the silver lining nobody is talking about from saturday's loss
Hey r/DenverSummit frens... so i'm still processing saturday but i had to share this because i don't think it's getting enough attention.
obviously losing 3-2 after being up 2-0 at halftime is brutal. three goals in 16 minutes. the carson pickett own goal was just cruel. and i know everyone wants to talk about the second half collapse and what went wrong with the formation switch.
but did anyone catch jonas eidevall's postgame? the san diego head coach. the team that just beat us. broke their 30-match curse against us specifically.
he got asked basically "as the top team in the league, what does the wave think about this expansion side?" and his answer was not coachspeak. he said "denver is so good. they've built an incredible roster. they've come so far in such a short time" and called us "one of the toughest opponents you're coming across in this league."
THE NUMBER ONE TEAM IN THE NWSL coach. after they beat us. saying that.
the underlying numbers back it up too. xG was 0.90 to 0.93, basically dead even. shots 9-8 denver. touches in their box 27-13. we weren't outplayed, we were outscored. san diego was just clinical and we weren't.
cushing's "tough times make top teams" line is gonna stick with me. so is what he said about eva gaetino — on crutches at mile high four weeks ago, subbing on against the best team in the league saturday. that's the kind of fight this team has.
i broke all of this down on the latest 5280 pitch episode if anyone wants the full breakdown. but mostly i just wanted to put the eidevall quote somewhere people would actually see it. because the league is paying attention to what's being built here, even when the result hurts.