nwsl week 26: xG race charts & pass networks

The final week of the NWSL was a banger. Though the chaos didn’t fully chaos and every held their positions (except Chicago, who fell to 8th), there were bangers, tekkers, some history made and several players going pure demon mode.

I’ll have playoff previews for you later, but let’s look at the final NWSL weekend according to StatsBomb’s xG race charts and pass networks.

utah royals 1-4 nj/ny gotham

Gotham are doing that ‘peaking at the right time’ thing and it is sort of terrifying. Last year’s champions look like they want seconds and, on their day, there might not be anything anyone can really do about it. In this game three of their goals were among their lowest xG value chances, but they also created chances of .16, .18 (twice), .26, .28 and .73 that weren’t scored. The scoreline is emphatic, but could have been an even more resounding statement.

royals

Trapped in the Gotham chokehold. They force you to move the ball around a lot in your own area where they put pressure on you to make mistakes. That starves the attackers of service, and when one gets the ball they rarely have anyone to connect with. This is extremely evident in the blue bubbles of everyone in the attacking half, and none having passing lines between them.

gotham

A little bit more open than we typically see Gotham, but the commitment to the high press is evident. Jess Carter also hangs back to give them a back-3 while the other fullback pushes up. That fullback was Mandy Freeman, and she scored an absolute banger from outside the box. A lot of coaching is putting players in the right positions and giving them confidence, and Freeman’s strike seemed to be a product of exactly that.

portland thorns 3-0 angel city

This is what we in #TheBiz call getting soccer’d, like, right in the face. Conceding three goals from .96 xG allowed is a brutal way for Angel City to end their season, but not entirely undeserving of the year they’ve had. A big offseason is finally here, and they have several things to get right. As for Portland, well, I summarized my thoughts in GIF form.

thorns

Goals change games in more ways than the arrangement of lights on the scoreboard. This is a hilarious pass map, but with two early goals and Angel City not taking enough risks to push players high, it was all about pressing and keeping them pinned. By that measure, job done, even if it looks extra silly.

acfc

I actually feel bad for Angel City here. This is not an ideal pass map, but compared to Portland’s it’s at least worth hanging on the fridge. This goes to show how much game state can influence gameplans, and also data. Early goals let Portland get away with some nonsense because their aim had changed, and when Angel City needed to get expansive and fight back, Tweed turtled it.

orlando pride 3-2 seattle reign

The 2024 Orlando Pride were in the sudden and super unexpected position of needing to bounce back from a two-game losing streak. Things started off well, then Seattle responded, then things looked more normal, then Seattle scored again lol. Eventually they held onto the win, which was much needed, but also the best defense in the league has conceded 7 goals in their last three games.

For Seattle, I am just so confused at whatever Laura Harvey has been up to. The team had a chance to make the playoffs—possibly the best chance of any outside team—but she refused to start Mondésir until there were two games left in the season and they’d gone on a five match losing streak while scoring literally zero goals during that stretch. Genuinely confounding and absurd.

pride

The xG shows that the Pride had their way in this match and the pass network backs that up. Their primary issues came via a suddenly unstable defense which let a team that scored just two goals in six games score two more with .74 xG.

reign

Still disconnected but a lot more positive pass OBV, particularly from midfield. This had been among the many things the Reign have been awful at. But they regularly found Tziarra King in space and she had a good connection with Jordyn Huitema, who scored from a King cross. This is by no means perfection, but if the Reign played this lineup with this level of execution, they’d be preparing for a playoff game right now.

nc courage 0-1 washington spirit

Good lord. I did not expect the Spirit’s all-rookie midfield to completely hem up the North Carolina Courage at home for 78 minutes. The Courage’s one big chance was big enough (.39 xG) for them to feel like they deserved a draw. But also, they went damn near 80 minutes without a shot. At home. Oof.

courage

The Courage most certainly will not be using this starting XI in the playoffs, but enough familiar names started that it was still a bit shocking to see them struggle as much as they did. Though Ashley Sanchez and Denise O’Sullivan came on at halftime it still took over a half hour for the team to find its groove. Being pushed back and squished like this is extremely not how the Courage maintained a dominant home record all season, bar this game.

spirit

Another weird thing is that it ain’t like the Spirit absolutely cooked either. They played a patient, cautious but intense game and were able to keep the Courage from breaking their lines. It was a good gameplan, and a .03 Ashley Hatch banger gave them the goal that maximized the result.

Also, shoutout to Casey Krueger as well, that average positioning plus bright red pass OBV shows why she’s such a quality player. She defended well and still found opportunities to be incisive with her passing. Said it before and I will always say it, she really should have been a 100-cap national team player.

houston dash 2-3 bay fc

Bay are gonna create a bunch of chances but the majority of them are low quality. It’s fine, as long as they continue creating and eventually put a few away. In this game they did, but also Houston have one of the most porous defenses in the league, and didn’t have Jane Campbell between the posts. Houston hung and hooped as long as they could, which turned out to be for only aboooooout forty-five minutes.

dash

Not enough central verticality here but there is width, there are connections, and quite a decent amount of ball movement. Problem are all the blue and green bubbles, which indicates a lack of progressive and/or dangerous passing. Still, it doesn’t show here but Bárbara Olivieri has started to cook toward the end of the season. She’s always been supremely talented, and she’s still only 22. If they can be smart this offseason (which, well, it’s Houston to tbd), she’s a player they can build around in midfield and attack.

The sample size is 8.2 90s since September but Olivieri has been outta control in the best way possible. She’s played 8.2 90s and has a .24 pass OBV and .27 dribble & carry OBV. In that same period of time only three have been better in dribble & carry (Banda, Kouassi, A. Thompson), and pass OBV (Kundananji, Shaw, Izzy Rodriguez). That’s out of all NWSL players with a minimum of 300 minutes played in that span. Yeah, she’s gonna be fun to watch next year.

bay

Get the ball to Kundananji and let her cook worked expertly, and led to one of the best sequences of the entire season. It’s a volume game, but when Bay can keep service consistent, Kundananji usually delivers. Shoutout to Rachel Hill who also hooped in attack, which is a thing that continues to make the bag drop for Penelope Hocking even more curious. Imagine if they’d gone after, say, Claudia Zornoza instead.

chicago red stars 1-3 kc current

It is truly my hope that this was the game the Red Tsars decided to fight back. Their defense-first, hit-and-hope gameplan was shredded by Kansas City in the first half. In the second the Tsars opened up a bit (everything is relative, but still) scored early and dominated the xG battle for that half. No really, KC’s total was .16, while Chicago put up 1.16.

Game state matters of course, and there was no reason for the Current to shift back into top gear, but had Schlegel also scored Chicago’s second highest chance of the game (.24) in the 64th minute, the last half hour could have been extremely interesting.

red stars

Is that a non-low block? Are those progressive midfield passes? Is that multiple players pushed higher up the pitch to join Mal Swanson? It’s one game but I truly hope this sticks. That low block hasn’t been successful, and is a major reason why Chicago tumbled from solidly 6th to the last playoff spot. Good luck versus Orlando and all but literally turning one of their 7 losses in the final ten games into a win would have kept them 6th.

current

Scoring three goals in a ten minute span in the first half will change things so I’m not too bothered with this. Also, that goal outburst was without record breaking goalscorer Temwa Chawinga. The Current remain full of attacking confidence and very scary.

rahsing louisville 1-1 san diego wavé

The xG race looks even and honestly that should make Louisville feel bad. The results from the weekend meant their playoff lives were already six feet under before kickoff, but San Diego had to fly across the country due to Snapdragon being a pit, Delphine Cascarino traversed an ocean then the length of this country then back to Louisville, Naomi Girma didn’t play, and Landon Donovan is still their coach.

rahsing

All that and yet Louisville ended the season with this weirdness. Players in the defensive half passing the ball back and forth while the attacking players hung out, being largely ignored. I understand Louisville felt like they needed to make big moves to try and drag themselves up from 9th and into the playoff spots, but it doesn’t appear that these were the right moves, and Yanez struggled to make it all fit. So they finished 9th. Again.

wavé

If you’re new here then just know that I have spent a lot of time writing onto the internet and talking into microphones about Jaedyn Shaw playing centrally. She did, she balled, she scored, and put up .20 pass OBV (second highest among outfield players). Also, the Lundkvist/Cascarino connection was impressive, which is truly one of those hilariously unexpected yet true things the NWSL provides.

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