WHO: North Carolina Courage, 1-0-1, 3 points, 3rd place Eastern Conference Challenge Cup Standings

WHAT: a 2021 NWSL Challenge Cup match

WHEN: In like, 20 minutes. Monday, April 26, 2021, 6:00 p.m. EST

WHERE: Lynn Family Stadium

WATCH: In person or on Paramount+ or Twitch for international viewers

MARCH: It’ll already be over by the time you read this but I think we’re doing this now from Ten20 Brewing?

WHO, AGAIN? So, so, so sorry to write this literally 15 minutes before kickoff. The weekend got away from me. Long and short, North Carolina is very good. They can score a lot of goals. Their defense has been leaky so far this Challenge Cup, to the tune of six goals in two matches. Racing is a team that seems to like to create chances on the counter, so that might be a good thing for our women in lavender.

The problem is going to be disrupting or slowing down the Courage attack. Sam Mewis and Crystal Dunn are gone, but they still have absolute studs on that team named Debinha, Jessica McDonald, and Lynn Williams that are more than capable of pouring in goals.

Racing’s have some time to recuperate and rest up for this match, so some of the fatigue that set in the last match late against Washington shouldn’t be as big of an issue tonight. Here’s the lavender lineup:

Like the tweet says, we get our first look at Kaleigh Riehl tonight! Otherwise, nothing out of the ordinary.

For North Carolina:

Keep an eye out for new defender Carson Pickett. NCC are pretty high on her, and she’s a really good distributor of the ball out of the back.

The Courage are the class of the league. This is going to be a hard fight. I think Racing are up for it. RUN WITH US!