nwsl week 25: xG race charts & pass networks

This was the penultimate weekend of the 2024 NWSL regular season and several players were absolutely on one. Real ones might remember that random month in the Premier League in 2006 where every goal of the month nominee could have also been goal of the season or maybe even decade. This week the NWSL decided to outdo that and we ended up with four otherworldly bangers in just one weekend’s worth of games.

Anyway, there’s a lot to get to in the data, including the new-look Spirits getting yet another favorable opponent and gameplan, Seattle playing their goal score-y players and subsequently scored goals, Rob Gale’s curious definition of domination, and several other things I forgot because I write this last and my brain hurts. But there’s more good stuff down there, I promise.

Let’s get to StatsBomb’s xG race charts and pass networks from each match.

seattle reign 2-1 houston dash

This Seattle Reign, unlike the Seattle Reign for the majority of this season, started its best attacking players, who scored goals, and helped them respond after conceding an equalizing penalty. After building up minutes through substitute appearances of 16 and 5 minutes in their last two games, Nérilia Mondésir made her first NWSL start and scored the winner.

reign

It was extremely hilarious but sort of annoying that Seattle lost to Houston a couple weeks ago, when Seattle really needed the points to stay in the hunt for the playoffs. Now that they’ve been officially eliminated, they put on the performance they should have put on—just several weeks too late.

dash

This is actually quite surprising from the Dash, and nothing like what Fran Alonso was having them do earlier in the season. There are some weird shallow diagonal passing routes, like Puntigam to Olivieri and Patterson, but overall this is compact and connected. It’s also been cool to see Olivieri settle into a role and getting more comfortable in the NWSL. She was able to turn her 28 passes into the highest pass OBV of the match by far (.48; Barnes .23).

kc current 4-1 san diego wavé

Since Jill Ellis fired Casey Stoney the Wavé have lost 8 of 11 games (with just one win), conceded 24 goals and scored just 9. They were in 9th position, one position away from a playoff spot, and are now spared from the very bottom of the table by just three points. At the time Ellis said the move washer decision to see if the team could turn things around and make a playoff run.

I’m not sure what sort of playoff run is possible with eight losses out of eleven and trusting a guy with limited coaching experience who nominated himself to get you there, but that’s the gamble Jill Ellis made, and it could not have gone any worse.

current

Strong, deep backline, then let everyone else cook. Sometimes, thanks to Kansas City’s personnel, it’s a gameplan that can do one of those ‘60% of the time it works every time’ things. But it especially works when, say, you’re up against a coach with little experience who’s managed to concede 17 goals in 9 games with one of, if not thee, best center backs in the world.

wavé

Yeah, no.

rahsing louisville 1-0 portland thorns

After this game Portland coach Rob Gale dropped a quote straight from my favorite genre. He talked about how much they dominated the game, how much possession they had and how they didn’t deserve to lose. Pure, uncut loser shit. Especially when .31 xG of Portland’s 1.09 total came from one 94th minute shot.

Winning the xG battle .71 to .49 heading into second half stoppage time is absolutely no one’s idea of domination. if this possession talk is a tell of how Gale views success on the pitch, it’s time to move on from him yesterday.

rahsing

Sears and DeMelo started, finally, but it didn’t matter. Every player in the attacking half put up negative pass on ball value (OBV) and that’s just real yucky. I know I’ve been whining for several weeks about the moves Rahsing made to push for the playoffs, but they have only worked due to the extreme fumbling from other teams around them. On the pitch they have had their least inspiring run of the season.

They’ve lost five on 9, and have been shutout in three of those five losses. In the sixteen games prior to their summer moves, they were only held scoreless five times. It feels like in their desperation to make the playoffs they opted for the best deals available to them, rather than being patient or having the discretion to only pull the trigger on deals that wouldn’t upset the balance of the team.

Instead, during a crucial run to the end of the season, Savannah DeMelo spent a lot of time playing on the wing while Emma Sears hung out on the bench. They turned both things around for this match but it’s too late to expect it all to click.

thorns

This is apparently what domination looks like to Rob Gale. Yes they had the ball a lot, and yes they passed it a lot, but they also went nowhere. They’re all squished at the bottom portion of the middle third with no one introducing verticality and every player on the attacking side of the halfway line putting up negative pass OBV. If this is cookin, Sara Lee deserves a Michelin star.

bay fc 1-0 north carolina courage

Road Courage BACK! After hinting at turning around their road struggles Nahas and the Courage were like nah we were just kiddin we still would rather never leave our house. Honestly, relatable. I get it, and, in many ways, I support it. Problem is, they can’t grab a home playoff game without a road win, so if this is all they can muster once the postseason arrives, it’ll be a Scaramucci of a playoff run for them.

bay

Bay stayed fairly expansive and sort of created a shell around North Carolina that they never got out of. Only two players had positive pass OBV above .01, and six starters posted negative numbers. They still created a handful of quality chances (.23, .30, and .22) without scoring, but Abby Dahlkemper’s third goal for the club spared them from being the first club to draw with Road North Carolina Courage.

courage

Honestly don’t even know what to say anymore lol. This is just kinda what the Courage do away from home. They squish themselves in a block and kick the ball between themselves. I respect that they tried this drastically to overload the left side of Bay’s defense, but with no vertical threat they didn’t really cause many problems. As a result their best chance was a header from center back Kaleigh Kurtz, from a corner.

nj/ny gotham 3-1 orlando pride

Orlando got Gotham’d. Suddenly, a team that was a handful of 90s away from completing the most improbable invincible season in women’s club soccer has lost two in a row. I forgave the first L because they deserved to celebrate, and while this isn’t really an xG race chart that looks like a 3-1 game, those big leaps in Gotham’s xG trendline are the type of chances Orlando had been very good at not allowing all season.

gotham

This should also worry Orlando a bit. Gotham didn’t really impose themselves, but instead used high, aggressive positioning to disrupt buildup and pounce on mistakes. In terms of passing, no one stood out with a particularly impressive game. This really was just Gotham setting traps and punishing the Pride when they stepped in them.

pride

And this should worry Pride fans even further. I don’t think many teams can do this to them, but this is shocking from a team whose balance prevented them from being squeezed into this sort of shape all season. I expect them to shake this off, but now they super need to before the playoffs begin.

washington spirit 2-0 chicago red stars

It’s been quite the gift that when the Spirit suddenly had to reconfigure their entire midfield due to Andi Sullivan’s ACL injury they played two teams who conceded 52 then 57% of possession, and without much of an organized high press. The result here was the Spirit dominating a game that could—and should—have been much more difficult to manage.

Morris’ flying tap-in was a .91 chance that’s a substantial chunk of the Spirit’s overall total, but they still managed to rack up shots, including six at- or above-average chances. Chicago on the other hand, ugh. An attack with Mallory Swanson, Ludmila and Jameese Joseph should be racking up .56 xG every thirty minutes, instead it was all they could manage for the entire game.

spirit

Last week the new-look Spirit found ways to be dangerous by playing narrow and getting the ball into spaces on the edge of the box. This time they switched up and spread out, using the flanks to buildup and keeping their fullbacks close to their respective sidelines. It’s impressive from a midfield composed of three rookies, but eventually someone will press the hell out of them and we’ll see how they respond.

red stars

I don’t like it. I’ll never like it. You can’t make me.

angel city 1-1 utah royals

Now this is an absolut xG scrap. If spreadsheets could fight the aftermath would look like this race chart. You can see how when one team takes some initiative, the other squares and and starts throwing haymakers. It’s amazing, and also extremely hilarious that despite the big xG jumps, both teams scored their lone goal on a .04 xG shot.

acfc

Shoutout to Messiah Bright for maximizing her fourteen passes to put up the highest pass OBV among Angel City’s starters. The rest, well, same ol. You can see the attempt at possession, but it was a lot of passing between defenders, all of whom stayed deep, which didn’t offer many passing options to anyone other than right back Jasmyne Spencer.

Zelem completed seven passes to Alyssa Thompson from central midfield, but with Curry staying deep and no other attacking presence on that side at all, the defense was able to defend her with numbers.

royals

Cloé Lacasse needing to be subbed off in the first half makes this a bit of an incomplete picture but also not really. There wasn’t much in the way of using the ball to create danger or generate chances from anyone on Utah. Their highest value chance came from a corner, and their goal was a free kick banger from Claudia Zornoza.

While I’d like to see more cookage from Mina Tanaka and Ally Sentnor, sometimes you gotta find other ways to get the dang ball into the net. With Angel City clogging midfield and keeping their backline deep and intact, set pieces became their best route to goal.

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