Racing Louisville 2023 Season Preview

It’s a pivotal year for Racing Louisville FC. How will the offseason impact the overall trajectory of the club in 2023?

The 2022 Racing Louisville season ended in much the same way as the inaugural season – with wins and hope, but no playoffs. It also ended with the Yates Report that made all of that irrelevant. After that report, nobody was really in the mood to talk about anything other than that report. Racing Louisville’s leadership was specifically called out in that report, and it’s debatable how much they really learned, but more on them in a bit.

In its third year, the club will be facing off-the-field headwinds, which is a shame because on the pitch, they are probably the club’s best ever squad.

I take a look at the squad by position group to back up this claim, but let’s start with the front office and coaching staff.

** Editors note: You can read Michael Shaw’s Offseason Evaluations & Predictions piece from January 2023 here.

The Front Office

It would be unfair to say that the front office is worse heading into this season, but the club still hasn’t announced a general manager. The club is believed to be close to hiring one and did have a candidate back out for personal reasons, but the fact remains that as of my writing this sentence the burden of managing the team as a whole is falling mostly on the coaches.

Now there is a segment of this fanbase that seems to want to constantly bash CEO John Neace and President James O’Connor and also a segment that wants to blindly back them. Obviously, there is some room in the middle of this spectrum, but you can place me firmly in the distrusting camp. As a rule, I don’t trust sports owners. I don’t really get the mentality of fans that want to hero worship a front office. Brad Estes had a freaking banner made for him before he weaseled his way out the organization. Let there be no doubt – a huge amount of blame needs to fall squarely on his shoulders for the situation that the club is currently in.

I don’t necessarily believe that “bad people” are at the top levels of Racing Louisville, just the wrong people.

Case in point – the General Manager position. If the right people were in charge of Racing Louisville from the beginning, there would already be a General Manager. I think it’s fair to say that Neace, Estes, and O’Connor were ill-prepared to be in charge of an NWSL club. I’ll go one step further, I’m not sure the city of Louisville was prepared either. And now, I’ll go that one more step over the ledge – Louisville probably didn’t merit a club either.

The President of the NWSL at the time that Louisville was rewarded a franchise was Amanda Duffy, who had worked for Louisville City and stated at the time “We are very excited to welcome John Neace and Louisville City FC into the NWSL.” It seemed at the time to be a shocking decision, and in retrospect it still is. Now we have O’Connor and Neace threatening fans with the loss of the club because of the mess that they created. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised to see this city’s franchise in another city in the next 10 years because the front office simply doesn’t want to make the sacrifices to get better.

There is a certain mundaneness to the front office’s incompetence. I truly believe it doesn’t arise from any specific form of malice toward the players or the fans.  Their pat response to most criticism boils down to “we’re not mean, just stupid”.  It’s a rather simple, yet effective deflection technique. O’Connor and Neace aren’t special kinds of jerks, just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill type of jerks.  If you think about it, this is much more insidious. They don’t have to own up to their own insufficiencies because from time-to-time they give trite apologies, admitting only to the bare minimum of responsibility.  The problem is that just about all of human history has contributed to an existing power structure that excuses arrogant incompetence as “good intentions”. 

The older I get, the more I am convinced that the phrase, “assume positive intentions” was invented to excuse poor performance.  In short, this is just another case of the people in power protecting their power. I won’t go full Samuel L. Jackson on them, but I have no interest in ever being in the same room with either Neace or O’Connor. They have demonstrated enough incompetence for me to know that they shouldn’t be running Racing Louisville. Personally, I no longer give a proverbial entrance into the “Mile High Club” about Louisville City, so let that club keep them.

TLDR: They’re incompetent jerks holding onto power.

To clean up and paraphrase the late Bill Hicks: There’s lighter fare on the way. Please relax.

Technical Staff

Thank God for Bev Yanez. Please listen to her delightful interview with the thankfully returning Butchertown Rundown here.

Yanez joined the staff earlier this year and has received nothing but rave reviews from the other coaches and players. I asked her during her introductory press conference about something I heard her say on the training pitch: “Play the game, not the drill.” She explained that she reminds the players to not blindly follow the intentions of the drill, but to teach their minds to be aware of the game situation even in a drill, so that when things inevitably break down in the drill or in the game, they can adjust.

Ultimately it was about training yourself to make the right decision quickly and repeatedly. Louisville was caught in situations where they seemed unsure of how to handle themselves when things broke down last season. Hopefully Yanez gets her message across. Bev is replacing Mario Sanchez who did an admirable job as interim head coach and assistant coach last season, but he can now dedicate his focus back to the academies full time, which is what he signed up for and far less of a headache in my opinion.

The rest of the staff returns in Sergio Gonzalez as goalkeeper coach, Julie Twaddle as Head of High Performance, and Head Coach Kim Björkegren. Serge is a top keeper coach, and his keepers sing his praises. Everyone like Twaddle and she gets the team warmed up for practices in effective and fun ways. Coach Kim had a difficult job in his first season, basically rebuilding an entire roster. He received much of criticism for personnel moves (fair in my opinion) and rotation and substitutions (unfair on balance in my opinion). I don’t think he managed the summer transfer window in the right way, and ultimately that killed any chance the club had for the playoffs. However, that chance was minimal in the first place and with him returning for a second season, it’s better that he has “his team”. On the rotation and substitution issues, I’m not sure who these imaginary players were that fans wanted to see. He quite frequently found himself trailing in matches with his best available XI on the pitch. I don’t believe there was much unused game-changing talent on the bench. As for rotation, there really wasn’t a prolonged period of matches occurring multiple times in a week. Your best players should be able to easily handle that type of schedule.

Fast forward to this year, and there should be options all over the pitch. I would expect to see more substitutions in matches as the squad gets healthier and into form. Björkegren will have game-changing substitutions available, and I expect him to make them this season.

TLDR: The staff is better prepared for this season compared to last.

Goalkeeper

Louisville is set at keeper and may even have an embarrassment of riches. Hillary Beall, who is on loan at Western United FC has been stonewalling competition in the A League but is in no danger of taking over the gloves from Katie Lund. In fact, Beall was third choice keeper behind Jordyn Bloomer last season who overcame a tougher start than Beall to be a valuable part of the Western Sydney Wanderers. Louisville has carried two other keepers during the preseason, but I don’t think that they will carry more than three during the regular season.

Beall should be a target for expansion clubs in the near future, so unless there are injuries, we may not ever get to see her on the pitch for Louisville. Björkegren has stated that he is open to more “rotation” in his keepers this season, but I fully expect that to be during the midseason Challenge Cup and not the league.

TLDR: Louisville has enough solid goalkeepers for it to be a position of strength.

Defense

Emily Fox isn’t walking (back) through that door!

Most fans were sad to see the departure of Fox. I might go so far as to say that all fans (minus one) were sad to see her go. I am in that very small minority. Don’t get me wrong, I was not happy to see her go, but I was definitely not as heartbroken as some. I believe part of the sadness has to do with Louisville losing its only regular USWNT starter. As I am uninterested in the USWNT and international football in general other than how it is a distraction into football’s much more inclusive and merit-based version as a club sport, for me her departure was strictly down to what the team got in return. And I was elated in the return.

Carson Pickett is a statistical upgrade in performance. One might argue about the ever illusive “ceiling” for a player like Fox, but sports is full of many more players that don’t hit it than do, so give me current form over potential any day. Emily Fox for all of her fine traits was way more deferential in attack than I believe a modern full back should be.

She was great at covering the many defensive frailties on the team in the first two seasons, but the 18-yard box (for the most part) turned into her “zone of abdication” where she passed the ball to less talented players to make a decisive move on goal. My wish for her is that she finds North Carolina a more comfortable place to show her full range of capabilities which we never even got close to seeing in Louisville.

The attacking side of the game isn’t a problem for Pickett but a strength. At least in her time in North Carolina. She has signed and extension as well, which Fox was either unable or unwilling to do, although I believe both sides tried. Abby Erceg also came over in the Fox trade.

She is also an upgrade at center back, but Gemma Bonner was still in the top 25 players in the league (24) in goals added compared to Erceg at 16th (Pickett was at 5th and Fox at 18th). Early indications are that the backline may start out being – Pickett, Erceg Elli Pikkujämsä, and Milliet, but Julia Lester will likely join in the back four once healthy, and Satara Murray is a decent back-up center back.

Paige Monaghan is somewhat of an enigma because she is listed as a defender but could play anywhere on the wing. Until I set my eyes on a full squad scrimmage or match, it will be hard for me to know who exactly fits in where, which for the entire history of the club has been issue number one on the pitch. If Louisville can settle into a consistent back four that can at least provide decent cover for Lund, this season could be better. How much better will depend on if Björkegren can find the right back line and stick with it.

TLDR: Don’t sweat Fox leaving, but the backline is still the biggest question mark.

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Midfield

Midfield will likely be and need to be the team’s biggest strength this season. Wang Shuang is the most technically gifted player on the team, and year two of Jaelin Howell and Savannah DeMelo should be more consistent as well. Alex Chidiac is returning from a very productive stints in Australia and Brazil. Ary Borges comes to the club with high hopes. The important element this season is for the group of players to mesh together and play as a midfield unit.

Howell should be settled firmly in front of the back form in the central defensive midfielder role, Wang is most effective in the central attacking midfielder role, and I believe DeMelo is a quintessential box-to-box midfielder. Then there is always the question of where to play Lauren Milliet. I don’t think she will be on the back line for very long, and unless there is change in Coach Björkegren’s thinking, she will be on the pitch for the overwhelming majority of the available minutes.

Like Monaghan, the likely safest answer is “the wing” and I don’t like to get too hung up on positions other than center back and keeper. If Racing Louisville is going to continue to press this season, the key will be on how to press most effectively from the midfield. This likely will come from rotating the pressing duties, so the midfield will need to communicate with each other much more efficiently than they did last season. I think the team will need goals from midfield to be successful, but all of the midfielders seem eminently capable of scoring and providing assists.

So, what does the midfield really need to work on?

I think they have all of the elements to be a midfield that can win the ball back in transition. This is down to experience and desire more than anything related to talent. It is difficult skill to know when to attack and when to retreat in midfield. I do think the tendency last year was to retreat, but that was also likely compounded by the appearance that they simply didn’t trust the back line. It’s not hard to blame them as I previously mentioned Lunds’ save record. If they can figure out how to trust where each other are, this midfield has the chance to be special in both attack and defense.

TLDR: Midfield is an area of strength, but with room to improve.

Forwards

Who will score?

Racing Louisville definitely needs a healthy, consistent goal scorer, something the club has yet to find. Nadia Nadim scores when she is on the pitch, but that hasn’t happened nearly enough due to injury.

The team had bad luck with Thembi Kgatlana last year, as she almost immediately became injured after she signed. Uchenna Kanu may be that consistent goal scorer, but she hasn’t seen the pitch yet and definitely won’t have much of a preseason. Emina Ekic is also working her way back from injury, but consistency has been an issue for her too. Jess McDonald is likely more of a provider of goals at this point in her career, but she still needs someone to be there to finish off the dangerous passes she makes. Kirsten Davis had a pretty typically rookie season with high and lows. Parker Goins didn’t make much of an impact in her limited opportunities. It is true that you can’t lose if you don’t concede and you can’t win if you don’t score but draws will not achieve this club’s stated goal of making the playoffs, so the goals need to come from somewhere. The only 2023 draft pick still with Racing Louisville is Kayla Fischer at forward, so if the goals aren’t coming early, look for her to be given a shot.

However, the other thing you can do when the goals aren’t coming naturally is to press the other team into mistakes. I think Coach Björkegren desperately wanted his team to do this last year, but it didn’t really work out with only one of the teams 34 goals coming directly from pressing and only six coming in transition. The nominal forwards only scored 19 goals last season compared to 24 in the previous season (likely exacerbated by trading the two leading scorers from the previous season in the summer transfer window: Kizer and Salmon). Racing Louisville traded goal production and didn’t fully replace it last season. The forwards likely need to hit a combined 25 goals to make it a successful season because there is enough reason to believe that there are at least 10 other goals out there in defense and midfield. I do feel like there are goals in this position group for Racing Louisville, but until Nadim returns, I wouldn’t place a wager on any particular player to have the most in her absence.

TLDR: There is plenty of talent, but most of it is either unproven or closer to the end of their career than the beginning.

Racing Louisville final summary

I don’t really want to make a prediction about where this team will finish in the table or whether they will make the playoffs. Here is what I am willing to say without reservation:

• This is the most talented roster the club has ever had, and in the NWSL that is really the only thing that matters.
• Coach Björkegren has “his team” and he will either fail or succeed based on how he constructed it.
• The players will fight to win for the city, but that may not be enough if fans don’t come out to support them.