Week 4 Vibes Rankings
Return after a fortnight
I just want to brag to everyone out there, that even at the pre-elderly age of 33 years old, I can still do a backflip. It doesn’t look as smooth as Ludmilla’s, and I certainly have less visible abs than she does at this point in my life, but yes, I can do a backflip.
Immediately after proving it yesterday, I had to promise my wife I would never try it again, because she thought I might “break my neck”, since it looked like I wasn’t going to fully rotate through (according to her).
SMH.
Kansas City Current Last week: 1
They are so good. Other than the omnipresent cloud of potential injury that haunts us all, the only real weakness I can see with KC is that when they have they score a couple times, they don’t have an issue completely turning off. It just remains to be seen if they can turn it back on if their opponents can get a goal back.
Orlando Pride Last week: 2
Looking at the underlying numbers, Orlando shouldn’t be as good as they are…their “fundamentals”1 show a team that is scraping by narrowly, buoyed up by a 6-0 crushing of Chicago. This really doesn’t matter as long as the team keeps winning boringly because Hines has literally everyone bought into the program. Marta and Banda get a lot of credit (deserved!), but are there more important players for what a coach wants to do than Kerry Abello and Haley McCutcheon?2
Washington Spirit Last week: 3
blah blah injures blah blah blah.
Ashley Hatch going from a poaching goal scorer, to 2 years in the wilderness3 unable to reliably score unless it’s a penalty, to being the super early Golden Boot leader and MVP candidate is, of course, what everyone had planned for this season.
Gotham Last week: 5
Esther annoying Casey Murphy enough to the point Murphy just let her have goal #2 is really funny to me. Gotham is still on sponsors of terrorism lists for me, but they at least tried to play some interesting football in spurts. The return of Midge Purce almost boosted them to #1.4
San Diego Wave Last week: 7
Trinity Armstrong played her first significant minutes against Kansas City, which is as big a baptism by fire as you can probably find for a 17 year old defender. She returned the favor by keeping Chawinga quiet for the most part, save for a terrifying chance when Cooper sprung her early in the first half.
Seattle Reign Last week: 8
The biggest narrative about Laura Harvey is that she like veterans5. Against Orlando, she played players 30 and over 157 minutes, and players who can’t legally drink yet 260 minutes.6 Twelve of them went to Emeri Adames, who, again, should be starting every game. <3 you Lynn.
Angel City Last week: 10
They looked good for the 2nd straight week, so I feel like I’m about 2-3 weeks away from feeling burned by them again. Alyssa Thompson is a legitimate superstar at this point, so the next step is to not develop into a “Thompson and 10 behind the bus” team.
Bay FC Last week: 4
Portland Thorns Last week: 11
A win is a win. Thorns weren’t exactly playing inspired soccer before the break but they definitely looked more lively on Friday. Created more chances to score than they took, but that feels like it’s the name of the game for some teams this year, even outside the Research Triangle. Reilyn Turner’s name should be written in pen for the rest of the year.
Houston Dash Last week: 6
The lineup was so confounding to me, I almost wonder if Gautrat was looking past Angel City with an eye on Kansas City next week. The midfielder who was rookie of the month was playing outside back, while the midfield set up of Colaprico, Schmidt, and Sheehan was the slowest midfield I’ve seen since last year’s Reign. You have two athletic fullbacks (Gaeris and Alozie) who can mitigate that lack of speed, but you play Graham out of position, and a slow Westphal there. Ordonez looked lost, only to be replaced early by Bright. An unserious coaching effort for a game that needed to be taken seriously.
Racing Louisville Last week: 12
Savannah Demelo is back practicing again, which is extremely positive. Uchenna Kanu returned, which is also very good. But to sum up Louisville in this game…how do you play Emma Sears 90 minutes and only get her 25 touches? Possession is overrated as a team quality, but when you only have the ball 40% of the time, you need to do a better job getting to your best players.
Chicago Stars Last week: 14
Really the feel good story of the weekend…they went to the Bay area, and Ludmilla dominated in a way that the rest of the game didn’t matter. I still think Mal-less Chicago is the worst team in the league7 but today, on Monday April 14. we can all believe.
North Carolina Courage Last week: 9
Listen, a coaches job is to make sure the pieces fit together to win soccer games. Nehas isn’t doing that this year. It’s only been 4 games, so there is still a lot time to right the ship, but Courage made Gotham look unbeatable at times after Esther’s first goal. Jaedyn Shaw comfortably had her best game as a Courage player.
Utah Royals Last week: 13
A loss is a loss. Very clearly, Utah is missing the players they thought they were going to be able to rely on especially Kaleigh Riehl, whose injury has had a knock-on affect8 through all 3 lines of the team setup. Utah’s defense is a complete mess, as evident9 by allowing the most xG in the league. The real nightmare fuel is that it matches their actual goals allowed.
Boston Legacy Last Week: 15
No new news hitting is an unqualified W for this team.
Denver Last Week: 16
Did you hate that I used this word? Me too.
Jill Loyden trying to call McCutcheon a grinder by using a music analogy and saying twice how she is “playing the bongos” to help Orlando work is one of the funniest things I’ve heard on commentary this year.
As a left winger…
She’s my favorite player in the league, but I’m a serious commentator and putting her number #1 would have seriously undermined my credibility (I’m not, and it wouldn’t).
Well and she hates the draft.
As an aside, how is Jordyn Huitema still only 23 years old?
Even though Utah is pretty yikes too.
Tejada can go back to the mid where she was when Utah was so effective last year, which frees up some defensive responsibilities Zornoza has and it allows them to play more dynamic attackers instead of say…Bianca St-Georges.
And also by the fact that Katie Del Fava and Mandy McGlynn both look positively miserable every time literally anything happens.