NWSL Challenge Cup 2022: How Houston Dash turned it around tactically against Racing Louisville – tactical analysis

Racing Louisville hosted Houston Dash in the second game of the season for the NWSL Challenge Cup and the match saw Houston Dash completing a comeback and winning their first three points of the season despite playing away. They were able to bounce back after their worrying loss against Chicago Red Stars in the first match as they were more decisive in the final third this time, even though their defensive performance still needs more improvements.

On the other hand, Racing Louisville failed to protect their 2-0 lead and lost an opportunity to win their first match of the season since they drew in their first match against Kansas City. Racing Louisville will need to study their mistakes and make sure to improve what went wrong for them in this match especially from a defensive perspective in order to avoid such scenarios in the future.

This tactical analysis article will cover Houston Dash’s comeback while focusing on Racing Louisville’s defensive errors and exploring both teams’ attacking organisation and tactics to see how both teams will look at the start of the NWSL.

Line-ups

Racing Louisville didn’t make major changes compared to their previous match since they started the game with a 4-3-3 formation relying on Katie Lund as goalkeeper, Nealy Martin, former Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City’s Gemma Bonner, Addisyn Merrick and Emily Fox in defence, Cece Kizer, Jaelin Howell and Freja Olofsson as central midfielders with Lauren Milliet and Kirsten Davis playing on the wings and creating a front-three with the striker Jessica McDonald.

For Houston Dash, James Clarkson preferred to start this match relying on the 4-2-3-1 formation with Jane Campbell as a goalkeeper, Haley Hanson, Katie Naughton, Sophie Schmidt, Allysha Chapman in defence, Marisa Viggiano and Kelcie Hedge as central midfielders, Nichelle Prince and Maria Sánchez on the wings with Shea Groom playing as an advanced playmaker behind the former West Ham striker, Rachel Daly.

Racing Louisville’s lead and Houston Dash’s errors

Houston Dash started the match with determination to play better than last time and they were successful in starting well by circulating the ball, pressing high and attempting to serve Daly into space even though she was marked. Yet, this did not continue because Houston Dash fell in the trap of committing big defensive mistakes once again at the 15^th minute when Schmidt got confused due to Racing Louisville’s pressing and gave a strange backward long pass, allowing Davis to reach Naughton before the ball falls down and disturbs her in order to deflect the clearance. Schmidt was not the only player who committed an individual mistake in this action but Naughton looked too fragile too since she didn’t look at her surroundings before receiving the pass to see if there was a close player. Moreover, she didn’t protect the ball and opted for a nondetermined clearance using her weaker foot. This poor decision-making inside the box was punished by a goal for Racing Louisville thanks to the excellent anticipation of Davis.