The way I look at it, if pro/rel existed in the NWSL we survived relegation our first season so that is a win

Ending the season at 13th out of 16 doesn't feel great...but we had some good performances in the back half of the season. It gives me a lot of hope for a much more consistent level of performance next season.

I only watched the second leg of the Boston - Seattle matchups this season, but you thoroughly exploited all of our weaknesses. It was a good example of how to soak up pressure and then exploit a quick counter. IIRC, you ended that game with ~40% possession, but were clearly the better team.

I'm sorry, the Dash and the who again?

I have been some combination of traveling and super busy for a little while now, so I haven't gotten to watch either this game or last week's game against Racing. I am pretty pumped to see Karich on the scoresheet though. Also, I see that Monday got some minutes as a sub this match, making her premiere.

Putting up some good results against some good sides makes me feel really excited for next season. Only two teams (so far) have managed to beat Boston twice this season (Dash and Reign). ACFC could maybe make that three after next week, but it is a hopeful sign that we have gotten a lot better as the season has gone.

I don't think of Karich as a particularly physical player (though she is constantly on yellow watch due to tactical fouls). She more excels at positioning and control. So, it might not be a great fit tactics wise if that is what is needed. However, with her awareness and game sense, I think she would probably be able to fit into other systems pretty well, though I haven't had the chance to see her play on any team other than Boston.

I think she might be very likely to be in the conversation were something like an injury happen to existing roster members. I think she has the quality to represent well on the international stage.

The two NWSL holding midfielders we see most often in Hayes’ system are Claire Hutton and Sam Coffey, if that helps give you a sense of what she’s looking for. I think of a good six for the US as a Julie Ertz style destroyer who protects the back line, physically when necessary, so I always want to see Sam Meza, who leads the league in tackles, called in. The USWNT midfield is in a bit of disarray as of late, which is concerning this close to a World Cup.

I haven't watched enough USWNT to say how well she fits into their system or measures up to the current midfield, but she has been overall excellent at Boston and is a perfect fit for the system Patao is building; a possession/press style of play. I think a lot of people overlook her contributions to the team and their more recent successes at controlling the midfield as the season has gone on - even against top-ranked teams in the league.

I think a more defensive-minded midfielder is an easy to overlook position as you tend not to end up on the scoresheet a lot or make flashy plays that end up in highlight videos. However, she is incredibly talented on the defensive side of the ball at knowing exactly where to be to clog up passing lanes and when to step in for a tackle/interception. On the offensive side of the ball, she is extremely good at maintaining possession under pressure. She somehow always manages to squeak a pass out to a teammate as defenders are swarming around her. This aspect of her play reminds me of watching Busquets always evading the press.

If I had a criticism of her play, it would be that she can sometimes struggle to transition from defense to offense. She is so good at defensive positioning, that I find she will kind of do it on autopilot even after Boston has taken possession. She could do a better job of releasing and finding space to more cleanly receive a pass and/or relieve pressure on our front line.

I would love to see her on the USWNT. Reale is the only US call-up that Boston had in the most recent break, but she didn't have any actual minutes in the two games against Spain. Maybe someday a Boston player will get a US cap, and if I had to guess who is most likely, it would be Karich.

I see Karich played in the us youth setup in 2019 for some friendlies -- do you think there's a chance we see her trying out for the six with the full national team at the beginning of the next world cup cycle?

I've been traveling that past week or so and missed this game, so I will have to catch a replay. Just from looking at the box score, it's good to see Guti getting some serious minutes finally. Patao said recently that Guti's minutes have been limited due to lingering back issues, so hopefully she has turned a corner there.

The other thing I noticed is that Karich was actually subbed off the field. I'm pretty sure she has the most minutes this season of any player on the Legacy, so it is pretty unusual to see her come off. She is so fundamental to the possession/press style of play that the Legacy wants to play.

Season Ending Injury sounds bad, but that's just a couple weeks for us since we are out of the playoffs already. It will be good to see Ivory get some more minutes and see how she does.

I tried to look up who actually played so far for their national sides, and here is what I found:

If nothing else, it is at least encouraging to see the club willing to invest. We have lots of special tools at our disposal as an expansion side that we have been putting to good use. Most recently we got Schupansky from Gotham by utilizing our special allocation money, and she has brought a whole new dimension to the Boston attack.

She was a huge part of the Spirit offense last season, but had a quiet WAFCON and has been struggling to get starts this year. I suspect she’ll end up contributing at a high level at Boston, and we’ll look back and say $500k was a bargain.

Gift Monday is a crazy name but I kind love it

Hopefully she can bring a needed attacking threat and target up top. Looking forward to seeing her take the field!

She scored three goals in September, and The Blazing Musket put together a short video showing them:

Something that I have noticed about her play is that she seems to be at her goalscoring best when things get messy in the box. All three of these goals are far from clean shots on goal, often the result of deflections, scrums, 50/50 balls, etc. She might be our leading scorer, but I still think Boston needs more of a pure striker threat that can score from open play more consistently.

Keeping tabs on this game via notifications on my phone was a bit of a roller coaster. By the end I kind of wanted Portland to pull one back so that we ended in a mirror of the 4-3 game where Portland won on the road against Boston. I am going to try to catch the replay in the next couple days to write up my notes.

I think the key thing that the league should take from this game though is that you can't expect to out After Dark this Boston team. Our first season has been full of wacky games and lots and lots of cards. Playing After Dark is playing right into our hands.

I had to rewind the broadcast like four times to catch the red card offense from Wilson, but she clearly pulls the defender’s hair, which is always a red card. Soph came off in the 22nd minute and from then on there was never really a doubt the Legacy were going to come away with the 3 points. Gutierres’ brace off the bench absolutely shut down any hope the Thorns had of staging a comeback.

But Gutierres was not done and scored a second goal three minutes later. She has now scored an NWSL single-season record six goals off the bench, in addition to being the first player in NWSL history with multiple braces as a substitute in one season. As a team, Boston have scored a league-record eight stoppage-time goals this season and lead this year’s NWSL with 12 goals scored by substitutes.

That's the hope. We have really looked good for stretches. The organization and players so far are really bought into the system that Patao is trying to set up. We've seen some really great performances, but it feels like not all the pieces are there yet. I think the hope is that some key players recovering from injury and some additional key signings might be enough to make a credible run for the postseason next year.

So much of the Boston roster was brought in from outside the league that it was clear they'd have trouble getting the chemistry right in time to make the playoffs, whereas Denver built a team more likely to gel in time for this year's playoffs. The flip side of that is that I feel the Legacy's ceiling is higher, so I expect y'all to finish higher than the Summit next season.

Got the chance to catch this one as it happened!

I finally found some time to watch the last match and was pleasantly surprised. The scoreline doesn't really do Boston's match performance justice. The next two games are away at Seattle and Portland. We are going to need to figure out how to score more efficiently if we want to come out with some wins from the road trip.

I haven't gotten to watch the full game, but I plan on making a full game notes post later this week. It is certainly disappointing to go from beating the Royals and Spirit to then dropping points against the Dash. The Legacy look great in the stats, but it seems like the combination of lackluster finishing and poor turnovers continues to bite us in otherwise winnable games.

I want a bark at the park at Lumen so bad

If you do nothing else, make sure to watch the replay on NWSL+ to check out the halftime performance. A remarkable display of skill with the goodest of good dogs! They show it before they cut away for highlights around the league, and a some more after the highlights are over.