Week 7 recap: The puzzle continues

Gotham FC had its first home match in 21 days on Sunday, drawing 0-0 against the Chicago Stars on a rainy afternoon in Harrison. 

The positives: 

• Gotham maintained its 3rd clean sheet of the season

• Gotham was the only “top 4” team to walk away with any points this weekend

While this match did give us some things to smile about, Gotham ultimately left a matchup that heavily favored them with 1 point instead of 3. How did this happen? Find out below, in the coach and players’ own words. 

The lineup puzzle

“We had to change the midfield, we’ve had to change the back line, we’ve had to change the forward line. We lost Gabi Portilho, we lost Jess [Carter], so we had to fill in with Nealy [Martin], so the whole team really changed in every unit. Not because we want it, but because we have to.” - Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós

Two weeks ago, following Gotham’s 4-1 loss to the Portland Thorns on the road, head coach Juan Carlos Amorós described coming up with a Gotham lineup as a “puzzle” due to extensive injuries.That game, the team got the puzzle all wrong, and the following game it seemed like Gotham finally figured it out. Things were looking up, until the availability report came out ahead of the matchup against Chicago.

Let’s play a game! Let’s put ourselves in JCA’s shoes, and build a starting XI with the puzzle pieces we’re working with. Going by position, we have on our roster:

Goalkeepers (5): Ann-Katrin Berger, Ryan Campbell, Michelle Betos, Tyler McCamey, Shelby Hogan

Defenders (7): Emily Sonnett, Mandy Freeman, Bruninha, Lilly Reale, Emerson Elgin, Jess Carter, Tierna Davidson

Midfielders (6): Nealy Martin, Jaelin Howell, Taryn Torres, Sarah Schupansky, Sofia Cook, Rose Lavelle

Forwards (9): Esther González, Midge Purce, Geyse, Ella Stevens, Khyah Harper, McKenna Whitham, Stella Nyamekye, Jéssica Silva, Gabi Portilho

Not all of these players are available to us at the moment. If we take out injured players, we have: 

Goalkeepers (4): Ann-Katrin Berger, Ryan Campbell, Michelle Betos, Tyler McCamey

Defenders (5): Emily Sonnett, Mandy Freeman, Bruninha, Lilly Reale, Emerson Elgin

Midfielders (5): Nealy Martin, Jaelin Howell, Taryn Torres, Sarah Schupansky, Sofia Cook

Forwards (7): Esther González, Midge Purce, Geyse, Ella Stevens, Khyah Harper, McKenna Whitham, Stella Nyamekye

Gotham invested in a lot of rookies this offseason, and doesn’t want to throw them to the wolves by starting them before they’re ready. So, if we take out players who have played less than 30 minutes in the NWSL, we have:

Goalkeepers (2): Ann-Katrin Berger, Michelle Betos

Defenders (4): Emily Sonnett, Mandy Freeman, Bruninha, Lilly Reale

Midfielders (4): Nealy Martin, Jaelin Howell, Taryn Torres, Sarah Schupansky

Forwards (4): Esther González, Midge Purce, Geyse, Ella Stevens

Finally, not being on the injury report does not mean being at 100%. If we take out players who are on minutes that are restricted enough to bar a start, we have:

Goalkeepers (2): Ann-Katrin Berger, Michelle Betos

Defenders (3): Emily Sonnett, Bruninha, Lilly Reale

Midfielders (4): Nealy Martin, Jaelin Howell, Taryn Torres, Sarah Schupansky

Forwards (3): Esther González, Geyse, Ella Stevens

So, we have exactly 10 field players who are healthy enough to start the match—hooray! But there’s a problem: Gotham likes to play with a back 4, and we only have 3 defenders. What do we do now?

We essentially have two options, and both of them involve someone playing out of position. We could move Lilly Reale to center back (where she played in college, but not for Gotham) and have Taryn Torres fill in at left back. Or, we could move Nealy Martin to center back and have Taryn Torres play defensive midfielder. Here are the three factors we’re dealing with:

1. Torres is a better defensive midfielder than she is a left back.

2. Martin is a better defensive midfielder than Torres, particularly in Gotham’s system.

3. Reale is Gotham’s best option at left back.

Okay, we’ll let you in on a little secret: we lost this game a few minutes ago once we figured out that Gotham had only 3 defenders (including only 1 center back) that they could start. No solution here was going to be perfect—at least one player was going to be playing out of position, and as we mentioned last week, Gotham is at its best when everyone on the team knows their role in the system, which is a lot harder to achieve when players are in a new spot on the field.

What Amorós ended up doing was the latter, pushing Martin back to center back and having Taryn Torres plug the hole at defensive midfielder. This was Torres’ fourth start in this position this season. The first was a 60 minute stint against Houston, a game we don’t really need to talk about, but the second went swimmingly. 

Torres’ passing against Angel City led to 3 of the team’s 4 goals that night (the fourth was directly from a corner). Gotham deviated a bit from its usual game plan that game, opting for more quick and direct play on the counterattack rather than the more controlled and horizontal path they usually take to the back of the net. Taryn Torres thrived in this set up, creating passes that effortlessly broke through lines as Angel City scrambled to get back into shape defensively. 

Then, the game against Portland happened. In Torres’ defense, this was less of a her problem and more of a Nealy Martin at right back problem. But Gotham played more of their usual style in this game and found themselves on the other end of things as they constantly got beat on the counterattack by Portland. Unfortunately, the usual style just did not work here—while Taryn Torres is a very talented player who plays with so much grit in the midfield, there is unfortunately no one better than Nealy Martin in this position for Gotham—it cannot be understated how integral she is to Gotham’s build-up attack. Martin made her return to defensive midfield last weekend after a 2-game stint at right back and Gotham won 3-0—until we no longer need her to plug holes in the back line, the team’s build up play will suffer. 

However, playing Martin at defensive midfield would’ve required a lot of movement, and two players playing in positions new to them this season (Reale at center back and Torres at left back), so we understand why Juan Carlos Amorós played the lineup he did. He also probably didn’t expect last-place Chicago to be so hard to break down, but boy were they.

New coach bounce

“I think they dominated the first 10-15 minutes of the game. Maybe [it] was something that we could expect, obviously with [Chicago’s coaching change].” - Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós

“I think after the head coach changed for them, they came out really aggressive, really intense.” - Midfielder Taryn Torres

The Chicago Stars came into this game just days after the club sacked head coach Lorne Donaldson. “New coach bounce” refers to a phenomenon where sports teams have a (often temporary) boost in performance following a change in the locker room, so Chicago came into this match with a renewed energy. The Stars knew that Gotham would be a tough opponent, but they had a game plan and stuck to it incredibly well, ensuring that they walked away with at least one point.

The Chicago Stars had a pretty simple strategy: throw numbers back to clog up any Gotham attack, and try to beat the opposition on the counter by having Ludmila sprint forward and try and catch Gotham’s defense off guard, with sophomore forward Jameese Joseph often joining her.

And to their credit, their game plan worked. Chicago came out with something to prove and they did prove it. While they only registered 4 shots with a total of 0.2 xG, their low block did its job of frustrating and flustering Gotham’s attack. As a result none of Gotham’s 14 shots (including 5 shots on target) turned into goals.

Offensive shortcomings

“I think it was one of those games where one detail makes the difference. I think we dominated every aspect – the possession, the shots, the chances, the expected goals, but today we didn’t find that moment of magic.” - Head coach Juan Carlos Amorós

“I think we just struggled to win second balls, first balls, and I think we're not really concerned on our side going forward, but I just think today we fell short in some of those duels.” - Midfielder Taryn Torres

“[We] were able to sometimes break through Chicago's defense, but it was just like finalizing, [we] were not able to do it.” - Defender Bruninha, via interpreter

Gotham had 14 shots against the Stars this game, and none of them turned into goals. Amorós and the players who were at the post-game press conferences attributed this lack of finishing to a number of reasons, but we were able to sort what we saw into 6 distinct categories with a little help from Fort Minor.

Luck

Schupansky is able to intercept a pass in the attacking third and Howell gets to the resulting ball and rips an absolute screamer from outside the box that… hits the crossbar. Sunday was not her day, but her first Gotham goal is coming, trust.

Skill

Mak Whitham has a moment of brilliance with a beautiful cross into space in the center of the box, but no one is at the end of it. The team needs to communicate better—Chicago defenders realized what Mak was up to before Midge Purce could, and blocked her run into the path of the ball. In the team’s defense, they had spent a total of 15 minutes with Mak on the field before this match, none of which were spent with her out wide, and chemistry takes time to build. But seriously, every time an excellent cross is unmet by a run, an angel loses its wings.

Luckily for the team, they were able to recycle that previous chance. Lilly Reale draws a defender to the endline and then sends a nasty back heel into the space she just created for Midge Purce. Then, Midge sends a perfect ball towards the back post where Mak Whitham runs in to head the ball on frame, but straight to Alyssa Naeher. This wasn’t really a skill issue (she did exactly what she was supposed to and was exactly where she was supposed to be), but instead more of a defenders-having-a-foot-and-a-half-on-her issue. It was very impressive that Mak was able to get a header off while fighting off two grown women defenders, but she unfortunately did not have the height or strength to also direct that header wide enough to be out of Naeher’s grasp.

Concentrated power of will

Stevens says “I’ll do it myself” as she gets the ball through outside back Camryn Biegalski, and she almost had a chance as goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher was initially going the other way at the time of Stevens’ shot. Stevens wasn’t the only one with concentrated power of will—Naeher chose an unfortunate time to remind us why she’s one of the best to ever do it as she quickly recovers to prevent the ball from finding the back of the net.

Pleasure

Pain

Sorry to our girl Sonnett, but this should’ve been in the back of the net. In her defense, this isn’t usually her job (and she was probably the best performer on the team on Sunday despite this miss).

Reason to remember the name

Reason to remember Alyssa Naeher’s name, that is. The league’s oldest goalkeeper (with a permanent roster spot) makes sure Chicago goes home with the 1 point as she denies the league’s youngest player at the death. We would be remiss not to mention the excellent vision from Purce and great positioning from Whitham, though.

Looking ahead to next match

“In terms of expectations it's really just about the same thing for every game. We focus on our game plan, we focus on ourselves, what we're going to do, and we expect ourselves to win and have a clean sheet.” - Midfielder Taryn Torres

Gotham’s next game is this Friday, May 9th, against Racing Louisville FC. Louisville is currently tied for 9th place on points, with 2 wins, 2 draws, and 3 losses to their name, but is in 11th place when you factor in goal differential.

There are quite a few things to watch out for in this matchup. Louisville has one of the strongest midfields in the league, especially with defensive midfielder Taylor Flint and attacking midfielder Savannah DeMelo back from injury. Besides DeMelo, Louisville’s biggest attacking threat is Emma Sears, who plays on the right and will most likely be up against Lilly Reale. 

We can probably expect Louisville to play a system that is a bit more complex and allowing than the low block Gotham was met with against Chicago. The team has also seen some recent success, having come from behind in their last match against Houston to win the game, and almost beating the Portland Thorns the week before until they conceded a last minute equalizing penalty. If this battered Gotham team can win duels in the midfield and keep a creative and speedy Emma Sears at bay, they might have a chance at snapping this streak.

Thumbnail courtesy of Gotham FC.