NWSL 2021: How Racing Louisville exploited Orlando Pride’s defending and finishing issues to bounce back – tactical analysis

Racing Louisville hosted Orlando Pride for the 23^rd fixture of NWSL and the locals were able to win 3-1 and improve their position in the standings even though they are still distant from the eighth position. Orlando Pride however did not exploit the opportunity of bridging the gap with Houston Dash and North Carolina Courage who are ahead of Orlando Pride in the standing and who both lost their games during this fixture. Nevertheless, Orlando Pride will need to bounce back as soon as possible if they’d like to guarantee a playoff position.

In this tactical analysis article, we will focus on Orlando Pride’s tactical issues that prevented them from winning while looking at Racing Louisville’s tactics and how they were able to dominate the game and be efficient from an attacking perspective.

Line-ups

Racing Louisville started the game using the 4-2-3-1 formation relying on Katie Lund as a goalkeeper, Julia Ashley, Nealy Martin, Kaleigh Riehl and Emily Fox in defence, Taylor Otto and Lauren Milliet as central midfielders with both Katie McClure and Yūki Nagasato as wingers and Cece Kizer as an advanced playmaker just behind the team’s striker, Ebony Salmon.

On the other side, Orlando Pride were lined-up according to the 3-4-1-2 formation with Erin McLeod in goal,         Ali Riley, former FAWSL and Manchester United’s Amy Turner and Ali Krieger as centre-backs, Marisa Viggiano and Gunnhildur Jónsdóttir as central midfielders, Sydney Leroux and Courtney Petersen as wingers with Marta playing as an advanced playmaker just behind the two strikers: former Arsenal’s Jodie Taylor and former Tottenham’s Alex Morgan.

Orlando Pride’s attacking performance: positives and issues

Orlando Pride started the match in the best possible ways by scoring a goal since the second minute thanks to a quick counter-attack concretised thanks to the efforts of the team’s attacking duo. It all started with Morgan who received the ball after a defensive clearance, ran with it and spotted Jodie Taylor’s acceleration between three defenders and chose the adequate timing to provide her with an accurate through pass, excluding all Racing Louisville’s defenders and putting Taylor in a perfect scoring position. Then, Taylor’s off the ball movement was excellent as she didn’t give up until she received the pass and ended the action perfectly with excellent finishing.