Week 5 vibes rankings
“Jordyn, I'm a dinosaur!”
For those who aren’t familiar with the Boston area, the Monday the Boston Marathon is on (Patriots Day) is just a tremendous day, especially when the weather is nice. You have the 11am Red Sox game, and the marathon. It’s a state holiday, so a lot of people have it off of work, and it serves as an unofficial start to spring. And being a spectator at the Marathon might be one of the most collectively positive experiences I’ve had…everyone is extremely supportive of the runners, and it’s just a great vibes1 experience for a city that doesn’t always have the best ones.
I don’t live or work in Massachusetts anymore, so I was in my windowless office. I heard it was fun though.
Kansas City Current Last Week: 1
Same script, same score. Would you folks be mad if I just copy and pasted the same thing under Current I do every week? One interesting thing I saw is that through the first 5 games, Vlatko, Seb Hines, and Jonah Eidevall are the only coaches that have used all 25 of their subs this year.2 On the other end of the spectrum, Bev Yanez, Fabrice Gautrat, and Albertin Montoya.
Washington Spirit Last Week: 3
Knocking Orlando from it’s perch of the Invincibles leapfrogs them in my eye, especially considering the report that Trinity Rodman is stepping away indefinitely to heal her asshole back. I think we might look back at this season as pretty remarkable for Washington…they have gone through stretches of looking like they are being held together with wishes and dreams, but have beaten Orlando twice, and generally look like it will take a very good team performance to beat them even with their injuries. Gift Monday was impressive stepping in for Rodman.
Orlando Pride Last Week: 2
Speaking of that Washington game, I still fail to see how Orlando loses a game at all. I can see them getting beaten (such as again the Spirit), but I just don’t see them making the kind of mistakes that hurt them enough to blow games. And considering the league’s emphasis on maintaining parity3, that’s almost as valuable as a really good center mid.
Gotham FC Last Week 4
The Batties showed what happens when you try to actually do somethings out on the field rather than the physical alchemy that Amoros usually tries out there to grind out one goal wins. Esther scores one goal4 in a relatively meaningless game for Spain, and comes back to be a complete demon; it’s fun as hell. Not a description I would often use with Gotham without Lavelle.
San Diego Wave Last week: 5
It was kind of a coming out party for the Frenchies, as Cascarino scored twice, and provided an assist, Morroni assisted one of Cascarino’s goals, and Dali scored on a direct free kick. The other goal involvements were the teenagers, with Barcenas scoring and Ascanio giving Cascarino a helper. What’s summing up Wave’s season so far is that they were out xG’ed by Louisville 1.4-0.95 and still won 4-1, with Louisville goal coming from the spot.
Seattle Reign Last week: 6
Just for me, watching this game after it was played, it felt dead as a Cascadia Derby. Just a flat game without the vitrol that seems to follow this game around. Part of that is the retirements of Christine Sinclair and Megan Rapinoe, two players who played their whole careers in the rivalry and deliciously trolled the other team, but I think a lot of it was that the teams haven’t been good at the same time in a few years.
Bay FC Last Week: 8
They were outplayed thoroughly by Chicago at home last week. and comfortably outplayed North Carolina on the road. This sport doesn’t make sense. Taylor Huff is the only rookie that has played every minute so far.
Angel City Last Week: 7
Undefeated no more, but unlike their rivals in the shadow of the Mouse, they looked really bad going down in defeat. It doesn’t matter really, 57% of the teams make the playoffs, and their season starts June 1 when Alexander Straus arrives from Bayern Munich…plus if the injury to Alyssa Thompson is serious, they are going to struggle to go anywhere anyway.
Houston Dash Last Week: 10
I dunno man. Houston played well enough against the Current that I can’t really hold the current form against them, but being a fan of this club isn’t easy. Everything just reminds me of her.
Portland Thorns Last week: 9
Want to hear a crazy nerd stat for dorks? If you take the actual number of goals scored by Portland, and their team xG produced, and then divide it by the number of games played, it stands at -1.0. This means that according to this measure, Portland are leaving 1 goal a game on the table. Gotham in town tonight.
Utah Royals Last week: 14
There ranking this week has nothing to do with good vibes being achieved but entirely due to the fact that North Carolina is a mess, Louisville had a disaster week, and they beat Chicago. Plenty of season left, but these bottom 4 teams need to figure something out quick.
Chicago Stars Last week: 12
Last week was fun, innit?
Racing Louisville Last week: 12
People don't believe or understand that a community can lose hope. You can have a whole community where hopelessness is the norm, where folks don't have faith that things will get better because history and circumstances have proven over 30, 40, or 50 years that things don't get better. --Geoffrey Canada
I can imagine this is what being a Louisville fan feels like.
North Carolina Courage Last week: 13
This is an actual post they made on Twitter after their game Saturday. So things are going well in Cary.6
Boston Legacy Last Week: 15
All quiet…
Denver Last Week: 16
…here too.
Not to get too dark here, but there is one year where the vibes obviously weren’t great.
Not coincidentally, Kansas City, Orlando, and San Diego are the 3 teams that I think have done the best job in managing the talent of their players. Washington would be here too, but I think they only have 3 healthy players, so I don’t know it it’s by design or necessity.
To be clear, I think competitive balance (every team is challenged to be the best in the league, and teams invest to reach that goal) is good, and parity (by rule, there are restrictions in place for teams’ investments that forces everyone to the middle) is less good. The NWSL runs a parity system, where in theory, every team has access to similar talents (via the draft, and inter/intra league transfer spending limits), so a team having 11 8-level players who don’t make mistakes are much more stout than teams having a wider variance of talents but screw up occasionally. This is one of those times something makes sense in my head but I’m not sure it does on the page.
I’m just kind of putting thoughts out there, but is she the most complete center forward in recent NWSL history so far? There are definitely contenders for what we would consider a pure 9, but when she drops in the midfield to support attacks, or switches to help defensively, her results are pretty great.
Tell your xG to shut up
Reality was that it was because players came out with puppies pregame. But they were also getting yelled at on Twitter a lot. Because they are playing awful.