nwsl week 23: xG race charts & pass networks

This week is all about Orlando Thee Pride. It’s absolutely wild that a franchise known for its floundering, even when it had star players, has completely turned it around to win the NWSL Shield with multiple games still to be played. Even more, they did it without having suffered a single defeat. That is an absolutely outrageous thing to be true in the NWSL, it’s not supposed to happen, but the Pride did it, and at times made it look easy.

There’s a ton more to say about them but for now I’m just gonna applaud. Seb Hines being the first Black coach to in an NWSL trophy is extremely dope, and GM Haley Carter has been immense behind the scenes. It’s genuinely so NWSL that a franchise known for its failures is now setting a incredibly high standard. I love it, and their success should be a signal to all front offices to get their shit together.

But of course more happened than Orlando being great. The Red Stars rode lots of luck (and poor finishing from the Dash), Kerolin is back and the Courage look frightening again, Gotham taught Bay several lessons, and the last time the Thorns won an NWSL regular season game Joe Biden was still running for reelection. Pray for the Thorns fans in your life.

Anyway, here’s what it all looked like according to StatsBomb’s xG race charts and passing networks.

houston dash 0-2 chicago red stars

A truly wicked thing happened to the Houston Dash here. I feel sort of bad for them, this was by far their best attacking performance, perhaps all season, and they got exactly zero goals out of it. The Dash had twenty-four (24!) (TWENTY THEE FOUR) shots in the second half, while Chicago responded with…three.

This result shows what having truly dynamic difference-making attackers can do. Dash don’t really have any, and with Ludmila starting now, the Red Stars have two.

dash

Several Dash players put in their best performance of the season and the team’s overall fight was good to see, given the circumstances. It also might not be a coincidence that this happened as soon as Fran Alonso’s future was definitely resolved via his official yeeting. Olivieri absolutely cooked, and gave the non-existent and/or untrustworthy Dash front office a lot to think about when it comes to the team’s next steps.

red stars

This should not have worked lol. I love that Lorne Donaldson is an NWSL coach but I am becoming extremely #concerned about this approach. Defensive football is not my jam, but if you’re gonna do it you need standout defensive players, and outside of Sam Staab who’s out with a torn Achilles, Chicago doesn’t. They have good defenders, but to do this they need, like, Naomi Girmas. Yes, plural.

There’s also the question of whether that approach can succeed in this attack-heavy era of the NWSL. Mallory Swanson and Ludmila are great, but to truly maximize them they have to find ways of generating more opportunities. Hoping for similar results from offensively lopsided games such as this is not a sustainable thing in this league.

seattle reign 0-1 angel city

Both teams had to win this game and only Angel City acted like it. In a must-win match Laura Harvey’s Seattle Reign managed just six shots, including a shot (an shot!) in the first half, and that paltry xG total. Next year must be better, and also, how can it not be?

reign

Tziarra King hooped, not many other other players did. Maybe it’s my fault for believing this Reign team would be reinvigorated by the sale going through and them adding two important players in positions of need. I also have no idea what is going on with Nérilia Mondésir, I know this league is physical and players need time to adapt, but she’s been here for months and Harvey didn’t sub her on until literally the 90th minute. Ok.

acfc

Needing to win this game Becki Tweed went with her ‘create nothing’ midfield and well look at all that bright blue negative pass OBV (On Ball Value) for every midfielder not named Madison Hammond (hers was just .02). Thankfully for Tweed, the wide players decided to cook so it didn’t matter anyway. Vignola showed why, when healthy, she’s such a dynamic player, and Claire Emslie continued her outrageous year with another terrific performance.

nc courage 2-1 san diego wavé

Kerolin back, North Carolina Courage back. In the first 49 minutes of the match the Courage scored two goals and Landon Donovan’s San Diego Wavé had just two shots. The Wavé eventually started to fight back a bit, not coincidentally when Jaedyn Shaw came on after halftime.

However The Haunting of San Diego by Casey Stoney also continued, with Wavé missing chances of .19 and .27 xG before they finally scored their first, then missing shots of .18 and .17 xG to equalize.

courage

We might need to start having #conversations about right back Ryan Williams, who’s been hoopin all season. Her combinations with Sanchez and Kerolin on the right flank were devastating. Also shoutout to 19-year-old Aline Gomes, the Courage typically fail (or not, it seems a feature not a bug but I don’t like it) to get an attacking player closer to the final third than center circle but she wasn’t having it, and I thank her.

wavé

Amirah Ali looks isolated in the central attacking area but she had an absurd .33 pass OBV. That is bonkers from a central striker, but she setup two of the Wavé’s biggest xG chances. Also, please recognize future Ballon d’Or winner Naomi Girma, whose forward passing was absolutely critical without a midfielder spending much time on her side of the center circle.

nj/ny gotham fc 5-1 bay fc

Sweet Mother Mary Josephine Baker. This was a brutal result that I hope doesn’t scare Bay away from their newfound zoominess. Zooming is the best move, they just need to find the finishing. But shoutout to Gotham’s defense on Racheal Kundananji and Asisat Oshoala, after Oshoala’s early goal neither took a shot at or above average xG the rest of the match. Instead, the best chances fell to Tess Boade, Dorian Bailey, and Princess Marfo.

Gotham’s penalty added .78 xG to their total but my math still has that as high af. Two open play xG chances of over .70 will do that. Despite midweek W Champions Cup matches, the Bats look like they’re not only getting healthier, but starting to peak.

gotham

Sonnett, Ryan and Sheehan ate the left side of Bay’s defense up. Jess Carter chipped in with a little razzle dazzle of her own. The average positioning shows a lot about how Gotham were able to be so successful. They kept their center backs narrow to defend Oshoala and Kundananji, and hit Bay in wide areas whenever they gained possession.

bay

Ok hear me out, memory wipe the scoreline from your brain and Bay kinda cooked a little bit. Kundananji, Dydasco and Hill had pass OBV numbers equal or above Gotham’s highest rated player (Ryan), and Tess Boade sprinkled a little sauce as well. Problem for Bay continues to be missing chances, which played into Gotham’s hands. Oh and well defending in their box was also a problem, so.

rahsing louisville 0-2 kc current

First of all shoutout to Temwa Chawinga for tying Sam Kerr’s goal record, a record I thought would fall eventually, but not from a player in their very first season in the league. Kerr spent six season in the NWSL before setting the record in her seventh. Temwa said time is money and just straight up did it year one. Absurd.

rahsing

This was a really bad opponent for Taylor Flint to be missing against, but sometimes when you have octopus legs you’re gonna foul a lot and suspensions for yellow card accumulation will happen. Head coach Bev Yanez was forced to push DiGrande and Borges deep, which got DeMelo back at CAM and Sears back into the XI, but Kansas City is not a good opponent to be without your sturdiest central defensive presence.

current

Shoutout to Vanessa DiBernardo for having a banger of a game. Her pass OBV was the highest of the match, and she scored an absolute banger of a free kick (.05 xG). If she’s back to being her early season MVP-conversation self, the Current will be a massive problem in the playoffs.

portland thorns 1-2 utah royals

This looks like an even match on the xG chart but Portland’s penalty (.78) makes it look a lot better than it was. Christine Sinclair missed the Thorns’ best non-penalty chance, a .19 shot, and had just one other above average chance (.11) the rest of the game. Oof.

thorns

The Portland Thorns have not won an NWSL regular season match since July 5th. July. Fifth. As in, five days into the month of July, which was three months ago. Three. Whole entire months. That is 25% of the months in one year. I appreciate that Rob Gale is well-liked and all, but ‘hey you guy down the hall’ is very often not the most thorough or best process for finding a head coach.

Also, Portland’s player recruitment has been weird. They seem to be unaware of positions they actually need to fill and instead mashed the Jessie Fleming and Alexa Spaanstra buttons because they could.

royals

Utah finally got to start a match with all summer signings (Cloé Lacasse, Mina Tanaka and Claudia Zornoza) plus rookie of the year in the non-Croix Bethune division, Ally Sentnor. I’m not sure I loved Sentnor playing as the CAM, that seemed like a call out of sheer desperation earlier in the season but their attack is much improved now.

I kinda wanna see Sentnor back on the left so she can stay closer to goal, Lacasse on the other flank and Tanaka doing a shadow striker #10 thing. Anyway, maybe I’ve been playing too much EAFC25 but I think it’d cook Iron Chef-like.

orlando pride 2-0 washington spirit

The best team story in sport is the 2024 Orlando Pride. What they’ve accomplished this season is unreal, not just winning the NWSL Shield, but remaining unbeaten so far. What they’ve done to turn this around has been the result of a lot of hard behind the scenes work, and the results should raise the standard across the league.

Having said all this, ugh, this was not how the matchup of the top two teams in the league was supposed to go. The Spirit were missing half their damn squad, and it looked like it. They competed, but Orlando hasn’t lost for a reason, and a team missing five of their best players was always unlikely to seriously threaten that record.

pride

Orlando had to be patient. The Spirit’s gameplan was semi-diabolical but it’s all they could do to compete. The halftime score of 0-0 was surprising, but then, as good teams somehow always do, they got a penalty and the wickedest of deflections to make it look comfortable.

spirit

Diabolical football. I understand it. And, in many ways, I was even impressed by it. But diabolical nonetheless.

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