Courage Country!!!
A quality 2-0 win over Portland still has me energized mid-week, how about you? That first half showed us this squad playing near potential, and it was GLORIOUS.
Recap: Courage v. Portland Thorns
There was so much to love about this game. Picturesque goals, another clean sheet from Murphy and notching a 100th all-time win for the club.
A lot of people were unsure what to make of Portland. As I mentioned in the preview, the squad is stacked with talent but sitting at the bottom of the table, where they remain. It was hard to know how they would show up with so many players just returning from the SheBelieves Cup final. Portland fielded a lot of their top talent against our (also stacked) Courage squad.
And … we dismantled them quickly and easily, with Tyler Lussi scoring a fantastic goal around the 5’ mark. Lussi hadn’t scored a goal this season, and her fierce celebration indicated she knew how much it meant to have yet another scoring weapon on the pitch.
That was followed by an absurdly long VAR review for a potential handball, but the goal stood.
Lussi also had a patient, terrific cross to Hayley Hopkins, who headed the ball in for our second goal at 35’. Watch as Denise O’Sullivan creates enough chaos in the box to distract a defender and leave plenty of space for Lussi to line up her shot.
One of my critiques of the Courage last season was a lack of patience on big chances; the restraint Lussi shows here in the setup is every bit as impressive as her earlier goal. And of course, Hopkins came through with equally impressive timing.
Portland looked disjointed frequently, with plenty of miscommunication on their back line. There were a few times players looked frozen instead of moving, and you can see in the image above that they were struggling to know which player to track. The Courage also successfully contained Sam Coffey in the midfield, a successful strategy.
Even with that, we had our fair share of defensive miscommunications, a rarity for this squad. There were a few times we were also caught standing, or playing too high on the ptich. That did leave some chances open for Portland, especially a great look from Sophia Smith at one point.
Thankfully, Casey Murphy clocked four saves, keeping a clean sheet and giving us a 2-0 win.
I’m getting used to seeing us at the top of the table.
Underrated play
A reader had a good suggestion of adding a breakdown of a play, so I’ll give it a shot here. This match had a couple of really fun swaps between Lussi and right back Ryan Williams. This one in particular was impressive.
In this first shot, Williams sees Courage defenders have the ball well in hand, so while initially she was running back to join them, she instead stops in open space to give them another passing option, keeping herself upfield.
This leaves Lussi “trapped” behind her, but nobody panics. They make smart choices to cover the space. And Portland leaves them a lot of it.
Lussi sees a moment to try to move forward, but a high pass from Sanchez sends Williams running ahead again to catch it before it’s out of bounds.
Portland’s keeper ends up recovering the ball, and tries to move it quickly to catch the Courage in transition. This forces Lussi to retreat again to cover the right back position. This all feels very smooth and organic when you watch it.
There’s another moment where it looks like they can swap, but the ball comes into the midfield fast. Here’s captain Denise O’Sullivan (bottom) communicating well, motioning Williams forward again to make sure there’s coverage. Lussi is at the way left edge of the screen. Sully was doing a good job directing a lot of their positioning.
Ironically, the ball gets kicked back toward midfield and Lussi is the person to clear it, allowing her and Williams to switch back. They had a couple of clean swaps like this throughout the match. Katie and I talk about this a bit in tomorrow’s podcast, discussing how comfortable everyone appears covering for one another. It’s an interesting strength of this squad.
Standout stats
Sources: Field of Vision; FotMob
Look ahead: Courage v. Angel City
Angel City is fresh off of their first win of the season against the Chicago Red Stars, so they’re coming into this match with some momentum.
Coach Becki Tweed is at the helm for her first full season, after taking over as interim coach part way through the 2023 campaign and leading an incredible run to the playoffs.
Their biggest offseason departure was midfielder Savannah McCaskill, who was a productive goal scoring machine and brought of a lot of personality to the team. She went to the San Diego Wave in free agency. Japanese forward Jun Endo also suffered an ACL injury before the season began.
They picked up midfielder Raquel “Rocky” Rodriguez, part of the starting XI last week against Chicago. They’ve also added a lot of young talent through the under 18 mechanism that they are slowly working in via substitutions. Most notable is Casey Phair, who plays on the South Korea National Team.
Forwards Alyssa Thompson and Claire Emslie continue to be threats, with Emslie creating a league high number of chances this season.
For the Courage’s part, we struggle with West Coast games. We did not win a single match on the West Coast in 2023 – losing all matches except for a late season draw in Seattle. We’ve never beat Angel City at home, either.
Angel City also has a compact, picture-perfect 4-4 defensive posture; when they get set, it’s difficult to break through it. Last year, we allowed them lot of time to set that up, so the matches were slow, low-scoring and frustrating to watch.
This year, we’ve been doing more to catch teams in transition, especially with the creativity Ashley Sanchez has brought, so hopefully we can shake that defense up a little. We also need to find a way to get in the right mindset, despite the difficulties of West Coast travel.
Around the league and beyond
- By far the biggest news came from Jeff Kassouf at ESPN, reporting that Maria Sánchez, who made a record-setting deal with Houston Dash just four months ago, is asking to be traded from the team. The trade deadline is at the end of this week.
- In the next-biggest-news of the week, after their loss to the Courage, Portland announced a restructuring of their staff with Head Coach Mike Norris stepping into a new role as technical director, and Rob Gale stepping in as interim head coach (Meg Linehan, subscription required).
- Expansion side Bay FC continues earn victories, this week over Seattle, and are sitting nicely in the middle of the table. They’re also maintaining strong attendance, hosting 16,719 fans for their second match at home.
- Portland isn’t the only team without a win; Racing Louisville hasn’t won a game either … except they’ve drawn all four of their matches so far, so they are sitting in the 9th spot on the table.
That’s it for this week! As always, you can get in touch with tips, suggestions, corrections and more: contact@lionspitch.com.
Next match: Sunday, April 21, 7:30 pm ET
North Carolina Courage v. Angel City FC
Away
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