LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – Racing Louisville Football Club suffered its first home defeat, at the hands of North Carolina Courage, 2-0, in Lynn Family Stadium Wednesday night, but manager Christy Holly may have been more upbeat after this performance than any his young expansion side has turned in this season.
Playing for the second time in four days with a visit to Chicago looming ahead on Saturday, Holly made seven changes to his starting lineup, tweaked his team’s defensive approach, and in general rolled the dice against one of the NWSL’s more talented teams. A crowd of 6,344 turned out on Pride Night, to honor and benefit the LGBTQ+ community in Louisville.
After falling to a 2-0 halftime deficit, Holly saw his team adjust to his tactical tweaks, create some chances for itself, and generally play on even terms in the second half, even amid four more lineup changes.
Nobody was cheering a 2-0 defeat (though Louisville lost 5-0 to the same team nearly a month ago). But Christy had no problem cracking a prideful smile after his team’s Pride Night performance.
Racing Louisville FC coach Christy Holly yells at his team during a 2-0 loss to North Carolina on June 23, 2021.
“We wanted to be very efficient with our energy and how we defended,” Holly said. “And apart from two very disappointing mistakes, I thought the players were fantastic. To be able to contain a team like North Carolina after making seven changes, quite frankly, I was proud of, and then to come out in the second half and try to embed themselves into the game and make a big impact it’s really something. There’s growing pains as we go through this, but quite honestly, with all the rotation and the changes, I’m very proud of the team.”
Out of the lineup were mainstays like Yuki Nagasato, Emily Fox and CeCe Kizer (sporting a shiner from her head-to-head collision with a Houston defender on Sunday), as well as newcomers like Gemma Bonner and Ebony Salmon (nursing a slight injury).
Cheyna Matthews, Jorian Baucom and Sinclaire Miramontez made their first starts.
North Carolina's Lynn Williams, highly motivated after being selected as an alternate instead of a roster player on the U.S. women's Olympic team, scored a pair of goals within six minutes of each other midway through the first half, and that was all the offense the Courage would need, but also all that Louisville would give up. Racing was outshot 19-4, but just 6-3 in the second half.
“We’re usually a high-press team and we changed that whole system, and changed seven players, and had just a day and a half to do that,” Holly said. “You combine that, and it’s a phenomenal return by the players. . . . There’s a lot of positives. We sat down at halftime and talked about what needed to be better and how to approach it, and how do we manage it. And the players came out in the second half and did that. . . . We don’t celebrate losses, but we definitely celebrate growth and progress.”
Despite the changes, Holly indicated that the lineup would look more normal on Saturday in Chicago.
“It’s vitally important to us that we look at this week and try to manage it as economically as we possibly can,” he said. “There’s no way that players can play 90 minutes in every single game at their highest level of performance. So we want to give everybody the opportunity to perform, while also protecting them and making sure they can move forward and have impact in the game at Chicago this weekend. . . . (But) the plan, yeah. We’ll see. Ebony has a little bit of an injury concern and we’ll be very protective of her. The first thing she said after the game was, “Can I start Saturday?” Yeah, that’s the plan. We want to go into every game with the ability to attack and win games, but we have to move pieces and protect people from injuring themselves when there’s a backup of games in the middle of the week.”
One player whose debut on Wednesday was particularly special: Defender Addisyn Merrick, who just weeks ago thought a back injury might’ve ended her season. She entered with about 10 minutes to play, to the cheers of her teammates.
“I couldn’t be any more excited for her,” Holly said.
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