Saturday's humbling loss to Racing Louisville was always part of Utah Royals FC project
Saturday's humbling loss to Racing Louisville was always part of Utah Royals FC project
The Royals rallied to tie 1-1 at halftime on Olivia Griffitts career opener, but Louisville raced past Utah with five second-half goals in a 5-1 thrashing in the Derby City.
There were always going to be moments like the one’s Utah Royals FC suffered Saturday afternoon in a 5-1 road thrashing to Racing Louisville.
There were also going to be moments like the goal scored by rookie Olivia Griffitts. The challenge was always channeling those strong moments and connecting them into something bigger.
Saturday was not one of them.
A Royals side that started five rookies — Griffitts, Ally Sentnor, Brecken Mozingo, Zoe Burns and Lauren Flynn in her NWSL debut — was exposed as the wheels came off in a big way.
A number of injuries certainly contributed to the final result, which saw three rookies score their first career goals (Griffitts for URFC, Reilyn Turner and Emma Sears to go along with veteran Savannah DeMelo’s brace for Louisville). But as the team tried to “cover it with some bandaids,” one of the youngest teams in the NWSL couldn’t stop the bleeding, first-year head coach Amy Rodriguez said.
“The way we learn from it is by going back and watching the film,” Rodriguez said. “I told the team this year, we don't win or lose. We win or we learn. Every single time we come out of a game where we're not the winner, it's our chance to learn. This is a young group. We're an expansion team. We don't even have that many games under our belt, so every game is a learning opportunity for this team.”
The final result shouldn’t completely mask the quality of the team, captain Paige Monaghan said. But in the moment, the result will sting the most.
That’s expected, and it’s fine. Adversity can build strength, as the old cliche goes, and Utah will see plenty more of it beyond the weekend’s second-straight defeat that saw just two shots on goal.
“Everyone's obviously upset to lose 5-1, to give up five goals stings,” said Monaghan after exiting a locker room she described as “quiet” to address the media via videoconference call. “I think at the same time we just know that we have to keep going. We know that we're a resilient team, and we could throw in the towel and point fingers and shut off right now, or we have the opportunity to say, what can we learn from this? And how quickly can we respond? There were some positives to the game, even though it's hard to see that.”
With Saturday’s introduction of Flynn, only Cristina Roque — the Royals’ No. 3 goalkeeper and rookie out of Florida State — has yet to play a regular-season minute for the squad.
There will be growing pains as the team adjusts to the league, to each other, and to Rodriguez. But there will also be flashes of what they can become.
Take, for example, Griffitts’ goal.
After Mikayla Cluff redirected a failed clearance to Sentnor, the rookie out of North Carolina was hurriedly rushed off the ball — she’s already earning that kind of notice from the league at just 20 years old — that led to a pocket of space for an aggressive Griffitts.
The rookie fullback who helped guide BYU to its second NCAA College Cup semifinal in three years took the pass and unfurled a rocket inside the far post off a deflection that equalized Uchenna Kanu’s 26th-minute opener in the third minute of first-half stoppage time.
“I think it is a learning lesson of this is what we want to do against teams,” said Monaghan. “You know we don't want to go 50% to try and break them down, because that’s not what we did, we're going 100% and I think that goal was that, and it was a team goal.
“But also again, I'm just so proud of Liv. Cleanly struck. I think again it stinks, but there are positives, and that is one. That is one of our styles of play that we can do, and that we can execute, so to see it come off tonight is huge, and we just need to do that more and more and more.”
Added her coach: “I just remember when Liv scored that goal for us just before the half, it was such an uplift … We had been playing decently well through our first half. I felt like we unfortunately went down a goal, but when she equalized for us it gave us that little boost, and as we entered into the locker room, everyone was fired up. Liv (Griffitts) gave us that little bit of lift, and then we tried to bring that into our second half.
“As soon as Louisville scored their second and third goals, I think that's when it just kind of started going downhill for us.”
After a usual off day and regenerative training session Monday, the Royals will be back in the film room Tuesday, trying to get better, to learn from their mistakes and pick apart their errors.
There will be plenty of film shown, plenty of learning moments before Saturday’s critical home match against the Houston Dash (5:30 p.m. MT, NWSL+).
But that was always the project.
