Sky Blue teammates celebrate a goal as they pull off the upset against league leaders FC Gold Pride. They won 2-0 on Sunday, with goals from Rosana and Kai.What a Week for WPS. In the midst of all the other things going on, such as World Cup, the WPS continues to provide us with some great action.
First match-up to discuss of course, is Boston vs. Chicago. It was a tough one to call, with both teams struggling especially to score for quite some time, but overall, struggling to do well in the league in general. The game ended 2-1, with Ella Masar scoring 2 goals to get Chicago the 3 points, and Fabiana scoring the lone goal for Boston, who looked threatening and had decent form early on this season, but fizzled out completely.
This game wasn't too surprising, since out of both the teams, I'd say that Chicago would be more likely to win, since they've fared a little better in the league than Boston. I think the score is fitting. Both teams have struggled, but Chicago, as I figured, was a little better, so the scoreline suggested just that. These 2 teams are in major problems in the league. Chicago is repeating their 2009 run practically, and if they don't seriously kick it up a notch, or a few notches, then they will be doomed to missing out on another play-off run. And Boston is doomed for the same. It doesn't make any sense, Boston looked like a contender from early on this season. They acquired players to address the lack of offense that haunted them in 2009, by getting players such as Cheney and Laura Del Rio. But, Cheney has lost her form, and Del Rio has never found the net. Smith was off to a good start, but she too fizzled out. One of Boston's talismans is their steady defense. The only problem is, you cannot rely on your defense to hold on without conceding for an entire 90 minutes, in hopes of a tie. If your offense cannot put you on the board, you are bound to concede, and therefore lose. Boston rarely has leads to protect, so the defense is going to waste. Boston is not performing well at all. They need to start scoring more goals, so that the defense will have something to defend. If Boston don't change this around now, they're not going anywhere, plain and simple. If Boston continue on this horrible form, I'll be willing to bet that Atlanta Beat will pass them on the standings, especially because of their new-found form. As for Chicago, they're incredibly inconsistent. They'll win some, lose some, tie some. They've done very well against some of the tougher teams, but you can't have high expectations for Chicago, since they are not guaranteed to meet them. They're too inconsistent to consider them contenders, however, no team should take them lightly. Chicago has proven that they can be a tough opponent when they want to be.
Next match-up, it's Washington vs. Philly. I thought Washington Freedom would take the win, as I predicted in my previous post. It looked like they were going to take it for sure too, after they were up 2-0 in the 1st half. However, disaster would strike completely, as Philly came back from behind to win the match in the 2nd half. A near-impossible feat in the WPS, when looking at the odds and history of the league. Only a small number of teams have come back from a deficit to win a match. Philadelphia became one of them on Saturday. The Washington Freedom looked like they had the match in the bag, after Mykjaland would put one away off a rebound, and after Wambach would convert a penalty to a goal. However, the match was far from over, as Philadelphia would come out swinging in the 2nd half. A-Rod would score twice, once off a DiMartino cross, and another time after shooting the ball off a Buczkowski service into the box. Philly would finish their come-from-behind thriller with a goal from Sanderson in stoppage time.
This is an utter embarrassment for Washington. I can't even explain how ridiculous it is for Washington to have had the 2 goal lead, and then throw it all out the window, giving the game away in the 2nd half. What happened!? That's inexcusable. There is no reason for Washington to have given up the lead, and then even worse, the entire game. I'm going to put away my frustration and bias for a minute, and say that Philly, on the other side of the coin, did excellently to exploit Washington's inability to hold a game, and come back. Only a few teams have ever come back to win a match, let alone in dramatic last-minute fashion. Hats off to Philly, but shame on you Washington. There is no doubt in my mind that the Washington-Philly games should be deemed as rivalries. The 2 are going back-and-forth on wins, and always give entertaining performances against each other. Now Philly has 2 wins against their "rival" opponents Washington. Washington has 1 win right now in their 4 game series against Philly. There is only one more meeting between these 2 sides, and it is bound to be an interesting one. Anyway, what we saw in this game, was one team come back excellently from being down by 2, and one team give away the win. Philly did a great job of coming back in a clutch performance. They finished off the chances when they knew they needed to, and they also did so in the last-minute. Not an easy feat by far. Washington, on the other hand, did very poorly. After the 2 goals, they threw everything out the window. They allowed Philly to equalize, and then gave up a goal in the last minute. Also, they failed to score any more goals. That's just plain ridiculous. Where was the defense? Apparently, Washington still has a lot to work on with their defense, and has a lot to learn. You can't just give up leads like that, and you certainly can't let a team win in the last minute. I'm not questioning Washington's quality, but they certainly need to pick up their game. If they got outplayed from the beginning it'd be a different story, but being up 2-0 and then letting the entire win slip through your hands? Not acceptable. Washington needs to look over that loss and learn a lesson from it.
Last match-up to talk about here, with quite the surprising result to go along with it, is FC Gold Pride vs. Sky Blue FC. Now, most people would say that the league's current best, FCGP, would have taken Sky Blue to town. However, it was quite the opposite. The result was 2-0, and it was Sky Blue who won the match, not FCGP, as was expected.
The game wasn't bad at all, there were plenty of chances for both sides, but when the game was all set and done, it was FCGP who had more offensive possession. However, Sky Blue was better offensively in regards to finishing than their opponents, FCGP. The first goal would come off a diving header from Rosana, who played lone striker. I personally don't like the lone striker formation, since a 4-4-2 is much better, as the 2nd striker helps to create opportunities and opens up space. The lone striker deal seemed ineffective for Sky Blue, but towards the end of the 1st half, Rosana anticipated a cross and dove right in to get her head on the ball, putting it past Barnhart, and thus getting Sky Blue on the board. In the 2nd half, the game was all FCGP. They attacked constantly, bombarding Sky Blue's defense with chance after chance in the face of goal. Milbrett would hit the cross bar off a shot that she fired from about 22 yards out. Sinclair would notch a goal from inside the 18, yet it would be disallowed due to her offsides positioning before the pass was made. FCGP were clearly the aggressors in the 2nd half, but Sky Blue would further silence the top team, by adding another goal, courtesy of Kai. Kai would latch onto a long ball off a counter-attack. She raced down center field with the ball, but met pressure immediately from an FCGP defender. With the defender hanging on her, she released a shot from right outside the 18 that would sink into the bottom right corner, past Barnhart who did too little too late to stop the ball. It was an accurate and quality shot from Sky Blue's very own Tasha Kai, but in all honesty, Barnhart really should have stopped the goal. In my opinion, FCGP were the better side in this match, yet the scoreline doesn't suggest it. Sky Blue's defense did well, but FCGP failed to finish on some rather golden opportunities that they should have put away. It doesn't matter how many chances you have on goal. If you don't finish them, it doesn't matter. Sky Blue had fewer chances than FCGP, but they finished them. That made the difference in this match. FCGP is going to want to work on the finishing. Future opponents will definitely make them pay for it. Sky Blue FC is the famous Cinderella team, and may have a chance of surprising everyone again. They aren't exactly on form, but they proved that they can finish chances when they matter in this game. Sky Blue shows potential. They definitely have had some positive moments in their campaign, and have shown some signs of the old Sky Blue FC that won the Championship in 2009. If they can make these runs more consistent, I have a feeling they could be the comeback team once again.
Hope you enjoyed this Week's action, and the Weekly Breakdown! See you next time when Abby's XI faces off against Marta's XI this Wednesday. Catch it on FSC starting at 7:30pm, or find it on womensprosoccer.com as a Webcast.
Denise
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