Well, the news of Casey Stoney’s firing certainly changed the tone of this week’s wrapup from a data point of view. Stay wild, NWSL.

Even without that though, there were some extremely intriguing battles. The scoreline probably flattered Kansas City, but they were also super smart in how they attacked Portland. Two teams suffered first half red cards, and responded quite differently. Plus a couple teams who’d seemingly turned the proverbial page dipped back into bad habits.

Here’s what the week looked like according to StatsBomb’s xG race charts and passing networks.

orlando pride 6-0 utah royals

America Worst.

pride

Orlando had all but their two center backs in Utah’s half. Barbra Banda’s average positioning was literally inside Utah’s penalty area. Rekt.

royals

Just eleven players on a pitch, each fighting for their life with no support.

houston dash 0-0 san diego wavé

Yuck.

dash

After bucking their trend of sitting deep to stun North Carolina 3-0, the Dash have reverted to their old selves against Angel City and now San Diego. Not coincidentally, no starter had a positive pass OBV, they scored zero goals in those matches and finished with .67 xG against LA and a truly offensive .40 against San Diego.

wavé

The Wavé’s personnel is suddenly a bit square peg round hole with Casey Stoney’s preferred styles and structures. Credit to her, they were trying to make a fairly substantial shift in the way they play but has now been yeeted as head coach.

The good news is that they outshot Houston 10 to 6, although the other side is that they only got three of those shots on target, with only one hitting double digit xG (.11, Torpey).

bay fc 1-0 angel city

Getting an early one goal lead allowed Bay to go into protect mode for the last ~25 minutes, where they registered literally nothing. Angel City seemed like they kept battling, but their total number is a bit of a mirage. Syd Leroux missed a .58 xG chance early, without it their total drops to .50.

bay

There was a bit of a trend this week in teams who appeared to be figuring things out, reverting back to poor habits. Bay got the win and scored in open play (through three Angel City defenders turning their back on a runner into the box), but this expansive shape with players not particularly close together, particularly in midfield, is the kind of weirdness we saw too much of early in the season.

acfc

Pancaked.

portland thorns 1-4 kc current

The xG race tells a more flattering story of the match than the scoreline, but still not a good one for Portland.

thorns

Sam Coffey not being in midfield for any team she’s a part of can cause a big problem, and the same happened here. Portland’s midfielders were routinely jumped by Kansas City, creating chance after chance in transition while starving the Thorns of quality chances.

Of their fourteen shots that registered xG, just five came inside the box, just one near the six-yard box, and only one was above .05 xG.

current

While Portland used numbers to make up for Sam Coffey’s absence in the XI, the Current were happy to surround them and attack wide areas once they got the ball.

Also, Michelle Cooper is becoming a bit of a problem on the wing, which is not something I expected after watching her at Duke. She used her accuracy and a powerful shot to score several bangers in college, but on the wing she’s been able to temper the power and focus on accurately picking players out in the box, leading to her .28 pass OBV being the highest of the day.

nj/ny gotham fc 0-2 washington spirit

Goals change games, and red cards change games. Gotham had the Spirit pinned deep until they found a way to break free and go up 1-0. Then Yazmeen Ryan’s second yellow at 45+9 (lol wtf) altered the match even further.

Gotham’s total suggests they held their own, but remember penalties account for .78 xG, and it was more an unforced error for handball than Gotham forcing a bad or last ditch decision.

gotham

Rules are rules and all but it sucked to see a match of this caliber altered significantly by what had to be a simple miscommunication. Anyway, for a hot second Gotham’s mad press had the Spirit trapped with no outlet.

They had six shots that registered xG in the first 38 minutes, and four of those came in the first fourteen minutes! During the stretch Washington only had one, but it was the one they scored. The finishing gods are consistent on this: miss chances, get punished.

spirit

This is basically game management. For a team that’s gotten quite good at noticing space and number advantages, going down a player makes things much easier for them. Still, it took an unexpected banger from rookie Courtney Brown, and a thunderblast from Trinity Rodman to get their 2-0 lead.

It could have been worse for Gotham, and a player up it probably should have been. The Spirit missed chances of .27, .21 and .16 xG (all above the per shot average of .11).

nc courage 3-1 chicago red stars

The Courage remembered how to do goals, and it was good.

courage

Standard stuff from the Courage. Strong passing links, lotta forward connections, spots of quality pass OBV across the pitch, and no real central attacking threat.

red stars

Not unexpected from Chicago either. A low and flat 442, they just weren’t able to generate enough chances or get Mallory Swanson — their primary threat — more than two shots (one she scored).

seattle reign 1-1 rahsing louisville

A 10th minute red and 11th minute pen will do this to the game flow. Reilyn Turner’s extremely late equalizer was .44 of the team’s overall .75 xG total. Even without the penalty, Reign was up a player and produced over 1.0 xG.

Much of that came in three shots, with Balcer missing a .32 chance, and Latsko missing .30 and .18 chances. Again, the finishing gods remain consistent: finish your chances, or face embarrassment.

reign

Reign pushed high and dominated midfield, as one should when their opponent goes down a player within ten minutes.

rahsing

And this is what to expect when you go down a player ten minutes in. Still, shoutout to Jaelin Howell. Her header assisted Turner’s goal which is the primary reason her bubble is bright red, but she also had positive pass OBV numbers to Marissa DiGrande, Savannah DeMelo and Taylor Flint.

Passing isn’t necessarily Howell’s ministry, but it’s worth noting that in a match the Reign heavily dominated in midfield, she was able to find passing connections to relieve pressure and position attacks.

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