by Alyce Collett (13/7/26)
Above: Shinomi Koyama (front) dribbles with the ball during North Carolina’s loss to the Washington Spirit on the weekend. Photo: Lewis Gettier.
The North Carolina’s four match winning run came to an end over the weekend after being comfortably beaten by the Washington Spirit 2-0 at home.
Speaking to the media after the match, coach Mak Lind and one of the side’s co-captains Ryan Williams both spoke of their frustrations with how the match played out for the Courage.
“I think we had a tough start to the game, obviously” Williams said.
“I thought we played a lot better in the second half, which kind of shows our resilience. I think we’re still just looking to start stronger and kind of just take control of the game from the start and really play our style from the start. I think sometimes we wait a little too long to get going and to try to fight back.”
“It was two different halves” Lind said.
“Of course I’m disappointed about the first half and the way we started the game. I feel like I’ve been saying that couple of times this season in these press conferences.
“I can be happy about the response from halftime talk, we go out and try to give us a chance to get back into the game.
“Honestly, I feel like there were a couple of times we should at least scored one goal. I don’t know what happened with the free kick there. Maybe it should be a goal for Ashley Sanchez there, maybe give us even a better chance to get back into the game. But we were a different team in the second half and that’s something we have to continue to look into and see how we can start more on the front foot.
“We played against a good team, good players but I felt that we gave them that chance.”
Despite things obviously not going well for the Courage early, Lind and the other coaches did not make any changes until the 81st minute, which is significantly later than when Washington made their first changes of the night in the 67th minute.
“For me it’s about momentum” Lind explained when asked about why he left the changes so late.
“How does the game look like? Of course, we were not happy with the first half and being down two goals, but if you look at the game, especially in the second half, I felt that we got the momentum. Washington had to give the ball away many times, we had a many good goal scoring opportunities, and when we have that momentum and feel like we can score a goal and we scored a goal that maybe should be a goal, then you don’t want to kill that momentum. But the second I felt that we started losing that momentum in the second half, that’s when you start to do the subs.”
One big change that the Courage did make to their usual routine was going with a back five in their formation, as opposed to the back four that they usually deploy.
“When we play with an extra player in the back line, we need to be very aggressive and on the front foot” Lind explained.
“The game plan was to make sure they have skilled wide players that can go one versus one and make sure we have support, and I felt that in those situations we had good control of them when they received the ball in the wide channels.
“When they scored the first goal, it was a ball behind the back line and not really in sync with each other, which we should have with an extra player in the back line. But that’s something we talk about every week where we put that extra player based on our base formation.”
“I think we have certain principles that we work on, and I think that a strength of our team is being able to go into kind of different formations with our back line and into our midfield” Williams also noted.
“So I think it’s something that we’re definitely going to keep working on, being able to adapt and change based on our opponent or kind of what we want to do that game. But yeah, I think we had some really good moments, and I don’t think that although we lost 2-0, I think that there were some really positive things coming out of today’s game.”
Williams later expanded on those positives, noting that “I mean, I think although we did give up two goals – which we never want to do – I think there were some really good moments of aggression, stepping out of the back line and still being able to be numbers up in the back line and go forward and kind of catch them on a counter.
“I think we created some really good chances, so I think we’re hopefully going to focus on that moving forward, maybe fix a few things, but yeah, there were definitely positives from today.”
Williams also agreed that the side did step up in the second half – both from an offensive and defensive perspective – noting that “I think one of our principles is always to be forward-leaning, and I think that we were definitely doing that in the second half.
“I think, again it’s just starting the game strong and trying to really do those principles that we talk about every single day in training in the first half, and I think that if we can fix that, hopefully we aren’t digging ourselves out of 2-0 in a game and just really taking control of the game from the start.”
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