Bay FC recap and a look at the late season Spirit

Hello Courage Country! Thanks so much for sticking with us all season, and we’ll be with you into the post season matches.

It’s an exciting week as our final match is at home against the Washington Spirit, and our last look at the Courage form heading into the post season.

Recap: Courage v. Bay FC

A performance happened! Some of it was good, some bad, some mediocre, I’m not sure exactly how to characterize that match.

Our Starting XI gave several players a break, with Manaka Matsukubo, Olivia Wingate and Kerolin Nicoli getting the nod. Cortnee Vine wasn’t rostered for this match. Dani Weatherholt was in for Feli Rauch, and Riley Jackson got the start over Narumi Miura.

Bay FC once again set the tempo against the Courage, but we held our own. There were some great chances from both sides early on. Bay was exploiting the back right quite a bit, creating some good transition moments and booting the ball past Ryan Williams and Kaleigh Kurtz. Our backs have been playing aggressively forward most of the season, so as we’ve seen, teams can take advantage of that positioning.

On the podcast, Katie and I picked a specific run at the 10’ mark to break this down, though in that instance, Bay (and former Courage) midfielder Kiki Pickett made a clever switch to midfielder Dorian Bailey. She worked it up to forward Asisat Oshoala, who nearly scored. It was a perfect illustration of how teams can take advantage of our play style.

Still, the Courage looked more at ease at the end of the first half and start of the second. After a flurry of subs around 68’, Bay was emerging as the more dominant team. Sometimes in soccer you can just feel the inevitable build toward a goal. After a penalty shot from former Courage player Tess Boade fell flat, Wingate had a good run that also fizzled.

Shortly after, a penalty on Speck earned Bay another kick, with Racheal Kundananji taking a swing, and Abby Dahlkemper grabbing it for the goal at the 83’ minute mark. The 1-0 win positioned Bay well to make the playoffs.

The Courage made a decent showing without giving up many goals in a match that didn’t matter much, in the sense that it wouldn’t affect our fifth place position on the table. And Kerolin got about 80 minutes of play in, so it’s great to see her stamina back up.

Look ahead: Courage v. Washington Spirit

Our final match of the season is at home against the #2 Washington Spirit. Or as I like to think of it:

As I’m sure you remember, the Spirit were our first road win earlier this year. We posted a 1-0 victory at the end of June, finally breaking the away game slump.

The Spirit have had a wild season since then, climbing the table and surpassing Gotham and Kansas City with a new head coach. Sadly, they also lost rookie Croix Bethune for the remainder of the season after she tore the meniscus in her knee in a freak accident throwing the first pitch at a Washington Nationals game.

Rosemonde Kouassi will have to sit this match out after an ugly incident with Chicago’s Ludmila.

Trinity Rodman subbed into that match late, returning from injury, so we expect the Spirit to be close to full force this week.

It should be an exciting match up. Let’s hope the Spirit don’t haunt us.

Courage news and updates

• Ryan Williams leads the league in tackles won and interceptions among defenders. The Courage put together a nice profile.

• International break rundown:

  • The USWNT won both matches against Iceland 3-1. They play Argentina tonight at 7p ET. Casey Murphy got the start in the second match, and played well despite giving up an Olimpico. Ashley Sanchez got the call up, and was listed as a sub in the first match, but didn’t play. Coach Emma Hayes promised three different lineups, so we’ll see what happens tonight!

  • Denise O’Sullivan is a starter with Ireland, who won both of their matches against Georgia.

  • Feli Rauch is playing with the German team, who had a tough schedule and came away with an impressive 4-3 win over England, but lost 1-2 against Australia.

  •  Manaka got called up for Japan’s senior team for the first time, who won their match against South Korea 4-0.

Around the league and beyond

• Chicago Red Stars will be rebranded (re-blanded?) as Chicago Stars Football Club in 2025.

• Really the big excitement heading into this weekend is how the #2-#4 get sorted in the final table; the Courage will play whoever takes the #4 spot, mostly likely Kansas City.

That’s it for this week! As always, you can get in touch with tips, suggestions, corrections and more: [email protected].

Find us on X / Twitter: @lionspitch

For the podcast, subscribe at: Apple | Spotify | RSS