Racing falls 3-2 to Seattle Reign in heartbreaker
Rain delays and poor officiating created obstacles in an solid performance, but failure to finish chances halts Racing's progress and puts their playoff hopes in question
“I feel ya,” defender Lauren commented wryly to media members when they hesitated to ask questions after Racing Louisville’s 3-2 loss to the Seattle Reign on Saturday. “A bit speechless, for sure.”
After a 90-minute weather delay, Racing Louisville came out to play one of their most confounding matches in recent history. Racing took an early lead off a corner that was headed home by Ary Borges in the 7th minute. Just nine minutes later, however, center-back Ellie Jean fouled Seattle’s Jess Fishlock in the box and Sofia Huerta converted the resulting penalty. Before the half was through, however, Racing surged back off another corner that was headed from Abby Erceg to Taylor Flint and into the back of the net in the 45th minute.
It seemed like Racing was at least in position to get a point out of the match when an objectively bad call on a toe-poke by Taylor Flint to dispossess Fishlock was called as a foul on the edge of Racing’s penalty area in the 75th minute. Seattle midfielder Ji So-Yun converted it directly and the match was tied. Only seven minutes later, another set piece, another shot by Ji led to an own goal deflected off of Louisville defender Arin Wright. Racing wasn’t able to recover despite having enough time on the ball to generate chances and found themselves on the end of one of their most devasting losses.
This game had even more emotional resonance considering it was against recently traded former captain Jaelin Howell who earned her first start with the Reign. This is a hard situation for Racing’s longtime players to be in as well as forward Bethany Balcer who was acquired from Seattle in the Howell trade, but the team still played well despite everything happening on and off of it, said Milliet.
“Obviously, it's super disappointing. I felt like some of the calls definitely didn't go our way,” the defender said. “But I did think we had some really good moments. I thought we controlled tempo. I thought for the majority of the game, we were controlling the game, but yeah, I mean it's unfortunate but I actually thought—with all of the extra stuff going on, like the lightning delay and all that stuff—I thought we came out well and had an overall good performance.”
By the Numbers
Is Milliet correct? Did Racing actually put up a good performance against Seattle? The stats do, in fact, support this.
Louisville had 2.03 xG to Seattle’s 0.93. When you remove the 0.76 from the penalty, however, Seattle only generate 0.17 xG in the run of play off of five shots with three on target. Racing had 17 shots with six on target with 11 of those shots from within the box.
Racing held the majority of possession with 56%. They also maintained a high passing accuracy at 84%. They won eight corners and Seattle won three.
It has been a struggle this season to score off set pieces, so the fact that Racing scored both goals off two corners is a good sign. The fact they conceded three goals off set pieces is a problem, however.
Key Takeaways
The smallest margins
One of the most frustrating aspects of this match is that Racing didn’t play poorly. That should be a positive, right? This was a far cry from the early half of the season when they would go ahead only to collapse onto their back foot until they inevitably gave up an equalizer or the go-ahead goal. In many ways, the progress seen in last week’s match against the Chicago Red Stars could be seen in the control of the match, the number of shots, and the number of goals scored with all different goalscorers and different assisters.
It’s easy to rail against the quality of the officiating because there’s no question that the officiating was poor. Late tackles were not called and non-existent ones were. Once Seattle realized how to get a response from the officials late in the match, they did everything they possibly could to stop the tempo and often succeeded. The fact of the matter is, though, that this is nothing new for Seattle and these are the slim margins that determine wins and losses in a tight league.
It’s also easy to say that so much of this match was just bad luck. The likelihood of Ji scoring on that direct free kick was next to none. No one but Rapinoe had scored a direct free kick for Seattle in nearly a decade. The fact that free kick was even given was bad luck in and of itself, but, again, that’s part of the game.
These deceptively small margins are the one barrier that Racing cannot figure out how to surpass. They are one of the last things standing between them and eking out a desperately needed win. Whether it’s the experience to stay calm enough to finish chances, whether it’s being hungry enough to win at all costs, whether it’s having enough confidence to believe you will win this game regardless of what’s happening on the pitch, this is just a well that has so far remained too deep for Racing to tap consistently.
There’s been unquestionable progress on this team. The additions of Janine Beckie and Balcer still are likely to be strong positives once they have time to integrate. But it might be too little too late. Progress is good but progress without results is cold comfort and they’re fast running out of time to make up ground.
Our own destiny
With the regular season rapidly fading away, Saturday night’s match was a must-win for both Racing Louisville and the Seattle Reign. While the Reign have obviously gained precious ground, Racing has not and that puts them in a precarious spot.
They head into Sunday still one spot out of the playoffs in ninth place but could drop down to 10th if Angel City beats Chicago this afternoon. (Note: Angel City is ahead as of writing and this article will be updated as results are finalized) More concerningly, they’re only five points out of last place. Teams below them—including the Utah Royals, Bay FC, and, yes, the Seattle Reign—are showing signs of growth, and the drop to the deeper end of the table is a worryingly shallow one.
Assistant coach Carm Moscato, who took the helm on Saturday for head coach Bev Yanez who was out with an illness, said that the team will need to take it one game at a time. This is a league that, last year, went down to Decision Day to determine who went to the playoffs, so players and fans need to keep that in mind.
“We’ll need to take destiny into our own hands,” Moscato said. “The next eight games we take it game by game and they're winnable in all aspects especially if we do us well, we have a very good chance of getting a good amount of points.”
While Mocato’s point is far, there is much less parity this year versus last year. Racing needs to take it one game at a time, but they also need to win now. Dropped chances from earlier in the year have come back to haunt them in the worst way and now their fight is a much harder one than they’d hoped it’d have to be.
Looking Ahead
Up next, Racing heads off to the West Coast to take on one of those resurgent teams when they play Bay FC. The California expansion side recently made some changes when they acquired defender Abby Dahlkemper from the San Diego Wave who not only scored in her final Wave match but scored against the Portland Thorns in her first Bay match. Most recently, Bay paid a massive amount of transfer fees to acquire promising forward Penelope Hocking from the Chicago Red Stars.
When Racing last played Bay, Louisville lost 1-0 off a careless mistake that led to a penalty. Racing will need to shake off the sting of this loss fast or, even better, learn to use it to their advantage.
Louisville’s players have every reason to be angry about this loss. If they can keep these losses from being ballast that needs to be cast off or it’ll weigh them down and instead convert them into fuel to power their engines, they will learn to win. Seattle wasn’t better than Racing. That’s what stings. Similarly, Bay is looking better, but they’re not a better team than Racing. The bottom line is Louisville is playing well. There’s no question there. Racing can win but they have to believe it and they have to keep their heads enough when things get tough to not try and force it.
Unfortunately, they’ll be doing it without Savannah DeMelo who will be out due to yellow card accumulation. This will likely give Beckie a chance to start and give both her and Balcer a chance to debut together for Racing and demonstrate what their veteran presence can do for this front line.