This had to be the most disappointing match of the season. Atlanta, after coming off the successful road trip that saw the Beat rise to the top of the table, looked totally lackluster through the beginning of the match. The Beat allowed Carolina, one of the teams in the bottom group of the league, to dictate the pace early in the match and score an early goal. The crowd wanted to energize the team, but the Beat didn't give us anything to cheer for for the first thirty minutes.
As usual, there was the exciting ball play by Sawa, the great ball control of Sun, and the strong play by Parlow, but with few exceptions, there wasn't anything sustained. One sustained period of activity in the first half saw Sun Wen take three successive corner kicks. She is one of the few players in the world (men or women) who can take a corner with either foot and be dangerous. All three corners kicked by Sun gave the Beat a chance, but other than that, there was little in the way of sustained offensive attack.
An even greater scare happened about 15 minutes into the second half. The Charge keeper ran into Sun who was running onto the ball at the edge of the penalty area. There was no call on the clear foul, but more important than that, Sun went to the ground. Af first I feared that she re-injured her knee which has been bothering her all season. Thankfully, it turns out she injured her ankle and shouldn't miss too much time. However, it was a real scare for all of the BeatNation as Sun has become a fan favorite, not to mention that she is my favorite player in the world.
Having played soccer, I realize that even the best of teams have a bad match. I hope that is all it was here. With all of the talent on this team, you know it is only a matter of time before they break out. Today wasn't the day. Well, later this week is a trip to Boston, a place where Atlanta already has a victory. Nothing better than to go to a place where you have recently won to recover from such a performance. I am still behind this team and am convinced that they can go a long way. Just not by playing the way they did this evening.