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Valkyratings: On the precipice
The Etsy witch has fallen, and so too have the Reign's playoff odds.
In a match where eight out of ten observers agree some soccer must have occurred, neither the Reign nor the Courage played especially well or created especially dangerous chances, both trading in speculative shots, hard-fought but ineffective possession, and a lot of running that failed to end in opportunities. The only goal on offer came early in the second half, with Gianna Paul cleaning up the trash after an unfortunate scramble by the Reign defense left her completely uncovered at the top of the box _and_ the attempt to block her shot did nothing but put it out of Dickey's reach into the top corner.
The Reign put on pressure after that, but – despite looking certainly no worse and for large stretches of the match significantly better than the Courage – could never actually manufacture _the chance_ to change the game. One might say they were a bit unlucky, and one might be right about that, but they also didn't make their own luck in the sort of way that turns losses into draws or draws into wins.
For the third time in three tries against their direct competition for a playoff berth, the Reign came up wanting and came away with zero points. This time, they also came away with zero goals, failing to score for the first time in seventeen matches.
Now the path ahead is precarious, with little room for error.
They'll need to dig deep and pull out something better than this if they're going to reach the promised land.
* * *
## Goalkeeper
### Claudia Dickey – 5
**Glitter.** Sweeping up the trash, Claudia Dickey played a big role in holding North Carolina to just 10 shots total, most of them well off the target by winning position, winning possession, taking the ball out of the air, taking the angle to goal. To that end, she had 11 recoveries, 2 clearances, and picked off 3 crosses. The Courage created very little, and for most of the match, simply could not find a seam that Dickey wasn't right there to cover.
**Doom.** Through 97 minutes of play, North Carolina mustered just a single shot on goal, which Claudia Dickey could not save. Is that entirely her fault? No, the Reign's defense lost Gianna Paul in the scramble and Paul got the kindest deflection off a block you'll ever see. Dickey had no chance at it. But even so, losing 1-0 to a team that put just a single shot up against the keeper is a rough, rough way to go out when starting one of the most prolific shotstoppers in the world. Let's not go back to Felix Hernandezing Claudia, please.
* * *
## Defenders
### Sofia Huerta – 6
**Glitter.** Across ninety-plus minutes, Sof was the Reign's most prolific creator, notching 3 key passes, 8 progressive passes, and 12 final third entries. Add in the 4 free kicks won, 2 successful dribbles, and a big defensive effort (winning 7 of 10 duels and 5 recoveries) and you have a great reminder of how good Huerta can be both when she's on the ball driving at the goal _and_ when she's taking the fight to the opposition.
**Doom.** Those 3 key passes and 8 progressive passes amounted to all of 0 goals. As the Reign's only consistent shuttle for the ball, North Carolina found more and more ways to cut her off as the match progressed. And for all her defensive effort and cover, Sof also carries her share of responsibility for that one disorganized moment in the scramble that ended with Paul uncovered and ready to pounce, as six defenders collapsed on two attackers and none of them picked up the trailing run.
### Jordyn Bugg – 6
**Glitter.** Match by match, Bugg grows more comfortable as the fulcrum around which the Reign build. She led the field with 103 touches while completing _90 of 96 passes_ , including 6 long balls, 8 progressive passes, and just an absolutely gorgeous lofted ball over the top to break out Maddie Mercado that deserved better than the not-much it amounted to. She never stopped pushing for the equalizer, and even had a decent – albeit from a stupid angle – look at one in stoppage time. Bugg is already so good, and she's going to get so much better, and no matter how frustrating this game was, every day of growth we see from her reminds us that tomorrow can bring better things.
**Doom.** And all that said, Bugg was amongst the more-culpable players in the defense-wide effort to simultaneously switch off and allow Paul to ghost in completely uncovered and ruin the Reign's whole evening. And while Bugg's comfort on the ball is a huge asset for the Reign, the ball spent far too _much_ time on her (and McClernon's) feet, seventy-plus yards away from the attacking goalmouth and doing no harm to the opposition.
### Phoebe McClernon – 6
**Glitter.** Though it sometimes feels second-fiddle to Bugg's straight-up prodigy energy, McClernon with the ball on her foot is _legitimately great_ , and the secret sauce of the Reign's back line at its best is that both starting centerbacks can absolutely ruin your day with a single pass. In Phoebs' case, completing 76 of 84 passes, 8 long passes, and 6 progressive passes. Her tendency towards the occasional absolutely marauding run ended in a shot from a great position in the 5th minute, though the (lack of) finish was admittedly not ideal. Another absolutely marauding run included a hilariously good centerback dribble and ended in a dangerous free kick for the Reign.
**Doom.** And all that said, McClernon was part of a lost flock on the Courage's goal, in the blob of six defenders guarding two attackers but failing to either win the ball or pick up the trailing runner. Not great. And while McClernon's partnership in possession with Bugg has been big for the Reign, spending nearly two hundred touches with the ball on a centerback's foot in the defensive third was not, really, an ideal way to build out an attack.
### Ryanne Brown – 5 (off 62' for Madison Curry)
**Glitter.** One day, we'll get that long distance bomb from Ryanne Brown. She keeps trying it, and she keeps getting _close_ , this time forcing a save out of Kailen Sheridan with a 28th minute screamer from about 30 yards. She was, as we've come to expect of her, strong in the air, and through _most_ of her sixty-plus minute shift, did a fine job of containing Ashley Sanchez, a player experiencing a renaissance who noticeably did _not_ break the NWSL scoring record attacking Brown's side.
**Doom.** In the blob of six defenders failing to pick up Paul, there was one additional thing that bothered me about Ryanne Brown's defense – it was perhaps the only time she lost track of Ashley Sanchez, the one player you would want her to be _most_ aware of in transition, and certainly not left acres of space of her _own_ on the far post. Sanchez didn't wind up hurting the Reign there, but that's mostly because Paul beat her to it.
* * *
## Midfielders
### Sam Meza – 7 (POTM)
**Glitter.** You already know I'm going to say it. I always say it. Everyone always says it. Sam Meza is an unstoppable force, a machine that converts "opposition possession" into "duels won", a terror and a menace and a goddamn delight in every way. 13 recoveries! 7 duels won! 5 tackles won! 3 blocked shots and 2 interceptions! A last-gasp save off the line on Ashley Sanchez' long-distance would-be record-breaker with the net empty and time ticking down! 10 progressive passes! Riley Jackson, specifically, dispossessed 3 times! Meza did it all, destroyer of hope, stealer of souls, breaker of ankles. Please sign her until 2095, I assume she'll still be playing at this level or better based off pure desire to fight you for the ball.
**Doom.** Meza did it all, but Meza could not in fact do it all. She could win the ball back a hundred times, but she couldn't be every part of the Reign's buildout. Oh, and she, too, was one of six defenders back failing to notice Paul, completely caught out in the Romulan Neutral Zone on the most impactful play of the match.
### Ainsley McCammon – 5 (off 71' for Sally Menti)
**Glitter.** Flashes and moments of brilliance – cutting past Shinomi Koyama to feed Mia Fishel, dispossessing Ashley Sanchez like she had a personal grievance that needed to be settled then and there, trying to match Sam Meza duel for duel (Ainsley ended with 6 duels won and 6 recoveries) like Gimli and Legolas at Helm's Deep. She wasn't able to create the sort of consistent, cutting possession that she's given at her best, but even on an off night, McCammon just _finds a way_ to do something special four or five or six times.
**Doom.** Aaaaaaand after being one of the six defenders failing to cover a third attacker, Ainsley was the quickest to read the danger Paul presented, and stepped quickly to block... only to give up the most brutal deflection of her young career, turning a laced but probably savable shot into a looping ball that tucked just out of Claudia Dickey's reach into the far corner. A moment's lapse followed by some truly awful luck. A third minute yellow card put her under more pressure than she needed to be for the rest of her shift.
### Jess Fishlock – 5 (off 79' for Emeri Adames)
**Glitter.** Maddie Mercado's 10th minute shot and her own 16th minute shot both came off strong play by the Reign's original talisman, Fishlock showing her craft and savvy to body off a defender and open a lane where none should have existed. Despite missing wide in the 16th, it was a shot from a position Fishlock has always created danger from, and one few teams want to give her. When she could get on the ball, she constantly looked forward and looked for the touch or the pass to cut out a defender. The execution wasn't there, but the intention and effort, at least, were.
**Doom.** Spearheading much of the Reign's attack for nearly 80 minutes, Fishlock was unable to create the moments of quick separation, the dangerous underlapping runs, the net-crashing nose for goal that have kept her a constant threat to score long after she started losing her pure straight-line speed. North Carolina kept her bottled up, and in keeping her bottled up, helped to starve the front three of dangerous touches and supporting options.
* * *
## Forwards
### Maddie Dahlien – 4 (off 79' for Brittany Ratcliffe)
**Glitter.** There was one cross, beautiful, across the face of goal, Maddie Mercado crashing, Mia Fishel playing chase with the centerbacks – the combination the Reign have scored off of so many times these past few months. Except this time, Uno Shiragaki was first to the ball. It amounted to nothing, a microcosm of a hard shift for Dahlien where not much went right.
**Doom.** This was a rough match for Danger Maddie, one of the most important pieces of the Reign's attack when things are going well; she lost the majority of her duels and the majority of her dribbles, and when she _did_ get on the ball with space to run, the Reign couldn't give her the support to build something out of it. And since she tore her ACL while away on U23 national team duty, this will be her last match for awhile, and all we can do is wish her a swift and strong recovery. :(
### Mia Fishel – 4 (off 61' for Nérilia Mondésir)
**Glitter.** Another night, another thankless, high-effort but no-reward performance as the holdup forward for Mia Fishel. In past matches, this has amounted to better, more open looks for the Fighting Maddies, but in this one, it never manifested into a particularly good look. Despite that, Mia had 2 key passes and 4 shot-creating actions on 26 touches, and while she won just a single duel, she immediately _turned_ that win into a flicked ball forward that gave Mercado space to run.
**Doom.** No shots, just one touch in the attacking penalty area, very little service to try to _do something_ with, and an unfortunate lack of chemistry with Jess Fishlock meant this was a fairly forgettable night for Mia. At her best when she can find touches high up the pitch, Big Fish had an open play heat map clustered right around the midfield circle. Not Ideal.
### Maddie Mercado – 4
**Glitter.** 3 shots, 2 shots on goal, 1 chance created for Fishlock, and a thousand unrewarded runs up the right wing, sometimes cutting into the area, sometimes charging hard for the endline. Maddie worked her ass off flying up the pitch trying to make something out of the nothing the Reign were finding going forward. And she really does _always_ do whatever it takes to get some shots off. You can't score if you don't shoot, and Mercado, even when nothing's landing and there's no damn service, just finds a way to shoot.
**Doom.** But god, there really was no damn service, and the switches weren't landing, and Ainsley and Jess were struggling to connect the midfield to the front line... and Mercado, for all the effort she put forth, took 3 shots with a combined xG of 0.09 and couldn't even get in position to contest for the ball that looked most likely to end in a Reign goal. It was not the night.
* * *
## Substitutes
### Nérilia Mondésir – 5 (on 61' for Mia Fishel)
All of us deserved the catharsis of Coco bending that ball into the far corner, lacing a perfect free kick from just outside the penalty area. Unfortunately, we live in the Bad Timeline, and instead of tying things up at one apiece, Coco's strike took the slightest deflection, glanced off the corner of the goalframe and, to paraphrase Max Bretos, simply _was not in the back of the net_. It was a solid, if up-and-down, shift for Coco, who brought a little more bite and physicality that the Reign needed, but nothing's quite so bitter as what might have been in the 81st minute.
### Madison Curry – 5 (on 62' for Ryanne Brown)
Coming on as Ryanne Brown struggled in possession, Madison Curry also struggled, completing 3 of 9 passes en route to not significantly changing the game. In perfect fairness to both Brown _and_ Curry, the job of containing Ashley Sanchez fell heavily to their side, and Ashley Sanchez notably _was_ extremely frustrated by trying to get around them, had no real scoring chances of her own, and honestly that's not nothing. The effort was there, the assignment was hard, but the Reign needed more.
### Sally Menti – 6 (on 71' for Ainsley McCammon)
The Reign's most impactful substitute and the owner of the Reign's most electric Cool Move of the night, Sally Menti put in an absolutely incredible touch in the 84th minute, turning away from pressure and leaving the Courage midfield in shambles... annnnnd then held the ball a quarter-second too long before passing it to nobody. The Reign's offensive night in one moment. She won every duel she went into, won a dangerous free kick, completed 8 of 10 passes, and averaged a shot-creating action approximately every fifth touch, though. And nothing's quite so bitter as what might have been...
### Brittany Ratcliffe – 5 (on 79' for Maddie Dahlien)
Three touches, two passes, about fifteen minutes, and some strong runs and good energy in the final phase of the game. Ratcliffe's been a sparkplug off the bench, a huge impact sub for the Reign, but a sparkplug needs a working combustion chamber, and the Reign did not have that on the night.
### Emeri Adames – 5 (on 79' for Jess Fishlock)
Getting her longest substitute appearance since mid-August, the 2025 Reign's leading goalscorer slash 2026 Reign's occasional late substitute immediately won a dangerous free kick (which Coco narrowly missed burying) after getting absolutely annihilated without a card by Bia Gomes. No I'm not still mad about that reckless-ass challenge, why do you ask. While she didn't light the field on fire, she ran right at the Courage defense in a way that caused them problems, and in about fourteen minutes on the field, became the Reign's co-leading shooter.
* * *
## Courage POTM
### Gianna Paul
In a game where few players did much of anything special, "scored the only goal of the game" will always get you a tip of the hat even if you scored it because of an annoyingly fluky deflection. And anyway, Gianna had 40% of the Courage's shots, 50% of their shots on target, 35% of their touches in the attacking penalty area, and 100% of their xDAWG for the night. She was the one player just absolutely willing them to a result, and she got them there.
* * *
## Referee
### Mark Verso – 5
When you get Mark Verso as a center ref, you know you're in for approximately ninety minutes of regulation disappointment that mostly conforms to the Laws of the Game and mostly doesn't boil over into frustration or chaos. Verso isn't exciting, and that's fine, and he does a better job protecting players than many of the NWSL's regulars. I will say that the yellow shown to Nérilia Mondésir minutes after she subbed on was _extremely_ soft. Worse, the no-card on Bia Gomes after a brutal challenge on Emeri Adames was _incensing_. But all told, it was a serviceable performance with few egregious failings and largely defensible decisions.
...I also still do not understand what was so different about (stop me if you've heard this before) a late instance of handling in the North Carolina penalty area, uncalled, versus the instantly whistled handling committed by Angharad James-Turner against Angel City, but it is what it is, and I can't really be angry at Verso about a rule that nobody anywhere in football seems capable of applying the same way twice in a row.
* * *
## And Another Thing!
Nobody played especially badly, but neither did anybody save Sam Meza play especially well. In a league as good and as unforgiving as NWSL can be, that turns wins into draws and draws into losses. Close games go against you. Scoring streaks end. When you're always playing on a razor's edge, you'll fall on the wrong side of the margins more often than you'd like.
The Reign have three matches left to prove that they can be the best version of themselves, the team that shocked the Current and took all six points against the streaking shield-contender Wave, or three matches to settle for a mid-table finish on the outside looking in.
No pressure.
