Racing Louisville Earn Yet Another Draw Against the Washington Spirit

The Story of the Season

On Friday night, Racing Louisville earned yet another draw in their match against the Washington Spirit. This 1-1 result is the seventh tie for Racing this season and also marks their 10th straight match without a win. In that time, they earned five draws and suffered five defeats. They have, however, drawn five of their last seven matches.

“I think we deserved three points today,” said Racing coach Kim Björkegren. Nadia Nadim got on the board first in the 52nd minute, but an unfortunate bounce and a possible missed handball call led to Spirit pulling even just 12 minutes later. Once again, it was a brief momentary bit of bad luck and inconsistency that led to Racing dropping points.  “It’s similar to more or less the whole season. I think we deserve a little bit more than we get right now.”

Deserving or not, Racing did, on the whole, play a very good game. They stayed neck-and-neck with the Spirt with Nadim testing keeper Audrey Kinsbury early and Trinity Rodman doing the same with Racing’s Katie Lund. Both sides had ample shots and both teams did a good job of warding off their opponents. In addition to Lund, Jessica McDonald came in as a substitute and made an excellent run back to stop a late Washington attack at the last second.

New Formations

In this match, Racing actually did something they’ve hardly ever done all season: they changed formation. They played as a three-three back with Emily Fox, Gemma Bonner, and Satara Murray staying central. Julia Lester and Lauren Milliet as wing-backs. Ultimately, this change seemed to work for Racing. Although the Spirit had the majority of possession, they had a hard time breaking past midfield and held possession primarily in their own half. All in all, the players were fans of the move.

“I think it was a smart move by us,” said Lester of the formation change. “We needed the numbers in the middle. I think it definitely can catch people off guard for sure.”

Goal-scorer Nadim also approved, also, and said, “I think that was a good move. I think in previous games I’d kind of been alone on the top.”

She said that when a striker is isolated at the top, as they tend to be in a 4-2-3-1 – Racing’s typical formation – the striker may win headers and win shots but everyone else can be too far away to assist them. She credited the move that allowed her to line up next to Kirsten Davis as one of the reasons the two were able to combine for the goal.

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