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On Mondays, we are all Sophia Smith looking at the Portland Thorns trying to take a team photo without her. I’m Emily Olsen here with Meg Linehan, Steph Yang and Melanie Anzidei — welcome to Full Time!
Champions League Chat
The duality of pressure
Pressure is a funny thing.
After a while, and under the right conditions, it can create diamonds like Emma Hayes‘ six Women’s Super League titles, five FA Cup triumphs, two Leagues Cup wins and a previous runner-up finish in the Champions League as Chelsea manager.
Other times it causes cracks, like the one Barcelona midfielder Aitana Bonmatí found in Chelsea’s defense on Saturday. Surrounded by four defenders just outside the penalty area, the Ballon d’Or winner sent a shot bouncing into the back of the net to level the series 1-1 on aggregate.
AITANAAAAAAAA pic.twitter.com/lrweS50wz4
— FCBSeny (@FCBseny) April 27, 2024
We can’t say for certain that the pressure of taking a 1-0 lead home to a sold-out Stamford Bridge for the second leg of the Champions League semifinal got to Chelsea. The talent of Barcelona played its part, as did the rain and some questionable refereeing, which included “the worst decision in UEFA Women’s Champions League history,” according to Hayes.
GO DEEPER
Hayes: Chelsea 'robbed' by refereeing decisions in Champions League exit
Watching the game in person (I’ll spare you my “study abroad” style recap, but I was in London and tried pigeon for the first time while doubling my daily steps), it was clear the soft second yellow for Chelsea’s Kadeisha Buchanan cut off any remaining momentum Chelsea had. Fridolina Rolfo later converted a penalty to send Barcelona to the final for a match against Lyon in Bilbao on May 25.
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Chelsea started the season with hopes of a quadruple, but it is down to the singular focus of winning the league, currently six points behind Manchester City with two games in hand.
The pressure on Chelsea didn’t start with Saturday’s match or even the series’ first leg. It’s hung in the air like an Atlanta summer heat since last year’s announcement that Hayes would be leaving for the USWNT at the end of the season — a job that undoubtedly has its own pressure (and history with Swedes like Rolfo taking penalty kicks).
We won’t know until later this summer if the time and conditions are right for a diamond or if it will cause a crack during the Paris Olympics.
- LIVE FROM THE BRIDGE: Listen to The Athletic discuss Barcelona’s UWCL win over Chelsea
Setting the stage
For European glory, Barcelona will face a club that’s been to a UWCL final a time or two, or eight. Lyon, which carried a 3-2 win into the second contest, beat Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 at the Parc des Princes on Sunday.
Selma Bacha scored first for Lyon, but Tabitha Chawinga equalized before halftime. Lyon would have gone through with a draw, but Melchie Dumorny provided the insurance goal in the 81st minute.
“It means everything – we’ve worked so hard this past year to get back to this point,” Lyon and USWNT midfielder Lindsey Horan told UEFA.com.
The match will be a repeat of the 2022 final, which Lyon won 3-1.
Meg’s Corner: Sophia Smith is stepping up again
The Thorns have continued their bounce back from their rough start by producing back-to-back wins, with Sophia Smith providing both the double exclamation mark thanks to her two goals and the meme of the weekend as the Thorns took a team photo without her after a 2-0 win over Chicago on the road. (Don’t worry, they added her for a re-do.)
No postgame team photo for @sophsssmith 😂#IONNWSL pic.twitter.com/tzyvzPUBdT
— NWSL on ION (@IONNWSL) April 28, 2024
Smith, 23, has now slipped back into the lead in the early Golden Boot race – she now has five goals through six matches. The funny thing is that despite the team’s slow start, Smith’s stats haven’t really changed all that much through those six games — the struggle at times has been making sure she’s getting service, but Smith has been most deadly when she’s most efficient.
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Even in that wild, opening loss to Kansas City, Smith scored a brace off two shots on target, with only 28 touches and 3 in the penalty area, with an xG of 0.18 (all stats are from our game pages at The Athletic). Her second brace of the season looked similar: 0.34 xG against Chicago, off three shots total (all on target) with 39 touches and eight in the penalty area.
Most of those eight probably came from her footwork on the first goal, too.
Smith has always relished taking defenders on and providing the ruthless finish, but her form so far this NWSL season has been a good reminder that she is a young master at creating something out of nothing — and converting long ball opportunities into goals. I’ve seen some complaints about Smith’s shot selection, but on the whole, she’s still outperforming goal-scoring expectations: American Soccer Analysis’s model has her with a total xG of 3.61 through six games played.
The national team was reminded earlier this year about the benefits of a direct approach, so it’s not too hard to put these concepts together. Smith is building her case via her league form to force her way back into a consistent starting role on the USWNT leading into the Olympics.
Around The NWSL
Welcome back, Rose Lavelle
Rose Lavelle celebrated her return from injury and her debut for Gotham FC with a stoppage-time equalizer in a 1-1 draw against Racing Louisville on Sunday.
Lavelle has not appeared in a match for club or country since suffering a leg injury while on USWNT duty at the W Gold Cup at the start of this year. She entered Sunday’s match as a 74th-minute substitute for Lynn Williams.
Reilyn Turner had seemingly delivered three points away from home for Louisville with a goal late in stoppage time, but Lavelle equalized shortly after to seal her return with a point.
Rose to the occasion 🤩
Lavelle pulls Gotham level just in time! pic.twitter.com/QLCNNcQIA8
— National Women’s Soccer League (@NWSL) April 28, 2024
“It’s never fun to start the year injured,” Lavelle said postgame. “So that was kind of frustrating but, I think credit to the team and the staff, they helped me get me back out there, made it fun for me.”
Despite the positive result, Gotham has yet to win at home this season and is currently 11th out of 14 teams in the NWSL table.
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More NWSL returns:
- German international and former Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger made her debut for Gotham after joining the team on a free transfer earlier this month.
- Barbra Banda earned her first NWSL start on Friday since signing with Orlando Pride, and the Zambian striker put on quite the show, contributing to all three goals the Pride scored in its 3-2 win against the Washington Spirit.
- Several KC Current players made returns after recovering from varying injuries, including stars Debinha and Lo’eau LaBonta (because the Current needed more scoring power and goal creation…)
Hi, My Name Is…
The third-youngest goal contributor in NWSL history
It feels like every week a new teenager is achieving a milestone in the NWSL. On Saturday, Kimmi Ascanio joined that list. In her first start with the San Diego Wave, the 16-year-old earned her first career assist and became the third-youngest player to record a goal contribution in a regular-season match in NWSL history.
- While she’s new to the league, Ascanio knows how to rise to a challenge. She has been a key part of the U.S. youth teams since 2022. Along with Wave teammate Melanie Barcenas, Ascanio helped the U.S. win the 2024 CONCACAF U-17 Championship.
- Ascanio is a goalscorer. She scored three times in eight minutes in the semifinal against Haiti and again in the final against Mexico in that U-17 tournament.
- Originally from Florida, Ascanio spent her youth club time with Florida United SC, winning consecutive championships in the UPSL Florida Women’s League and Girls Academy Champions Cup. San Diego signed her via the Under-18 Entry Mechanism on a three-year contract through 2026.
Ascanio is among peers with the Wave. San Diego holds the record for the youngest player to play (Barcenas at 15 years, 181 days last April) and the first teenager to score 10 goals in NWSL (Jaedyn Shaw, 19). The kids? They’re alright.
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(Top photo: Naomi Baker/Getty Images)