Let’s relive some underappreciated moments through the digital art of GIFification

A lot of stuff happens in a soccer game. Twenty-two players chase a ball around a field for 90 minutes trying to kick, head, or otherwise manifest the ball into their opponent’s goal. When successful, a point is awarded and clips of the goal circulate social media. But what about when other stuff happens?

We here at The District Press love these moments. They can be impactful momentum-altering moments, just look cool, or be several things in between. We’re going to pick out some these moments from each match and bring them to you in GIF form. So with regards to your WiFi bandwidth, let’s get to the GIFs.

Aubrey Kingsbury’s massive early save

First things first I lied, this is clearly not a GIF. Consider it mercy upon the bandwidth of whatever network you’re using to read this (and tysm). More to the point: this was a huge moment just four minutes into the match. Pregame I imagine the Spirit did lots of talking about avoiding this exact scenario, but superstar players are gonna do superstar things from time to time and that’s when a quality goalkeeper is truly needed.

Smith’s move began after a marauding run from Paige Metayer at right back, just the kind of run that got her the opening goal versus Kansas City. Except Portland defenders blocked her run and closed off passing lanes, getting a deflection and pushing the ball quickly the other way. Smith floated out wide to isolate McKeown and was able to beat her with a quick turn. Butel stood in space, waiting, but Smith blew by her in the blink of an eye. According to StatsBomb, Smith’s shot registered .27 xG (league average: .10), but Kingsbury was quick, decisive, and covered her angles perfectly to stop the shot.

I also want to give a shoutout to Gabby Carle. Her close tracking of Reilyn Turner’s central run made sure Smith couldn’t just slide the ball across goal for a tap-in. She also closed so quickly that—depending on the power of the shot—she might have been in position to make a goaline clearance had the shot squeaked by Kingsbury. Conceding a goal this early against Portland would have had a big impact on how the rest of the match was played. Thankfully Aubrey Kingsbury spared us from living in that reality.

#9 vs. #9

Defending Sophia Smith is a nightmare. That is not an opinion, people in lab coats with expensive degrees have put this hypothesis under the most stringent of scientific tests and it turns out that it is simply an absolute truth of our universe. She’s quick, strong, has great touch and ability to manipulate the ball, and absolutely unreal balance. All this means she can ruin a defender’s life in a multitude of ways, and also has the sort of mentality that relishes in, and is never satiated by, meals she makes of the opposition.

McKeown and the Spirit defense have direct experience with that. Last season Smith scored a hat trick in a 4-2 Portland win that aired on CBS. This time around it was the same opponent and network, but a different result.

Smith still caused plenty of danger, but this shows how much growth McKeown has made as a center back. It also shows that Smith is aware of this growth as well. Against just about any other defender in the league Sophia Smith cuts inside, or at least steps close enough to setup the move before shifting wide to shoot. She’s done it a ton, and it often works. Part of the reason McKeown has been a tremendous, and tremendously reliable, as a forward-turned-center back is her strength. This combined with her forward-quick first step makes her a formidable defender in a 1v1 duel—even against Sophia Smith.

In this 1v1 battle McKeown’s positioning and speed kept Smith wide, and once Smith was running out of pitch Tara closed quickly to make sure the attempted cross would only be a corner. According to StatsBomb, of all center backs who have played a minimum of 1500 minutes this season (McKeown has played over 2,000), Tara is second in possession adjust (PAdj) tackles per 90 with 1.91, and has the third highest Tack/DP% (percentage of times a player makes a tackle when entering a duel vs being dribbled past), at 85%.

Andi Sullivan jumps Sam Coffey

This was notable for a couple reasons. Firstly because this is a move Sam Coffey has gotten very good at. If you watch a USWNT game you’ll likely see Coffey jump out to take possession high up to create a chance. Here, Sullivan does it to her. This was also an important moment in the match because it happened five minutes after Portland took the lead, helping to reset the tone of the match.

After Sullivan’s sneak attack on Coffey, her pass into the box was cut out by a lunging leg but the ball popped up aimlessly and eventually found Rodman for a close low cross that she couldn’t angle backwards. The cross was hit hard enough to force an error from goalkeeper Mackenzie Arnold, and Ashley Hatch’s follow-up touch was blocked and eventually held.

Washington ended up getting their equalizer five minutes after this. Coincidence? Maybe! But Sullivan forcing the issue was an important reset after conceding.

Tara McKeown, strength coach

Remember above when I was talking about Tara McKeown’s strength? This is what I meant. Unfortunately CBS was promoting an upcoming schedule of games so the match action was squished into a smaller window when this happened, but McKeown read Izzy D’Aquila’s attempt to control a pass in a pocket of space only to be dispossessed immediately by a charging McKeown. D’Aquila was as bothersome to Tara as an empty plastic bag is to the wind. Like a cough to a tornado. Or feather to a pouncing lion. Whatever, you get the point lol.

What she did afterward was important too, because this snatching of possession eventually led to the Spirit’s equalizing goal.

StatsBomb analysis has Portland fifth in counterpressures per 90, with 36.79 (the Spirit are first, 40.53). This is measured as pressures exerted within five seconds of a turnover, which is what Portland did to McKeown after she took possession. Three players closed in but she waited until the last moment to push a pass forward to Ashley Hatch, who had time to turn and spot Rodman wide. Trinity did Trinity things to eventually cut inside to equalize, but the entire sequence doesn’t happen without Tara McKeown’s awareness, calm in possession and under pressure, and of course her strength.

This Andi Sullivan pass

The vantage point from the press box is a gift players on the ground don’t have. Still, just about every game someone hits a pass that us in our lofty all-22 view didn’t see coming. It’s why they play and we talk and write about it. In this instance though, this writer was consistently flabbergasted, flummoxed, bamboozled, bewildered and gobsmacked at the amount of room Portland were ceding to Paige Metayer on the right flank.

I don’t know why they were doing this, it’s not like she didn’t pickup a goal and assist versus Kansas City from those positions, but she was often just straight up left alone in an ocean of space. She was so alone that she could have recreated that infamous Sound Of Music twirl during multiple sequences. Unfortunately the Spirit weren’t finding her in that space either, until Andi Sullivan fixed that.

She got the ball to the right of the center circle in the Spirit’s half and absolutely zipped a ball along the grass. It not only split Coffey and another player, it completely fooled Reyna Reyes who was tracking an inverted run from Rodman. The ball rolled by both and settled comfortably into Metayer’s stride. She clipped a little throughball to Kouassi who unfortunately got her shot all wrong, but it was still a hell of a move that was only possible through Sullivan’s accuracy, vision, and technique.

These are the sorts of passes from Sullivan that we should start to see more of as Giráldez continues to implement his methods of play. Sullivan has been deployed in several ways by several managers, and the most recent haven’t been suited to her strengths. This game model seems suited to get the best from Sullivan, and this pass should be a warning of things to come.