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July 7, 2010
FAMILIAR FOES
Red Stars take on Atlanta – again
By Charles Cuttone
Executive Editor
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Ella Masar willmake her third start for Red Stars coach Omid Namazi
Linda Cuttone/Sports Vue Images |
Familiarity might breed contempt, but for Omid Namazi and the Chicago Red Stars, he is hoping familiarity with the Atlanta Beat might breed a win. For the third time in his five weeks with the Red Stars, the team will face Atlanta, Wednesday at Toyota Park (7:30 pm).
Certainly, the team could do with some goals, after outshooting the Washington Freedom 23-5 last Sunday.
“The ball’s not going in the net,” Namazi said of a problem that has plagued the team all year. “The only difference, from what I have seen on the tapes and what I’ve seen now, we’re playing a different style of game and we’re controlling the majority of the play.”
The team has made a habit of outshooting opponents, while still coming up on the short end of the result, something Namazi and his predecessor Emma Hayes have worked on.
“At the end of the day, if you don’t score goals, you don’t win. You’re going to leave points there on the table and it’s going to bite you at the end of the season.”
Still, with a record of 1-1-3 since he took over, Namazi says “I can’t be disappointed with the way we’re playing. We just got to have some finishing in front of the goal, in the final third our passes have got to be cleaner.
“Overall I’m pleased with the attitude. Our fitness is raised tremendously. From the time I got her, we’ve concentrated on that. Now we expect to win games. Before I think there was a lack of confidence.”
Washington goalkeeper Erin McLeod made ten saves on Sunday, stifling what had been the team’s biggest shooting output of the season.
“Going into Washington, we felt we could win the game,” said Namazi of the team’s elevated confidence level. “We should have won the game, but obviously we didn’t score. We’re going to have to work on finishing and creating more chances. I thought we did that in Washington, we created enough chances. Their goalkeeper came up big and we weren’t clinical in front of the goal.”
Namazi says while he has seen improvement in the team, he also has seen progress in some individuals.
“Formiga has been our best player in the five games I’ve coached,” Namazi said. “Before that they told me that she was not having a great season.”
Namazi also signaled out Ella Masar, who had a pair of goals two weeks ago, in her first start. “She’s gotten two starts now and I’m happy with her performance. Even this past weekend, she did well, she missed some chances, she scored two the week before Hopefully she can continue contributing.”
Having already played Atlanta twice in the last month, a 0-0 tie and 1-0 loss, Namazi knows the opponent as well as any in the league, and knows that with all their roster changes after picking up six players when Saint Louis folded, they haven’t clicked yet.
“The concern is that they have a very, very deep roster, that up and down the first 11 and some players coming off the bench, they have a lot of quality,” he said. “They’ve had some moments. They had a game against Philadelphia they should have won. They beat us in Atlanta, so they are much better than they were early in the season, even though they haven’t come full stride as far as getting their players on the same page, the new players with the old players, but again they are much better than they used to be. There’s not an easy opponent.”
Namazi says the Red Stars haven’t clicked yet either, and while they are 3-5-4 overall, they are far from out of playoff contention.
“You only have to look at Sky Blue last year,” he said referring to the defending champions, who had two coaching changes during the season, got hot and swept to the title. “This team is more than capable of making a playoff run and actually making a run all the way,” he said “It’s just a matter of clicking at the right moment. I feel at some point we are going to have a game when we score four or five goals. I really believe that. When that’s going to happen I don’t know.”
Namazi will go with the same lineup he played in Washington on Sunday, with one exception. Natalie Spilger is sitting out a yellow card suspension and will be replaced by Elise Weber.
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