[POR-SkB] Horan for Heath (and Andressinha moves up front). Here we go! Portland's Starting XI for tonight's battle with @SkyBlueFC. Kick is 7:30pm PT! #BAONPDX pic.twitter.com/vdF0namKbm— Portland Thorns FC (@ThornsFC) June 28, 2018 Late scratch: Weber for Menges. LINEUP CHANGE: @Mal_Weber16 will be replacing @em_meningitis3 tonight. #BAONPDX— Portland Thorns FC (@ThornsFC) June 28, 2018 Groom for K.Johnson; Beckie for Tiernan (and Dorsey flips to RM); Frisbie for Gibbons. Tonight's Starting XI presented by @HMHNewJersey.#PORvNJ | #PushForward pic.twitter.com/HE5iZRlWOp— NJ/NY Gotham FC (@GothamFC) June 28, 2018 Portland: Q Purce / OUT Foord Morris Sky Blue: Q none / Hoy K.Johnson Pierre-Louis Stott
[UTA-SEA] 16' 0-0 Press turns and runs to 22m center, shoots right foot hard to 1/5 left low, Betos sprawls onto ball and it sticks in her armpit. Utah leads 4-1 in shots, 3-1 in crosses, +10% possession, and they have like five Agent Mathesons running around at Matrix speed. 17' 0-0 Jonsdottir jumps backpedaling at own arc top mid-left, knocks heads with teammate Moros. Immediate stoppage, Jonsdottir trots into far touch with a trainer. 18' 0-0 Jonsdottir promptly returns.
21' 0-0 Press curls center-to-left across arc top, left foot shot to left post low hard. Betos dives and double-blocks wide, ball spins along endline as Press chases and collects. Deemed fully over for a left corner. 23' 0-0 Gorry spins away at 25m box left amidst traffic, shoots long just over bar. Seattle look completely overmatched by the speed of the game. 24' 0-0 Moros dribbles to 27m mid-left, vertical ground pass to 10m mid-left for Rodriguez leaning past the line (and not tightly covered from either side). Rodriguez spin-shoots to left post low, Betos smothers. I don't even know who's losing all of these balls for Seattle, it's happening so quickly every time.
32' 0-0 Seattle long switch springs Rapinoe, but she must wait for the ball. Rapinoe drives down box left to 5m, hard cross blocked back to her. Backpass to Utsugi at box top mid-left, she touches into box but gets body-checked off. Utah clearance disrupted, pops up and drops toward arc tangent right. Andrews goes to ball and swings right roundhouse as Jonsdottir tries a roundhouse clearance -- and they plant knees into each others' lower legs. Both go down, holding contusions. 33' 0-0 Andrews and Jonsdottir resume, both limping a bit.
35' 0-0 Utsugi serves toward endline(?), Moros heads poorly to 9m 2/5 left. J.Taylor is right there, lifts right foot and volleys directly to A.Smith not even surprised any more. 36' 0-0 Rapinoe one-touch right sole-flick behind her left calf springs Catley down wide left, to 15m. Fast cross to 6-top but nobody in the central lanes, A.Smith smothers. Still, that's some activity.
[POR-SkB] 45' 1-0 Klingenberg fk at 35m mid-left, soft chip inswings toward 15m center. Sinclair jumps unmarked facing away, flick-heads past 6-top center. Horan dive-heads from 6-top 2/5 right, past Sheridan into 1/3 left back low. .@ThornsFC find the breakthrough on the set piece. @meghankling ➡️ @sincy12 ➡️ @Lindseyhoran11 ➡️ 🥅#PORvNJ | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/qQ2NLxyEMJ— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 28, 2018 HT 1-0.
[UTA-SEA] 68' 0-0 Rapinoe rips ball away at circle left, turns past circle top and tries the midfield fast lob -- but balloons it way beyond endline and over the endboards. 68' 0-0 Utah subs in (1 of 3) #24 Katie Stengel for #10 Diana Matheson. 68' 0-0 Rodriguez drives down wide left to 4m, crosses to 6m left post, Stengel twist-heads down to 1/4 left low, Betos smothers.
46' 0-0 Seattle subs in (1 of 3) #24 Alyssa Kleiner for #12 Morgan Andrews. 71' 0-0 Seattle subs in (2 of 3) #17 Beverly Yanez for #9 Nahomi Kawasumi. 73' 0-0 Rapinoe lunge-pokes ball off Scott's foot, but scissors Scott down sideways. Foul. 75' 0-0 Long misses a tap pass toward Utsugi, Rodriguez intercepts. Rodriguez promptly fires a 30m through-ball, way too far for Press, it rolls to Betos. This, in a nutshell, is what's wrong with both teams.
Too bad she doesn't play with this kind of dynamism anymore. I find her incredibly uninspired with the Pride. She's better with the National Team but I think that's more a function of her being surrounded by better players.
77' 0-0 Utah subs in (2 of 3) #15 Erika Tymrak for #8 Amy Rodriguez. 84' 0-0 Seattle subs in (3 of 3) #22 Jasmyne Spencer for #14 Jodie Taylor. 87' 0-0 Yanez dribbles down wide right to 13m, crosses face-high through 5m. Spencer chases down right post lane, lunge-header grazes the crown of her head but barely deflects, continues across to 2m box left. Rapinoe gathers at 7m box left, shoots right foot to left post low, A.Smith catches. .@ReignFC looking to steal all three points on the road, but we're still scoreless in Utah.#UTAvSEA | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/u5UcTGUlgU— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 28, 2018 89' 0-0 Scott lags a fast ground pass down box right for Press sprinting past Catley. Press does a ball-stop and turns inside at 10m mid-right, shoots left foot rising to near post, Betos catches face-high. End to end in Utah. Press with the cutback and shot, but Betos collects.#UTAvSEA | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/bra9NuVIvA— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 28, 2018
90+1' (of +3') 0-0 Tymrak veers inward to 27m mid-left, rolls a pass to 10m left post for Press cutting from arc center, dragging Kleiner with her. Press does a stutter-and-go to 3m 7-left, turn-and-shoots low into Betos at 1m left post. Ball squirts under Betos, rolls behind her toward goalline -- hits her legs and stops, and Betos spins onto it. Another look from Press, another save from Betos right on the line. Time's running out for a goal.#UTAvSEA | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/eIFTelVpot— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 28, 2018 FT 0-0. Bleh. Maybe bring Spencer in sooner.
[POR-SkB] 76' 1-0 Lloyd chases down box left to 5m, as ball is a bit too far ahead of her. Boureille comes inside-out, swings at ball but Lloyd toe-pokes it away just-in-time. Boureille kicks up a spray of pellets instead, then clatters into Lloyd thighs-to-leg as Lloyd hops and gets spun down. Foul, pk. 77' 1-1 Lloyd pk, right instep blast into 1/6 left back low, past Franch's horizontal dive. Franch guessed right, but too much power. .@SkyBlueFC is on the board! Carli Lloyd earns the PK and powers it into the corner past Franch for the equalizer.#PORvNJ | #NWSL pic.twitter.com/nWHZsChFtN— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) June 28, 2018
How was this goal allowed to stand? Horan and Weber were both offside when Sinclair headed it forward.
Does Jill Ellis watch Christen Press play for her clubs? How does she not start every game on the USWNT. She's usually the most dynamic player on the entire pitch and has by far the most SOG of any forward in the league.
Is it just me, or there were a boatload of missed PKs this season, probably more than average? (technically, I am counting Nagasato's one from a pair weeks ago also, despite the fact that she scored on the rebound ).
This is so depressing. At this rate, we (Seattle) are going to miss play-offs again, for the third consecutive season. @SiberianThunderT noticed that Seattle doesn't win a game since their away 2-3 in Portland.
Press is just what offensively-anemic Utah needs; opposing defenses now have someone to fear. And her presence will draw defenders, opening up more space for Arod and others. Royals were unlucky to not score a few goals in this game. Definitely the better team. I think once Press adjusts to altitude and her new teammates, and O'Hara is back, Utah will finally start to score, and stay in the playoff picture.
You're right on penalty kicks. By my quick calculation only 9 out of 19 penalty kicks have been made this year. 14 different players have tried penalty kicks and only three have unblemished records: Sinclair, Huerta, and Marta. Take away those three's stats, and 11 different players have only made 4 PKs. Is that amazing ineptitude or outstanding goalkeeping?.
With Houston's smash-and-grab in Orlando, I think it's time to revisit... HFA (or lack thereof) in 2018 NWSL! Going by PPG (bolding any difference greater than 0.4)... NC : 2.000h / 2.714a ORL : 1.333h / 1.750a SEA : 1.600h / 1.500a POR : 1.143h / 1.714a CHI : 1.125h / 1.667a UTA : 1.500h / 1.286a HOU : 1.250h / 1.167a DC : 1.000h / 0.333a NJ : 0.167h / 0.333a Four teams, all higher up in the table, are doing significantly better away than at home; NJ is also better away but barely. DC is the only team noticeably better at home, while the remaining three are just slightly better at home. There are 18 home wins/away losses this season compared to 22 home losses/away wins. These patterns certainly aren't helping attendance! =edit= At one point, we considered eliminating NC (and NJ) from this analysis since it seemed unfair to count NC's away wins (and NJ's home losses) in the count, considering how consistently good (or bad) they were. However, we can see above that even NC's (and to a much lesser extent NJ's) forms are actually following the better-away pattern. NC in particular has dropped 7pts at home compared to just 2pts away. As such, I don't think the 18-vs-22 mentioned above is an artifact of how abnormally good NC is anymore.
If I were picking a WC roster and had 23 spots to play with Id find one for Ohai. U use her as an impact sub especially against teams sitting back. If u don't come out and play her she just breeds chaos. If u do go out and force her to give up the ball uve opened up ur bunker for the other players and probably pulled back a counter attacking player as well.
On the PK front, the Dash who have been traditionally abysmal at penalty kicks might have finally found someone to take them