The North Carolina Courage and the Houston Dash battled out a chaotic classic on Sunday. Making sense of a 4-3, that saw five goals scored in the first 13 minutes of the second half, can feel like an impossible task.
The match was effectively settled by three Dash goals between the 45th and 51st minutes. That Nichelle Prince goal, that made it 4-1, is what proved to be insurmountable for North Carolina.
Although neither defense came out of this one too composed, and both attacks caught lightning in a bottle, there were some interesting things we learned from Sarah Lowdon's final match as acting head coach of the Dash.
Here are three takeaways from a wild win in Cary, NC:
An apology for Eddy
Dash defender Elizabeth Eddy played a starring role in Sunday's victory. The left winback scored two back-to-back goals after half time to give Houston its first lead of the match. It was the first brace of her NWSL career. Eddy's second goal in particular featured a breathtaking chipped finish.
"I would say I saw somebody find Maria [Sánchez] and Maria turned," Eddy said about the second goal after the match.
"I pulled wide. I was like, 'Oh, she sees the seam between the backline,’ I get to go in with either one touch or slide in. Then the way that she played it, it was perfect. The timing was perfect. I was able to like, I would say, texture, right up and over Casey Murphy. Drop a little volley over there.”
Eddy has been in and out of the Dash starting lineup during the 2022 season. She has four starts over the first nine matches of the season. After starting for Houston in Los Angeles 10 days ago, the defender was an unused substitute in the 4-0 home loss to the Portland Thorns on June 12.
Speaking to the media after Sunday's 4-3 win, Lowdon issued a public apology to Eddy for leaving her out of her team's previous match.
"I actually called her up after the [Portland] game, said Lowdon. "I thought that was a little bit unfair to her to be honest, it wasn't intentional by any stretch, but it was just me wanting to go with something else in terms of personnel.
"I'm just really proud of her. I just told her on the sideline, like, 'Look, you know, like you just shoved it in our faces as coaches. And that's what we want you to do. So well done.' Kudos to her and just so excited for her and she's super pumped.”
Whether or not it was being dropped by Lowdon that helped fire Eddy up, or some other reason, it was impressive to see the acting head coach go into detail about how she is helping her players understand her decisions. The Dash are currently unbeaten with Eddy in the starting lineup.
Aggressive tactics pay off
We have now become accustomed to variations of 3-5-2 when it comes to Dash formations. But Sunday's tactics had a little more aggression to it than in previous Houston matches. With that risk came reward.
The frame above is taken right after Shea Groom intercepted a pass from Carson Pickett (indicated by the red arrow). Groom would go on to dribble to the edge of the Courage box and lay off the ball to Sánchez, who would then slam it into the back of the net.
The pass from Pickett was a poor one. But the error comes from Houston's very high press on the right hand side. Right wing back Haley Hanson is all the way forward, in line with Sánchez and Groom, blocking off passing lanes to the Courage midfield.
Throughout the first half, Hanson and Eddy on the other side engaged the Courage fullback to put them under pressure. As one wingback pushed on, and pressed along with the Dash forwards, the other would slot back and offer more defensive cover, just in case North Carolina broke through the press.
"Courage have a great midfield," said Eddy. "We knew that if we match up, we're going to, most of the time, win our one-on-one battles. I think that gave us confidence to go in and say, 'Make sure you win that battle.'"
As the game wore on, the Dash adjusted again. One of the main tactical adjustments that Lowdon wanted to accomplish was matching the Courage's box midfield. “Their box was causing us some problems with their overloaded midfield. That was something that we had tried to do in the first half and then we just kind of refined it a little bit at halftime," said Lowdon after the match.
If the Courage broke through the Dash's press, then its loaded central midfield could cause problems for Houston. Lowdon admitted that the entry balls into the Courage's midfield were "killing us."
As the match began to settle at 4-3, so too did the Dash alter its wingback duties. With North Carolina playing a very narrow midfield, it relied on the fullbacks to overlap, get forward, and play the ball back into the middle. By asking wingbacks Hanson and Eddy to start dropping back in the second half, rather than engage early, Lowdon helped reduce the immediate threat of the balls into the Courage central attacking midfielders. The Dash could focus on extinguishing attacks out wide.
"There were spells where we were a little bit rugged. It was just about cleaning that up and getting a bit of confidence. We changed something a little bit tactically out wide with our wingbacks dropping down trying to attract their fullbacks to bait them in and then trying to find the ball in the channels," said Lowdon.
Time for a break
There was a healthy dose of dénouement to Sunday's match too. After all, it was Lowdon's last match in sole charge of the team. New interim head coach Juan Carlos Amorós is set to take over ahead of the clash with the Kansas City Current on July 1.
Lowdon's nine-match ride has been a special one both and on off the pitch. She has won the hearts of the Dash fans and commanded respect from the Dash players. Even with an impressive 4-2-3 record and plenty of marquee results, Lowdon talked about need to get some asking herself, "Do I really deserve this?" In the crush of the NWSL season, Lowdon also spoke about how it can be difficult to get "perspective."
Now is the time to rest and recoup to try and make sense of this episode. As Lowdon and the Dash took off from Houston, the acting head coach's parents actually arrived at Bush International Airport from England.
"I was trying to skip through the airport, perhaps and go find them," said Lowdon. "I'm just excited to spend some time with them. They've stayed up and watched every single game and the Angel City game was tough, because it was like the middle of the night. It was like 3 a.m., but I'm just excited to get some time with them, get a mental break. I think everybody needs this."
It was also the final NWSL match before the FIFA International break. For the players that get selected for World Cup qualifiers, that will mean an even longer spell away from the Dash.
Getting a positive result against the Courage and boosting the Houston's stature in the standings before all the interactional players depart was huge for the team's confidence. Nichelle Prince, who is set to link up with Canada for World Cup qualifiers, agreed that ending on a high was meaningful to her.
"It's so important, not just obviously for like the standing but for confidence in general, I think we needed to come out and remember who we are as a team and put in a good performance. It wasn't easy, but it was tough one, but I think we definitely need it," said Prince.