Since the beginning of the season, heck since the beginning of last season, the Chicago Red Stars have had some concerns and questions swirling around them. After a 1-1 draw at home against the Washington Spirit on Saturday night, those concerns became even greater. Let’s look at what happened first.
The first half was pretty quiet and almost boring. In fact, there was only a single tangible chance in the first hour of this match, which came in the 20th minute when Kealia Watt blew past a Washington Spirit defender to take a shot. It wasn’t until the 60th minute when both teams started to get more aggressive.
First in the 60th minute, Tierna Davidson mistimed a clearance with her head, allowing Ashley Sanchez to surge forward with just the keeper to beat. But, that was the one player she couldn’t beat as Alyssa Naeher pushed it away. Almost immediately afterwards on the other end of the pitch, Aubrey Bledsoe misplayed a ball in the box and took out her own defender instead. Mallory Pugh was left alone with the ball in the box with the goalkeeper incapacitated, but had a tight angle on goal and a recovering Bledsoe directly in front of her. Instead of playing it towards Watt in the center, she attempted a shot that would be easily saved twice.
The next quick succession of chances would come 20 minutes later. In the 83rd minute, Pugh pulled a similar move, cutting into the box with a tight angle and choosing to take the low-percentage shot instead of passing it to the one of the three open players in the box. Only a couple minutes later, Sarah Gorden would get caught too high with the defensive line, allowing Trinity Rodman to fly past her into open space, finishing it through the five-hole on Naeher. This wouldn’t remain as in injury time, the Chicago Red Stars were able to draw a penalty from a handball. The penalty would be finished by Morgan Gautrat, which ended the game 1-1.
Here are three things we learned from this match:
Mál Pugh
So, the first thing we need to talk about is Mallory Pugh and how she played, especially in that second half. There was a moment in the game against the North Carolina Courage that I’d noticed where she took the ball on her own instead of playing it off to a teammate. This was a bit worrying, but she still remained a large part of the attack and continued to help build play. In this game, however, things were worse.
Her selfish choices in the 61st and 83rd minutes forced the Chicago Red Stars to pass up clear goal-scoring opportunities. Maybe she is trying too hard to get back into contention with the US National Team, maybe she’s also frustrated with the lack of overall attacking threat on the Red Stars. But the point remains that she stood in the way of the rest of the team in this game.
Pugh is a good player, but she’s starting to show some damaging selfish tendencies.
Air Rodman
Before the game, I predicted that Trinity Rodman would cause problems for the Chicago Red Stars defense. Then, during the game a little after half-time, I turned to the person next to me and said that in the 72nd minute, Rodman would beat Sarah Gorden in a one-on-one play and score. While some specifics were a bit off, I got the characters and the general premise correct. In the 85th minute, Rodman blew past an off-balance Gorden with speed and took it all the way.
This wasn’t an accident, this wasn’t magic. This was recognizing that Rodman’s greatest strength was directly related to the Red Stars defense’s greatest weakness. To the point where my prediction was made, neither team had done much of anything. But it only took a single solid pass to break down a highly touted Red Stars defense. Or maybe that defense isn’t as highly touted anymore.
Sometimes Maybe Good…
There hasn’t really been much said about the Chicago Red Stars defense since 2019. For good reason, since the biggest issue has been scoring. And while I could continue giving the same information over and over about the team’s mysterious search for a new striker, something needs to be said about a defense that seems to be so good, yet so fatally flawed at the same time.
When defending against a set offense, the Red Stars are nearly unbreakable. Players know where to position themselves and if anyone breaks through, there’s a certain level of trust that someone like Sarah Gorden can chase them down and neutralize the threat. The issue is that we know she’s good at chasing players down because she loses so many one-on-ones that she needs to chase attackers down that often. And on the counterattack, the Red Stars have given up too many goals due to holding too high of a line.
While you expect some sort of disadvantage with a high line, you’d expect a slight advantage in the attack. So when the attack can’t utilize the advantage, why put the defense into a position that they’ve proven they can’t handle?