Photo copyright Amy Kontras-Imagn Images.
The charitable read on Jonatan Giráldez‘s terse post-game press conference was that he was still in shock.
The Washington Spirit had just lost the National Women’s Soccer League Championship 1-0 to the Orlando Pride, and the head coach seemed unable to comprehend it.
“I think it’s too soon to speak about what happened during the game,” Giráldez bluntly stated when asked about Orlando’s tactical wrinkles. “If we just analyze the goals, they score one more than us. We create a lot of chances to score today, much more than them.” That’s all he could say.
You can understand his frustration. Despite the Spirit putting up 26 shots—20 of them from inside the box—they walked off the CPKC Stadium pitch with nothing to show for their efforts. 1.8 expected goals (xG) outpaced the 0.4 generated by Orlando, and yet the Spirit would fly home to D.C. empty-handed.
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