Smart recruiting fuels Pride’s progress.
At the end of a 20-game inaugural season last year, the Orlando Pride had 19 points and a 6-13-1 overall record.
After 20 games this year, the Pride had 32 points and a 9-6-5 record. The team added another win to that last week and have three matches left in the National Women’s Soccer League’s expanded 24-game schedule.
Another victory tonight against the Seattle Reign, and the Pride will clinch a playoff berth.
That’s the goal, of course, but Pride coach
Tom Sermanni is more impressed by the degree of improvement over last season and credited the club’s personnel decisions.
“What people forget is that we're second year in the league,” Sermanni said. “They might say, ‘Well, you've got Marta.’ But it’s not an open marketplace. We’ve had to go out and really work hard to strengthen the team.”
Sermanni rattled off a list of players the club brought in this year other than Marta — the Brazilian superstar midfielder who was signed in April and leads the team in goals (12) and assists (6) — whom he believes significantly contributed to the overall improvement.
“When you look at the acquisitions we’ve made in this squad, I think we’ve done some wonderful recruiting,” Sermanni said. “You know, [assistant coach] Khano [Smith] was sold on Rachel Hill from Day One, and we wanted to get her and we gave away a draft pick to get her and she’s been outstanding — a great pick. “Chi Ubogagu [for a] third-round draft pick. Alanna Kennedy for Sammy Witteman.
Camila we just plucked out of Brazil, and Ali
Krieger we got virtually for nothing.”
Hill, 22, was signed out of the University of Connecticut. The young forward scored two of the Pride’s goals in last week’s 4-2 win over Boston for three total this season.
The Pride traded their draft pick to the Houston Dash to get Ubogagu, 24, who scored another one of those goals versus Boston. It was her fourth score of the season and she also grabbed an assist. “I think just building chemistry with the players — Rachel, Marta, Alex [Morgan], Camila and [left back] Steph [Catley] — especially since I’m playing on the left side,” Ubogagu said. “The more games and the more training I get with them, I can anticipate and I kind of know their instincts. So that’s been super nice because I think we're connecting a lot more and on a better level throughout the game.”
Camila has been one of the Pride’s most valuable players this season. She blossomed further when Brazilian national teammate Marta joined the group. She is second on the team and fifth in the league in assists with five. She’s also scored four goals.
The Pride sent Witteman to the North Carolina Courage for Kennedy, a versatile Australian national-team defender. Kennedy has three goals and an assist in 20 starts and 21 appearances. She’s played 90 minutes in all but one game. The Courage are No. 1 in the league, but in comparison Witteman has four starts in 11 appearance for 369 minutes.
Krieger, one of the most well-known U.S. defenders, leads the team in minutes with 1,890 after starting and playing a full 90 minutes in every match this season.
“So those are our five major recruits, and every one of them has had a great impact in the team. When you're building a team or a club or a culture, it takes time and you've go to look at the progress while at the same time trying to keep the result going forward.”
Reign nervous
The Pride’s Thursdaynight opponents voiced their concern about Hurricane Irma on social media the day before the match.
Two of the Seattle Reign’s biggest names, Megan Rapinoe and Jessica Fishlock, took to Twitter to share their fears over staying in Orlando to play the match while a Category 5 hurricane inched closer to Florida.
“Being in Orlando isn't safe, it's scary & I can’t help but feel that the number 1 priority should be us getting out of here now,” Fishlock posted to her 19,600 followers.
Rapinoe shared her teammate’s post with 425,000 followers, adding, “It's difficult for us players to understand why the priority is to play this game rather than get out of this area? @NWSL pls reschedule.”
She later added, “For [Orlando Pride] players they should focus on keeping themselves and their homes and loved ones safe. For us, we should go home.”
The match originally was scheduled for Saturday night but moved to 7:30 p.m. Thursday, which should allow the team time to fly out ahead of the storm. Wednesday’s projections from the National Weather Service showed Irma closing in on the peninsula over the weekend and into early next week.