2025 Playoffs

It occurs to me that VAR allows refs to lengthen their careers. When they age out due to the on-the-field physical demands, they can step up to the VAR booth.

 

Would that not be more of a "step down" than a "step up?" At least a step down in real responsibility.

Until they actually get VAR close to real time it is always a step in the wrong direction. All the VAR (or related systems) do is delay play unnecessarily and for a very excessively long time. "Getting it right" is unimportant when weighed against the free flow nature of football.

Referees, like players, belong on the field and VAR just makes the refereeing poorer by removing any real responsibility from the on field ref.

 

Orlando beats Seattle in the first quarter finals, is this the first time the refs used body cams? And what was with Seattle’s awful defense on Marta’s late game run? It’s almost like Marta might of paid them off, lol

 

The main difference I saw on that was fatigue. Yes, Marta was tired as was most all of the players on the field, but Marta has the ability to shut out the fatigue and know she will recover later. That is one of the things that makes Marta great. She can play at he top of her game even when she is nearing exhaustion.
(I noted that Marta took the ball after that run and presented it to the player she wanted to take the PK. The announcers made a huge deal of that player's trials and tribulations but what I saw was Marta rewarding her because of her value to the team. It also says a lot that the player concentrated so hard on the PK that she hit the perfect PK even though the 'keeper guessed correctly.)

I do not think Seattle played "bad" defense it is just that Marta played above her fatigue while Seattle played tired.

I felt that Orlando was always going to win and it was more a matter of "how" instead of "if." I feel the same about Washington today and about Kanas City tomorrow, however the other match is one I am very much unsure about.

 

Spirit won the PK shootout vs Louisville to advance to the semis. I tried to find it on either tv or streaming, but couldn’t find one. Rodman still hurt as she didn’t play

 

Rodman was on the bench but was an unused substitute. The match was on regular CBS (there "may" have been some local CBS stations that did not carry it for various reasons) and, even though it was listed as being on Paramount+ I could not find it there either. It seems that any CBS owned property that is on the "regular" CBS is not carried on any of their other locations although I did not check CBSSN. I do expect that the match will materialize on Paramount+ a bit later as a replay.
I have run into this a couple of times this year but I forgot and did not tune to regular CBS until the match had already started. But I did get to see almost all of the match.

Washington seemed in total control of the match and got their goal quite early but they could not put the match away and they let Louisville stay close and Louisville scored late to even the match. There were a few chances both ways after that and then both teams kind of stumbled through the overtime periods.

In the shootout it seemed that Louisville was afraid of Washington's 'keeper and hit some really bad PKs of which one scored and one totally missed and one was hit so poorly that any 'keeper over 12 could have saved it. Of course Washington scored all their PKs but only three were needed as Louisville was so poor at PKs.

I found much of the match extremely boring but that is often true for any matches in a single elimination tournament.
KC still looks the best in the tournament but that judgement could be wrong and we will know tomorrow how good, or not, they actually are in this tournament.

Oh: Rodman looked like she was ready to play but the coach wanted to hold her for one more week. There was one instance where she was talking to the coach (or maybe an assistant) and I had vibes from "The Road Warrior" where "The Humongous" was holding back his best fighter and said fighter was straining to be released. She looked ready to capture the ball in her teeth and carry it into goal.

I expect, unless something happens in training, that she will be starting the next match. And I expect her to be VERY effective.

EDIT: As I was typing this I remembered something about Paramount+. They have a section called live TV and I have found some matches there that we not in their regular place in the app. Maybe that was where this match was.

 

The first half of KC vs Gotham is over and the total goals remain at zero. Gotham was more in control of possession but KC had the two best chances.
KC is without several of their important players but so is Gotham. I expect KC to make a few adjustments over the half and Gotham will as well but I think KC has more "power" on the bench and I think that the second half will belong to KC.

I do wonder if the cold, it is about 34 degrees in KC, will effect the play much. But there is bright sun over most of the field and I am pretty sure that will make the players feel fine temp. wise.

 

Finally got back home to watch this gig 1-1 after full time, now into OT. Why isn’t this an sell out crowed?

 

So KC’s nothing without Chawinga?—I hate to tell ya so, but I told ya so, lol. Gotham goes into the semis. Might of been the first time an 8th ranked team beat the #1 seed in NWSL playoff history

 

I don't think so. The announcers specifically said that one of the times that Gotham made the semis before was when they were the 8th place team and, unless the playoff structure was vastly different, that means they beat #1 to get there.
In leagues that enforce parity the difference between the teams is very small and on any given day anyone can beat anyone else. (cliché forced by the fact that it is so common.)
I expected that KC would win but it was also clear that there was not much difference between the teams. Chawinga might have made a difference but, mainly, the real difference today was zero as both teams were very even.
The one surprise for me was that Lavell had so little direct impact but played the entire match and was still running at the end.
Also both of the regular time goals resulted from GK errors. The Gotham goal also had poor positioning by the central defender. She was too central when the play was wide and so left a gap that got exploited.
On the KC goal is was all GK error as it was not hit very hard and was near post.

I am now watching Portland vs San Diego and it just might be the poorest of the playoff matches so far. It is like they watched the other playoff matches and they are working hard not to make the mistakes seen there so they are not really doing anything that involves any risk at all. This match badly needs a goal but that is looking unlikely.

 

KC always says their games are soldout until the actual game when there's visible pockets of empty seats.

 

when he was chosen as USWNT head coach I said it was the wrong choice and I said that throughout his tenure as he drove the USWNT into the ground and almost ruined it. However I also said his ideas and coaching style was nearly ideal for club coaching. Nothing that has happened has changed my opinion either way. It was not coaching that lost KC the match. It was bad luck and missing a number of key players. Note the plural as no one player made the difference in this quarter final although adding one of the missing players back might have flipped the outcome.

This outcome is one of the reasons why I detest tournaments like we have here because it is easy for poorer teams to have one good match and for the better team to have an off match.
The champion of the NWSL is and will remain KC and whoever wins this tournament will be the tournament champion and NOTHING else. But that is not to be minimized but it does not mean that they are better than KC.
I do NOT like Vlatko much as I find his coaching style poor but it is effective for club. The loss of ONE game in a tournament does not detract from all that KC has accomplished and any talk of firing Vlatko because of it is simply stupid and undeserving of any support. Calling Vlatko a bad coach is like calling John McEnroe a bad tennis player because he once double faulted or calling John Woden a bad basketball coach because he once lost a game in the NCAA basketball tournament.
The only way I would at all support him being fired is if he turned KC into a bunch of losers like he did to the USWNT but his style fits club coaching so that is unlikely to happen.

So far we have had a lot of cagey and crappy soccer in this tournament and that has produced interesting, but poor, soccer matches and the better team on the day have won each one in some boring manner.

I strongly hope the semis are better as I almost fell asleep through large parts of the quarters. I will watch them as I love even slow plodding soccer and there are flashes of the great play these players can produce. But this weekend's matches have not been an example of what good soccer should look like.

BTW: The other leagues I have watched this weekend have been no better. There must be something in the air that is making the soccer poor world wide.

 

Body cams? How is it supposed to be used?

 

It is just a gimmick so that gullible fans will think they see more than they do. It adds nothing to the viewing experience and detracts from the actual game and NEVER shows what the referee actually saw as the eyes rarely follow body movements.

It might add to forensic analysis but it is not set up to do that and it is not used by VAR.

 

The bad luck injuries were caused by his decision-making. He played Temwa in her last game despite being on the injury report as questionable. The game meant nothing to KC as they had already clinched the #1 seed. She has not played since. He also played all of his starters without resting them despite clinching. He lost Cooper because of it. So his top two forwards were out due to his decisions.

 

Though I think it’s got the most talent of anybody, I don’t watch the WSL cuz it’s like the average club usually got eleven starters from eleven different countries & they don’t always mesh together—in fact might even take away their playing style, identity from their respective countries that made them stars in the first place

This time the quality so far is missing in the NWSL playoffs compared to previous seasons; the three top league goal scorers(Banda Chawinga Esther) are missing due to injuries as well as all around players like Rodman & Cooper to go along with Thompson jumping ship to Chelsea & seven top Americans deciding to start families instead of club ball

Once again two tiki tacca coaches make it to the semis, their styles might be effective but can be rather tedious to watch. I’m sure Lavelle wished she could play more direct soccer that the uber passing styles of her coach

 

I didn't follow this year's NWSL's season enough to judge the specific case in question, but the fact that a team that utterly dominated a whole league can be randomly eliminated in the quarter-finals of the same competition is the exact reason why here in Europe we don't like the play-offs (and I guess, on the other hand, it's the very reason why you in USA like them so much instead: because of the drama involved and of the chance for a comeback that they hand to the underdog, that's a so big part of your culture).

 

It is all about television. Look at the growth of the Champions League and the other lesser European Cups. Yes, you have the hardcore fans who invest in every game a Club plays in the League, but they are no longer the target audience. The casual fan who will tune in to a Cup Final or invest in a Cup run is the new target.

 

Should the NWSL look into a home-and-away two game series in the future? Aggregate score advances.

 

Actually the home/home with aggregate score advancing would be better than single elimination but that has problems as well. As much as I think MLS is very backward they seem to, although I have not watched much, have come up with a solution. I am not sure and have not researched it much but MLS is playing little two out of three mini series with the higher ranked team getting the final match. I do not know the exact details but it seems to make more since than either single elimination or two match with aggregate system. I do see problems with that but it makes at least a little sense.

I really think we should emulate Europe in this and not have any end of season tournament as the team that wins the regular season has already proved they are the best in the league and no tournament can change that. All the tournament does is simply give the losers another chance to succeed and cheapen the victory the regular series champion.
I did not really enjoy watching KC much this year but that is more personal that anything else but this tournament takes a LOT of prestige away from KC and will bestow a large measure of their earned prestige onto a team that only has to win (or tie) three matches.

I do not really have anything against tournaments but they should be as augments to the season not the culmination of it.

Maybe the NWSL should use their "tournament" as a mid-season break. Use the same seeding methods and just play the tournament as a break mid-season and then teams can really win the league and not have that win cheapened by a single loss.

I, of course, watch the tournament and even enjoy it but I enjoy soccer and each match in a tournament is soccer. But, so far, this tournament has been poorly played across the board and poor soccer is better than no soccer.

 

That takes away the excitement of the win or go home playoffs.

 

most leagues in Europe though fo have an playoff system called Cup games which offers same significance as winning the regular season league & who’s final often draws the biggest attendance & tv audience of the year. About the only thing winning the league(or who comes 1-2-3) has over it is that it determines who goes into next year’s Champions League
A lot of the leagues are also having the El Classico 2 game