Penal!
We won this game thanks in part to a second-half penalty. While it was definitely an arguable one (it was fairly soft in all honesty), it ended up helping in us getting the narrow 1-goal win we ended up pulling off. JP was the one who both earned and scored this penalty. This season we have now won two penalties, both of which have been scored by JP. In club history we have won 6 penalties, with only Dami’s against Tucson in the Morrison game being the lone miss. So we are 5/6, or 83.3% accurate, with penalties.
Now, how does that stack up with the rest of the league? Well, here is how the rest of the league looks this year:
And here is how the rest of the league looks over their time in League One:
Now of course this should be mentioned that some clubs have had more years in the league than others (Fuego, Charlotte, and Hailstorm just this year; NCFC 2 years; us 3 years; while the rest have 4 years). One thing that stood out to me in this data is that some of the traditional penalties earners have not been earning them this year. Richmond (13) and Tormenta (11) haven’t been awarded any so far this year. And the team who has won the most in League 1 history, Tucson (15), having only been awarded one so far this season. It would be interesting to see how the makeup of the team effects this, as teams like Tormenta and Tucson have had high turnover from past seasons, but Richmond has not had nearly as much. There is also Greenville, who has been given 3 this year already when they only were awarded 3 in each full season so far, despite not having much change there as well. It could, of course, just be the reffing, but I am curious if there is more to it than that. Either way, something I will keep track of as the season progresses.
Double Trouble
Another key note from the game was that we saw a red card given. Oddly enough, this is now the only team ever that has 2 reds given when playing us. More so, it was given in this exact same fixture in April (same season, same venue). The most curious of all, it was given to the same player! So not only is Tormenta the only team with two reds against us, Joshua Phelps is the only player to have that mark as well. A weird coincidence for sure.
The Light at the End of the Tunnel
As you all may have felt… this past week hadn’t been all that great. Losing to Greenville at home and then letting in so many goals against SKC were not looking like good omens for this game, especially after we let in the first goal. It was great to see us fight back, that first goal in particular felt like such a relief when it happened.
I think partly why it felt so needed was because of the scoreless streak we were on. It wasn’t a long one in terms of days, not nearly as long as any of the ones we’ve had in the past, but in terms of goals against it was historic. Our scoreless streak in the 3-loss run in 2020 we let in 5 goals without scoring, which wasn’t great. The streak in 2021 was better, only one loss in August where we let in a single goal, and the rest were 0-0 draws. But in the time since we had scored our last goal against Tucson, we let in 10 goals: 1 against Tucson, 2 against Greenville, 6 to SKC, and that first goal against Tormenta. That was the most we had conceded without scoring ourselves ever. Not only that, if you count just this week, we let in 10 goals (not counting Tucson and counting both for Tormenta). Those 10 goals doubled the number we have conceded this season, as before this past week we had conceded 6 in the league and 4 in the cup. So that goal, and the ones that followed, really did ease the mind that the run was over. I know I had a big sigh of relief when it went in. And hope that things come a bit easier for us on Friday, as we go for a little bit of revenge against Charlotte Independence.
Who Gives A Hoot? 