The North Carolina Courage beat NJ/NY Gotham FC 2-0 on Saturday, March 19 at WakeMed Soccer Park to open the team’s 2022 NWSL Challenge Cup schedule.
Holding 57.7% of the possession and outshooting the visitors 17-4, the Courage dominated their 2022 opener.
“That’s one of the best performances I’ve seen from us, from the team, from the Courage in a couple of years,” said captain Abby Erceg. “I haven’t seen us play that well, in a long time. I certainly haven’t seen it in preseason, so I don’t know where that’s been hiding.”
The game marked multiple club and league debuts, as well as the first game for head coach Sean Nahas since the interim tag was taken off his title in the offseason.
“The effort that this whole team put out today, I don’t know what Kiwi said, I don’t know what [Brianna] Pinto said, but my word,” Nahas said.” Like I said, people can doubt us … I don’t know where the season is going to lead us to, but I’ll tell you this, that’s a small step in the proper direction and we’ll continue to plug away, but this is a really big foundation that we laid down today.”
Malia Berkely, Diana Ordoñez and Tess Boade all made their NWSL debuts in the win, with Berkely starting the game and the other two appearing off the bench. Brianna Pinto and Kiki Pickett, two of the Courage’s trade acquisitions this offseason, made their club debuts as well.
Pinto marked her hometown debut with a goal, rising up between two defenders and heading home a cross from defender Carson Pickett to open the scoring against the team who drafted her.
“This is a dream come true,” Pinto said. “Having all of my family and friends in the stands and then just the support of all my teammates. It was a testament to how hard we’ve worked over the last six weeks in preseason. To score a goal against my former team meant a lot to me, because it’s my first professional goal and also my first start, so this is a big night.”
A Durham native, Pinto came up through the Capital Area Soccer League, now a part of NCFC Youth, before being drafted third overall in 2021 by then-Sky Blue FC after a very successful college career at UNC-Chapel Hill. The Courage traded for Pinto in December 2021, sending $125,000 in allocation money the other way.
Erceg gave the Courage their other goal, launching a volley into the back of the net in the 51st minute.
“Center backs tend to only have one way of scoring and that’s hitting it as hard as you can,” Erceg said.
While the Courage’s lineup looked very interesting on paper, the formation wasn’t much of a departure from the box-midfield set up the Courage are known for. The primary difference was in the position of the attacking mids and forwards.
The two forwards, Jaelene Daniels and Taylor Smith to start the game, often stayed wide and allowed Debinha and Pinto to step into the space created into the middle of the park. Debinha and Pinto made the most of that space, causing problem after problem for the Gotham defense.
“We are supposed to fill in the half spaces, get the ball, drive at defenses and wreak havoc,” Pinto said. “Debinha is super creative and she’s able to get combinations off of our double nines. And I’m also in those half spaces. One of the reasons that I was able to score today is I was on the back shoulder of one of the opposition’s defenders and ultimately, we want to be in the box and create and score goals.”
Berkely and Denise O’Sullivan sat just in front of the Courage’s back line, completing the midfield quartet. After the game, Nahas said that O’Sullivan had been away from the team for three weeks and only just returned, making her incredible performance even more impressive.
The Courage’s back line was as expected, with the center back pairing of Erceg and Kaleigh Kurtz being flanked by Carson Pickett and Merritt Mathias. The lone difference from last season’s go-to defense was Katelyn Rowland getting the start in net for the injured Casey Murphy.
Rowland, who returned to the Courage this offseason after being traded away during the 2021 campaign, played well. The veteran keeper wasn’t called into action often, but handled the pressure when Gotham did get in a dangerous area.
The Courage will continue their run in the Challenge Cup on Saturday, March 26 as they host the Orlando Pride.
