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The first season for an expansion team is rarely easy, but even by most measures, things were tough for Bay FC in mid-May. They were in second-to-last place in the NWSL after nine games and had the league’s worst defensive records after allowing 20 goals. They had lost seven of those first nine games, including a disastrous five-game losing streak.
What a difference a few months can make.
Ahead of their final regular season match at the Houston Dash on Saturday, Bay FC have their destiny in their hands with two more playoff spots up for grabs. A win would see them set the NWSL record for wins by an expansion team at 11, but that’s not all – a win or tie would make them only the second expansion team to reach the postseason after the San Diego Wave did so in 2022. .
“[If] you would have said that we would have had the opportunity to do that after the first two months of the season, I would have said, ‘Oh my God, we have so much work to do’, but credit to all the players, the staff, the organization, the fans, everyone who believed in it,” Bay FC head coach Albertin Montoya told CBS Sports. “They’ve dug into it and now we’re on our way, and we still have a long way to go. But like I said, we’re all going in the same direction now and we really believe in each other.”
Growing pains
Expansion teams have a rough history in the NWSL, though Bay FC seemed intent on carving their own path in an evolving league. Unlike expansion teams of the past, Bay FC entered the NWSL amid a period of rapid growth fueled by new ownership groups unafraid to make an impression. This includes Bay FC’s majority shareholders, private equity firm Sixth Street Partners, which reportedly paid a $53 million expansion fee into the league and spent money on the squad in equal measure.
They broke the global women’s football record when they signed Rachael Kundanji from Madrid CFF for a reported transfer fee of more than $800,000, and also added Asisat Oshoala and Deyna Castellanos to the squad after excelling in Europe. It was a star-studded side who also hoped to earn some style points; Nine games later, Bay FC were in the top four of the league in terms of touches and ball possession. They also scored 13 goals in that stretch, sixth best in the league, and ranked eighth for expected goals at 12.05. There was just one problem: they were ‘bleeding goals’, as Montoya put it, conceding 20 in the first nine games.
Their poor start to the season provided plenty of tactical food for thought, especially as a strong attack was canceled out by defensive errors. However, there were bigger problems: the team simply didn’t click yet.
“You talk about time and maximizing the potential of every day, but in the beginning you’re still trying to build fundamental human relationships and so that takes time,” Bay FC technical director Matt Potter said. “I think you can find that any time you put together more than 20 staff members and more than 20 players, put them all in a room and say, ‘Let’s get started,’ the first thing is about building that simple human connection and how we’re going to treat each other as human beings before you see a person’s true talent.”
Montoya leaned on his experience building FC Gold Pride during their year of expansion at the now-defunct WPS in 2009, although there were some distinct differences between Bay FC and the last professional women’s soccer team in the region.
“I joke with Pride, I think my entire staff – and this includes the equipment manager, the medical staff, everything – there was five of us. Five,” he said. “The whole coaching staff too. I mean, I was doing laundry with the equipment manager. It was crazy, and this is with a team that Marta had, [Christine] Sinclair, Shannon Boxx. … In this case we now have 24 staff members, all absolutely incredibly talented and intelligent in what they do and therefore different opinions, so it takes some time to get on the same page.
In his first professional coaching gig since leaving the Gold Pride in 2010, minus a stint as interim head coach of the Washington Spirit in 2022, Montoya also had to make sure his players understood his self-described unconventional approach.
“I also focused a lot more on offense in the beginning,” he said. “Everywhere I’ve been in the US, almost every coach focuses on the defensive side – not that it’s right or wrong. That’s how they do it and I understand why, but I’ve always thought scoring goals is the hardest thing to do. doing.” do in football and give them a framework of how we’re going to attack, but let them be creative, form relationships within the field that allow them to be successful and then defend it – I think it’s easier.”
That’s not the only difference Montoya notes in his coaching style.
“There’s a lot of emphasis on this structure and how you do it to have play and what each player is assumed to do,” he said of the usual approach. “You can help them think, solve problems and you give them the tools so they can solve them within the games. … But within all of these scenarios, there is not exactly the same scenario. I always talk about: take what they give you and then look for the solutions as the game goes on because they might come into a different formation.
“We are there to provide those answers, but can we also provide training and provide the tools for this? she can find out the problems. That was, I think, difficult at first, too, because they just wanted to say, “I just need to be told exactly what to do.” I’m like, ‘Well, it’s football.’ It shouldn’t always be this way.”
Reset daylight saving time
Things eventually turned in Bay’s favor as they broke their five-match losing streak with a 2-1 win over the Wave on May 18 and by the time the regular season was paused for the NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup in July , Bay was eighth. However, with four wins and three defeats in the last seven, consistency was still elusive for the expansion side – and so was a club-wide connection.
“I have to admit that in the first four or five months I wasn’t necessarily in touch with our players and the team as I would have liked, and that’s just for personal reasons,” Montoya admitted. “It’s not an excuse, but it took longer for me to be able to do that and that’s made a big difference now. I’ve been meeting individually with a lot of players all week now and there’s just different things going on that I didn’t necessarily do.” priority at the start of the season.”
However, the Summer Cup provided Montoya with a reset button in more ways than one.
“We didn’t have the pressure of the wins and losses and we were able to implement some of the things we really wanted to work on with a little bit more freedom,” he said. “They just bought in and they really felt like things were clicking now and the game against Club America was the beginning,” he said of Bay’s 2-1 win over Mexico on August 2, their only win of the group stage . .
Bay suffered a setback with a 2-1 defeat at the Utah Royals on August 23, but a friendly against Barcelona four days later restored the confidence they carried in a 3-1 win at the Portland Thorns on August 30 that felt like a turning point.
“We played with this freedom,” he said of the game against Barcelona, when they took a 2-1 lead at half-time but lost 5-2. “I was like, ‘Look, we’re not going to be afraid of anyone. This is what we’re going to do. Just believe in it,’ and they really did and you should have seen the buzz after the game because in the second half it was a little bit different but that first half they just felt it and we brought that to Portland and again one of the best franchises in the NWSL playing away from home in Portland which is a very tough place to play play and they carried that confidence and energy and stuck to the game plan and then we got a result and with every game plan since then you can see they really applied it and believed in it.”
Tactical shifts
Bay have remained in eighth place since then, losing just three times in eight games since the friendly against Barcelona. They have only lost to teams from the NWSL’s top four teams, who have separated from the rest of the pack this year, and have conceded nine goals in that eight-match span, most of them in a 5-1 defeat at NJ/NY Gotham FC on October 5. Otherwise, they have not conceded more than one goal per game in that time and are sixth in points as of August 30, with 13 goals.
Montoya was able to deliver on his promise to solve early-season defensive issues, but a new signing – Bay Area native and Women’s World Cup winner Abby Dahlkemper – landed at center back.
“[The Barcelona friendly] was also the first game with Abby Dahlkemper and she also added this sense of calm and experience,” Montoya said.” It helps that I coached her – my wife and I coached her since she was 11, so there’s familiarity and so we started playing well as a team and bought in [the plan] and then you bring a player with her experience, I thought that first half against Barcelona was excellent.”
Bay also adjusted their approach to possession as the regular season progressed. The team that was once in the top four of the NWSL in touches and possession was now in the bottom four in both metrics and was getting results after that move. The only thing that hasn’t evolved so much in their favor is scoring goals, confirming Montoya’s belief that this is the hardest thing to do. They rank sixth in the league in expected goals with 13.14, but are underperforming on that total with just eight goals in eight games. Their varied defensive approach has allowed them to survive that problem.
“In return for [North] Carolina [Courage]We wanted to keep them from going down the middle, so we took the middle and made it difficult for them to be successful at what they do best,” Monotya said. “Against Kansas City [Current]it refuses service [Temwa] Chawinga. I think we kept her at that [one of] her lowest xG [at 0.12] all season long. … You set that up defensively, but the hardest part is still creating, and now we’re creating and it’s this next piece, which hopefully comes in the playoffs or next season, is finished and because I know that is difficult, we spend time on relationships, thinking about how you will move, what space will be created. It’s about recognizing space, taking up space and exposing a team’s weaknesses with what they give you.”
Montoya’s Bay team outpaced his Gold Pride more than a decade ago in WPS, admitting it took until the second season for things to finally turn in the right direction. Potter said the club has embraced an approach to “eliminate some of the scars that we clearly got from early decisions,” allowing the group to bounce back from their poor start and potentially compete in the postseason.
“Albertin talks a lot about controlling space and dictating what happens, so if you look at the evolution of the group, if you think about those three brackets – mentality, ball appreciation, control and dictating space – then I think you can see that we’ve grown in our ability to do all three and what made that possible?’ said the technical director “We’ve grown to compete in every environment we’ve been in grown to contribute to every game we’ve played in and the results you can see we’re either on the right side of close games or on the wrong side of close games but that’s the beauty of this competition.”