Summer Cup: ACFC 0-1 Gotham FC

First Thoughts

All good things must come to an end, and so it was with the Summer Cup, and in a familiar fashion, too: losing to Gotham. It wasn’t 2-1 this time, but in a lot ways, this game didn’t look too different from the previous matchups, despite the fact that Gotham was missing seven Olympians (plus Ella Stevens was on the bench with a thigh injury, and with Esther and Midge Purce out with longer term injuries, that’s almost an entire starting lineup missing).

Impressions

There’s a lot that actually looks good from this game, and Angel City did dominate a large number of statistical categories. Possession was 61% to 39%, Shots were 11 to 6, Shots on Target were 7 to 5, Crosses were 30 to 7, and Corners were 14 to 3, with all of these in favor of ACFC. To me, though, there was only one great chance: when the ball fell kindly for Messiah Bright in the 58’, right in front of goal. As I said in my midseason league report, Gotham has the best defense in the league, and they’ve reached that status because they have a teamwide commitment to defending. Even without the individual talent that they were missing, I wasn’t too surprised to see Gotham remaining disciplined and organized. So when Bright gets an opportunity like that, she absolutely has to bury it. Unlike the mob, Gotham FC doesn’t keep giving you chances.

While the corner and crossing numbers look impressive, we didn’t generate very much from either. Of the 14 Corners, only 4 found an Angel City player, and 3 of those were short corners. The same is true of the Crosses. Only 4 of the 30 Attempted Crosses were successful. I don’t think that the service was that bad, actually, but Gotham felt very comfortable with aerial duels. I’ve said it before, but I think that Angel City is really, really crying out for a target player on set pieces.

There’s a similar sense with the shots. Yes, we outshot Gotham, but of their 6 Shots, only 1 was off target, and 2 were blocked. For Angel City’s 11 Shots, 7 were on target, but 4 of those were blocked, so only 3 of the 11 actually challenged Gotham’s goalie. And while outshooting Gotham is good, the 11 shots taken is right on average with where Angel City has been all year, which is actually only 12th in the league (for reference, Kansas City lead the league with 20.44 Shots per Game). I felt like Gotham were patient enough to sit and wait for their chances, and they were confident that they would eventually convert.

Goals

48’ Gotham FC - This play begins with a giveaway from Messiah Bright in midfield. Spencer is the closest defender, and she immediately pressures the ball, but does not win it back. Gotham moves the ball out to Bruninha in the middle of the pitch. Because Spencer was pushing up into the attack, as we want our fullbacks to do, and because she remained forward for the initial challenge, there is a big gap on Angel City’s right. Yazmeen Ryan runs into that space, and Bruninha finds her with a great long ball. Ryan has drifted wide, so that forces Megan Reid to come across to challenge her, but in doing so, that opens up the Gotham’s left-central channel. Ryan places the easy ball across to Sheehan, who collects it, dribbles completely unobstructed towards goal, and fires past Haračić from about 9 yards out.

This goal reinforces one of my core beliefs: attackers shouldn’t focus on getting into scoring positions, they should focus on pulling apart the defense. Ryan’s run is not dangerous in itself, but it pulls Reid out of position, and that opens up the opportunity for Sheehan. Also, as I mentioned in the last article, when Angel City plays up the wings, our central midfielders have to go very wide. In fact, when we look at all of Madison Hammond’s plays (passes, tackles, dribbles, etc.), she basically covers every blade of grass on the pitch, with the exception of right in front of both goals. She is making plays at both endlines, and the left and right sidelines. But the problem with all that hard work and running means that when Angel City loses possession, our central midfielders are actually not in central midfield. There was nobody to pressure Bruninha, and nobody to follow Sheehan out of midfield.

The Summer Cup Overall

The Summer Cup provided some opportunities to players that haven’t been getting as much playing time, although with injuries, and Angel City down to 24 players, I don’t know that there were actually that many changes. We saw a few cameos from Katie Johnson, Casey Phair, and Elizabeth Eddy, but just a handful of minutes, and of course, Christen Press. But we did see a lot of minutes from Gorden and Reid at centerback, Curry at fullback, Hammond in midfield, and Alyssa Thompson and Emslie on the wings. Fuller played a lot of it, but she was getting minutes beforehand, and now that Le Bihan is gone, I expect we’ll see even more of her. The only players that I thought got really extended looks, who hadn’t played much in the first half of the season, were Bright, Dougherty Howard, and Anderson. And I don’t think that anybody really made a compelling case to be a starter.

I thought that Anderson looked the best of these three. She only allowed 1 Goal in her 2 matches. Her shot stopping looked good, but she didn’t always seem to be on the same page as her defense. These are basically the same strengths and weaknesses that I had for her before the tournament, however. Dougherty Howard was solid, but not exceptional in my opinion. Back at the start of the season, she looked like far more of an attacking threat, taking shots and getting into the box, but that was not the case in this tournament. Bright maybe had the most to prove, and she started all four Summer Cup games, but having that extended run didn’t really change anything for me. She did have one assist, but no goals. And as with Anderson, it seemed like the same pros and cons. She had some attacking threat, but never quite managed to convert and she seemed to have trouble keeping possession at times, as we saw in her giveaway that led to Gotham’s goal. She was ACFC’s primary No 9 in this tournament, she had an extended run, and every opportunity to develop a rhythm, but to me, she still looked like the same player we saw in substitute appearances earlier in the season.

I also don’t think we saw a lot different from the team in general. We stayed with the 4-2-3-1 formation. We scored three goals in the first two matches (plus an own goal from Bay FC), but then we were shutout in the next two. Our goalscorers were Fuller, Leroux, and Emslie, so not really any new names there. It was kind of the same production, coming from the same places, and again, we still had trouble scoring goals. When the season resumes, I don’t really expect to see Becki Tweed play any differently, because I don’t think that anybody made a compelling case for more playing time. I do think the Summer Cup was a success, as even the cameos represented more playing time than some players were getting, and three wins in a row should count for something. But I think that this was a missed opportunity for some players to have made a case for more playing time. In the end, I didn’t really see any changes to the depth chart.

The big caveat, though, are new players. Hopefully we’ll continue to see Press build her fitness and begin to start matches. They teased a new player (maybe Katie Zelem? I desperately hope that’s true!). Maybe one more signing after that? I think that we all want to see impact players coming in, but even if all of that comes about, then we’re still looking at 8 of our regular players starting, and I think the same formation that we’ve been playing. There’s also the issue that while Angel City might play better, we’ve already seen big moves from teams closer to us (Chicago, San Diego, and Seattle), while some of the top teams have strengthened even more (Kansas City, Gotham, and Portland). We’ll see what happens, but I guess I’m feeling like there are a few things to be hopeful for in the final ten games, but more reasons to feel like we’ll still be watching a similar team, with similar results, as we saw in the first half.