Week 17 recap: Opposite day

Gotham FC faced off against the last place Utah Royals Saturday night, and both teams came away with 1 point after a 0-0 draw. The Bats won the xG battle 1.14 to 0.42, but the goals never came and Gotham left disappointed.

Saturday felt like opposite day for a few reasons:

1. Katie Stengel was one of the best players on the field for Gotham

2. Rose Lavelle was one of the worst players on the field for Gotham

3. The players looked like they had just met for the first time the day before

4. Gotham was actually the better team on the pitch

Let’s get into what made Gotham’s performance on Saturday good, but not good enough for the full 3 points.

The good: Defense

For the second week in a row, Gotham allowed only 1 shot on target all game. And in 3 of the 5 games played since the summer break in all competitions, the Bats have allowed 2 shots on target or fewer. The club has 2 world class center backs in Jess Carter and Emily Sonnett, a young prodigy at left back in Lilly Reale, and 2 very good options at right back in Mandy Freeman and Bruninha, and after so much injury and lineup movement it seems to finally be coming together. 

Aside from only allowing 1 shot on target, Gotham’s defense gave up just 0.41 xG and 0.15 PSxG. Beyond just its defenders, Gotham loves to talk about how their defensive efforts span the entire team, starting at the striker, and that showed in this match—the Royals were only able to take 33 touches in the attacking third and 9 touches in the attacking penalty area in this match (season averages against Gotham before this match against were 106.3 and 17.1, respectively). The team also only allowed the Royals to attempt just 6 take-ons this match (season average against Gotham before this match was 15.4).

If you look at the average positions of the players on the pitch, Gotham even managed to push every single Royals player into their defensive half.

It is important to keep in mind that in the second half of the season, Gotham has played the last placed team, the second-to-last placed team, the fourth-to-last placed team, and the second-place team. So, for the most part it’s been easier for them to maintain a strong defense. But still, these numbers give us a little hope that things are on the right track for the Bats, and that they are returning to their roots of a strong defense.

The bad: Finishing their chances

We understand that we sound like a broken record repeating this same diagnosis week after week. But it’s unfortunately still true that Gotham’s biggest downfall is its inability to turn chances into goals. Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós agrees, stating that, “right now, we’re having too many games where we create chances but don’t finish them,” and it’s true—the team ranks 12th in the league on goals per shot (0.08), goals per shot on target (0.23), and non-penalty xG per shot (0.09). 

Expanding on the issue, Amorós said, “when we talk about finishing, it’s not just about the final shot—it’s also about chance creation. We need to improve our decision-making in the final third: is that the best moment to shoot, or is there a better option?” We’re going to take a stab at answering that question ourselves by looking at some of the 18 shots that Gotham managed against the Royals this match and analyzing both the buildup and the actual resulting shot.

Chance 1: 23’ Esther González and Rose Lavelle

Rose Lavelle does an excellent job carrying the ball forward here and hanging onto it through traffic. What she does a less excellent job of is timing her pass to Esther. If she had passed it out wide a little sooner it would’ve allowed Esther to run into the ball and shoot forward, and it also would’ve given the Utah defenders and goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn less time to see what was coming.

Chance 2: 47’ Rose Lavelle and Gabi Portilho

Ugh. Gabi Portilho does such an amazing job here, and Rose Lavelle also has great positioning in the 18-yard box to be able to receive this ball. The problem is in the shot itself, which is weak and poorly placed, right into the ankle of a Utah defender, which is uncharacteristic of Lavelle. Hopefully this was just one bad game for her.

Chance 3: 50’ Katie Stengel

Katie Stengel does it all here—she carries the ball forward, she holds onto it through defensive pressure, and she even takes the shot in the end. Although the shot ended up on target, it was still a very do-able save from Mandy McGlynn in the end, and Stengel did have options. Would this have turned into a goal if she had instead passed centrally to Lavelle, or out wide to Portilho on the right? Who knows. Most other weeks we’d be criticizing Gotham for taking one pass too many in the box, so perhaps we’re being a bit too harsh here on a player that still ended up with an on-target, far post shot that did force the goalkeeper to dive in order to make the save.

Chance 4: 54’ Sarah Schupansky and Rose Lavelle

Again, Rose Lavelle does a great job of getting the ball forward here. We really thought that once she got to the top of the box she would shoot—there was room for her to, and Mandy McGlynn didn’t look like she knew what to expect. Instead, she sends a slow and bouncy pass out wide to Katie Stengel who gently pushes it to the feet of Sarah Schupansky. Schupansky takes a settling touch and shoots from just inside of the box, but her shot ends up going way over the crossbar.

Chance 5: 57’ Esther González and Geyse

Lilly Reale starts this play by muscling her way into intercepting a Royals pass and quickly sending the ball forward to Geyse. From here, Geyse has a perfectly weighted ball forward to Esther, but Mandy McGlynn reads this play perfectly and is confident enough to come out and cut off Esther’s options entirely. We don’t really know how Gotham could have done better here—it’s hard to see whether Esther could have gotten a shot off quicker, or whether Rose Lavelle would’ve been a good passing option (her shots earlier that night suggest that she wouldn’t have). Overall, we’re quite happy with this play.

Chance 6: 73’ Geyse and Sarah Schupansky

Again, pressure allows Gotham to win the ball back in the attacking third, and after slicing effortlessly between Utah’s midfield and defensive lines, Sarah Schupansky ultimately opts to pass the ball forward to Geyse who has space. She doesn’t have space for very long, and by the time she feels ready to shoot defenders are swarming and her shot is blocked. It’s easier said than done but earlier would’ve been a better time to shoot.

Chance 7: 84’ Geyse

Geyse has a nearly perfect play here, escaping on the counter and shooting the ball on target. It’s a tough save for Mandy McGlynn but she makes it happen. Would she have been able to save it if the ball was switched over to Gabi Portilho who had space on the right? Would Portilho have been able to even receive a switch? It’s hard to say, and Geyse had very little time to make a decision here while also keeping defenders off guard and she still managed to force McGlynn into a save. So all in all we’re pretty happy with this one. It’s unfortunate that McGlynn decided to have the game of her life in this match against her former team.

For all that we’ve said here, we still think that Gotham being able to create this many chances is a win. It’s just a little disheartening feeling like the team has to start from scratch with the basics after the incredible season that we saw last year. As Amorós said in post-match media appearances, “I’m not disappointed with the way the team plays at times—our second half today, for example, was excellent—but we need goals.”

The extra bad: Not being able to string passes together

A lot of this match felt like it was full of moments like this.

And this.

Players just didn’t seem to know where their teammates were. We’re hoping this was mostly a one-time thing, but it’s worth talking about the experimentation that’s going on in the midfield.

For the first 10 matches of the season, Gotham’s starting attacking midfielder Rose Lavelle was out with an injury, leaving rookie Sarah Schupansky to take her place. And Schupansky impressed so much that when Lavelle came back, Amorós decided to rework the entire midfield to keep both of them on the field. So for the past few matches, Gotham has been playing with a midfield of Jaelin Howell, Rose Lavelle, and Sarah Schupansky, with Howell and Lavelle often sitting further back than they have been in order to accommodate the extra attacking midfielder on the pitch. 

Gotham’s midfield has always been an integral component of the “organized chaos” that has worked so well in seasons past, and while we don’t doubt that the team put in a lot of effort in the 6-week summer break window to make this new setup work, we do wonder with the lack of success Gotham has seen since (0W-3D-1L) if perhaps shifting back to a traditional 6-8-10 midfield would produce more results. As we saw on Wednesday, Nealy Martin is an incredible defensive midfielder in this system, and Taryn Torres is so good at progressing the ball forward, so being able to get at least one of them back on the pitch could be huge for the team.

It’s important to acknowledge that with the midweek match, Amorós’ hands were a little tied with the lineup (only 2 players—Emily Sonnett and Katie Stengel—started on both Wednesday and Saturday). So it’s possible that this movement in the midfield is already in the works and we just haven’t gotten to see it yet because of a congested schedule. But really, what does Gotham have to lose from a little experimentation at this point?

And speaking of experimentation, BBC journalist Emma Sanders has reported that English teenager Princess Ademiluyi is headed to Gotham from West Ham United FC.

The 19-year old forward has scored 6 goals in 11 appearances for England’s U19 side, but has yet to score in her two-year-old professional domestic career. As it stands, Gotham has no available international spots, so we’ll see if this transfer actually ends up panning out.

Looking ahead to next match

After a 4-match home stretch, the Bats are traveling to Orlando this Friday to face the Pride at 8 PM ET on Prime Video. Like Gotham, the Orlando Pride has been on a bit of a downslide, earning only 3 points from its last 5 matches. Unlike Gotham, Orlando has a pretty cushy spot in league standings, sitting in 4th with 28 points. Both teams theoretically have the talent to pull off a win in this match, so it will be a battle between two tacticians who are currently near relative rock bottom. Orlando is without its star attacker Barbra Banda for the rest of the season, but Mexican superstar forward Lizbeth Ovalle recently signed for the team on a world-record transfer fee. It’s unclear whether Ovalle will be available for selection on Friday, but we’re really hoping she won’t be.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.