March 29, 2024 – National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL)
Racing Louisville FC News Release
Racing Louisville FC with possession
(Racing Louisville FC, Credit: USA TODAY Sports Images)
Racing Louisville spent a few days at home in between road matches before departing for its first West Coast trip of the 2024 NWSL campaign, with a 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday matchup at Portland on deck.
The match will be broadcast over the air on ION and streamed for free on ionnwsl.com. News Talk 1080 AM or online at talkradio1080.iheart.com, and the iHeart Radio app will carry the radio broadcast.
Racing (0-0-2, 2 points) opened the new season with back-to-back draws, first tying Orlando, 2-2, in its home opener at Lynn Family Stadium before settling for a 0-0 stalemate at Houston despite barraging the Dash with 19 shots and a number of clear scoring chances. The Louisvillians head to Portland still looking for their first win in the month of March in the club’s young history.
In years past, Portland’s Providence Park has been an unforgiving venue for Racing, which has lost all three games there with a minus-eight goal differential. Louisville snapped its five-game losing streak against Portland last year with a riveting 2-1 home win over the Thorns in September, thanks to goals from vice-captain Abby Erceg and former forward Thembi Kgatlana.
Portland (0-2-0, 0 points) dropped its season opener, 5-4, at Kansas City despite a furious second-half rally and two goals each from Sophia Smith and Janine Beckie. The Thorns lost, 1-0, against reigning NWSL champion Gotham on Sunday night, the first time Portland lost its home opener in club history after winning the previous 10.
One of the NWSL’s most successful clubs, Portland has made the playoffs in all but one year in its 10 previous NWSL seasons, winning three NWSL trophies. Smith, the 2022 NWSL MVP, led the Thorns to an NWSL championship that same season.
For Bev Yanez’s Racing squad, Saturday offers a big early-season test – a 2,000-mile journey to play in one of the league’s toughest environments. Portland is 20-7-8 in regular-season matches at Providence Park since 2021, averaging 17,231 fans per home game the past two years and setting a new home opener attendance record on Sunday with 19,857 on hand.
The first-year head coach was pleased with her team’s mentality and performance in Houston, the first road trip of the season, but wants Racing to be more ruthless in the attacking third of the field.
Opta Stats expected Louisville to…