WHO: NY/NJ Gotham FC, 2-1-0, 7 pts., 1st place East Division

WHAT: Racing’s final group stage Challenge Cup match

WHEN: Sunday, May 2, 2021, 12:30 p.m. EST

WHERE: MSU Soccer Park at Pittser Field, Montclair, New Jersey

WATCH: Paramount+ or Twitch for international viewers.

There’s a small contingent of folks that have asked for a radio broadcast. I don’t know whether this is true or not, but I’m betting that the NWSL owns the entire league’s broadcast rights. As a result, individual clubs don’t have the ability to sell any of their media rights at all. Seems a little silly, but is also probably true. Hopefully that changes!

WHO, AGAIN? Gotham, it turns out, is pretty good. They’ve scored five goals in three matches. They beat pre-season favorite North Carolina Courage. They’ve only given up three goals and kept two clean sheets thus far.

More than 40% of their pass attempts are forward, which tells me they like to play pretty direct. That’s actually helpful from a Racing standpoint, because when a team pushes numbers forward like that, Racing could be better able to exploit that disparity on the counter attack.

Names you’ll know and need to watch for: Carli Lloyd, obviously, but also Midge Purce, Paige Monaghan, and former Racing player Jennifer Cudjoe. They’re coached by Freya Coombe, who got the head coaching job after serving as an interim in 2019. That’s literally all we know about her, other than she’s from Buckinghamshire and worked at Reading for a long time before coming to the States.

We can expect another hard-fought performance from Racing. The offense showed a few new wrinkles in the last outing against North Carolina, something that I hope Holly & Co. build on in this match.

It’s the day after Derby. You’ll want an excuse to drink a beer at noon. What better reason than in support of our awesome football club? I know, I can’t think of one, either. RUN WITH US!