Michael Shaw from Fleur-de-Lis-FC.com gives you his thoughts on Racing’s upcoming season and their chances of making the playoffs this year.
Racing Louisville begins its second season in the NWSL with raised expectations. The team ended their preseason Challenge Cup competition with a win, 3 draws, and 2 losses, which might not seem like a good set of results but compared to last year is a fairly decent improvement. More than the actual results, the performances on the pitch have improved greatly with a new set of players and improvement from key returning players.
Reasons for Optimism
Topping the list has to be the addition of Jessica McDonald, who is as advertised. She creates and scores goals plain and simple. Racing is a clearly better team when she is on the pitch. She is a natural leader and is one of Racing’s four captains, although Gemma Bonner has worn the armband in each of Racing’s matches. She has achieved just about everything you can as a professional soccer player and is a role model to the younger players in the squad. Racing secured a world-class player with her addition.
Second on the list has to be Racing’s two first-round picks in the most recent draft, Jae Howell and Sav DeMelo. While Howell will surely be a fixture in the Starting XI, DeMelo has shown flexibility and toughness in her appearances. She likely won’t log as many minutes as Howell but will be a critical piece of Racing’s midfield. As for Howell, she has already scored for club and country from her natural #6 position, which is always a pleasant surprise when you get goals from your deepest lying midfielder.
In addition, Racing has had seven different goal scorers in their 6 Challenge Cup matches. Newcomer Kirsten Davis scored one of those goals and will surely be given several chances to start for Racing. Kizer, who was Racing’s most reliable scorer last year looks like she will be good for several goals again. Emina Ekic looks improved from last year and scored from a terrific free-kick. Lo Milliet, who has appeared in every Racing match to date, finally got her first goal and was cruelly denied her second by a questionable offside call in the match in Houston. Racing also finally scored from a corner kick via Gemma Bonner. Long story short, there seem to be goals all over the pitch this season.
Racing also has played better on the defensive side as well, but there is still room for improvement there. Based on the performances we have seen thus far, it looks like Racing’s backline will be Fox-new signee, Julia Lester-Bonner-Merrick. Fox and Merrick are both capable of playing on either side, and Racing has switched them mid-match multiple times already in the Challenge Cup. The team is also awaiting the arrival of Rebecca Holloway from Birmingham City. She is a left-footed left back that could free up Fox to play at right back or in the midfield. Erin Simon and Nealy Martin who were depended on as starters last year are very capable of defensive reinforcement when needed. Katie Lund in goal is a prototypical keeper and has the added benefit of being above average with her feet. This team will still concede goals due to the nature of their style of play but will have the firepower to overcome deficits that seemed insurmountable last season.
Also new this year is that Racing actually has a functioning midfield. Freja Olofsson was probably Racing’s only starting level quality midfielder last year. Others like McCaskill and Nagasato were forwards playing out of position. Milliet played a decent amount in the midfield as well but has shown herself to be more naturally suited as an attacking winger. Even Olofsson played out of her natural #8 position last year. Howell, DeMelo and Olofsson will be joined by second-year player Taylor Otto, who was unfortunately injured most of last year. Perhaps most exciting of all will be the eventual addition of Alex Chidiac who is awaiting visa approval for a move from Australia. She won the A-League’s Aussie Grand Final with Melbourne and was their player of the season.
Finally, now that we have seen 6 matches with Kim Björkegren at the helm, I think we can safely say that he seems like a good fit for this team. His focus on development and getting the details right are the things that professional players like and need. All of the players seem to like playing for him. From a tactical perspective, he seems to be incredibly flexible in style and is willing to switch things up in a match if things are not going to plan. He also has stated several times that it is his goal to use the full roster which is also encouraging. Last year, there were a few players on the team that just seemed to be along for the ride as the season progressed. Some of that was due to circumstances beyond the players’ control, but overall the quality of the roster has improved. Coach Kim seems to have a plan to get as many players as reasonably possible involved in the matches this season.
Areas of Concern
Racing is incredibly deep at the forward position. I know that sounds like a positive thing, but there may not be enough minutes to go around at the forward position. You have to assume that Jess McDonald is going to start 18-20 matches and would only miss out due to injury or rotation. Kizer seems like a lock too. When Nadia Nadim returns, she is going to get every opportunity to start and log significant minutes. The concern here is the development of Ekic, Davis, Parker Goins (who looked great in her limited minutes) and most worryingly Ebony Salmon. Racing also signed Sh’Nia Gordon from CSKA Moscow and she will be fighting for minutes too. The concern with Salmon is that she seems to be a streaky player. When she is on her game, she is great. On the other hand, when she is playing isolated and not getting decent service she tends to disappear. The unfortunate thing here is that she hasn’t really had too many minutes on the field with Jess McDonald. In a preseason intersquad scrimmage, the pairing of McDonald and Salmon looked very dangerous. Since then, we really haven’t seen them given any chance to work on their chemistry. Maybe they will get the chance soon but if not, Salmon may have to shift out wide to get meaningful minutes because her work in the traditional #9 role hasn’t been very effective so far this season.
Also, this team is still very young. There are some things that a year or two in a professional league will teach you that you simply don’t learn at other levels. This may also sound odd, but this team probably needs to pick up a few more “dirty” tricks. I mentioned this in my post on the Houston match, but the Dash players basically manhandled rookie goalkeeper Jordyn Bloomer on their second goal on Sunday, but there wasn’t any Racing player around to shove a Dash player and make the official pay attention prior to the free kick. Sometimes you need to be a jerk on the pitch. This will come with experience too. The other thing that experience brings is belief that you are going to win. Racing never quite looked like they believed in themselves last year, but that has already changed this year.
Pressing Questions
How will Racing line up at full strength?
This is a tough one. Racing have played in 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1 formations, but if anything, Coach Kim Björkegren has shown the ability to be flexible. I’m not even sure he knows his best XI yet. If I had to guess, I would say his best XI are Lund, Fox, Lester, Bonner, Merrick, Chidiac, Howell, Nadim, Kizer, McDonald, and Davis. They would work in a 4-3-3 like this:
Or more likely due to their natural positions in a 4-2-3-1 like this:
But I’m guessing. It’s entirely possible that Milliet maintains her place in the line-up due to her performance and flexibility and who’s to say that Olofsson doesn’t beat out Chidiac in the midfield? What we do know is that there will always be reinforcements on the bench and that those reinforcements can change a match.
Who will lead the team in scoring?
I think everybody will be tempted to say McDonald, and I think if you asked me who would be involved in the most goals (goals and assists) I would confidently wager that McDonald would be the leader in that category. However, there are goals all over the pitch. Kizer and Salmon were the leaders last year, and if they both matched their totals in the league from last year (5 and 6 respectively), I would bet that Racing would be in the top half of the league for sure. However, I don’t really see Salmon getting 6 again, and Racing probably needs 4 to 7 goals from multiple players to be a real contender. Nadim will be returning at some point, so she is a candidate, but I’m going to with Kizer, with McDonald assisting her and other quite often.
What position will Fox play?
I’m not sure this really matters to be honest, but I think you can bet on it being multiple positions. When Racing is in level or in the lead, expect her to be matched up on the side with the opposition’s most dangerous wing attacker. With Racing chasing a match late, expect her to move into the midfield and leave Racing in a back 3. If for some reason the team wants to experiment with a back 3 once Holloway arrives, expect her in either of the winger positions. The one thing that Fox needs to add to her game is assists. I don’t think you’ll ever see her score more than a couple of goals in a season, but she should be getting assists as much as she moves into attack.
And now the big question:
Will Racing make the playoffs?
There are a few ways that you can evaluate Racing’s chances to make the playoffs. Tom Benson wrote a piece for my site where he broke down each match in an excel spreadsheet to forecast a win, loss, or draw. The key factor here is how many points out of a possible 66 does a team need to get to make the playoffs. Both Tom and I feel like the team needs to accumulate about 50% of their possible points to have a chance. Nine wins and six draws would probably do it, but so would 7 wins and 12 draws, so it’s a bit hard to be certain where those points are coming from. Maybe a simpler way to look at it is to identify the 6 teams that you believe that Racing can finish above in the table. I break down the teams this way based on results so far this year and last:
- Teams that will almost certainly finish above Racing: Portland, OL Reign, Washington
- Teams that will likely be in the playoffs based on Challenge Cup performance: Kansas City, North Carolina
- Teams that will almost certainly be in the bottom 3: Orlando, San Diego, Angel City
- That leaves four teams fighting for the last spot: Racing, NJ/NY, Houston, and Chicago
Looking at it this way means that Racing probably needs to get 12 points out of the bottom 3 group, 14 out of the group of similar teams and hope for 6-8 points from the other two groups. That frankly seems a little daunting. To make is really simple, Racing probably needs to win the mini group of themselves, Gotham, the Red Stars and the Dash from a points perspective to give themselves a shot. Second in that group wouldn’t be a disaster, but anything less would probably see them eliminated from playoff contention. There is always a chance that North Carolina overperformed (it’s possible) or that KC overperformed (less likely) but the top 3 seem fairly solid.
Based on all of this, I would predict that Racing stays in playoff contention for longer this year, but barely misses out. This a change from my prediction using Tom’s model, but the realities of the teams in front of Racing from a talent and expectations level make it a prudent guess at this time. However, things can change quickly so I reserve the right to adjust this forecast when I do midseason evaluations.
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