie of the Month and done something only seven players have ever done in NWSL history — drop three assists in one game.

Because I love you, but more importantly because you need to see them, here are all three:

Rodman wanted this ball played earlier but Bethune gambled and held on, betting that she could craft a better opportunity. She did. The best part about this one is how she baited Rodman’s closest defender to put Rodman BEHIND her, then slipped in a perfectly weighted throughball (this would become a theme).

This was the assist that could be viewed as more about the finish because it was simply absurd from Brittany Ratcliffe. But don’t sleep on the weight of this pass. To inject enough velocity to split defenders, and enough spin to strand Naeher, is truly villainous behavior.

And yet, this one is my favorite. Seeing supremely talented athletes at the height of confidence is one of the best possible things, and that is absolutely Bethune here. This is a left-footed outside-of-the-boot curling pass into space behind the backline, with perfect weight. Watch Bethune casually walk away after hitting the pass, admiring the panic and goal that she caused.

Veronica Latsko + physics hate the Wave

This game was wild. A throwback Danielle Chesky performance (more on that later) put Seattle down a player, and two minutes later, a goal, before twelve minutes had been played.

There was some arguing online about Tziarra King’s red card, and all I’ll say is that the word ‘deliberate’ is in the rulebook. King definitely swung her arm backwards, but it’s real hard to say she deliberately aimed for the face. This is why, in addition to red cards, referees have yellow ones.

Anyway, onto this header because it was glorious. Veronica Latsko has a history of tempting physics to join in her master plans from time to time, and for some reason often against San Diego.

This, right here, is madness.

Shelby Hogan with a mighty fine piece of late game hating

One could argue that the biggest haters on any football pitch are the goalkeepers. This isn’t to slight them personally, it’s in their job description. They’re intended to stop, block, deflect or erase impending moments of joy just before they reach their apex.

In a way, they’re quality control, and it helps ensure that when they are beaten, that joy is warranted. It doesn’t always work out that way; cheap and/or hilarious goals can be conceded, but also they can save goals they have no business saving, popping balloons and flipping over the cake just as the guest of honor arrives.

Croix Bethune had just dropped three assists and was lining up an outside of the box volley to steal a point away at Portland. Hogan, meanwhile, was on the ground after reacting to some deflections and ricochets. Bethune had Hogan in a vulnerable spot and struck a sweet volley to the top right corner. Except Hogan sprung to her feet and leapt, all in one motion, to punch the shot away.

Shelby Hogan, you are a true hater. Respect.

WSL title race goes bonkers

I’m a Chelsea fan, and this pleases me. Not gonna lie, it’s not entirely deserved since Chelsea wouldn’t be in this position if they could have simply successfully defended one, maaaaaybe two set pieces against Liverpool.

They couldn’t, and Liverpool scored in the 81st and 90+2 to win 4-3, and the title appeared to be lost with three games to go and suddenly three points to make up just to draw level again.

And then this sequence of events happened when Manchester City hosted Arsenal:

— Man City 1-0 Arsenal, Hemp 17’
— Man City 1-1 Arsenal, RAP NAME BLACKSTENIUS 89’
— Man City 1-2 Arsenal, RAP NAME BLACKSTENIUS 90+2

Gareth Taylor deserves some blame for opting to sit back so early and invite pressure for a sustained period with only a 1-0 lead. But still, this was a slipup, just like Chelsea had, so as long as Chelsea didn’t go bonkers against Bristol City to make up the goal difference, City still held the edge.

And then:

— Chelsea 1-0 Bristol, Reiten 6’ [pen]
— Chelsea 2-0 Bristol, Nüsken 23’
— Chelsea 3-0 Bristol, Beever-Jones 52’
— Chelsea 4-0 Bristol, Reiten 56'
— Chelsea 5-0 Bristol, Reiten 70’
— Chelsea 6-0 Bristol, Charles 74’
— Chelsea 7-0 Bristol, Reiten 77’
— Chelsea 8-0 Bristol, Beever-Jones 88’

It’s not fucking over.

Asisat Thee Photographer

This is super dope. I love when athletes have a passion outside of the sport they excel in and are able to pursue opportunities while still playing. It often gets lost that they’re three-dimensional beings too, and being excellent at something doesn’t means it must be your only passion and sole focus every hour. That’s called unhealthy behavior, and is too often expected and encouraged in professional sports.

Anyway, apparently Nigerian striker Asisat Oshoala loves photography, and had a chance at a recent game she missed due to injury to showcase her skills for her new club.

But the passion goes much deeper, it seems. Apparently FIFA received and approved photographer accreditation for Oshoala. When South Africa and Benin Republic play in a World Cup qualifier, running around the outskirts of the pitch in a brightly colored photographer’s vest will be Asisat Oshoala — and that’s dope.

Ugh, Why Tho?

FAZ, and FIFA, figure it out…

Apparently, Zambia’s women’s team (plus upcoming games for their men’s and U17 girls team) could be disqualified from participating in this summer’s Olympics, and upcoming WAFCON too. The reason stems from a potential suspension by FIFA for “undue influence by third parties”.

Luke Bosher of The Athletic has a story that does a good job of summing up the situation.

The reason for the scrambling appears to be over corruption from within FAZ, which includes money spent for non-members of FAZ to travel to Ivory Coast during the recent men’s AFCON.

All of this is to say that yeah, this appears to be another case of men in football behaving poorly, and corruptly, and it impacting the actual players. Obviously, that shit shouldn’t happen. But what’s frustrating is that FIFA, with all its issues of corruption and very healthy bank accounts, can’t find a way to punish bad actors in federations without also punishing players.

A competent and truly helpful organization would find a way to implement a special exception to support players and teams so they could still compete. FIFA could and should assume travel and lodging costs, and ensure funds from the competition should go directly from FIFA to players and staff, not the federation.

FIFA’s own mission statement is to ‘govern football and to develop the game around the world’. There are several ways in which they fail to live up to this stated motive, but in this specific case removing teams from competitions works directly against developing the game.

Danielle Chesky gets back to her old self

Honestly, I dislike talking about referees. I also dislike talking about referees by name. But sometimes it’s unavoidable. To Chesky’s credit, she’s grown in the job and that should be noted. Chaos used to be the minimum expectation of a Chesky match, but over the past year or two she’s improved in her ability to manage games.

That was going well until this weekend’s Seattle Reign vs. San Diego Wave match. It is human that, every now and then, no matter our age or experience, there are moments when we miss who we used to be, and want to cosplay as that person again. This is the underlying urge behind mid-life crises, and probably skinny jeans. It’s why a grandparent might smirk at you before pushing more firmly on the gas pedal.

Reclaiming youth is common, and sometimes cathartic. I’m not sure if that’s what happened to Chesky in this match, but the results were familiar.

Not only did she show a ninth minute red card that was a yellow at best, she whistled for 35 fouls, showed eight yellow cards, and capped it off with another red (this time deserved) at 90+15. Look at the amount of stoppage time and referee interventions, it was proper reliving of a former self.

Protecting the players is important and it was a physical contest, and to be honest I’d rather lean toward too much ref involvement than too little. But there is a limit. While this was a physical contest, it didn’t seem to warrant this level of intense scrutiny from the center ref.

Whatever the cause, I hope she enjoyed living as a former self for a while. Sometimes, it’s necessary.

Fran Kirby leaves Chelsea, oceans of tears ensure

This day became realer and realer with each month and week that went by without announcement of a contract extension. Now that the season is near its end, it’s confirmed.

I’m going to write a longer piece on Fran Kirby and Chelsea, because she deserves it, and has been one of my favorite ever players to watch. There’s a lot to say and there are a lot of emotions. It may be time, I dunno, and I dunno what her next step will be, but it sounds like it will be a continuation of her career, which means wearing another shirt, which will be just as, or even weirder, than Emma Hayes on the touchline for the USWNT.

Kirby gave us some tremendous moments, a tremendous amount of humanity, including personal sadnesses and joys from elite performances — and fans shared in it all, in support and in love.

Mjelde too, dammit

The precursor to Kirby’s announcement came the day before, in Maren Mjelde’s official goodbye. Mjelde was also an icon at the club, and while not to the level of Kirby (defenders rarely reach those heights, so no disrespect to her), she pulled the club through some incredible moments.

One of the worst experiences watching Chelsea FCW was her brutal knee injury in a 6-0 Conti Cup Final victory over Bristol. Chelsea were flying and joyful, then horror struck. Players carried her shirt with them through the trophy lift to locker room celebrations.

Mjelde worked her way back and ended up playing a massive role in the team’s domestic and UWCL success last season. In England she stepped into the backline and put in much needed vintage performances late in the season. Then, against Lyon in the UWCL, put on one of the iciest performances from the penalty spot that I’d ever seen.

Mother Nature being an elite hater, at a very wrong time

The NWSL’s new broadcast deal that splits games across multiple platforms is not ideal for consistent and die-hard viewers, but was important in terms of growing its audience and meeting people wherever they might be. A big part of that is getting onto the biggest platforms a broadcaster has to offer.

This year we’ve seen NWSL on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and Big Body CBS. The latter had another opportunity over the weekend, with Houston Dash up against Kansas City Current.

It was very much a top-of-the-table vs. bottom-of-the-table matchup, which meant we were either going to see a high-flying team continue to ascend upon a mound of goals, or a team shed the struggle to put in a mighty and possibly season-redefining performance.

Everything was all going well. The Current dominated the first half but were only up 1-0, paving the way for an intriguing second half. But before it could kickoff, the weather turned horrendous.

Houston’s halftime graphic was posted at 2:14pm ET, and the league posted that the game would resume at 6:13pm ET. That’s right, one whole damn minute before officially hitting the four hour mark in the delay.

Rightfully so, the weather in the area was severe, but the timing sucks. There aren’t a ton of primetime slots built into the schedule, as games are spread between multiple networks. Losing a major one this early in the season is frustrating and disappointing. The only solace is that it wasn’t a moment wasted by technical difficulties or a network making poor decisions, instead it was Mother Nature proving that even she is susceptible to internalized sexism.

Though I guess one person was happy since CBS used the delay to replay the 2023 NWSL Championship game, giving Korbin Albert a chance to relive one of her favorite moments. Ugh.