Not for the first time this season, the Reign were the categorically better team and eked out a 1-0 win. Unlike the first time they did that, their opponent wasn't the historically hapless Chicago Tsars. This time, it was a familiar opponent and a familiar situation – a season-ending matchup with Orlando with playoffs on the line.
While this is not the unstoppable Pride of two seasons ago, and the Reign had actually already eliminated them from postseason contention with a prior win, it's still a team with some real quality. The Pride had taken points off of good sides throughout the season, and the Reign could not afford to join that list.
The outcome was never in doubt, but also always in doubt. The Reign created chance after chance, Nérilia Mondésir was dealing like we've never seen her, the team played some of their best footie of the season. And still, the Pride kept coming up with the key save, the key interception, the key clearance to keep the Reign off the scoresheet.
Right up until they couldn't. Right up until Jordyn Bugg was there to clean up the deflection on a corner, and strike the ball home where not Cosette Morché, nor Oihane Hernández, nor Hailie Mace – all excellent in the game – could do a thing about it.
The Reign saw it all out, and their season continues for at least one more match.
Goalkeeper
Claudia Dickey – 6
In 90-plus minutes, Claudia Dickey was asked to make a total of zero (0) saves. While Orlando found a bit more of the ball in positive areas in the dying minutes of the match, even manufacturing a couple chances, not a single shot found Dickey's goalframe, and she spent much more of the match in catching practice. She was solid throughout, letting little past her in the air, winning easily on the occasions that the Pride tried to just body her up and make space. Her distribution was, generally, fine, though Orlando was able to harry her into hurried passes and pick them off on occasion as the match wore on, a major part of their overall possession advantage.
Defenders
Sofia Huerta – 7
Nothing quite came off for Huerta in the final third, but the process was good and she was an active, involved defender particularly responsible for denying Haley McCutcheon good looks at the ball. Her line included 6 recoveries, 3 interceptions, 4 of 7 duels won, 71 touches, and 10 passes into the final third; much more of her impact came from simple positional advantage, as she decisively won the left-side matchup for the Reign, allowing the team to take a much more aggressive posture overall and forcing Orlando's solid wide players to defend and track back much more than they wanted to.
Jordyn Bugg – 9
This was an absolutely phenomenal game from Jordyn, a monster performance, one of the best she's given to the team. This was the one where she put it all together and wrapped it with a bow. 84 touches, 94% passing, 6 of 9 on long passes, 10 recoveries, 4 interceptions, 5 of 8 duels won, beaten on the dribble zero times, beaten in space zero times, 4 shots on 5 touches in the attacking penalty area, and oh yeah no big deal just the game-winning goal batting cleanup on the corner. It's hard to ask for much more from a centerback. Just a huge, huge game, a hugely deserved goal, and a huge leaping tackle from her centerback partner to celebrate.
Phoebe McClernon – 8
The less-busy of the centerback pairing, Phoebe nonetheless came up huge herself throughout the match, supporting a feisty, fiery, blowing up the play everywhere Jordyn Bugg as the last-gasp backstop. While she was less involved, her stat line feels pretty familiar: 54 touches, 94% passing, 6 of 6 on long balls, 3 interceptions, a huge chance on a set piece. McClernon's growth as a long passer over the past two years has helped open up Bugg, as there is no obvious weak spot on the back line to show the ball to; and her scrappiness and anticipation as last defender back lets Bugg get forward and be a danger target a few extra times a match.
Madison Curry – 7
While Curry had a couple great moments on the ball – a beautiful cross that deserved an assist peak amongst them – one of the biggest turning points of the match was the scrappy, grind-it-out matchup between her and Solai Washington. And the stat line will lie to you a bit. On paper, Curry won 4 of 11 duels and 3 tackles, and Washington beat her for touch or on the dribble more than a few times. As things played out on the pitch, Washington increasingly wanted absolutely none of Curry in a way that compressed the field for the Pride and ceded the right – along with the left – to the Reign. Losing positionally to Huerta on the left and unwilling to keep up with Curry's fight on the right, the Pride kept trying to force the attack up the middle, where Bugg and McClernon annihilated one hundred percent of their hopes.
Midfielders
Sam Meza – 7
Death, taxes, big damn games by Sam Meza. Yes, she won her duels (4 of 5) and won her free kicks (2) and won her tackles (2) and got in her recoveries (6), but this was an unusually attacking-minded performance by Meza, her average field position well beyond the midfield arc. Consistently winning back the ball in the Pride's defensive half, she was decisive in finding the way forward, and finished the match with 4 progressive passes, 2 key passes and 4 shot-creating actions. She barely put a foot wrong, and the one time she got really beaten, it was mostly a matter of being several inches shorter than her opponent on an aerial, and like... that's a matchup problem you try to fix as a team, because you unfortunately cannot coach height.
Jess Fishlock – 7 (off 82' for Sally Menti)
In her final regular season match, her final match at Lumen Field, Jess Fishlock put on a show for the 16,000+ fans who showed out for her. She led the team with touches in the attacking penalty area (7) and shots (4), was absolutely robbed of a sure goal by a huge Morché save, robbed of an incredible look by a last-gasp Oihane clearance, and showed the kids her peerless guile with decisive attacking moves, deceptive supporting runs, and just a whole lot of popping up exactly where she needed to be to carry the play. Any other day, she finishes with a goal and maybe a brace despite touching the ball just 26 times. On this day, the goalkeeper was determined not to let her score one last banger at Lumen. Still, she goes out like a dragon, like a valkyrie, like a woman of Harlech.
Annibyniaeth sydd yn galw, am ei dewraf menywn!
Ainsley McCammon – 7
Right in the middle of everything was Ainsley McCammon, seeing the Pride's overloaded, width-is-lava midfield and cutting a path through it regardless. Ainsley hit a handful of line-breaking passes that briefly touched the face of G-d, the sort of pass that you look at and just stop and stare because there's no way and then Coco Mondésir is past you already to receive it and everything's gone all wrong. Though she completed just 70% of her passes overall, she played a moderate-risk, high-reward game that created a ton of reward, finished with 9 progressive passes, 2 shot-creating actions, and 10 defensive contributions, blunting the impact of the Pride's compressed midfield and feeding a forward line that deserved more than it got for one chance after another.
Forwards
Maddie Mercado – 7 (off 89' for Ryanne Brown)
The Year of Mercado finished with another strong performance on the wing, this time taking on the left-wing role that her Partner in Maddie Crimes filled before her injury. Mercado looked nearly as good on the left as on the right, and with Coco lighting up the other side, the Reign may have found the answer to Dahlien's absence. An absolute menace cutting in while Huerta overlapped her, Mercado finished with 4 shots, forced 2 strong saves out of Morché, created her own shot twice, won 6 of 11 duels, and was ruthless in taking advantage of the space that Mia Fishel kept opening up for her. She did everything a left winger needs to do except score, but still finishes the regular season as the Reign's first 10-goal scorer in nearly a decade.
Mia Fishel – 7 (off 74' for Brittany Ratcliffe)
I keep harping on this, but it's such an overlooked part of the game and it's so important to the Reign's best performances – Mia Fishel's work rate at forward is unbelievable. She puts so much positional pressure on opposing centerbacks, creates so much space for the wide forwards, relentlessly and thanklessly runs off the ball and opens up lanes. Yes, I too would like her to score a few more of her own, but it's not by accident that the Reign's offense has done the most cooking with two strong wing options and Fishel in holdup between them. Cori Dyke and Hannah Anderson spent the match chasing ghosts because of Fishel's movement, Coco and Mercado got huge looks because Fishel cleared the lanes for them, and she finished credited with an assist, her perfectly-timed check back onside ending with the foot to the ball that set up Bugg for the game winner.
Nérilia Mondésir – 9 (POTM) (off 89' for Angharad James-Turner)
This is the best we've seen of Coco, and my word it was good. This performance is a 10, full stop, if she puts just a little more velocity on the header after beating Morché and that chance hits the goal before Oihane can recover. It's a 10 if Morché doesn't steal that goal right off of Fishlock's forehead. It's a 10 if any of a half-dozen little things go just a bit more right. The process was faultless, the execution nearly as good. Coco was the best player on the pitch, unguardable, stoppable only through multiple extraordinary, matchday-defining interventions. She created 5 chances, 2 of them huge ones, won 3 free kicks, and had 9 shot-creating actions overall; she had 10 recoveries, 7 of them in the attacking half; she took 9 corners, and the Reign looked dangerous on 5 of them, including the scramble that ultimately led to Bugg's game-winning goal. Repeated instances of desperate, last-gasp defending rolled some natural 20s and kept her off the scoresheet, but this performance deserved a goal and two assists easily.
Substitutes
Brittany Ratcliffe – 5 (on 74' for Mia Fishel)
The Closer checked in, and really, at that point it was all over for the Pride. Okay, yes, Ratcliffe had just 11 touches and 1 completed pass in 20-ish minutes, but she did well to get on the ball, burn away the clock, and force Orlando to make decisions in their own half of the field rather than piling on the pressure for an equalizer. Solid, unglamorous work to kill things off by a forward who's excelled in those high-pressure, late-game situations all season.
Sally Menti – N/A (on 82' for Jess Fishlock)
In 10 or so minutes, Sally Menti touched the ball twice, and neither solved nor caused any particular problems save for giving Jess Fishlock a much-needed rest.
Ryanne Brown – N/A (on 89' for Maddie Mercado)
Coming on for stoppage time, Ryanne Brown contributed 2 touches and a clearance to help see the game out.
Angharad James-Turner – N/A (89' for Nérilia Mondésir)
Coming on for stoppage time, Haz James-Turner also contributed 2 touches and a clearance to help see the game out.
Pride POTM
Cosette Morché and Oihane
Maybe it's cheating to pick them both, but honestly, they both had some incredibly key interventions to keep the Reign off the scoresheet and to keep the Reign from extending their lead.
Oihane cleared a ball off the goal line that would've gone for an opener for Mondésir and stole a delivery from Fishel right off Fishlock's head. Either ball could easily have been a goal without her recovery and positioning.
Morché, meanwhile, absolutely robbed Fishlock with a Save of the Year-quality fingertip stop at full stretch and made two other strong saves, with her only real mistake coming when she came forward too aggressively on the Mondésir chance that... Oihane cleared off the line.
Referee
Calin Radisov – 6
On average, Radisov whistles about 30 fouls and shows about 4 yellow cards per match. In this one, he whistled 9 fouls and showed 0 yellow cards. I don't think he was derelict in so doing; while the Pride and Reign occasionally fought hard, in the course of watching the match three times, I never really felt any of the contact was over the line. Players seemed to understand his whistles and his standards, and though scrappy, the match was pretty clean.
He wasn't asked to do much, and he succeeded at not making himself the story, and I, for one, appreciate that.
Oh, and this may shock and astound you, but there was yet another instance of handling in the opposition box that both the referee and the VAR waved off. The Reign will never get that call, and it will be made against them approximately 1.5 times per year, and I guess that's just the world we live in.
And Another Thing!
Looming before them, the Reign travel to face a Gotham side that's already minted a ton of merchandise with a third star "waiting" to be filled in. That's some incredibly presumptuous and curse-inviting stuff, so I think the Reign should just go ahead and end their postseason early.
