A performance last week that was good enough to earn the Wave a tie at Louisville in their road opener likely would not be good enough Friday night against the Orlando Pride.
Says who?
Said Wave coach Casey Stoney, who, after lauding the team’s grit following the scoreless match April 12, said Pride star Marta would've exploited some opportunities the Wave allowed.
Marta won’t be the only world-class player the Wave will have to defend in Florida.
The one-named Brazilian playmaker’s new teammate is Barbra Banda, a 5-foot-10 forward who scored six goals for Zambia in the 2020 Olympics and is expected to make her National Women’s Soccer League debut in the 5 p.m match.
“It’s going to be a big test for us,” Stoney said, “but I believe in our defense. I believe in the way we are very organized. And, we’ve also got some of the best center backs and the best goalkeeper in the world.”
The Wave may lack center defender Naomi Girma for the second consecutive match. Stoney deemed Girma questionable to play with the thigh injury she sustained April 6 with the U.S. National Team.
Rookie Kennedy Wesley logged the full 90 minutes as Girma’s replacement and assisted a defense that allowed no shots on goal in the first half or any on-target shots in the match to Uchenna Kanu, Racing Louisville’s top scorer.
“I don’t think we’re satisfied with our performance, necessarily,” said Wesley, who played next to Girma on Stanford’s national champions in 2019. “It was a hard-fought battle, but we’re definitely not satisfied, and we want to get the next three points in Orlando.”
Taking San Diego’s coastal marine layer to cities throughout the NWSL, the Wave have reprised the damp-blanket defense that produced the league’s best road record last year.
A year after posting seven road shutouts, they’ve blanked three of four opponents overall including defending-champion Gotham FC in a featured preseason match in New Jersey.
Kennedy said Girma and several other teammates prepared her well. The mentors included 2022 NWSL goalkeeper of the year Kailen Sheridan and 2019 World Cup winner Abby Dahlkemper, a center defender who played next to her.
“They made me feel confident, not afraid to make mistakes and gave me the encouragement to just go after it,” she said.
The game against the Pride (1-0-3) will complete a two-game trip. The next home match for the Wave (1-1-1) comes April 27.
This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune .
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