{Another one watched on the stream. No issues there, and the images seemed cleaner than usual, don’t know if that is part of the Reign’s sponsor’s involvement–Bootstrapper Studios–or not. Props to their announcing crew as well, although the camera work was a bit rough throughout.}
Bottom line here is that the better team on the night won, with the Reign–especially in the second half–dominating much of the contest. It’s always hard to figure these things out from a single game, but I was very impressed with what I saw as Laura Harvey‘s coaching influence on the Seattle team. This loss just about dooms the Dash’s playoff push, although there are technically enough games left for them to catch the Spirit for the final slot.
Writeups on what happened can be found at Dynamo Theory, Keeper Notes, and elsewhere–as usual, I’ll try to focus more on the tactical/evaluative than the game narrative.
#THEGOOD
Positionally, Rachael Axon was very good in the holding role. She was rarely caught out, and her anchor allowed all three of our deep midfielders–who are all more in the mold of Andrea Pirlo than Nemanja Matić–to venture forward at will. That role is key for the Dash, and while I like Axon, I do think it is one that could see an upgrade for next season.
Along the same lines, the combination of Keelin Winters and Jess Fishlock was fantastic for Seattle. It’s a different role when you have two deep midfielders playing side-by-side (tactically, the Dash lined up in more of a 4-1-3-2 and the Reign in a 4-2-um, 4-2-something: Megan Rapinoe, being made of awesome, defies all tactical alignments), but watching Fishlock and Winters combine with Rachel Corsie and Lauren Barnes to shut down the deep middle of the park was fantastic. It was textbook: the DC’s would spread themselves to either channel and Winters would drop into a shallow triangle between them, and the Reign were able to easily transition the ball into midfield and attack either by going wide to Stephanie Cox or Kendall Fletcher on the flanks or by working with Winters, Fishlock, and the effervescent Kim Little through the middle.
Morgan Brian may have had her best game of the year. She played a more attacking, positive role, and her deepest strength–the magnets that attach the ball to her feet in close quarters–was on fine display.
I do love me some front-line flexibility. For Seattle, Rapinoe was all over the place–both flanks and central, and had a typically inventive and hard-working game and Kealia Ohai was consistently found on both the left and right flanks. Rapinoe is actually a decent comparison for Ohai: Ohai is faster and more direct and Rapinoe is more creative and unpredictable/impulsive. In this game, Ohai scored (a goal, btw, that was the epitome of placement over power), and her runs to the endline were trouble for the Reign all night, but I think Rapinoe had the greater impact on the game for her team, despite her lack of scoresheet stats.
This is really neither #GOOD or #UNGOOD, but it was, for me, the key tactical choice of the match. Houston packed the box defensively, often drawing the fullbacks in, and pulling back both Axon and one of the upfield trio. This worked very well to help negate Little and Rapinoe (although both got free inside the 18 at least once), but it gave up massive amounts of space on the wings. OK, fine, you have to believe Randy Waldrum knew that would happen, right? What I don’t know if he anticipated was just how *good* Seattle was at exploiting that. Time and time again, Seattle would deliver deep, cross-field passes that were nearly perfectly on target and quickly brought under control, whether to Beverly Yanez on the right wing, or one of the fullbacks pushing up, or to Rapinoe. It was a clinic in one side taking, and effectively exploiting, what the other team was willing to give.
This tactical choice is linked to some amazing recovery runs by the Dash throughout the game, most notably a thirty yard sprint by Ella Masar to catch back up with Rapinoe and knock away a clear one-on-one opportunity. The Dash have the ability to make those runs, which is great, but the need for them is a product of being too easily caught out by fairly direct play.
Camila. That’s right. Camila in #THEGOOD. As a late substitute, she had tons of energy and danger in her runs and had as many threatening touches in her few dozen minutes as Carli Lloyd did all game (see below).
#THEUNGOOD
Paralleling the above, Axon doesn’t offer much other than her “Destroyer Mode.” This can lead to the Dash being caught out when none of the other three midfielders are available for clean, simple outlet passes.
Andressa was … fine. Fine equals #UNGOOD here, given how positively impactful she can be. She was part of a wider, troubling tendency for the Dash: they played a lot of one-touch soccer, nicely intricate 1-2’s. So why is this in the #UNGOOD? Because way, way, way too many of those didn’t come off: the second pass of the 1-2 was into space or slightly off target, or, much worse, directly to a Reign player. The ideas were all good, and that’s fine for a youth team. If you want to make the playoffs, you have to execute those ideas. Primary culprits here were Andressa and Lloyd.
Speaking of whom … Lloyd was essentially a non-factor. Seattle tracked her well all night, but she also made very little hay when given her opportunities, taking too long on the ball and not seeming very comfortable as part of the trio. One would hope that both of these issues are worked out in practice over the next week, before the rematch with the Reign in Houston next week.
The tying goal was a shambolic affair. First, Andressa gave the ball up and then just sort of moped in place, along with a teammate or two. So, there was a real failure in transition for the Dash that led to the Reign’s attack having the advantage; then Erin McLeod got decent contact on the ball, but it spun quite nicely (from a Reign point of view) into Mathias’ path; then, there was a pretty clear handball (armball?) as Mathias got the ball under control before slotting it home. But it all went back to the failure in transition from offense to defense, something that seems to plague the Dash somewhat constantly.
At the same time, the Dash were lucky to escape a collision in the box between Ohai and Little without being called for a foul and penalty. So, even if I would dispute how the Reign tied the game, a 1-1 score at halftime–and a loss at the end of 90 minutes–reflects the game pretty well.
#FAVES
My favorite moment was watching Meghan Klingenberg use a fantastic bit of skill to keep the ball in play along the left touchline late in the first half. Everyone–including Laura Harvey–assumed the ball was headed out of bounds (and Harvey had already begun to raise her hand to signal a throw-in) when Kling did her thing. WANT GIF!
Second favorite was the announcer describing the Reign bringing on Elli Reed as a defensive substitution. Reed is defensive in the same way that Caitlin Foord is, which is to say, not very much at all …