Get thee to a television at noon today, you will be in for a weird one (complimentary or derogatory, let’s find out together).

Washington and Louisville want to do two very different things on the pitch. There’s an awkward Dennis Miller-style joke to be made here but thankfully I’m not cringe enough to try making one — yet. These teams’ contrasting styles is a recipe for things to get quite spicy. Here’s a breakdown of each team, players to watch, matchups each will need to win, and then my prediction (ew).

Style of Play

The Spirit have become a solid, dynamic and entertaining team under Adrián González — just on their own schedule. His constant preaching and teaching of ‘spaces’ over positions has led to quite a few success stories from a player development perspective. González and the Spirit identify and recruit versatile players so they’re able to not only adapt to opponents in-game, but also alter their approach multiple times within the same possession. When they’re at full flow, it’s tremendous stuff to watch.

In attack there’s the natural urge to overload the right side — typically Trinity Rodman’s side — to provide multiple passing options and connections to defenders can’t focus on double-teaming Rodman out of the game. But their progressive pass heatmap above shows that’s not their only trick, and can attack the box from all angles.

Out of possession the Spirit rely on their rest defense to block quick outlet passes, an intense press to pin teams, and an equally intense counterpress in regain possession before opponents can build into their defensive third. Since the break they’ve allowed just 1.12 xG per 96, which is third best in the league (Current, Gotham).

When everything goes according to plan, they’re a juggernaut. They keep defenders guessing and seemingly push and pull them wherever they want, and pop the ball in, around and through them. Defensively, they can be smothering. But when things get a chaotic, they can panic, lose their shape, get pinned deep, and start hoofing clearances to nowhere in particular. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does they haven’t yet shown that they can calmly reset the match in their favor.

While the Spirit are much better from a player injury standpoint, certainly from what they were experiencing months ago. Dynamic new addition Deb Abiodun will miss the game with an ankle injury picked up on national team duty with Nigeria, and Trinity Rodman will see limited minutes (if any) as she’s recovering from a sprained MCL.

The club have done a terrific job of recruitment, so a questionable Rodman isn’t going to significantly lower their chances of winning. But it does mean that other players will have to make up for the work she does in attack and defense. Abiodun has shown the ability to be a wrecking ball on defense, and could have easily carried that load. Now it will be up to everyone else.

Player to Watch

Any time Croix is on the pitch there’s the sense that anything can happen, because it usually does — or, at least, used to. This is only her second year as a professional, and her first was cut short at the midway point due to a knee injury. She’s struggled with little injuries here or there, but has made 20 appearances (16 starts).

However, this season she hasn’t been able to have the impact she had in her rookie season when she tied the single season assist record (10).

Part of this is all the change at the Spirit, from the move back to Adrián González after Jona Giráldez went to Lyonnes before the break, to new attacking players joining the squad over the summer which resulted in lots of lineup mixing and matching. Croix was at her best when she and Ouleye Sarr were sharing the same wavelength. With Sarr missing the entire season with a back injury, Bethune hasn’t been able to find a similar connection with new arrivals Sofia Cantore or Gift Monday. (There was a decent connection with Ashley Hatch, but she is rather pregnant right now.)

As a result, a lot of Croix’s clever movements, slip balls, flicks, touches, and throughballs have been a foot or two off all season. As a result, she has 2 goals and 1 assist from 3.03 expected goals (xG) and 2.19 expected assists (xA).

Louisville will likely try to slow her down with some cynical fouling, but there should still be space for her to cook, and now would be a good time for 2024 Croix to show up.

Must-Win Matchup

This here fancy dancy scatter plot shows the passes per defensive action (PPDA), generally used to measure the intensity of a team’s press (how many passes are they allowing before a player engages in some sort of defensive action), and shots against. Gotham’s chaotic pressing selves are top of the chart, allowing under 9 shots per 96, and being the most press happy team in the league.

Limiting touches and disrupting connections between players is Louisville’s kryptonite. If they can’t make the long connections they want, they’ll be forced to pull players closer and build up, which would be a massive dub for the Spirit.

Style of Play

Lol. Lmao. (Complimentary). The vertical metric is average vertical pass distance, and horizontal represents average passes per possession. As you can see, #DatPurp are in a galaxy by themselves. They boot the ball further up the pitch than anyone in the league by far, and have the fewest number of passes per possession, also by far.

Despite the tactical variety that exists in the NWSL now, this is the foundation upon which the league was built. Some people look down on direct, transition soccer, but those people are called haters, and tremendous ball not knowers. The whole point of the game is to score goals, and the best way to do that is by 1) getting behind the defense, and 2) getting into the final third as often as possible. Transition soccer does this. (Also funny that most haters of transition soccer are European, and the Premier League is basically Legacy NWSL now.)

Anywhomst. The downside of this approach is not being able to maintain possession or develop passing patterns to shift solid defenses around, and also concede gaps for the opposition to target when the ball is lost. To this last point, while #DatPurp have finished the season on a five match unbeaten run and have only lost four of their 13 games since the summer break, they’ve given up the second most expected goals against (xGA) in the league since the break, 1.61 per 96 minutes.

In total they’ve given up 20.89 expected goals in those thirteen games, but have only conceded 14 actual goals. This is likely due to some combination of luck, poor finishing from opponents, and Jordyn Bloomer accessing God Mode on a fairly consistent basis.

The downside to their chaotic approach is that they can never really tell when they’ll have ‘one of those’ games — in either direction. They wrecked the usually defensively stalwart North Carolina Courage 3-1, and also gave up three first half goals to the lowly Utah Royals just a couple months ago. The problem is highlighted in the chart above, if teams are able to get by or around defensive midfielder Taylor Flint, there’s joy to be found in attacking the heart of Louisville’s backline. That is so not what you want.

One reason (beyond Bloomer) this deficiency hasn’t bit Louisville more often is because they’re also monsters from set pieces. A large (maybe pun intended maybe not) part of that is 6’1 Taylor Flint, who they either hit in the forehead from dead ball situations, or use her as a decoy.

In short, Rahsing are chaotic and put a lot of stress on defenses and defensive structures, but kind of only have one neat trick in possession. They supplement that by capitalizing on set pieces, but still gift opportunities to their opponents and have no idea what to do with the ball if forced to hold it for a while.

Players to Watch

Bloomer took over between the sticks when usual starter Katie Lund picked up an injury, and Jordyn has decided to not give the place back. She’s a tremendous shot stopper with the kind of bravado everyone wants in their goalkeeper, and that no one wants their team to face.

When she’s turned up to 11 (which is nearly her default setting) she can pull out extraordinary save after extraordinary save, and seem impossible to beat. The Spirit might want to also avoid penalties, of the four penalty kicks Bloomer has faced, she’s saved three.

While I might’ve gone a bit hipster with my ‘Carson Pickett is Orlando’s player to watch’ thing (tho I stand by it), no such thing will be happening here. A key to Louisville finding success in their style of play is Emma Sears, because lot of this doesn’t work without her specific and unique skillset. She’s always ready to chase a ball sent behind the defense, and has the speed to get there first more often than not.

While Louisville have found other ways — like set pieces — to not solely rely on Sears, she’s still a major part of their attack, and if she’s getting the ball and scoring or assisting, they typically win. She’s scored ten goals and assisted twice this season, and Rahsing have only lost one game in which she’s either scored or assisted.

When a defense figures out how to limit her touches, Louisville struggle. They are 0-0-3 when she has fewer than 20 touches, and 5-4-5 when she has fewer than 30 touches.

Must-Win Matchup

Bloomer vs. Everybody

Louisville have only conceded a combined 1.71 xG to the Spirit in their two regular season matchups, but the most recent of those games was played almost three months ago. In all likelihood the Spirit will drop their highest xG performance against Louisville in this game, and it will be up to Bloomer to keep them frustrated, and her team in it.

The Spirit’s 38.68 total xG on the season is fourth best in the league, only behind the Kansas City Current, The Fighting Moultries, and The Fighting Matsukubos.

They force Louisville to possess the ball. Earlier this season I frequently cackled at how bad Louisville were at buildup play. Then head coach Bev Yanez made the decision to lean into their physical strengths, and it worked.

Their struggles in possessions longer than five passes mean they’re also vulnerable to game state, so if the Spirit get ahead they can afford to give the ball to Louisville and wait for an errant pass or poor touch to gift them an opportunity to extend their lead. Louisville’s record when they’ve attempted 300 or more passes is 4-3-7 (for comparison, the Spirit average 445.8 passes per game).

You see Spirit players visibly frustrated throughout the game. They’ll want to possess and be in control of the game, and if Louisville won’t let them — through making them hesitant by taking possession and countering quickly, or, cynical tactical fouling — the Purp will have them right where they want them.

Spoiler alert I guess but I think the best chance for an upset is San Diego over Portland (I’ll get to why in my preview). But this game still scares me. The Spirit have had a fantastic season, so fantastic that they haven’t had to turn up their intensity in over a month. And now here comes chaotic ass Big Purp whose sole purpose will be to ensnare them in the type of game they hate.

I think the Spirit at Audi will find a way, even if it’s dramatic, but it will not be a fun time for the home team, or the fans. They’ll probably go behind, then rally to turn it around 2-1, potentially in extra time.