Grief challenges focus for Daly
Dash forward Rachel Daly played the game of her life when her team needed all three points in its quest for a historic playoff berth.
It also came on an emotional night when the league needed to be reminded of how awesome it can be in the midst of the painful realization that there is still a long way to go.
Yet, when Daly returned to the visiting locker room at Providence Park following Houston’s 3-2 road win over the Portland Thorns on Wednesday and checked her phone, the message that was always there all of a sudden was not.
From his home in England, Martyn Daly would have been awake before the crack of dawn to watch the game. He always was.
On Wednesday, that wasn’t the case. He died in September and the last month has been the most excruciating period of his daughter’s soccer career.
“I broke down a little after the game because I just thought that I am never going to get a text from him again saying, ‘Well done,’ or ‘I’m proud of you,’ ” Rachel Daly said. “That’s hard for me and something that I’ve always had my whole life after every game. No matter what time of day it was at, he was always watching. So that’s going to be tough.”
Daly will try to reign in her focus again Sunday night when the Dash play host to the North Carolina Courage at 6 p.m. at BBVA Stadium.
Houston (8-7-5, 29 points) enters in its best form of the season. Before Wednesday’s road win over the league leaders, the Dash beat Racing Louisville FC 4-0 — also on the road.
Thanks to a four-game unbeaten streak, the Dash have climbed the crowded NWSL standings to fourth place and could pull even with North Carolina (9-6-5, 32 points) in third with a win Sunday.
At the same time, it is difficult for the players to focus all of their attention on training and the games. The last two weeks have brought multiple public accusations of sexual coercion and other types of abuse committed by male coaches and lack of intent from club and league leaders to make it right.
Most notably, it led to the firing of Paul Riley as coach of the Courage and the firing of Lisa Baird as NWSL commissioner. To symbolize the six years it took for players’ concerns of abuse to be taken seriously, the players in all three NWSL games played Wednesday gathered arm in arm at midfield during the sixth minute.
The Dash had won in Portland only once before Wednesday night, so the celebration would have been big under normal circumstances. Instead, Daly said the Dash’s locker room was “a little bit flat.”
“Everybody is dealing with this differently,” she said. “There’s no right or wrong way to deal with it. Everyone has their own takeaways from it and people are directly involved, indirectly involved, people are not involved at all. We just have to let people have their space and time to process things and deal with it in their own way.”
Daly’s way of processing everything, including her father’s death, has been to play more freely. It has changed her perspective because it magnified that there are bigger things to worry about than soccer.
“Growing up, I only ever knew one thing and that was football,” Daly said. “That was because of him and my brother. Everything that I’ve ever done through life was with a ball at my feet. I wouldn’t be here today. … I wouldn’t have played professionally or on the national team without my love of the game through him.”