Week 9 Vibe Ranking

This man doesn't give a shit about women's soccer.

On Sunday morning, I was sitting in my office at work¹ catching up on some boring lawyer shit while I had the women’s FA Cup final match streaming on my TV. Quick recap: Sandy Baltimore dominated, Cat Macario scored, Chelsea won 3-0, Manchester Untied made their 3rd straight final. Is Ella Toone unhappy question mark.

And Manchester United controlling owner, Brexiteer, tax avoider, and public face Sir Jim Ratcliffe didn’t bother to appear for the second straight year he’s owned the club.

This continues to be a pattern of behavior for ole “Sir” Jim, who in doing is best to make the women’s section largely irrelevant. When Katie Zelem was the captain of United, she gave Jimmy Rat a tour of the facilities, and he asked her what she did. From the same article² it mentions how Ratcliffe finds it difficult to focus on his women’s team, fired sporting director Dan Ashworth after 5 months. Ashworth was a noted supporter of the women’s section. Previously, United management relegated them out of their changing rooms for the boy’s squad during Covid (before Ratcliffe’s INEOS took over), but had no issue removing them for the men’s squad during renovation. INEOS didn’t pay for any staff to go to the FA finals (this nut was picked up by men’s player Bruno Fernandes).

Zito Madu, a soccer player turned writer that I really enjoy, and his replies had this to say:

Ratcliffe is odious enough that I actually wanted Chelsea to win the game, despite United having Phallon Tullus-Joyce on it, and two ex-Spurs players I adore, Celin Bizet and Grace Clinton. I probably wouldn’t even have watched if Chelsea didn’t have three awesome Americans of their own.

1. Kansas City Current Last week: 1

   It appears to be their league now, doesn’t it? This weeks MATCH OF THE SEASON ended with Kansas City smash and grabbing 3 points out of Orlando in a match that had Temwa Chawinga scoring for the first time since March, and a really sublime defensive performance from Kayla Sharples specifically. One neat tactical change Vlatko made was overloading the right flank defensively with Mace, Wheeler, Cook, and Labonta which did two things. Allowed Mace more freedom to interchange up the field with Debinha, and stifled clean movement on that flank for Marta and Carson Pickett. Injury subs for Deb, Temwa, and Alana Cook is no good obviously, but Bia essentially being 90 minutes fit is huge.

2. San Diego Wave Last week: 5

   They went on the road to beat Gotham in New Jersey, with the goal being provided by Kimmi Ascanio for the 3rd time in four games. A lot has been made of San Diego’s ability to develop the youngsters, but I think it warrants mentioning that Ascanio didn’t play much last year at all and this year she looks pretty seasoned playing in an advanced role. As there is more game tape on her to scrutinize, she’ll have to make needed adjustments to keep up this run of form, but San Diego could have something pretty special here. In other news, Alex Morgan is an investor into the team. Remains to be seen what to make of this, but given Wave’s history, I hope she will have some owner/operator responsibilities to give the FO some needed credibility.

   

3. Orlando Pride Last week: 2

   They can’t really score at the moment, but they played physically against a Kansas City team that doesn’t get pushed around a lot and did move the ball around a lot against a defense designed to stop that. Because of the way the four games between these two teams has gone the last 2 seasons, there is a realm intense rivalry here brewing naturally that is as fun to watch as a neutral. Certainly much better than the Angel City/San Diego rivalry that is still mostly friendly, and the Gotham/Washington rivalry that doesn’t exist. When was the last time there was multi-year menace expected in a non-Thorns/Reign matchup…Thorns/North Carolina during the Parsons/Riley years? Summer Yates returned from her injury with a cameo, which can only help end their scoring woes.

4. Portland Thorns Last week: 7

   Portland (and Gotham) are heading to Mexico to play in the Champions League Only CONCACAF against Tigres and America respectively. Because of that, Portland rotated heavily but handled Houston pretty easily. I have a long standing bias against Thorns for superficial reasons (winning) and non (their decade long culture of allowing the abuse of women), so I can’t really be objective here, but what if their rotated lineup is actually their best lineup given their injuries? Todrin, Linnehan, and Hanks³ provided 3 of the 4 goals, with Sam Coffey adding a spot kick for good measure. I don’t know if there is a team more dependent on one player for their overall success than Portland is on Sam Coffey this year so far.

5. Washington Spirit Last week: 3

   Right now there is a very distinct “pull to the middle” inertia in the league. Case in point is Washington playing at fuller strength now than at any point in the season (Croix Bethune started, Hal Hershfelt and Casey Krueger played) and the end result was a 3-3 mayhem draw against a Utah Royals team that hadn’t scored from live play since March 22.⁴ One thing that stood out watching was that Utah’s first two goals were scored almost the exact same way…Thomsen crossed to Mozingo⁵ who was coming in far post unmarked. Goal 1 was scored by Brecken, goal 2 was shot by Mozingo and then cleaned up and scored by Cece Kizer. On the goals, the entire left side of the Spirit defense let them down, and injuries can’t explain why so often Carle/Bernal/and anyone on the left midfield⁶ can’t seem to close out. Hatch missed her first penalty.

6. Angel City Last week: 4

   They turned a corner directly into a brick wall named Jordan Silkowicz. Christen Press got the start, and again, their best players were the Thompson sisters by a good margin. A month out from getting their fancy Norwegian coach and again, all I can ask is “Angel City, can you be serious?” This team needs a 2nd idea.

7. Seattle Reign Last week: 8

   Not Reign though. Their strategy this year of “Get a goal, and defend in a way that makes everyone hate soccer” is been effective, none more so than against an in-form Louisville team that pretty much had their way box-to-box with Harvey’s team. Seattle is stodgy defensively in that they don’t allow many goals, but this isn’t due to any extra-ordinary effort outside of their own box, as they were permissive to Louisville’s attack⁷ until Racing needed to put one on net. Claudia Dickey is probably my goalkeeper of the year so far this year, but against Racing, she had one save against 20 shots. She only needed to make the one.

8. North Carolina Courage Last week: 9

   Now that we’ve settled into the real teeth of the schedule, I think it’s proper time for me to acknowledge that North Carolina have bounced back from the hole they dug themselves into. After the first five games, they sat on 2 points, holding up the rest of the league. Since then, they’ve notched 3 wins and a draw. A facor in this turn around has been the play of Shinomi Koyama, who sits 3rd in the league in xA/90.⁸ To the eye though, I kind of hate the comparison because it’s so lazy to compare country-mate to country-mate, her presence in the midfield during this streak has muted the loss of Narumi to Washington more than I thought it would this early in her career.

9. Gotham Last week: 6

   Let’s analyze what’s been working for them

10. Bay FC Last week: 12

    They beat an in-form team at home 2-0, which means Bay continues to be one of the more confounding teams in the league this year, so this week was the “sometimes good” turn I guess. Funny piece of NWSLilia, Caroline Conti has 2 goals, and 0 shots on target.

11. Houston Dash Last week: 10

    No.

12. Racing Louisville Last week: 11

    Talking about this game anymore would absolutely drive me bonkers. Yanez used 4 subs this game, but Louisville still couldn’t determine the difference between “attacking” and “offensive” football. They just need someone badly who can work as a center forward and make a defense work in the final 3rd until Balcer⁹ comes back.

13. Utah Royals Last week: 13

    Here are Utah’s goals this year from open play:

    Date	Min	Scorer
    15-Mar-25	12	Bianca St-Georges
    22-Mar-25	61	Claudia Zornoza
    22-Mar-25	72	Mina Tanaka
    17-May-25	9	Brecken Mozingo
    17-May-25	22	Cece Kizer

    Not to belabor the point but…Spirit…come on. This doesn’t even include Bernal’s own goal that was caused by Cece Kizer.¹⁰

14. Chicago Stars Last week: 14

    

    Despite reasonable predictions that it was an admission it was time to jump into the briny¹¹ deep, this was about Chicago playing their Sept 7th match against Orlando at Northwestern’s Martin Stadium, which sits on Lake Michigan. It’s notable because the SeatGeek lease is up this year, and Chicago need a more viable home. It’s also notable because there is nothing else to talk about the Stars since they are such a mess, footy-wise.

15. Boston Legacy Last week: 15

    I read a note from someone who has a really strong track record on NWSL background that said this:

    

16. Denver NWSL Last week: 16

    Land! We have land!

1. Grind all day /sobs gently

2. I know it’s the Daily Mail and therefore shit, but ride with me on this one, okay? Also not recognizing Zelem here isn’t exactly a capital offense, but what do you think the chances are he doesn’t recognize Harry Maguire or Mason Mount?

3. Youths! All!

4. Almost 2 months!

5. Important to mention that these two haven’t been average or mediocre this year, but bad.

6. Meg Boade in this case.

7. Almost 2x as much possession, 2x as many passes, 5x as many shots.

8. Sample size warning applies here. She’s only played 340 minutes so far, and hasn’t gone the full 90 yet. But she’s also only 20.

9. If/when

10. I just want to point out because I love her, Kizer has 20 goals in her NWSL career. Considering how little she’s played in the last few years, that is a fantastic bit of trivia.

11. I know Lake Michigan is fresh water, I’m taking license here.