2021 NWSL Season Previews: Houston Dash and OL Reign
/We’re publishing two team previews every day this week until the NWSL regular season begins on Saturday. You can find all of them here.
We’re starting off with two teams that went in very different directions in 2020.
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Houston: Dine and Dash on Counter Attacks
By Kieran Doyle-Davis
Last year’s Houston Dash team was surprisingly respectable, a huge improvement for what is usually one of the weakest organizations in the league. Winning the inaugural NWSL Challenge Cup was a signal of intent that this team was here to take names and rip you on the counter, and they were all out of names. Spearheaded by Rachel Daly and one of the most dynamic midfields in NWSL - Shea Groom and the Kristie half of the Mewii - the Dash operated one of the most swashbuckling counter attacks in soccer. They sat deep, stayed compact, encouraged opposition fullbacks forward and let a very dynamic and fluid front three rotate and interchange and exploit space in behind, often delivering for Shea Groom arriving late from the midfield. The Dash were really good at it. Like really good at it. Can they keep doing it?
The Bunker Half of Bunker-Counter
To be a team capable of countering to your heart’s content, you have to actually be quite good at the bunkering side of things. The Dash had the best xGA across the Challenge Cup group stages and the regular season at a staunch 1.003 xGA per match. Yes, it’s an eight match sample size, but compared to 2018 (1.56 xGA per match) and 2019 (1.41 xGA per match), it was a marked improvement. Add in Kristie Mewis and Sophie Schmidt showing up as number three and four in the league wide interrupting g+ tables last year (and in Mewis’ case, rather cynically, fouling g+ as well), with Visalli and Daly as top attacking interrupters that’s a recipe for being real hard to beat!
All middle and attacking third interrupting actions worth more than 0.01 g+ from the big 4 interrupters in Houston.
Total raw interrupting g+ for the Challenge Cup group stage and NWSL Fall Series. Interrupting g+ is the value of all defensive actions (tackles, interceptions, clearances etc.)
In goal, Jane Campbell had a rough year, conceding 13 goals from 10.69 xG in our post-shot model (and that’s if we’re kind and include the Challenge Cup knockout matches). Historically she’s always been a within-noise average shot stopper; through the 2021 Challenge Cup, Campbell has conceded two goals from 2.15 xG in our post shot model. Campbell returning to average should come with a healthy bump to the Dash’s actual goal difference, if nothing else. If Campbell improves and the Dash continue the defensive pace they set last season, James Clarkson certainly has this team with a real shot. But defensive siege mentalities can be tiring, especially over the course of an entire, more normal length, season. This isn’t AmericanPsychologicalAnalysis.com (or is it?) but if the Dash intend to keep this as their identity, managing that will be an important step for this team. Small sample size warning ahead, but through their four Challenge Cup matches in 2021 they’re sitting at about the same spot (1.04 xGA per game), but only two goals conceded.
Dashing On 🤘… in Transition
Now for the fun stuff: Houston was scary in transition last year. Rachel Daly is a bonafide floater who doesn’t quite hit elite scoring or creative numbers (career 0.35-0.45 xG+xA p96), but totally changed her profile for the 2020 season. Daly was a fairly consistent 0.3 xG and 0.1 xA type of forward, with about three shots created for herself and one shot created for everybody else, fairly standard stuff, until 2020. 2020 Rachel Daly exchanged some of her volume (2.26 shots p96 down from 3.26 shots p96) for a big increase in quality, and a lot more creation for others. Her average shot quality jumped up from 0.089 xG per shot in 2019 to 0.124 xG per shot in 2020. Her key passes hovered at a similar 1.26 p96, but the big difference is in quality: the average shot assisted by Rachel Daly in 2019 was worth 0.077 xG, in 2020 that number is 0.14 xG! That’s really high shot quality!
Check out that passing! Daly was the league leader in passing compared to her positional peers last season.
There are a lot of numbers there, but they all make sense given the identity we saw from Houston last season. They had two central traits: (1) They played a defensive counter attacking system that led to fewer shots, including for Daly. And (2) they relied on counter attacking chances which were generally of a higher quality. This growth has continued for Daly during her loan to the WSL; if we take a peek at our friends at fbref.com powered by StatsBomb and her data for West Ham, her xG is a little down (0.17 xG p96) and her xA is even higher (0.24 xA p96). Some of that change is her playing as a more traditional winger more often, but it is a nice sign for her being able to continue as the transition orchestrator moving forward. In the limited sample size of 2021 she has become a legitimate God with a capital G, putting up over 5 shots and 0.77 xG+xA per 96, but again, small sample sizes.
The two other prongs of the transition trident that was the Dash attack in 2020 were Kristie Mewis and Shea Groom. Mewis was one of the league’s leading interrupters, with some really solid zone moving dribbling and passing to boot, while Groom was the dynamo who made it all tick. Goals added isn’t the biggest fan of what Groom did as a passer and dribbler, but in high leverage counter attacks those numbers can be fickle. What g+ does love is Groom’s ability to make runs and receive the ball in high value situations. If the Dash can keep those two ticking the way they did last season, it’s very difficult to see how they don’t keep giving teams a tough time.
The absolute definition of complementary midfield skill sets.
F is for Friends who do stuff together.
Odds and Ends to Keep an Eye On
First off, the Dash also hired Michael Poma, one of the very few publicly known analytics people working in the league, so kudos to them for that and hopefully it leads them to many smart decisions and positive results.
On the field, Nichelle Prince and Alysha Chapman looked awesome at the SheBelieves Cup, the former as more of a true striker than the winger she has been previously, the latter in her traditional left back role. If Chapman is looking rejuvenated and Prince is going to give you a lot more in transition this year (she’s the 7th best player in the league in g+ above average per 96 through her appearances so far), the Dash’s counter attack could be supercharged. Veronica Latsko snuck under the radar a little bit with sneaky high xG and xA numbers last year, with most of her performances coming in the Fall Series, but has so far failed to kick on in 2021. If all of the Dash’s attackers come in firing on all cylinders, James Clarkson has a fairly large selection headache on his hands.
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OL Reign: Blame it on the Reign
By Arielle Dror
OL Reign (fka Reign FC, fka Seattle Reign, etc.) entered 2020 ready to capitalize on an offseason full of change. For one, the team was purchased by Olympique Lyonnais in the offseason and the new ownership brought in former Lyon and PSG coach Farid Benstiti, to replace the beloved Vlatko Andonovski, who moved on to coach the US Women’s National Team. On the player side, the team bolstered their attacking players through trades and a few international signings. Combined with the returning roster of veterans (Megan Rapinoe, Steph Cox, Jess Fishlock) and extremely promising young talent (Bethany Balcer, Casey Murphy) , this team, at the very least, seemed like it would be a ton of fun to watch. But then COVID happened, and in a season of uncertainty and inconsistency, they never seemed to reach their potential.
It would be generous to say many teams had a good 2020 Challenge Cup, but OL Reign’s experience felt like a slog. The team scored a single goal in the group stages, yet that was somehow enough to earn the third seed with their one win, two scoreless draws, and a loss to the eventual winners in the Dash. After another goalless game, the team’s painful tournament came to an end. Reign’s roster was a bit more limited in the Fall Series: six players went out on loan to Europe. Forced to rotate their remaining players and bring in new faces, the goals finally started to come in the four-game series. Reign scored six goals in four games, entering the offseason with one more win.
Even with the increase in goal production, the team never quite felt like they were living up to their potential as a strong attacking team. A look at their production numbers help to reveal why. Across both portions of the season, the team ranked near the top of the league in total number of shots and shots per game, yet those shots were, on average, low quality chances. While the team had a number of opportunities in areas of high scoring probability, the team often took shots in less optimal positions, such as directly outside of the box. Why? Were they failing to consistently get into dangerous shooting positions, necessitating shots from poor locations? Or were they finding good positions, but failing to get off shots in those spaces? It seems to be the latter. OL Reign ranked among the top third of teams in entries into the penalty area per game, with 30. Yet, they ranked at the bottom of the league in number of touches per entry. Essentially, OL Reign was really great at getting into the most dangerous areas, but they were unable to consistently retain possession to get that final shot.
In the offseason, OL Reign seemed to hedge their bets on young, promising attacking talent. Early on, the team traded Jodie Taylor and Taylor Smith to North Carolina for Ally Watt. Watt, a prolific goalscorer at Texas A&M, tore her ACL within minutes of making her debut for the Courage in the Challenge Cup, so we haven’t yet seen what she can do stateside, but she did play in the last five games of Melbourne City’s 2020 W-League title run, scoring three goals. Reign also traded away forward Darian Jenkins to Utah/Kansas City in return for another 2020 draft pick: Tziarra King. King scored two goals in 2020 and is sure to play an important role in Tacoma. These new signings alongside Leah Pruitt, Bethany Balcer, and Nicole Momiki, round out a cadre of young but exciting players, some who will be especially important during the long international breaks this season.
In the Challenge Cup, Benstiti has made use of his pretty stacked roster, rotating players as he figures out his ideal starting IX. The good news is that they scored far more in this tournament than they did a year ago, so the team’s finishing has certainly improved. The bad news is that some of the problems from last season are still persisting today. In four games, the team ranks near the middle of the pack for total shots (45). But their average xG per shot is 0.06, tied with Kansas City for the lowest in the 2021 Challenge Cup. Furthermore, the team also ranks amongst the bottom third of teams in both entries into the penalty area and number of touches per entry, indicating that they’re not exactly getting into the shooting positions, either. Unlike last season where the team seemed to get into good spots without shooting, the team struggled to even get there in the first place. The team started slow with a loss and a draw during and directly following the international window. Once players returned from international duty and were able to play full games, Reign looked much more promising, pulling out wins in their final two games.
The team is likely to lose some of its most seasoned players for the Olympics and the run up to it. Most notable is obviously Megan Rapinoe, who opted out of the 2020 season, but is set to play this season, but is likely to miss a large portion of it. Non-US players will likely be gone for several weeks, too. Jess Fishlock may be named to the Team GB roster, Rosie White to New Zealand, Quinn to Canada, and Momiki to Japan, meaning the team will be down in numbers.
But worry not, OL Reign is planning for new, exciting players to join from their Supreme Overlords parent club, Lyon, after Champions League play concludes in May. Midfielder Dzsenifer Marozsan and keeper Sarah Bouhaddi are all confirmed headed to the US on loan. Legendary forward Eugénie Le Sommer is rumored to be joining the team as well. Lists that claim to rank the “best footballers of the year” aren’t always indicators of true talent, but both Marozsan and Le Sommer’s consistent presence on them is well deserved. Maraozsan has a proven track record of both scoring goals and providing quality service to her teammates; Lyon is much less dominant this season than in the past, yet Maro has notched nine goals (6.13 xG) and 14 assists (1.63 key passes per 90) across all competitions. Her presence on the team will hopefully provide some of what they were missing last season. Le Sommer is France’s highest goal scorer in history. She hasn’t quite found her goal scoring form this season, only scoring four goals and notching five assists in 1200 minutes, far less than the double digit numbers she records most seasons. If she can find her form again, her impact on the team will likely be immeasurable. Having Bouhaddi -- the longtime starter for the French national team until last fall -- in net will also be a welcome relief for Reign. The team had two experienced, starter quality keepers at the beginning of 2020 in young USWNT prospect Casey Murphy and established veteran Michelle Betos. The two rotated throughout the season, but left the team via trade or expansion draft in the offseason. And of course, we all continue to manifest the post-Olympics stateside return of Rose Lavelle, who has seen little (out of position) playing time at Manchester City (OL Reign traded for her playing rights in the offseason).
Last season, we speculated that OL Reign’s success hinged on finding a way to combine all their new and returning attacking talent into a system that works for them. Benstiti didn’t really accomplish that last season, and so that challenge mostly holds true once again. He now has a bunch of league games behind him and an understanding of demands of the league. If he can figure out a way to maximize the talent on the field between the Lyon legends, the team’s established vets, and the legion of young talent he’s brought in, a playoff run doesn’t seem out of reach. If their play is anything like 2020, however, it could be a long, long season.