Racing Louisville Tops the Orlando Pride in a 2-0 Shutout

A Full Performance

Well, that certainly feels better.

Racing Louisville beat the Orlando Pride 2-0 Friday night. This was Racing’s first win since late May and only their third win all season.

Bucking recent trends, Racing was the team that scored in under 10 minutes when Nadia Nadim tapped in a perfectly timed rolling cross from Jess McDonald for the first goal in the 9th minute. Another trend was bucked when Racing came in at the second half on the front foot and Savannah DeMelo sent in a perfect shot from outside the box only five minutes into the second half. Wang Shuang provided the assist.

All in all, this was a complete game from Racing. From offense to defense, they weren’t perfect, but they finished their chances, they made their blocks, and, most critically, they played as a cohesive unit. Both goals had strong build-ups, players audibly communicated with each, and everyone was much more disciplined and, therefore, effective in their positioning. And, as a result, they looked much more like the Racing fans had gotten used to seeing at the beginning of the season. Chemistry has been visibly absent in the past two games and it was a relief to see it back in full force against Orlando.

“It’s been a couple rough games,” admitted Player of the Match DeMelo, “but we want to end this season on a good note. Playing at home is awesome; the crowd was great. We all just played as a team. We played together. We finally played from the first minute to the 90th minute, so we got a full performance.”

Coach Kim Björkegren agreed the team put in a complete performance and said everyone was on the same page in realizing that the season wasn’t over yet and that they all needed to “take another step” together to get to the next level and earn a win.

“I think all of us fel the same thing. There was only one way to go and that was attack and go forward and press.”

Björkegren said the team had a goal to score in each half and he was proud they were able to accomplish it. This was a change in focus because, previously, they’d focused on talking about not letting the opponent score goals on them. This time, they focused on taking the initiative to score themselves and that flip in approach seems to have sparked a needed change in the team, based on the results.

By the Numbers

Orlando may have gotten more shots and shots on target than Racing (ORL: 14 shots/7 on…