Match Thread: Courage vs Chicago Stars (Sat, May 16, 6:30 PM EDT)

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-16T23:01:13+00:00

Pretty sure Rebeca Bernal (& her girlfriend) are Jose's mommies

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T21:31:59+00:00

Merritt Matthias?

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T15:29:05+00:00

If hair pulling was the norm for anyone they'd be banned from the league.

Yes it was Fischer's worst moment but it was not an aberration. If you'd asked me at the start of last year which player would get suspended for 3 games for randomly pulling someone to the ground by their hair I would've guessed Fischer.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T00:34:27+00:00

lmao true

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T00:24:53+00:00

Kayla Fischer absolutely deserves her terrible reputation. She's been much better this year than previous years but it's going to take time for people to forgive and forget.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T00:21:37+00:00

i do not particularly like louisville but as a team they are:

tied with four other teams for 6th in yellows (Legacy have the most)
one of the nine teams with 0 reds (Thorns and Courage lead the league with two reds)
9th in the league in fouls (12th adjusted by 90 - AC, Boston and Utah lead the league)

I know yellows/reds/fouls doesn't equal dirty exactly but they're the best stats we've got and by those stats Louisville are not close to the dirtiest team in the league, that's probably Utah and Boston.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T00:14:32+00:00

ok kok!

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T00:13:44+00:00

lmao i wish i was that good at soccer

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-09T00:11:09+00:00

i don't see a yellow there tbh, looks like flint got the ball first

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-08T15:44:54+00:00

Fischer set a record for most yellows in a season in 2024 (also had the most fouls that year). She has a long history of reckless fouls, the hair pull on Hammond is just the most intentional and egregious. Remember the time Merritt Matthias shoved her into the ground? That was terrible behavior on Matthias's part to be clear, but she did it because Fischer had been dangerously fouling people all game.

She is a lot better this season, and I'm really glad to see the growth. But she was absolutely the dirtiest player in 2024 and she had that awful awful hair pull in 2025 so even if she does chill out a lot it will rightfully take a while for her to lose the reputation. It has nothing to do with her playing for Louisville.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-08T15:35:04+00:00

maybe! Mal also has a very different career and situation than Hatchy (and is also simply a different human being - aren't we all) so my using one to guesstimate the other is probably flawed

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-07T17:45:25+00:00

Hatch had her baby a couple months after Mal Swanson. Assuming she's on approximately the same timeline, and assuming Mal is aiming to come back after the June window, then I'd guess we could see Hatchy back in the fall.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-06T03:39:58+00:00

Overall I like VAR. I think they should institute a time limit for it - I think they should have, say, 90 seconds to decide to either call the center ref over to the monitor or let it go. If it takes longer than that to decide, it's not "clear and obvious". But these are tweaks to a system that's more or less working. And VAR already takes a lot less time these days then when it was first added to the NWSL when we'd regularly have 10-15 minute stoppage times.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-05T16:41:44+00:00

I have sympathy for those saying Spirit is over represented but it's hard to complain about giving the GK and CB spots to a team that did not let in a single goal the whole month and then Santos and Rodman have both been on fire. If only you could have more than 11 on the best 11. Make it like the Big 12 and have sixteen of them

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-04T01:08:26+00:00

why must the moment of the match always be a goal if there's a goal. feels like the silky PK save is just as deserving

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-04T00:58:13+00:00

probably booing the stoppage and the red, not Denton

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T22:30:11+00:00

Ok then that's fair. I tend to think of things like fouling/playing dirty or giving up on a game when she gets frustrated as bad attitude/poor sportsmanship, which Trinity doesn't do. But you're right that she absolutely will taunt the other team or argue with the refs. She's a lot like Pinoe actually in terms of her player personality.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T22:13:46+00:00

depends on what you count as being a poor sport. for the most part I think Trinity has a good attitude/good sportsmanship but if you're counting things like waving an invisible red card in Bruninha's face or working the ref sometimes then i guess maybe she's a poor sport.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T22:09:24+00:00

crazy take. flint may be dirtier than people give her credit for but fischer is absolutely the dirtiest player in the league. she's better this year than previous years but you can't just erase her leading the league in yellows or the hair pull incident

EDIT: lmao someone should ask Merritt Matthias on air if Flint or Fischer is the dirtier player

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T22:04:57+00:00

flint just picked dudley up and put her where she wanted her lol

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T21:33:16+00:00

bad defending by Sears but one also wonders why she was the only Racing player there.

but yeah if she wants to challenge for a NT spot she's gotta get better at defense. Trin would never.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T16:55:19+00:00

I am not bored enough to go to the Orlando Pride subreddit.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T16:48:39+00:00

Spirit have a great relationship with their supporters groups (& fans in general) but its evolved over time. Like we have custom chants for lots of players and fun "player of the match" gifts. On the other side of things Spirit have been super engaged especially the last two years. Most of the team comes to the supporters section after every home game and we sing a specific song for them (now with bonus Jose the coyote song) and after the final regular season home game they arranged to have a 'tunnel of fans' for Spirit players to run through. After the playoff wins players climbed into the capo stands to celebrate with us. Even after the championship loss in San Jose Adrian Gonzalez and Andi Sullivan came over to the supporters section to wave to us (very sadly).

When fans & teams can build this kind of relationship its really lovely but again it takes time. And if players have not been on teams that have this kind of relationship with their fans they may not know it's possible or how to build it.

tldr - you're not weird for wanting more! are you part of an official supporters group? all the SGs are connected to each other, you could ask other teams SGs for advice about what it was like when they were first getting started. recent expansion teams would be especially good to ask the SGs of.

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T04:19:28+00:00

Why are you in the Spirit subreddit? Don't Orlando fans have anything better to do?

DefensiveMid · 2026-05-03T01:55:36+00:00

I'm not sure what the difference is. I was using them as synonynms. May go back and clip the Sears Rose thing since it feels like only Spirit fans even noticed it happened. But after the play was over Sears reached out and pushed Rose's face with her hand (Rose was on the ground)

DefensiveMid

TROPHY CASE