Here are three takeaways from the Utah Royals FC’s 1-0 win over the Portland Thorns.
1. Chances aren’t always everything
The Royals have been talking about the need to create chances for weeks. Just last month, they seemingly couldn’t buy a goal, and a shift to playing more open soccer led to a dip in defense, sending them searching for a balance between the two.
But for most of this five-game unbeaten streak, Utah has been creating the chances it feels are imperative to win. Only in the last two games, the team has scored only once and not created much.
Against Portland, the Royals created only five chances, while the Thorns created a whopping 18. On the surface, that stat may seem like the Royals were under it the entire game. But not all those chances felt as dangerous as they looked on paper, coach Laura Harvey said.
“It arguably wasn’t an 18-5 game,” Harvey said. “It didn’t feel like that.”
Harvey said many of Portland’s chances seemed to come off set pieces, an area of its game that Utah knew it would have to pay attention to going into the game. But she also said there were times her players were in attacking positions, but a lack of quality during those times led to them not creating chances.
But on Friday, it didn’t matter. Sometimes all a team needs to win a game is to finish one more opportunity than its opponent and defend like crazy, and the Royals did that against the best team in the league.
Which brings us to our next point…
2. Barnhart is far and away the goalkeeper of the year
Six saves on Saturday. Ten clean sheets on the season — and counting, potentially. Thirty-eight years old in October.
Nicole Barnhart might be having the best year in her career, or least the best year since 2013, which was the last time she was named NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year. Coincidentally, that season was also the last time she recorded 10 shutouts.
The Royals are somewhat notorious for their difficulty scoring. And if that’s a team’s apparent weakness, there had better be a goalkeeper with the ability to constantly keep opponents from scoring. Barnhart has been that and more for Utah in 2019.
Just look at this save from Barnhart in the 55th minute against the Timbers. The awareness and timing it took for her to bat the shot away is next-level.
There are still five games left for Utah this season, and it stands to reason that Barnhart will record at least one other clean sheet, if not more. This year’s award for the league’s best goalkeeper is hers to lose.
3. Amy Rodriguez helps create a new meme
When Rodriguez and Thorns player Emily Sonnett got into it after Sonnett knocked her down in the run of play and received a red card, it looked merely like a heated moment that would seen dissipate and be forgotten.
But then Twitter happened.
A writer for the Athletic took a screenshot of the moment Rodriguez got in Sonnett’s face and yelled at her, and Sonnett’s reaction to that moment. The result was a meme that already has several iterations.
Those are just a few of them. There are more, and they are spectacular.
Follow @AlexVReporting