Kansas City Current Top The NWSL Standings | KC Current 4 Portland Thorns 1 | NWSL Week 14

[Music] [Applause] let's Jump Ahead to the third team in that top three mix maybe uh maybe the maybe the first team in that top one mix depending on how you look at it Kansas City current going into the weekend looked like a tough one going to Portland sure Sophie Smith was going to be back road match that Casey defense looked a little getable I think I Was preparing myself for a real knockdown drag out not what we saw it was not now no Sam coffee in the starting lineup is a contributor to that I would also say no Olivia mree not helping but like you said they had s Smith back and they're just a good team so I expect and they're playing at home so I expected this one to be a lot closer than it was but three goals in the course of 10 minutes near the end of the first half pretty much put this one to bed and was just a great indicator that this is another team that they can kind of get their goals from anywhere on the field but more so than anyone in the league as we have previously discussed from any one on the roster it's borderline comical right now they got their 17 different goal scorer on uh with basaga scoring in the 38th minute what I got a kick out of though two minutes 12 seconds later Jill lyen is still pretty much describing the basaga goal when this happens uh L laon runs on to one and just absolutely steals Portland Soul it was a great call from play-by-play announcer Joe mafa but after his announcement of the goal 12 full seconds of Silence from the commentators after the lon goal like lyed comes back with a really great are you kidding me which I loved but yeah they just must have been as shocked mouth of gape as as pretty much everybody watching in that moment I believe low Labon hit that ball roughly 1 million miles per hour into the back L she I believe that smoked that thing like to the point where I I physically did clutch clutch my chest or as if I was wearing pearls and just went H she drilled that cover I covered my my son my son's eyes my 2-year-old son I'm like look away yeah it was that was talking about ruthless that was about as ruthless and she had the she had the run up to charge at it and just all the way through the ball in perfect placement just like yeah just video game stuff this Casey current side they're basically the Carolina Grim Hansen of nwsl stats they're they're first in goals first in XG goal differential shots shots on target shot creating actions goal creating actions successful take on and blocks you talked about uh Teo chinga sort of Upper Crust in that blocks category but as a team they lead the league in that category as well so they're just flat out dominating even with Orlando's six goal spree they're still one goal short with regard to goal differentials so that kind of tells you all you need to know about the uh current and then last stat there 37 goals for them in the season second place the spirits at 29 amazing let's talk about we've talked about the three major squads I apologize while I look at my second screen here it got me thinking about this title race buddy this is a proper proper title race I don't think we should get past these five teams so the the five teams at the top of the table right now Kansas City current Orlando Pride Washington Spirit Gotham FC Portland Thorns they're separated by nine points Kansas City current sitting on 32 tied with your Orlando Pride but one better on gold differential as you mentioned Portland Thorns are on 23 points a lot of time left to go but what I want to bring up here is that I mentioned the nwsl and Liga mchis tournament uh that's going to start I think roughly around like July 20th we have two league matches before we get into that tournament mhm Friday June 28th Kansas City current plays at home vers Houston Dash your Orlando Pride play in Los Angeles against Angel City FC Gotham FC plays at home against the Seattle rain on the 30th the Thorns play in Utah against the Royals and the spirits next match is at home against North Carolina courage but what's that second match why did I wait and why did I not say what that second match before the break is because on Saturday July 6th in Kansas City we have the current versus your pride that my good man that's a football game so I thought a lot about this one based on this past weekend because obviously F Friday night I'm flying high Orlando just looks Unstoppable and then you watch KC they do to Port you're just like okay that's going to be tough to deal with uh and I mentioned last week on the Pod I was like all right let's see how these defenses hold up obviously Portland's kind of not up to the level casy holds Portland to just the one goal Sophia Smith from distance that's going to happen so it could be that Casey defensively has got some stuff figured out but I think even still I really really trust that Orlando team defensively to be able to kind of at least slow down that Kansas City attack just because when they do pack it in they're very disciplined defensively they are very synchronized defensively they do a great job covering and rotating to make sure that they don't give up anything easy again just just the 11 goals two straight shutouts for Orlando and then I think offensively you know this looks like a different team you know it does look like you know Seb Hines just said hey you eight players that are not our two center backs if you get the ball go because I think bonda is just dangerous enough where it's like it doesn't matter whether it's abello on the left or Martinez on the right one could go one can stay and I think when you have whatever Martinez Sams and stom and Morehouse and go you kind of roll the dice kind of feel good about that if what you're trading it for is a Bello like driving and then basically the entire Midfield and those three attacking players up front making themselves available being creative being unselfish uh and just kind of manufacturing goals but you know with that said Casey is just terrifying man like the low labont two goal performance kind of reminded me I don't think I've ever told you this story but I played in a very competitive kind of adult basketball league in in in Brooklyn we had one guy in our team who left our team cuz he got signed to play for a g-league team holy so he's like all right guy gotta go you know so I was like okay he's good like like a really really good in his prime player and I'm in like in my late 30s at this point but I'll never forget this is a very competitive league I was not a good player I was probably like a bench player like a sixth or seventh man on this team just kind of like a sort of a spot shooter and I think made like I don't know like three threes in like the first half or something and he was telling one of our other teammates and I heard him because I was like within air shot he's like right well if Dino's hitting today like they're in trouble basically because like our team like these teams are really loaded and I kind of felt the same about like Lebon I'm like all right if lant is gonna be doing this you already have have to contend with dein and beia and chwinga and Cooper who also is coming on lant obviously a great player but how many how many players can you like throw extra attention to uh until just kind of like your your defense turns into swiss cheese so incredibly fired up about that that upcoming match up I'm dying to hear what you expect to see when those two teams lock up I'm really interested to see how Cy they are at the beginning exactly what you're talking about of like the pride not being afraid to roll the dice like maybe you come out at first and you're like okay let's hold off on that and let's see if Casey accidentally runs into one of our traps like cuz we have a good enough def Enders to kind of stop them and now they're caught off guard and we can catch them on the break I'd be very interested to see I mean obviously I'm excited to watch the entire match first 20 minutes I want to see that and then kind of like isolate it and be like okay is this first 20 minutes significantly different than the next 70 or are they are you just walking in and saying this is the game plan mash the gas pedal on this game plan for the entire match I love thinking about the game in terms of segments you know this something that I think you introduced to me and I think the two 15minute segments that I've gotten the most attached to are the 15 before halftime and the 15 after halftime hell yeah well actually it's the 15 before halftime and then the 10 extra minutes that you get so it ends up being you know 25 to 28 minutes that we have to get to watch uh but that last 15 before halftime is really when it's like let's see how sharp you really are cuz like at the first 10 15 18 minutes like even Utah Utah looked like they were going to stand up to the pride and I think that's kind of what Mike Watts was saying oh but now they want to play like this this is going to be interesting but once you get to the back half of the first half you really start to see okay can you hold your concentration when we get to like 44 49 52 54 you know before you get to halftime you see Yas me Ryan get the red card well I mean that's 54 minutes into the first half you know so it's like you really have to lock in for nearly an hour first half nearly an hour in the second half and then the first 15 minutes after halftime you know do you come out ready or do you come out like all right well let's let's work up a sweat and um Still Still 45 plus to kind of like crawl back into this one and I think that's when the good teams really just come out and smack you 100% I mean you saw what KC did against Seattle a couple weeks ago they were able to come out and score two goals in 90 seconds they came out uh after halftime against the thorns and shinga got one in the 47th minute so I think you're 100% right about that where the best teams come out they go okay that was that was 15 minutes to rest our legs start your engines we're we're gonna come out we're going to run right at you again totally so yeah we're gonna be locked into that one you mentioned I think you were on this on Twitter over the weekend I wanted to kind of resurface it the chwinga minutes discussion so you had some great stats on our MVP episode talking about how available chwinga was and obviously you know she didn't uh start the first match I think she just came out for five or 10 minutes or something so something of the sort maybe it was a little bit more I think maybe it was more like 2530 and had a goal involvement pretty much a minute we already knew what time it is was she steps out to the field and and already's making stuff happen but her minutes obviously a four to one Victory or a four to one lead on the road Sophie Smith you know to to our earlier 15minute segment discussion they're already down 4-0 she gets a goal in the 70s not too much to be afraid of it's not like you're going to fall behind six to four or you chinga to come back and you know grab a couple back the other way what was your take on uh on on having her in so deep into the match yeah friend of the show Morty Moore on Twitter pointed out like how many minutes has t watchinga played and uh I KN I remembered I had had the research like on hand from the MVP episode so I I I chimed into our uh to our pal Morgan there to say at that point chwinga had played 1,083 minutes now you add 90 to that because I think chinga didn't get taken off until the 90th minute of this match chwinga has played 1,173 minutes out of 14 matches played 13 of those are starts I got to imagine that is good she was there with 12 full 90s played I think that's going to bring her to 13 full 90s played throughout the season I have been accused and I fully raised my hand to this I I think somebody on uh on the YouTube comments once called called me a for being concerned about player injuries that's fine I'll wear that I guess yeah I think he should I think vco should rest her a little more she is a majestic athlete one of the absolute at worst one of the best five athletes in the league I think we could probably say that yep her ability to score and pass at PACE is is unparalleled motor never stops we talked about the blocks she plays the full field that's great and yes I want that player on the field for as much as possible I also don't want to be Tom Tibido to to throw in a another basketball reference so yeah 1,173 minutes played I think when I mentioned that in the MVP pod when I was doing the research it was chwinga I think there were a couple other position players in the top 10 but it was like six goalkeepers who were leading in the minutes and I was just like okay well you know maybe this forward who gives you all kinds of Sprints up and down the field Maybe maybe a little more rest might be helpful a little different not playing the same game exactly yeah I thought that was a very fair point um it's interesting because like you've got the stretch run for well let me ask you this do you think that there is some variance with regards to some teams prioritizing The Shield some teams prioritizing the playoffs in the cup that is really really interesting I don't think I've ever thought about it in those terms and I don't know like gut reaction is like well what manager would play like that what what manager has a team who would want to play like that like if you have a team full of Americans do they look at it and say we need to win the nwsl championship that's more meaningful than the Shield or do you have a bunch of Americans who grew up watching European football and say no no the best team is the team that that wins the most matches throughout the regular season so that's a really good question man I got to think there are some right like there are just too many there's such a diversity and experience yeah for sure and I think um you mentioned Portland right they're nine points back at some point they're going to say how about we figure out how to make sure that we're maximizing our talent pool going into the playoffs yeah versus are we gonna catch Kansas City are we gonna catch Orlando and then at some point and then and then it just kind of like trickles up the standings then at some point it's Gotham and then perhaps it's Washington or maybe you know we do have a three or four team pile up at the top but either way I think there has to be kind of some variance and then you have your teams like you know your Louisville's and your Carolinas or that like they must be firmly thinking playoffs at this point got um anything can happen we saw what happened last year so just something to keep uh keep an eye on I'm going to be interested to see what a team like Casey or or kind of like what those three four five six teams on the standings like kind of how they approach the back half of the season and if we were able to see anything with regard to all right are they tipping their hand a little bit so we'll keep an eye on that one more match to cover you were in the building Seattle rain W racing Louisville one [Music]