After a long delay due to lightening in the area, the Washington Spirit and Seattle Reign FC clashed for the first time this season in some mid-week National Women's Soccer League.
Both teams wanted the win. A win for the Spirit would have given them home field advantage in the NWSL Playoffs. While a win for the Reign would have kept their playoff dreams alive. Even with a make shift team, which saw head coach Jim Gabarra rest key players, the Spirit did what they had to do and won the game to clinch a home semi-final.
A slow first half ends with some Dunn brilliance
Neither team could really get going during the first 15-20 minutes of the match. Both teams started attacks but were continuously called offside which halted play quite a bit. This, and some sloppy passing made it difficult for either team to create clear cut chances and they had to resort to shooting from outside the box to register any shots on the night. The best opportunity of the match fell to the Spirit when in the 42nd minute, Merritt Mathias tripped Cheyna Williams in the box and gave up penalty. Christine Nairn stepped up to take the penalty and sent the Reign's goalkeeper, Hayley Kopmeyer, the wrong way but she sent her spot kick wide.
Crystal Dunn began the match on the bench but an early injury to Cali Farquharson saw Dunn come on in the sixth minute. After taking some time to find her feet, Dunn's talent began to influence the match. She combined well with Williams and Fransica Ordega to create most of the Spirit's chances and her constant attacking presence finally paid off late into the first half.
In the 50th minute, with the last kick of the first half, Dunn found herself free at the top of the Reign penalty area. She managed to get by a few defenders before firing off an effort that hit the crossbar on the far side of the goal and bounced in to give Washington the lead. Kopmeyer had no chance in saving that kind of an effort and Dunn finally broke her duck this season.
The second half produces more goals
Seattle knew that they needed to at least tie the game to still stand a chance in reaching the playoffs. They began to push numbers forward and brought on Megan Rapinoe to try and find the goal they desperately needed. They almost got that goal in the 59th minute when Kim Little broke free of the Spirit back line before sending in a fantastic cross into the box. Nahomi Kawasumi met Little's cross with her head but could only direct her effort straight at the Spirit goalkeeper, Kelsey Wys.
The first goal of the second half actually fell to the Spirit. Two minutes after Kawasumi's effort, Dunn won the ball off of Rumi Utsugi and proceeded to head straight for the goal. Her shot was deflected by Kopmeyer but it fell straight to Williams who had been following the play and the Spirit forward had an easy tap in to score Washington's second of the night.
After a second lightening delay, the last goal of the game came in the 70th minute. Nairn was unfortunate to handball in her own penalty area which resulted in a Seattle penalty. Little, as she usually does, stepped up to take the spot kick and fired it into the top corner, giving Wys no opportunity to save the penalty even though she guessed the right way. Seattle kept pushing for an equalizer but they continually were thwarted by the Spirit's back line and calm play by Wys. Seattle earned some set pieces during the last ten minutes of the match but they could not capitalize on them and the match ended in a win for the Spirit.
A big home win for the Spirit overshadowed
After securing the win they wanted, many would have thought that the focus of the media would be on the players of the Washington Spirit but an earlier incident, where the owner of the team Bill Lynch had purposely played the national anthem while the teams were in the locker rooms to avoid Megan Rapinoe's silent protest, became the topic of conversation for the rest of the match and after it. Many big news sites have picked up the story and it remains to be seen what the NWSL will do in light of the events of tonight's off the field events.
For more on this, VAVEL USA's Alexander Grant wrote a great piece about Rapinoe's protest and the Spirit's reaction to it.
As for what this result means in terms of playoff implications? Seattle are still mathematically able to still make the playoffs but it will take them winning their last two matches, a reverse against the Spirit and an away trip to the Houston Dash, as well as a huge collapse by the Western New York Flash for them to sneak into fourth and into the playoffs. T
he Spirit on the other hand, are in the playoffs, have home field advantage for the semi-final and are now essentially playing to become the 2016 NWSL Shield Champions. The previous regular seasons have thrown up some interesting twists at the end, so we can look forward to an interesting last few weeks in the NWSL regular season.