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This kind of thing is why I like women’s football the most. 

When Olympique Lyonnais won the 2015-16 Women’s Champions League in a penalty shootout against VfL Wolfsburg, rather than celebrating the win and her own final match with her team of 8 years, Lotta Schelin immediately went to console her devastated former teammate Élise Bussaglia who missed the 5th and determining penalty kick for Wolfsburg.

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a pk for the thorns?

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This should be one of those ‘name a more iconic trio’ memes I stg.

Le Sommer, Morgan, Hegerberg 

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I LOVE THIS

I’d say our 2-pole workshop was a success

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Mal, when told she’s getting number 11.

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Pretty sure this sums up Dash fan’s season so far. 

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It was beautiful 

Isobel Christiansen scores a fantastic volley, getting on the end of Lucy Bronze’s cross.

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Women’s FA Cup

A brief overview from the stands...

This was a record crowd at around 35,000. Part of that was definitely helped by the ‘kids go free’ promotion but I also saw a lot of adults who looked like they had travelled for it. There’s a bunch of debate going on at the moment around, should women’s football be marketed as family friendly or not. I think there’s definitely something to be said for catering to young adult markets #millenials, and I’d like to see more emphasis on this in future. That being said, it was cool to see so many young girls clearly enjoying the match and getting to see great players competing at a historic venue.

I got us great seats, slightly along towards goal on the right side (mainly because I knew that would mean Bronze would be on our flank one half). I think I was the only person in the section who actually knew much about the players, we had a bunch of kids and some adults who were sitting and silently watching? They did not appreciate my shouted commentary of ‘run faster Carli’ and repeated chants of ‘Lucy fucking Bronze’. Shouldn’t have come to a football game if you wanted peace and quiet chaps.

The match itself was a bit of a steam roll. Birmingham had a few good looks at goal with Ellen White and to be honest, she seemed off her game and didn’t deliver on any of them. Andrine Hegerberg in midfield put in work and had a couple of really nice intercepts and nice vision but not enough intelligent off the ball movement from team mates for her to capitalise on this.

Man City, number 24, who I think is Lawley was POTM and well deserved. She was absolutely controlling midfield with Scott. I mainly watched Lloyd in the first half as she was up top near us, and Bronze and Houghton in the second. Lloyd spends a lot of time shoving other players which I quite appreciate. Stokes also tore up and down the wing and sparked a couple of good chances for City.

After the cup presentation a couple of City players wandered over for autographs, so we hung out and got photos with Bards and Stokes and wished them luck for the euros.

I thought I wouldn’t be that into the match since I don’t support either team but actually it was a pleasure to see them play, and I’ll absolutely be buying tickets for next year. In the meantime, roll on Cardiff when I’ll get to see PSG who I’m 100% sure will definitely win, because my team wouldn’t do me dirty like that and lose when I travel the whole way to see them.

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NWSL & NWSLFL Review W3-4

Week 3 wasn’t great, but Week 4 was a success. More importantly, CRS start shaping up and we end up back in the playoff spots in the table. Some thoughts on the matches below.

Week 2:

This week saw a heavy reliance on the Reign with Kop in goal, Barnes in defence and Fishlock in midfield. Needless to say that didn't go great.

Successes that week were Debinha, Ohai and Williams who did well enough to pull me through without a complete trouncing. 

Press stayed on as captain but the drought continued.

Portland v Chicago Red Stars

First up, I hate Portland v CRS any time because they're my #1 and #2 teams and I don't like either losing. I guess the main takeaway from this match was that the reffing in the league can still turn up poor and inconsistent. The handball was at best a softcall, and there should have been a call for Press being taken down by Franch. Ignoring that, I think a draw would have been fair. Neither team really dominated and Chicago continues to have problems finishing. If Portland had Reynolds and Heath back in I wonder if this would have played out differently.

Everyone Else

Boston yoooo! I guess the main takeaway here is that a good performance in one week doesn't necessarily carry over. The Reign still trying to get their feet under them and pull out consistency, and Boston putting up much more fight than previous seasons.

NCC v Orlando surprised pretty much nobody. I'm quite enjoying the dominance of the NCC given the turn around from last season. Sure they won the championship in the end but it wasn't a sure thing from the start of the season. It's nice to have a big undefeated team sitting pretty at the top of the table for Thorns and Chicago to gun for. Parity in the league is still generally very good, so I don't expect them to remain undefeated for too much longer.

Spirit fell to Houston, who probably needed the win after last week. Spirit is an interesting one because I decided at the start of the season that the off pitch drama would definitely cause poor performance. It doesn't seem to be the case, they're not coming out super strong but they're definitely more solid than the walkover I expected. I'd like to see more of Kristie Mewis for them now they've lost Lohman there. Still have some bad injury mojo hanging over them.

I didn't care about the SBFC v FCKC match at all.

Week 4

I did pretty well this week in FL. Disclaimer though, I only watched the CRS match because I was on vacation.

A reliance on NCC paid off, and picking Ertz gained me some serious points. D'Angelo and Dahlkemper particularly did well and I had Long in midfield here too.

Disappointing from Averbuch, and I probably would have switched her for Gilliland, although I've found Gilliland a little underwhelming this season she at least got the clean sheet bonus.

Chicago Red Stars v Houston Dash

At last, revenge! This was the first game I got to watch live on lifetime including pregame. I was really impressed with the production values and the little segments on players, particularly Ohai's. As far as the match went Chicago played pretty solidly, although I would have liked to have seen a few less giveaways in midfield. Naeher has been coming off her line much more decisively the past two games which has been a defniite improvement over the first two games. Standouts this game for me were Ertz again and Colaprico. Short, Johnson and Naughton have combined to make our backline strong and I am pretty confident in it's current configuration. The finishing is a slight concern, there have definitely been a few chances that should have been completed. Set pieces have improved marginally but still a weak point, although not as bad as week two when they were awful. Next match I'd like to see: improved finishing, more aggressive pressing.

Houston played okay but you could tell they were missing their midfielders. Once Brian came on their attack was considerably better. It goes to show what midfielders with good vision provide. Daly's work rate continues to impress, although arguably she had the easier time matching up against an underperforming Gilliland than Ohai against Short.

Everyone Else

I honestly didn't watch enough of any of these matches to comment, but I do want to try to catch up on the foul fest that was the Cascadia rivalry. I saw a few clips of Matthias back at her old hair pulling tricks. Henry has been being a bit battered recently, and I'm always here for the Thorns getting testy.

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NWSL & NWSLFL Review W1 - 2

Or, Why I'm So Bad At Picking Fantasy Lineups

Weeks 1 and 2 did not go well for me this season. Surprise. 

Week 1:

Put my money on CRS, Thorns, NCC, SRFC and FCKC.

 Players that did well for me were: Nadim, Menges, Dahlkemper, Williams and Mewis. I had Kop as my sub GK which was frustrating.

 Players that did not do well for me were Press, and Fishlock. I expected both to have more impact and so lost out there.

As for the actual matches, I'm going to limit this to CRS in depth and everyone else an overview.

Houston Dash v Chicago Red Stars

Hated this. Realistically I did not expect to see Chicago's defence get smoked like this. There were definite issues with the heat and just a general failure to convert chances. While it was frustrating CRS remained what I'd consider more dominant. Annoyingly both Daly and Ohai's goals were very nice, and it was good to see two strikers snubbed by their respective national teams show up in the first game of the season. I have a soft spot for the sad Dash, but not to the extent I was in any way pleased by this poor outing from CRS.

Everyone Else

Kop was insane. I hate that I keep having to compliment the Reign, but you can't deny it. Portland held up but struggled more than I'd like. There's some grumblings about shaky defence, but I thought Sonnett was pretty good and Menges did a capable job. More worrying to me as a Portland fan (*when they are not playing CRS) was Franch in goal. I don't care if statistically she isn't awful, she feels unreliable and I think that contributes to the backline's solidity. Surprised to see NCC not stomp Spirit harder, and I think that says a lot about the Spirit players that remain. Sky Blue / Seattle draw was weird and annoyed me as I expected the stupid Reign to do better for my fantasy lineup.

Week 2:

Week 2 managed to be even worse for my FL, but better for my team. I'll take it.

Put my money on CRS (stating the obvious), Pride, a draw between Thorns and NCC, SRFC and SBFC

Players that did well for me were: Fishlock, Huerta and Press. This time I had Kop as GK and Naeher as sub. Ugh.

Players that did not do well for me were: Catley, Kerr, Long and Killion.

Chicago Red Stars v Kansas City FC

After last week I was minorly concerned about this mainly because FCKC are similar to Houston in terms of pacey forwards. Let's talk about the real winner of this match though, Julie Ertz. Who I will forever call JJ, but out of respect to her desire to be Ertz will amend to JJ Ertz. So, JJ Ertz as midfielder. Rory, I love this, do this more. I think something that JJ gives in midfield that perhaps we have lacked is a certain gritty physicality. The rest of the midfield is quite small physically, but JJ is tall and jacked. She combined excellently with Huerta for that goal and CRS had good passing and plenty of chance. Again, I would have liked to see more finishing of those chances, but I was happy with this as a second match. Our backline didn't get the pressure I expected, but I like Naughton and Johnson there. Naeher also came off her line a bunch more this game which I thought was an improvement from last week. Fundamentally a good showing. I'd like to see better set pieces, and Portland this week will really test that defence so I'd expect to see Ertz back in a more traditional CB role for that match.

All the Rest

Okay Seattle, go away. They played very nicely. I was very annoyed. Dash, wyd? Poor Campbell. It's still early in the season but this match boded a return to form for the Reign, and perhaps that the Dash will continue to underperform this season. To be continued...

In other personally joyous news, Orlando kind of choked at home to a team everyone thought they would beat and I laughed a bit (Sorry Kriegs). I didn't think either team played amazingly and Marta looked kind of annoyed at her team mates. Backline for Orlando was a bit weird at the start, I'd like to see Tom just accept that Krieger is most comfortable at RB and leave her there. Neat showing from Danica Evans.

Watched a fair bit of Breakers v SBFC as well and honestly even though I bet against them in my fantasy lineup I was stoked to see them win. Sky Blue played what I can only describe as lackadaisically?

Portland v NCC I only watched the highlights of and it stressed me out. Franch is going to be my big worry for Portland this year. The whole squad seems a tad shaky so far, I don't know whether that's missing Heath and Dagny or what but it doesn't look like the solid shield winning side of last year. Hopefully it's just early season settling. NCC on the other hand seem to be going from strength to strength so that's not ideal.

Tune in next fortnight to hear how having to watch CRS play Portland breaks my heart in some significant way. I will be on vacation so at least I'll probably avoid watching it live and crying internally for 90 minutes, only having to be sad for one of my teams during the minute it takes to check the final score.