Photo Credit: EM Dash for Imagn Images
After the North Carolina Courage’s 1-1 draw with Racing Louisville to open their season, head coach Sean Nahas said, “We play a certain brand and it’s not going to be perfect all the time.”
The ‘certain brand’ Nahas is referring to is likely the Courage’s possession-based game they made part of their identity last season. In 2024, North Carolina possessed the ball, on average, 57% of the time. Their season-opener against Louisville was even better, as they secured 66% of the possession. But keeping the ball doesn’t necessarily translate to winning, as the Courage learned last year.
The Courage posted 15 shots, with six on target, and accumulated 1.3 expected goals against Racing. Those numbers aren’t alarming in a vacuum, but they are reminiscent of the anemic offense from last season that only managed to put up 1.23 goals per game, with an average of 1.3 expected goals, in the regular season. Given that the Courage returned players that accounted for 91.7% of their…
