Key events
31 min: NOW Abello has a card for clipping the heels of the racing Rodman. Orlando coach Seb Hines believes it was a dive, and he might have a point. But she should have seen yellow for her last challenge, so it evens out.
29 min: Marta’s free kick is too short to pose any questions of the Spirit defense.
26 min: Bit of a lull at the moment. I’ve found no comment on the Rodman no-call on referee forums – everyone is either not watching or too riveted to talk.
But NOW Rodman is fouled, and Jonatan Giraldez wants a card. He has a point. Whether you call it by the old-fashioned “professional foul” or the snazzier “SPA” (stopping a promising attack), that fit the bill.
Instead, after the Spirit’s free kick fizzles, Kouassi is the first player booked for an armbar on Banda to stop the Pride’s counterattack.
24 min: Another attempt to work the ball down the left with Kouassi, and it’s just not quite working for the Spirit.
22 min: Free kick to the Spirit farther back toward midfield, and it ends up with McKeown in all sorts of space in the Orlando penalty area. Moorhouse has to stretch a bit for the crucial interception.
20 min: Rodman tries to draw a foul, convincing our TV commentary team but not the referee. As a very, very low-level referee myself, I’m also not convinced. Seemed to me that she kicked the ball forward and then tried to fall over Abello, who has every right to stand her ground.
I’ll check the referee forums shortly and report back.
18 min: Rodman tries a cross from the right, but it seems a bit ambitious.
The still-young Spirit player is one of the best defensive forwards in the game, and she races back with a perfectly timed slide tackle to break up an Orlando counterattack.
17 min: Morris slices into the Orlando defense from the right flank, but her pass finds no one.
15 min: SHOT BY MARTA! Banda is off to the races in the middle of the field, and four yellow shirts converge on her. The Zambian player slips the ball to her right for Marta, who cuts back onto her left foot and shoots, but it’s straight at Kingsbury.
13 min: The Spirit seem determined to run the attack through Kouassi on their left wing, and the Pride are having none of it. Krueger, a reliable US national teamer when given the chance on and off in her career, joins in.
11 min: We have a Pride player down – it’s Cori Dyke, who slid into Kouassi’s legs and wound up getting the worst of it.
The magic spray is duly sprayed, and Dyke will play on.
10 min: Orlando allow Washington to knock the ball around a bit in their own half, but then they pounce and force a turnover. The Spirit quickly win it back, but Watt neatly strips the ball from Kouassi and is immediately fouled.
8 min: Now a corner kick for the Spirit, and the Pride struggle to get the ball clear. It’s eventually played out for a goal kick.
No early goal here, but it’s also not the ultraconservative action we too often see in cup finals.
6 min: Another Pride attack on the same flank, but the Spirit win the ball and force the action the other way before getting a free kick deep in their own half.
Trinity Rodman apparently has an issue with a contact lens.
4 min: Orlando fight back with Banda and then Adriana trying to get a cross past Metayer. The Washington right back wins the duel but bundles the ball out of play for a Pride corner kick.
2 min: It’s a promising attack for the Spirit, with Hatch pestering the Orlando defense and Krueger getting forward. Kouassi’s cross is rather tame in the end.
1 min: The first 60 seconds of the match have taken place near the far sideline 10-20 yards past midfield in the Spirit half of the field.
The referee is Alyssa Nichols.
Kickoff …
In all my years writing about sports, I’m pretty sure this is the first time the national anthem singer is someone I saw performing just a couple of months ago – it’s the great Melissa Etheridge.
Sounds terrific.
Pride lineup
At age 38, Marta has had her best season in several years. She was named to the NWSL’s Best XI for just the second time.
She’s joined on the Best XI by Barbra Banda, who has managed to replicate her torrid goal-scoring pace on the international scene with Zambia in her first season in the NWSL.
Two Pride players made the Second XI – defender Kerry Abello and English goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse.
GK: Moorhouse
D: Abello, Kylie Strom, Emily Sams, Cori Dyke
M: Adriana, Haley McCutcheon, Angelina, Ally Watt
F: Banda, Marta
Spirit lineup
Goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury has long has a devoted band of supporters making the case for her inclusion in the national team, and her semifinal heroics certainly won’t silence them.
Get used to seeing Hal Hirshfelt in the mix for a spot in the USA’s central midfield. The rookie from Clemson has been a steady force in the spot for the Spirit. She was named to the NWSL Second XI, as was defender Tara McKeown.
Cote d’Ivoire forward Rosemonde Kouassi isn’t on the same level of prominence as some of the other top African players who have made such an impact on the league, but she is a fierce presence up front.
The Spirit placed three players on the NWSL Best XI, but Croix Bethune missed the last several weeks of the season and is out for the playoffs after one of the most unusual injuries in soccer history, tearing her meniscus while throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Nationals baseball game. The other two, defender Casey Krueger and forward Trinity Rodman, missed time with injuries in the last few weeks but have successfully returned.
GK: Kingsbury
D: Krueger, Esme Morgan, McKeown, Paige Metayer
DM: Hirshfelt, Makenna Morris
AM: Kouassi, Leicy Santos, Rodman
F: Ashley Hatch
Preamble
One of the game’s greatest ever, showing dazzling form despite her advanced age.
A gaggle of emerging talents.
That would be Marta, the Brazilian great and longtime cornerstone of the Orlando Pride, and the Washington Spirit, which selected shrewdly in what turned out to be the final NWSL draft.
They’ll face off in the final of what has been a breakthrough season for the NWSL, which started a little more than a decade ago with tentative, thrifty steps but now spends freely to bring in many of the world’s top players.
Orlando should be favored over injury-plagued Washington, but the Spirit have used a deep roster and steady resolve to make it to this point.
This has the makings of a classic. Enjoy.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s Megan Swanick’s lookahead to Saturday’s final.
