NWSL Challenge Cup Goalkeeper Power Rankings: Round Three
/By Bill Reno
Note: I asked the gang if I was allowed to use coarse language in this post, so if there’s no cursing featured it’s because of Drew Olsen, who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500. Please write to him saying how disappointed you are in his limiting of free speech.
We’ve made it through round three of the NWSL Challenge Cup and there’s a new top dog in the house, with some solid performances from new faces! Be sure to catch up on our round one and round two recaps, but round three was the strongest round by far for goalkeepers, so let’s get into it.
1) Bella Bixby (Portland Thorns) - Bixby jumps to number one after what is easily the save of the tournament thus far. Just how many goalkeepers in the world make that save? It wasn’t a save where she got lucky or just happened to be in the right place at the right time. She played it perfect. The through ball pulled her off her line, but she realized she wouldn’t be able to clean it out. She got set, read what the play was asking of her, and executed it flawlessly. It blows my mind people look at that save and think “oh nice save” when I’m thinking “that’s one of the best fucking* saves I’ve ever seen in NWSL play and it’s coming from someone in their third professional start.” Amazing work. Portland is sitting 7th in the table, but they almost took points away from the North Carolina Courage in round one. Any team that faces the Thorns in the knockout round will have to know that Bixby carries some massive upset potential, regardless of the seeds.
2) Alyssa Naeher (Chicago Red Stars) - There are many who don’t appreciate Naeher’s approach to the position. She plays an extremely deep line and is reluctant to ever leave it. But if you have a 32-year-old goalkeeper weak on crosses and 1v1s, it doesn’t make sense to put them into those situations more than they have to. If you look back at the 2019 NWSL final, Naeher didn’t do well coming off her line and the scoreline showed it. So instead of demanding Naeher come for more crosses or be more aggressive in 1v1s, Chicago has pivoted into making Naeher as successful as possible. If she was 23 or younger, it’s a different story, but you’re not going to find much success in attempting to make wholesale changes to a veteran’s tactics. If she was going to play a higher and more aggressive line, she would have done so by now.
On the other hand, if there’s one thing you can credit Naeher for, it’s her consistency. In the 41st minute against, Julie Ertz gave up a terrible turnover, but because her defense knows her style, namely that Naeher wasn’t going to challenge, everyone on her team played it accordingly. Ertz, being one of the few centerbacks in the world who could single-handedly make up for such a stupid error, tracked back and Naeher’s patience froze Lynn Williams long enough to get her shot blocked. Is it textbook? Not really. Is it effective? To a certain degree, absolutely. Naeher’s limitations aren’t exactly unique to the league. Every goalkeeper in the NWSL has a weak spot. It’s just that Chicago (and a couple other teams, for that matter) are just more likely to expose their goalkeeper’s weaknesses because their defenses are the equivalent of swiss cheese. If you want to be critical of Naeher, fine, but her errors with Chicago are only more obvious because they ask more from her than most teams do.
3) Kailen Sheridan (Sky Blue) - The Dash came into the game on fire but went absolutely cold in round three as Sheridan and the Dash shut them out, 2-0. Sheridan faced one easy shot and not much else. There isn’t a whole lot to say here other than to prep Sky Blue fans that Sheridan will almost certainly be relied upon against the Courage in round four. Sky Blue sit second in an extremely crowded field, but theoretically could drop as far as last place, depending on results.
4) Aubrey Bledsoe (Washington Spirit) - Bledsoe’s problems have never been found in looking the part. She always passes the eye test. Any struggles she’s had are in execution. In the 69th minute, Bledsoe was an inch away from a world class save to prevent Portland’s goal, and then in the 88th minute she made a pretty simple save from a favorable angle (a low shot to the bottom corner) look world class because her positioning was so poor. I can’t use better imagery to encapsulate Bledsoe’s current state than that last sentence, so just read that again to understand where Bledsoe’s game is at the moment.
5) Casey Murphy (OL Reign) & 6) Stephanie Labbé (North Carolina Courage) - Neither Murphy nor Labbé played in round three. Come back next week for a recap on round four or scroll down to see how their round three replacements, Michelle Betos and Katelyn Rowland, fared.
“Yikes” - everyone watching Campbell against Sky Blue
7) Jane Campbell (Houston Dash) - Campbell drops from 6th to 7th after a disappointing performance in a 2-0 loss to a beatable Sky Blue. In less than twenty minutes, Campbell was called upon on a through ball (17th minute), again on another through ball (20th minute), a tricky free kick from a stupid foul (29th minute), and another through ball (34th minute). Campbell handled two of them fairly well, including a nice save in the 20th minute, but the other two ended up as gifts from Campbell to Sky Blue in a surprising 2-0 loss. Campbell’s line was way too deep on the first goal and the clearance in the second goal looked like someone who’s extremely optimistic at what her defenders can accomplish. Still, it’s important to point out that what Houston is asking of Campbell is significantly more than most teams in the league. If you put Campbell on the Courage, she likely immediately looks like an all-star. Labbé and Rowland aren’t being asked to play sweeper keeper every few minutes or clean up their defenders’ mistakes. Campbell has been quite poor this tournament - to the point where I want to see backup Lindsey Harris in goal - but her team is clearly asking her to cover more ground than the rest of the goalkeepers on the list.
8) Abby Smith (Utah Royals) - Smith wasn’t featured against OL Reign. It’s unclear who will start in round four and going forward, but it’s likely to be back to Smith.
Backup Goalkeeper Reviews
(We won’t do power rankings here as these goalkeepers are unlikely to get more than 90 minutes throughout the tourney but we’ll review them all the same.)
Michelle Betos (OL Reign) - I saw Betos listed as the player of the player of the match in one location, and though I think that’s generous, I’ll let it slide because Betos is so enjoyable to watch in goal. Betos is perhaps in the opposite place of Bledsoe currently, in that she has executed every situation while not passing the eye test. She came outside the box to cut out a through ball in the 15th minute on an awkward slide and shut down a free kick in the 62nd minute by challenging the service.
Betos’ Positioning ahead of the 62nd minute free kick, which she was able to break up before ultimately getting fouled.
She accomplished both these tasks despite being one of the slowest goalkeepers in the league. (Let’s just say Betos has a lot of strengths in her game, but acceleration isn’t one of them.) So how does she play such a high line? It’s a product of constantly pushing her game to a higher level. She knows how to get the most out of a few steps. She reads the flight and run of a pass extremely well and understands where she needs to meet the ball with oncoming pressure. She possesses an internal drive to do anything to stop her opponent and it shows.
Katelyn Rowland (North Carolina Courage) - It’s not easy to step into the starting spot for the number one team in the league, even if the Red Stars don’t pose much of a threat. Additionally, this is the starting spot Rowland lost to Labbé after getting the bulk of games from 2017-18. But if there was pressure on Rowland’s shoulders, it wasn’t showing. Rowland handled a driven cross with impressively strong hands and played a 1v1 with ease in the 21st minute. The Courage did most of the dirty work for Rowland on the 1v1, letting her stay back and make the save that was ultimately pretty close to her body. It was a positive outing and something she should be happy about, considering she’s pushing to regain the starting spot.
Nicole Barnhart (Utah Royals) - How many professional goalkeepers are still playing at 38?? There aren’t many, let me just say that. If she wasn’t overshadowed by arguably the best goalkeeper of all-time, Barnhart would have gone down as one of the greatest goalkeepers in her own right. She didn’t get to showcase herself on the national team because of Solo, but Barnhart made a save in the 88th minute on a rocket that made me wonder what she could have done with more international opportunities. The shot came just above her shoulder, and the ease at which she caught it clean was something you just don’t see in the league very often. Just about every other goalkeeper is using their entire body to just push that wide, but Barnhart handled it with ease. The late goal was a little disappointing, but at 38 that’s going to happen. Regardless, Barnhart looks much more confident and capable in goal than what we've seen from Smith.
*Editor’s note: There are no rules on this blog. I’m not like a regular editor, I’m a cool editor.