Utah Royals 2018

Honestly, it never would have occurred to me to look anywhere else for women's soccer other than in the Women's Soccer forum.

 

Yeah, well, we be renegades over in the RSL forums... we may rebrand the team as Renegade Salt Lake...

 

Since, as I said in the Kansas City subforum, changing the structure of subforums here doesn't seem much feasible to me, opening this thread here looks like the next best option to me. Not sure if it will be as popular as the ones subsidized by RSL in men's forum, but it's anyway fair that there is a Utah Royals thread here in women's soccer boards.

@William49, I wouldn't have looked anywhere else either, but now that we know about the existence of Utah Royals' thread on RSL forum, we could anyway subscribe to them, if interested, although we'd want to keep discussion here on NWSL boards as much as possible.

 

Yeah, it was cool reading through the posts on RSL, but I would've never thought to look there if no one had mentioned it! But now there's both!

But how about something about the team? Uh... Sauerbrunn has to have the worst luck. I seem to remember something like this (hand/face ball) happening last year too.

 

Game 1 was a lot of fun to watch. Was my first non-USWNT women's game I have watched. I was really happy with the result considering everyone here felt that the Royals would get rolled in Orlando. Had Sauerbrunn's face been rewarded, the Royals would have had all 3 points.

Gunny was a pleasant surprise. I didn't expect her to initiate the offense as much as she did. I thought coming in from Europe that she was more of a winger.

One of the bigger comments in the RSL boards that I saw and agreed with is the it was a breath of fresh air seeing a professional soccer game where players weren't diving and putting up a bunch of gamesmanship. The Women seemed to play a bit more straight up.

Anyways, my family and I already have tickets to their first Royal's home game, and we are looking forward to it. They are having a Rachel Platton concert right after the game too. Del Loy Hansen (Royals-RSL owner) is going all out for this game. I heard that he is flying in all of the players families to Salt Lake for the game too.

 

Yes, that's was probably the main reason attracting me to women's football (apart from the particular style of play of some teams). More sportsmanship and less theatrics.

Even in a case like the one discussed here, the PK call on Sauerbraunn, there was obvious dissent from the players and from Becky herself, but it seemed to me much more civilized than what I expect would have happened in a men's match with a similar call.

Actually someone had dared to post a different score here on the "2018 predictions" thread! I, for my part, had predicted a Utah loss, but just a 2-1 not them being "steamrolled". And anyway I have immense respect for Harvey. Too much to believe she'll ever be willing to play the sacrificial lamb! She will fight nails and teeth, and Utah Royals won't be an "easy match" for anyone.

 

Wow! While reading an article on Merritt Paulsen's impact on the NWSL, the latest season ticket sales numbers were reported at being over 7,000 for the Utah Royals.
http://www.oregonlive.com/portland-thorns/2018/03/portland_thorns_owner_merritt_1.html

 

Very good news for sure. That is more season tickets than RSL sold in their first few seasons I believe. Hopefully the number continues to climb.

 

Portland started their first season in 2013 with 7000 STH's and that grew to over 10,000 + 2017. They went from an average attendance of 13,320 in their first season to 17,678 in 2017. Utah is definitely on the right track.​

 

It'll be interesting to watch the numbers here in Utah over the next few years. While many look at an opportunity to grow, I'm wondering when the club hits the limit because of saturation. We have the men's RSL team, the Royals, and the Monarchs (USL men's team) competing with each other, in a way, for soccer spectator. They all service specific parts of that community, and it's a large community, but the pessimist in me wonders if the club is pushing its luck with this many teams and the aspirations of having as many season ticket holders as they want.

 

You make a good point. In Portland where they have the same kind of set-up, a MLS team, a USL team, a NWSL team, and one NBA team, soccer thrives. The Timbers have sold out every game since they joined the MLS, and have even managed to build up a 15,000 waiting list for season tickets in the process. Could that be a contributing factor to why the Thorns' attendance is so high, the ability to get some of those on that waiting list. Right now their capacity is at 21,144 at Providence Park, but that will change next season when it goes to 25,000 with an additional 4000 in seating. When 4000 on the waiting list get season tickets, will that have any effect on the Thorns season ticket sales?

 

Sounds like Elise Thorsnes is happy with Utah Royals FC move! From NFF website:

Elise Thorsnes, who recently reported a move to US Utah Royals FC, is also aware that only victory is good enough for Norway (WWC qualifying).
"Should we join and qualify, we depend on three points. Then we must use every session to prepare ourselves as best, "says Thorsnes.
After a stay in Australia, the trip has now proceeded to the United States for the veteran. That choice does not regret it.
"I was really determined to play in Sweden, but talked to Dad and changed my mind. It has been amazing so far. I've never been to anything similar to the facilities, the level of training is good and all the girls have received me. I am very pleased with my choice, she says.

 

Conversation with Becky Sauerbrunn: https://www.rsl.com/post/2018/04/12/conversation-becky-sauerbrunn

Discussion on coming back from injury, on being part of a new team during preseason, on playing for Laura Harvey, on being captain, and more

 

(This is copied over from a message I posted on the RSL subforums.)

Some thoughts from the Royals first home game, and the first whole game I was able to watch.

1) As mentioned before, there is no speed in attack. We constantly were beat to balls by defenders, and Chicago's keeper was really good at timing her runs out of the box to clear up anything else.

2) Labonta was the most obvious weak link in attack from a speed perspective. So many well weighted balls would be played for her, and she just couldn't beat any defender at all.

3) This team is pretty good technically. They tried to be a little too tricky at times, but they were pretty good in this way.

4) Why did Thorsnes not shoot!?! In the box, beat the defender, great chance on goal, but instead lays off a square pass to literally nobody.

5) Should have been a PK early in the game for the Royals. Defender came through the back and across the attacker. Chicago was fortunate there.

6) A-Rod is very aggressive. I think when she gets back into game shape that she could be an important missing link at the top of the attack. Hopefully she is, because after Gunny, it was pretty meh.

7) The sell out was awesome. I really hope that they can keep up the momentum with attendance. Time will tell.

8) My wife was mentioning recently that RSL games weren't "as much fun anymore." She sited that there isn't as much singing and excitement as she remembers from before. And the novelty of us being different by being RSL fans in a state that largely ignored them through the first few years for whatever bummed her out. Well, she really enjoyed the Royals game, and would likely want to go to more.

9) I seriously never want to go through was Rachel Platten did. I know other famous singers have screwed up the national anthem. I have never thought much of it. But man would that be embarrassing. There is NOTHING you can do at that moment to make it go away. And all you can do it try again. The fact she failed twice, then just kind of started where her screw up was taking here, essentially skipping 3 lines of the song. That just sucks. I am impressed that she came out and did her songs after the game.

10) NWSL refs either let A LOT of stuff go, or this was a really poor ref... or it is just a mix of both. I was surprised by all of the tripping and pushing that was blatant on both sides that never got whistled. There were also no cards given out when a couple could have been. A woman behind be with her daughter who apparently pays soccer was mentioning to her daughter how surprised she was by the amount of allowed pushing there was in the game.

11) Pass the ball forward when you are in stoppage time! The whole stadium was palpably annoyed during the last minutes of the game. You could feel the tension that was building up.

12) Bring on my Royals game to Rio Tinto!

 

Did she just blank out on the lyrics?

Or was she getting a hand signal from an attache informing her that the helicopters were 10 seconds late? She did sync the anthem to their arrival at the end ...

 

I am guessing she started the 3rd time by skipping a good part of the song to help with timing. Though the helicopters did appear to slow down before she finished too. So I am not sure. But the mistakes were genuine. She botched it unfortunately.

 

Definitely looks like it (video available on this link).

Edit: you can also hear and see the helicopters in the second video.

It's impressive how, in this Smart-phoned era, you can't finish making such a blunder at a local event before the whole world knows and listens.

 

Thanks for your impressions. I just have a couple of comments. I agree, the Royals lacked speed up top. I wondered where the speed would come from when Harvey traded away both Leroux and Groom. Still think she should have held onto Groom. But I thought Arod had an awesome debut, looking like her quick,fast,high-energy self so I think that problem will be corrected as she works her way back to full fitness.

About Labonta...I really question Harvey's decision here, she is a text-book center-mid. She is very cerebral, her strength reading/dictating play and completing passes/assists. She is not a winger who runs thru-balls down, she should be playing the thru balls. I don't know what on earth Harvey was thinking with players like Ratliff and Tymrak on the bench. Harvey set Labonta up to fail there. But if she was played centrally...Labonta would not have been seen as the weak link....In my opinion anyway.

Awesome job! So glad to see these players being embraced in Salt Lake.

 

Yea, I wasn't completely fair to Labonta in my analysis. I could see that she had the technical ability along with being fairly strong and willing to push people around a little. But I agree, she isn't a winger, and if the plan is to play her outside, they need to plan to play the ball to her feet and have people play off of her... she shouldn't be trying to win long balls over the defense in most cases.

 

Got to wonder since Utah is right there in the playoff race, whether they are about ready to use their No. 1 pick to get a goal scorer. Since Washington likes having the No. 1 pick, why not try an get Ashley Hatch. Could fill a need and help boost ticket sales as well.

 

I would wait to see how the season plays out before saying a proven goalscorer is needed... ARod and Gorry are still relatively fresh on the team, so Utah's offense might still be fine if the squad continues to gel.

 

I've been wondering about precisely this move for several weeks. Hatch would certainly inject some much-needed pace into the Royals' attack. You do have to wonder how Harvey's apparent preference for older, more experienced players would factor here; Hatch is still a bit raw in some ways. On the other hand, the Royals' management might also see her as a perfect fit. She's young, but comes with a year of NWSL experience. She's a proven commodity. And she's a marketing dream. My goodness, Utah could sell thousands and thousands of gold Hatch jerseys.

What I don't know is whether the #1 pick in itself would be enough to pry her away. Maybe the more knowledgeable contributors can chime in here. Who are the top projected draft picks for 2019? What are the strongest positions?