by Alyce Collett (18/5/26)
Above: Ally Schlegel (pink uniform) celebrates scoring her first goal for North Carolina on Saturday. Photo: Lewis Gettier.
The North Carolina Courage got back on the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) winners list in a big way on the weekend, comfortably beating Chicago 4-0.
Speaking to the media after the win, one of the things most front of mind for Courage coach Mak Lind was the number of goals his side had scored. The 4-0 scoreline is both the biggest win for the Courage this season and the most amount of goals the side has scored in one game so far in 2026.
Lind described the win as “very important” and also noted that it was “nice to score many goals” with “four different goal scorers.”
“It was a big win for us today. [We] needed to show that we can score goals, we can score many goals” Lind said.
But it was not total praise from Lind, with the coaching noting that he was “not so happy with the first half.”
“We were way too passive, especially in our out of possession play” Lind explained.
“We were not really aggressive and try to win the ball. But we fixed that at half time, talked about details.
“It was a different team in the second half, and four goals could have been even more. But I’ll take four goals. I’ll take four-zero and yeah, very happy.”
The full time score was starkly different to the half tally, which was scoreless after a mostly even first half.
“It’s not often I raise my voice, but at halftime I was little bit on the players and said ‘We need to be aggressive. This is our home, and we need to be very forward-leaning’” Lind explained.
“With that adjustment we saw a different team, so it was a clear message. I showed a couple of pictures in halftime – when we could be more aggressive, how we could be more aggressive – especially when we win the ball a couple of times could be a good goal scoring opportunity. So I’m happy that we fixed it and the player response was amazing.”
During preseason Lind talked about his expectations around the team scoring lots of goals, and after the weekend’s performance he agreed that the side’s forward group was finally displaying that expectation.
“Today, yes. I would say we scored four goals and could have score more goals” Lind said.
“It’s not I feel like we’re scoring crazy many goals, and it will come with time. I’m very patient in my job and need to be patient, but I feel that we are dangerous when we have the ball, and we create many goal-scoring opportunities.
“You need to do that to win games, and to win games with a couple of goals. So I think today was a big step or important step to show that we can win games with more than one goal and hopefully we can see that more often also this season.”
One of the four goal scorers was Ally Schlegel, with the half time substitute scoring in Courage colours for the first time after an offseason move from Chicago.
“She’s also a very good person and the preseason has been challenging a little bit for her with injuries, but right now she’s training very good” Lind said about Schlegel.
“I’m happy to have her on board and we see more and more from her. So she did a good second half and helped the team and had a great impact on what we try to do.
So, happy for that performance. First goal for her at the Courage. also first goal for [Evelyn Ijeh}.
“It’s also important that the offensive players need to feel like they can score goals, and a big part of scoring goals is confidence. You don’t want to go too many games without scoring a goal then of course your confidence will get a hit.”
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