Athletica-Sol afterthoughts
After the game last night, I was talking to Sol coach Abner Rogers. “They’re a good team,” he said. “They’ll bounce back and they’re definitely going to cause problems.”
The Athletica are now past the halfway point of the WPS season, still in fourth, but that big edge in games in hand they had is now gone. Though they’ve played three less than L.A., they have only one more game to play than Boston and Washington, and they trail Boston by four points. So they have some work to do.
If they get Daniela back, that will help — I’ll have more on that in a later post — but they just have to find a way to score. Christie Welsh must have had a half dozen chances, either at the shooting stage or at the buildup stage, and couldn’t take advantage of any of them. It was good to see Kerri Hanks get a goal, and not a fluky one but a nicely driven shot from outside. The Athletica would benefit greatly if she flourishes in the late season.
Athletica’s corner kicks were not. Yes, they had 12, but I think three of them landed atop the goal and at least one more never got past the first defender. Those are chances wasted. Lori Chalupny took them early on, Angie Woznuk at the end.
Kendall Fletcher did a good job marking Marta, but the one scoring chance she had, Marta put it in the net for what turned out to be the game-winner.
What was the deal with L.A.’s Aly Wagner wearing long sleeves last night?
Melissa Tancredi was originally going to start last night, but wasn’t felt fit enough to go the full game, so Kia McNeill was put in her place.
Tough break of scheduling for the Athletica. In a seven-team league, you play everybody three times and two teams an extra time. The Athletica get the Sol and Gold Pride four times.
This month away from home will be telling. The team flies to New York on Friday, will come back on Monday, then they’ll be back here for a few days before going to the Bay Area for the Gold Pride game and then staying on the West Coast and training in Southern California for the Sol game on July 8. Then they have a 10-day break until they make another trip, to the East Coast, to play Washington. Can they get seven points out of that trip?
Tom, I thought Allison Falk played great for LA. She got to so many of our corner kicks first, and she’s so tall and strong. As I said on the game article blog, I thought we should have tried some different plays off the corners than just sending them high into the middle. In the second half, Lori’s spot-on drive could easily have gone in a few inches either way…I don’t know who sent her that ball, but it was ground-hugging and brilliant. Oh well…that’s fûtball.
Right now it’s looking like 25 or 26 points will get you into the playoffs. Athletica has 14, so I’m thinking 6 points on the road trip would get them in pretty good position, then needing only 5 or 6 points out of the last five games, four of which are at home. And after the road trip, they are through with LA.
Corner kicks and set pieces have been awful for the most of the season. LA presents an even more perplexing problem with a strong goalie (LeBlanc) and a 6-0 center back (Falk) as mikelomar mentioned. There is no excuse for leaving them behind the goal though.
I think this team is still in good position. While set-pieces do need to get better, none the less I still think second place is something we can definitely grab. A good showing this Sunday night will help us get our swagger back before we head out west.