Match Forecast: OL Reign Ready for Match Against Gotham

OL Reign and NJ/NY Gotham FC are set to meet for the first time in the 2022 season at Lumen Field in Seattle, Washington.

WHEN AND WHERE: Kickoff is at 12:00 p.m. PT on Sunday, August 14 at Lumen Field

WHERE TO WATCH: The match will be available on Paramount+ and Twitch internationally.

2022 REGULAR SEASON RECORDS AND STANDINGS (W-L-D): OL Reign: 5-4-6 (21 points, 6th place, NJ/NY Gotham FC: 8-4-0 (12 points, 11th place)

Key Points Ahead of the Match:

1. LAST MEETING – OL Reign and Gotham FC last met in the 2021 season. The Reign went down 2-0 early into the match, but made an impressive comeback to win 3-2. Their incredible second half response earned the team three goals and three points. Defender Kristen McNabb started the comeback before forward Megan Rapinoe knocked home two penalty kicks to secure the three points for OL Reign.

2. SCOUTING GOTHAM – Currently, Gotham is in 11th place in the NWSL standings. The team most recently took on the Chicago Red Stars and fell 2-0.  Chicago added one goal at the end of the first half and doubled the score in the second half, shutting Gotham out through the full 90 minutes.

“I think we've had to concentrate on ourselves. That's sort of been our mindset is, we don't really know what they're going to do. I think that's the biggest thing that a coaching change brings is just uncertainty and formation and it may be rhythm of what they've done previously, we don't know what they're going to do. So, it's sort of enabled us to actually just really focus on ourselves. We spoke a little bit about that today of, we have to take what Gotham is going to do, maybe on a individual player basis and characteristics of their players rather than, maybe, a collective team ethos, a little bit. But, I think this week we've mainly focused on ourselves and what we need to be better at," said OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey.

3. FULLY PREPPED – OL Reign has had a busy schedule recently, but had some time to get some solid training sessions in.

"Yeah, I think it's been good. It's been really nice to have a full training session and get some harder sessions in and get a good rhythm throughout the week, and so I think that's been really nice. We always value when we can have a full week of training and really get into it from a practice standpoint,” said OL Reign midfielder Quinn.

4. GOALS – OL Reign is focused on dominating games and not conceding goals.

“I think we always analyze the goals that we concede. I think the hard thing for us has been, in all three of the games, actually, LA, Louisville and Houston, we were so dominant in the games with possession and how we were playing and that it's just disappointing to concede in the manner that we did. I think we know that there are things that we can solve. I think it's, you can evaluate goals when you just believe it's the opponent doing really good things one way, but when you believe you could've solved it, I feel it's a really good thing for us to look at and something that we've put into our training sessions throughout the week to make sure that we are able to, when we're in those positions, potentially make different and better decisions,” said OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey.

MultiCare Availability Report:

OUT

Angelina (SEI – Right knee)

Ally Watt (Excused absence)

QUESTIONABLE

None