Tag: go90

Backline Chat: Goodbye Go90, Hello Mexico, and the Tournament of Nations

Posted on by RJ Allen

Charles Olney (@olneyce): Hi everyone, and welcome to the Backline Soccer chat. Today we’re going to spend some time talking about international soccer, particularly the Tournament of Nations. But first, can we all pour one out for go90, which is officially shuffling off the stage today? Will anyone be lamenting its departure?

RJ Allen (@TheSoccerCritic): Do we know how the NWSL is handling who will be calling games? Because I can’t remember hearing about that.

Charles Olney: We can hope that they haven’t found anyone and we’ll just get crowd noise.

Becky Schoenecker(@Beckster20): That’s a pretty great take.

RJ Allen: Jon Lipsitz would do it really cheap, NWSL.

Allison Cary (@findingallison): I haven’t had to use the app in the last year, since I’ve been in the UK. But I can’t say I’ve seen anyone who is sad to see it go.

Charles Olney: I actually hope that they return to local broadcasters. I’ve been a pretty big critic of that approach in the past, but the more that I’ve soured on the current system, the more I’ve wondered if I was too harsh on the old approach. It would be nice to get some more perspective on the differences.

RJ Allen: I am a fan of local baseball broadcasters and that’s a lot of the feeling I got from the best of the local broadcasters from the NWSL in years past. So I’d be happy with that return.

Becky Schoenecker: Having announcers who are actually at the games is a huge positive if they’re able to swing it.

Allison Cary: It works well in other sports. I don’t see why it wouldn’t work for the NWSL.

RJ Allen: Some crews were not good. But there were some that were really fun. #BringBackAnnSchatz

Luis Hernandez: I guess I’ll take the opposite side here. I remember the broadcast team the Pride used year one. It wasn’t great. They sometimes didn’t know the player names or mispronounced them worse than the go90 team

Charles Olney: All that said, my guess is that they’ll retain the services of the same broadcasters we’ve been getting, since the actual production company is a separate institution, which was only sending the feed to go90.

RJ Allen: Way to be a downer, Charles.

Charles Olney: But in typical NWSL fashion, they probably won’t tell us anything one way or the other until 2 minutes before the games return.

RJ Allen: Likely you’re right though. But maybe next year we can either get the games on ESPN+ or another way where it’s more consistent.

Luis Hernandez: I like some of the broadcasters now. I just wish I had more of a tie with them as they called the game.

RJ Allen: Also on site would help. So much.

Luis Hernandez: Instead it’s like “who are you and why do I care about you calling the game?” I mean knowing Dan or Jen being the person who called games means something to me because I care/respect their opinions during the match.

Charles Olney: Alright, while we’re on the subject of the NWSL, I’ve got two other things I want to get some quick thoughts about. First: Sky Blue and Chicago had to cancel their game this weekend. Thoughts on that? Is this another example of the Mickey Mouse operation that Sky Blue is running, or just an unfortunate thing that will happen when you’re running a league on a small budget?

RJ Allen: I think it is showing that a lot of teams do not think long term ahead. Teams flay out less than 24 hours before a match in some cases which isn’t ideal for the players bodies. And when something goes wrong there isn’t enough time to sort it out either.

Luis Hernandez: It’s hard to be critical of an operation when the cause is weather, but part of me still kind of thinks that it was due to a Sky Blue screw up that just happened to be connected to the weather.

RJ Allen: Yes, was it bad luck. Sure. But bad luck keeps happening to them too.

Allison Cary: Yeah, it seems like it could have been avoided with better planning.

Luis Hernandez:Orlando learned about travel in the league the first year and now they give themselves two days in Portland and Seattle. What is Sky Blue’s excuse?

RJ Allen: The flights are cheaper. They take whatever flight is cheapest.

Luis Hernandez:The most recent West Coast swing saw the team stay out on the road instead of flying back to Florida. I assumed other teams did the same thing. Or did Sky Blue not have a west coast swing?

RJ Allen: They may have but this was a one off in terms of travel.

Charles Olney: Second NWSL-adjacent question: North Carolina just won the ICC, after winning matches against PSG and Lyon. How big a deal is this? I’ll start by noting that I literally did not know what ICC actually stood for, and just had to look it up. It’s the International Champions Cup. Not the International Criminal Court.

RJ Allen: I think it’s a 6/10. Yes, Lyon hasn’t played as a unit since May but their starts have played for NT since and it’s not like they are inexperienced players.

I really think it matters no matter if it is their preseason or not.

Allison Cary: I think beating Lyon is a statement. People often say Lyon is the best club in the world (myself included). Beating the best club in the world when you have players on NT duty? That’s impressive.

Luis Hernandez: I think it’s a huge deal that won’t get treated as such because those other teams are in preseason while the Courage are in midseason shape

If the script had been flipped I know the narrative would have been “Of course N.C. losses to OL, what did you expect?”

RJ Allen: I would also like to point out it wasn’t like every Courage player was in mid season form as a starter. Neil Morris has a great chart in one of his pieces that showed that a lot of the players hadn’t played or played much this year.

Charles Olney: I’d probably put it at a 5/10. It’s a preseason game, and it’s hard to overstate how unimportant results are in preseason games. But it’s still a cool result. And perhaps more important, I think it demonstrates just how seriously the North Carolina team buys into their message. To play that intensely, and to achieve that result, with a half-strength team shows just how committed they really are.

As we’ve discussed before, I would LOVE to see a full strength NC and Lyon facing off. This wasn’t that, but it was still cool.

Luis Hernandez: If anything I credit Paul Riley and this makes him a lock to me as coach of the year

RJ Allen: I would also like to point out it would be hard for these teams to both be at full power and play each other with how their seasons go. Possible, maybe but it would be at a very random or difficult time. It’s partly why I have issues with a club world cup.

Charles Olney: In the long term, I think a club world cup would be interesting and potentially could be taken more seriously than it ever could on the men’s side. The problem for the men is that all the best teams in the world play in Europe, so it’s a redundant event. But on the women’s side, there are GREAT teams that would otherwise never play. But I agree the logistics are tough.

Luis Hernandez: I’d rather see an Open Cup in the US before a club World Cup. Club World Cup is just a few steps below to me on priorities

RJ Allen: Oh lord. Pro teams should not play amateur teams.

Charles Olney: That’s an interesting topic, which we should cover soon here. But for now, let’s turn to the main topic at the moment: international soccer. In particular, the Tournament of Nations. I saw some folks saying that the US and Australia match this weekend was a potential preview of next year’s World Cup final. Do people agree that these are maybe the top two teams in the world right now?

RJ Allen: I think it could very well be a knock out game. But unless FIFA starts seeding teams better the Aussies and the US could play in the opening round for all we know.

Allison Cary: I think Australia and the US are two of the best teams in the world right now. But I agree with RJ’s point about seeding.

RJ Allen: I do think the Aussies are much higher than their 8th place FIFA ranking though. They have a lot of great players who work well together. And they were missing their starting outside back in this match.

Charles Olney: Personally, I don’t think it would be fair to set the US and Australia on a separate tier from some of the other competitors. But I wouldn’t argue if you wanted to call them 1A and 1B, with teams like England, France, etc. falling just a hair below them.

Allison Cary: For the record, I’m not saying they’re *the* best. But like RJ said, I think the Aussies are higher than 8th. I put them in a pretty elite class.

Charles Olney: For Australia, I think it was impressive how well the played in a game where Sam Kerr was very quiet. It can be tempting to think of them as primarily a vehicle for Kerr, but they absolutely aren’t. It’s a solid team from top to bottom.

RJ Allen: I was at the games in CT. There was a much, much different feeling watching the game between the US and Australia than there was for Japan and Brazil. The pace, what the players were doing, the way they were connecting and defending each other. All of it was just on another level for US v AUS.

Charles Olney: That’s a great point, RJ. And it provides some evidence that the Tournament of Nations matters, even if it’s fundamentally an imaginary, constructed event. By pitting these teams against each other twice in 12 months, it created an opportunity for a real rivalry.

Luis Hernandez: The main takeaway I get from ToN is that the USWNT has lost its mystique and intimidation factor. Other teams don’t fear the US anymore

RJ Allen: I don’t think that’s a bad thing though.

Luis Hernandez: I don’t think it is either. It should drive to make the team and players better.

Charles Olney: Regarding intimidation, when did the US really have that, though? Certainly not in the Olympics. Last World Cup? Didn’t feel like it. Before that? I’d maybe say that these games have been more about Australia showing that they’re ready to take on anyone.

RJ Allen: Maybe 2012?

I do think there is a pretty healthy respect between the teams in terms of knowing they have to go all out. You saw players working all 90+ minutes in a way the US rarely has to. The US doesn’t have to play 90 against many teams and the Aussies have quickly become one they do. And that is great to see.

Charles Olney: Agreed.

Luis Hernandez: I agree with RJ on this one too.

Charles Olney: Any other thoughts people have about the ToN? How is the US playing? Standouts or stars?

RJ Allen: Zerboni changed the way the US played when she came on. From the way Sauerbrunn lined up behind her to the way the midfield pushed up. I could see the change the second she came on in how players played.

Luis Hernandez: I thought Davidson bounced back nicely from her SheBelieves performance

Allison Cary: I’m really disappointed that Jill Ellis is only starting Naeher. I’d particularly love to see Franch get some playing time.

Luis Hernandez: And I’m here for Dunn on the back line.

RJ Allen: I am not. She got beat, a lot. In a lot of spots the camera might not have picked up. Seeing it was rough.

Luis Hernandez: With the level of talent of the team, I want all our good players on the pitch as we can, if it makes sense. I don’t think Press has had much of a ToN

Charles Olney: My lukewarm big picture take is that the US setup is basically working as intended, and while I don’t think it’s the best possible usage of the available talent, it’s a fairly user-proof, which is a nice feature. So while I’m not thrilled with their approach, I also am finding it a lot harder to get truly worked up about tactics and things. The US hasn’t lost in a year, playing all of the world’s best teams, and that’s not a total coincidence.

In particular, I’m ready to mostly stop complaining about the lack of buildup through the middle. That’s just not how this team is going to play, and while I wish they would do something different, it’s probably time to stop tilting at that windmill.

Luis Hernandez: It’s hard to screw up a 4-3-3

RJ Allen: I do think people get way, way, way too worked up about the “US being in a downfall and OMG everything is horrible”. They are playing well enough to beat pretty much every team in the top 10 or at least draw.

This is not the 2015 team and I’d really like to see people accept that.

Allison Cary: I think there is a section of US fans that want them to always be dominant, and that doesn’t really work well with the evolving nature of the sport. We want other countries to invest more and other teams to be better. Teams like Australia challenging the US is a good thing for women’s soccer. But it might mean the US not winning every game they play (although as RJ pointed out, they’re still winning most games).

Charles Olney: Okay, any final thoughts on individuals players, positive or negative?

RJ Allen: I think the US has to move on from the “Becky Sauerbrunn will always save us” mentality because frankly she can’t anymore. She is still very much an 8.5/10 player. But she isn’t 9.5/10 anymore.

Charles Olney: I think that’s fair. She remains a fantastic player, and the US is much worse-off when she can’t play. But she isn’t unbeatable. It’s strange that after so long with the defense being the team’s main strength, it’s become a significant weakness in 2018.

RJ Allen: Not having O’Hara hurt them more than I expected. As Sauerbrunn said in the video they did together, O’Hara’s energy can change a match.

Charles Olney: Alright, final topic: the rest of CONCACAF. Last night Mexico and Costa Rica played, in a likely matchup of two teams that will be vying for an automatic WC bid in a few months. Did people get a chance to watch it? Thoughts on either team?

RJ Allen: I’m glad teams in the same range are playing each other. I think it is a much better test for them than either playing the US and getting beaten 5-0.

Charles Olney: I’ve been impressed with the progress of the Mexican team. As you say, they can’t really hang with the US, but I thought they played well in those April friendlies. And it looks like the trajectory is continuing to move in a positive direction. I wonder if the success of Liga MX Femenil might have a role to play in that?

Luis Hernandez: I didn’t watch it but I followed it on Twitter.

RJ Allen: I hope they open Liga MX Femenil up to anyone able to play for Mexico next season.

Charles Olney: I’m particularly excited because one half of the group stage for WC qualifying will be happening down in my neck of the woods. They haven’t officially announced locations apart from the US and Canada, but I’m hoping that Mexico ends up in that pod. I’d love to get a chance to see them live a few more times. (edited)

RJ Allen: It would make sense for them to put Mexico in that group.

Luis Hernandez: I thought it was great for Mexico. As I tweeted the other day, I think the Mexican federation had to do something since it wasn’t getting a ROI for NWSL

Luis Hernandez: I could see the change the second she came on in how players played. Creating Liga MX Femenil is a result of it and it’s improved he Mexican squad by leaps and bounds.

RJ Allen: I rather Mexico improve their league than send players into the NWSL and not. I think having Liga MX Femenil and the NWSL both in North America is better for soccer overall. And maybe one day open it up to players outside of Mexico.

Luis Hernandez: I don’t think Mexico has peaked yet either

RJ Allen: Mexico is 25 right now. I think by 2023 they could get near 15 or 14 if they keep investing.

Allison Cary: It’s definitely getting football fans in Mexico excited. At least female football fans.

Luis Hernandez: I think it’s just fans overall. This is what happens when both the men and women sides can use the same team crest

Luis Hernandez: Which I think would be a huge marketing win if teams in NWSL could do that

RJ Allen: I do not like that idea at all, whatsoever. They are not Orlando City Women. They are the Orlando Pride. They are not the Portland Timbers Women. They are the Portland Thorns. And so on. (edited)

Luis Hernandez: Doesn’t seem to hurt attendance in Mexico

Charles Olney: As with many things, I can see the arguments on both sides. I think in an environment where soccer teams already have huge, dedicated audiences, tapping in can be very helpful. The US doesn’t really have that, and charting out an independent identity seems to make a lot more sense. But I also completely get the concern about being designated as a secondary team making it hard to get out from the under that shadow.

Luis Hernandez: And you get clearly identifiable rivals. If you had Seattle Sounders women vs Portland Timbers women I think the crowd would be even bigger

RJ Allen: No. Fuck no. Hell no. All day, every day, no.

Allison Cary: I can’t get past the idea that Charles mentioned. The women will always be seen as secondary if they don’t have their own identity.

Luis Hernandez: You’re against LA Galaxy Orange County Women’s?

RJ Allen: I am out if the league starts doing that. I’ll go cover cornhole or something on ESPN.

Luis Hernandez: I’m just saying it’s a crest thing (representing the club) regardless of gender of the team

RJ Allen: Why on earth shouldn’t a different team have their own crest? Are fans not smart enough to understand they are under the same umbrella?

Luis Hernandez: In English football, I support the Blackburn Rovers. So I have a built-in interest in Rovers women’s side

RJ Allen: And if they were the Blackburn Bluejays how would that change the interest?

Luis Hernandez: Same club, different teams

RJ Allen: I don’t understand why they can’t have their own name and crest but under the same umbrella and that is the same.

Luis Hernandez: It would be easier for me to follow a women’s side at the top flight so I can track it better. I just have a natural interest for Blackburn.

RJ Allen: If your problem is people can’t remember the names of the women’s clubs then I can’t help you.

Luis Hernandez: That’s not it. It’s about the crest.

RJ Allen: They are not second-class citizens. They do not need to default to the men’s crest.

Luis Hernandez: But you’re missing my point, it isn’t a men’s crest to me at all. Just a club crest. I am not putting gender on a team symbol. Does that make sense?

Charles Olney: I think I’m on Team RJ here, but I think it’s to some extent a product of different naming conventions. In the US nicknames are part of the name, full stop. In Europe, they’re often informal or virtually nonexistent.

Allison Cary: In the UK, if I’m talking about Chelsea Women, they are absolutely seen as secondary. And up until recently they were still “Chelsea Ladies.” That might be able to change if clubs took the initiative, but so far they haven’t. And they have much bigger brand power than MLS. I don’t see how it would benefit a US women’s team to have a unified crest with a men’s side, all I can see is the NWSL becoming even more of an afterthought than it already is.

Luis Hernandez: I get what you are saying Allison and I don’t think you’re wrong at all. But I also see it work in Mexico and as far as I know France so maybe it can happen.

Allison Cary: I don’t think it really works well in France. I went to the Lyon-PSG match in Lyon in the city’s main stadium and attendance was pretty awful. And that was supposed to be one of their biggest games of the year.

RJ Allen: Just because something works in one market, doesn’t mean it works everywhere. See Portland.

The Unused Sub: No, I Don’t Know Where Mallory Pugh Is Going

Posted on by RJ Allen

… but a gambling syndicate in southeast Asia probably has a good line on it.

Hey, guess what? I’m back for another installment of The Unused Sub.

So no questions for me to tackle? I’m serious about @-ing me on Twitter (@jacobcristobal) for a question. Hell, it doesn’t have to be about soccer. The more random, the better. The brain’s gotta make room for other things now and then, and sometimes those other things are a needed distraction from things that suck.

Speaking of …

THE SOCCER GODS ARE HORRIBLE, AWFUL MONSTERS HELL BENT TO TAKE AWAY THINGS WE LIKE

Yes, you evil bastards that have to go and jack up opening weekend for us and destroy the ACLs of Joanna Lohman (Washington Spirit) and Amy Rodriguez (FC Kansas City). Seriously, that is some diabolical hater shit and blah blah blah blah injuries can happen at anytime, but c’mon. Opening weekend?!  After we had been waiting 84 years for the NWSL to come back?

Some seriously cold shit you soccer gods are doing. What’s next, you’re gonna tell me that nonsense of you can’t put pineapple on pizza?

Seriously though, to Joanna Lohman & Amy Rodriguez – stay strong and may you two have speedy and full recoveries. The game is better with you two on the field and as ambassadors for it off the field.

 

WHAT’S WITH ALL THE SCREAMING ABOUT STREAMING

Yes, opening weekend there were some hiccups with the go90 platform on opening weekend. Should they be taken as deal breakers and everyone flips tables and goes, “NOPE I’M THRU WITH YOU NWSL & GO90?”

G. O. D. N. O.

Yes, it wasn’t fun seeing a placeholder graphic for a commercial break interrupting a live stream – but perhaps it was something originating from the broadcast location and not necessarily the app itself. It’s easy to be thousands of miles away from the source and armchair manage and think the sky is falling. Yes, it was annoying that the full game replays weren’t archived properly until yesterday – but was waiting that extra day really the crime of the century? All the screaming from the hills about doubting this streaming platform the NWSL went with really was a bit much. Honestly a lot of it sounded like screaming just for the sake of screaming because it’s easier to rile people up. Yes, come this weekend’s game I will have higher expectation that whatever issues go90 encountered on opening weekend will have been fixed and everything will work as advertised, but let’s try not to hold it like a personal grudge that folks from either the NWSL or go90 broke into your house and ate your cupcake.

Or as my man Tetsuya Naito would say…Relax, take it easy!

 

THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF

Sitting in the press conference room after Seattle Reign FC & Sky Blue FC played to a 1-1 draw, Sky Blue FC head coach Christy Holly was first to do his post-match presser. I gotta say, he is one sharp dressed man, and his sweater game that Saturday night was on point. Watch your lunch money Mark Parsons, because you just might have some competition as who is the best-dressed gentleman in the NWSL.

Here’s Reign FC forward Nahomi Kawasumi throwing the ceremonial first pitch at Wednesday’s Seattle Mariners game. The pitch looked like a changeup and a good one at that.

Houston Dash’s Rachel Daly won Goal of the Week and rightfully so. Look at this- it’s evil, cold-blooded, rude as hell and I love it and have watched it many times. I understand fair elections and all but there was really no point in putting it up to a poll this week.

Haley Kopmeyer won NWSL Player of the Week for putting the team on her back and keeping it possible for them to get a point against Sky Blue. Her winning the honor extends Reign FC’s lead on having won more Player of the Week awards than any other NWSL club to date. Don’t believe me? Here’s the chart I made logging every single NWSL Player of the Week in the league’s five-year history.

https://twitter.com/jacobcristobal/status/854516726272114688

MY WEEK 2 PREDICTIONS LIKE I KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT

  • Chicago Red Stars OVER FC Kansas City
  • Orlando Pride OVER Washington Spirit
  • North Carolina Courage & Portland Thorns DRAW
  • Seattle Reign FC OVER Houston Dash
  • Boston Breakers OVER Sky Blue FC

Yep, you read that right. I’m picking Boston Breaker’s, last season’s basement team, to win over Sky Blue this week. Send all accolades or hate mail to @jacobcristobal on Twitter and we can hash it out.

So that’s it for this week’s installment. Tune in next week to see me reflect on how wrong I was in my picks. No matter what, though, I’m glad the season is underway. Lots of changes, most of them for the better in the bigger picture things. Still, the more things change, the more things stay the same – looking at you NWSL “Save” of the Week, LOL.

A Comedy of Errors, an Open Letter to the NWSL

Posted on by RJ Allen

Congratulations on a fifth season.  I’d say “historic” fifth season but at this point, every new season is historic, so what’s the point? Still, it’s a big deal, and I’m thrilled to be watching as the ten teams in the league compete to lead the table this year.

And when I say thrilled to be watching, I mean it. I’m the kind of fan who watches every game, every week. (As I’m also the kind of fan with a busy schedule, being able to catch up on them over the span of the week via Youtube was priceless—in the same way amy League Pass to the WNBA each season is worth far more than the $17 I pay for it.) So, the news that the NWSL would be partnering with Lifetime to broadcast a game a week was a big deal. Not just to me, but to everyone. And though there were concerns about the appropriateness of the channel, the availability of those games internationally, I have to say, I have been in your corner.

But it’s the other 98 matches that have a large number of fans going “What the furt” this year.

The very first problem was the way information was released, the lack of transparency and organization. Obviously pulling together a streaming platform isn’t easy. But who expected it to be? And while I wasn’t exactly on the same warpath as some regarding the lack of updates as the months until opening day turned into weeks, and then the weeks turned into days, and then hours, the fact that the Monday before opening weekend nobody had a clue how to watch four out of the weekend’s five games was a bit of a big deal.

But this season, the announcement of an official partnership with a media provider for the non-televised games, raised expectations exponentially. Everything–from the pay to the fields to the streaming–was supposed to be better this season.

The league’s work in the off-season has been almost entirely focused on growing the game, on exceeding the last year’s successes, on bringing in new fans and audiences while also retaining the steady and loyal core groups. Except, you can’t bring in anyone new and you can’t retain anyone old if they can’t watch the games. With only ten teams spread across limited geographic zones, most fans are only able to keep abreast of their teams and players via streamed (or now, televised) broadcasts. Those who can’t watch rely heavily on updates via social media, and every game day the Twitter world is awash with NWSL hashtags and commentary.  Streaming access is the backbone of NWSL fan support.

So, opening weekend over, how do you think you did?

Let me be the first among many to tell you that the Lifetime broadcast was an absolute success. Granted, that’s not to say there’s not room for improvement, but in Week 1, the channel and broadcast team did a great job. The production was high quality, the commentary was informed and entertaining, while not overwhelming what was happening on the field.

But the other four games this weekend, and their distribution to fans, were problematic. To say the very least.

For those fans trying to watch along with the non-televised game, Week 1 involved:

  • spotty streams
  • unavailable content
  • commercials mid-game (as often as every three minutes)
  • lack of archive for on-demand viewing

And these were only some of the problems mentioned and experienced by fans.

By large, the issues can be boiled down into two branches categories: quality and accessibility.

 

Quality

As far as quality goes, up until this season, it was by and large determined by each team’s infrastructure. Certain venues could always be counted on to have quality and reliable streams, others were always more troublesome, whether that meant shoddy audio, frequent lag, or just bad camerawork due to the limitations of the field. The Thorns and the Dash, playing in MLS-affiliated stadiums, had the camera resources to provide close looks at action on the field. Some of the other teams, though, always looked like your dad recorded the game on his old video camera. Fans may have complained–fans will always complain–but aside from the limited broadcasts of postseason games, it was all we had. And so we dealt.

Before 2017, commentary could be hit-or-miss sometimes, to the point that it felt like sometimes broadcast interns were in charge of doing the play-by-play. But there were some excellent commentators for the league, people we looked forward to hearing every week because they provided insightful analysis.  And even when the commentary wasn’t the greatest before this season, at least they were there, on the sidelines, able to see all the action. Broadcast teams for the go90 streams were all located in Florida, a fact I personally didn’t know until I heard it from Equalizer Soccer’s breakdown of go90 this morning. But even not knowing that, of the only game I was actually able to watch in its entirety on the go90 app–FCKC’s 2-0 win over the Boston Breakers–the commentators mis-identified players, spoke over the action, and provided very little play-by-play. Broadcast teams are supposed to guide a viewer through a game, not distract them away from it.

But the biggest problem with go90’s quality was the constant interruption of streams for advertisements. For two forty-five minute halves, soccer is a blissful, ad-free, safe space. That’s one of the things that makes soccer soccer. There aren’t timeouts in soccer, there aren’t commercial breaks, there isn’t a 60-second race to quickly pee and refill your drink before the action starts up again.

Soccer goes non-stop. Or, at least, it did until this weekend, when every go90 stream I’ve heard about broke in to tell frustrated fans about other content available on the app. (Did you know it’s not easy to be 5’11 and a QB in the SEC? Did you? DID YOU?)

And fans are not the only ones upset by this intrusion into our sacred space. Players and coaches weren’t pleased either.

Yes, please fix this.

 

Access

A second issue for the NWSL’s streaming this year is ease of accessibility. Sure, everything the NWSL told fans to expect sounded great. In the league’s February announcement of the partnership with A+E Networks, highlighting Game of the Week broadcasts on Lifetime, it also added that

NWSL Media will oversee the live streaming of all matches and produce the games in high definition with a consistent, state-of-the-art approach that will include exclusive new and original digital content for pre-game, halftime and post-game segments. The joint venture is currently negotiating with potential partners to stream the games not broadcast on Lifetime.

And for months, that was all anyone knew. Until last week Thursday, when the partnership with go90 was made public. Fans were assured that, as:

A fully ad-supported, mobile streaming service, go90 will feature 98 NWSL games accessible via live and on-demand streaming for the 2017 season. To access, visit go90.com or simply download the go90 app via the App Store or Google Play. Users with go90 version 3.0 and later can cast live games from the go90 app to Airplay and Chromecast. No registration or authentication is required.

Then, on Friday, one day before the season began, the NWSL released their app (iOS only), which, at least for US fans, is just a mobile version of the website, offering nothing more than you can find anywhere else.

It seems like an overabundance of options, no?

Except, it’s not. Ironically, all these various options for watching the streaming NWSL matches actually left fans almost unable to watch at all. Watching on the go90 website itself was impossible, both live games and the “on-demand” matches were unavailable. Watching via the go90 app was partially successful. If you consider having to restart the match and by the grace of God alone find where you’d left off anytime something–a phone call from mom, a need to check social media, your phone just deciding to exit all applications on a whim, or, and far more likely, the stream freezing and requiring a restart of the app–interrupted your feed, a success.

So for domestic fans, the go90 partnership compromised their ability to watch the games this important opening weekend. To the point that advice was passed around about how to bypass the location blocks that provided international fans access to high-quality streams on the NWSL website.

As for watching games “on-demand,” after they’d aired, Jonathan Tannenwald at The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News landed a scoop from insiders familiar to the NWSL’s deal with A+E and go90, and provided insight into the peculiarities of each’s on-demand access. In both cases, the games will be archived for 48 hours and then made available on the NWSL website and app.

But so far, they haven’t been, despite content disappearing from go90 already. And a quick search of “NWSL go90” on Twitter will tell you how people feel about the matter:

Granted, it’s a holiday weekend, but the NWSL weren’t deprived of a calendar when planning out their season. If you schedule your opening weekend for Easter, you damn well better make sure your staff is on-hand to get it off without a hitch.

Youtube was a preferred platform for fans because it offered a single way to watch (rather than the multitude of complicated, confusing, and unreliable options this season) that domestic and international fans could access equally. Content was immediately available after the live stream for viewing, viewing could be done on a mobile device but most often occurred on a computer, freeing up a mobile device to engage in conversation via social media about the game, thereby increasing any match’s digital footprint across multiple social media platforms. Of course there were issues, of course it wasn’t perfect. But by comparison, the streaming of non-televised games this first weekend has many wishing we could have Youtube back.

So, yes, there are problems. The league needs to answer the concerns of their fans, and sooner, rather than later.

But that’s not to say all is lost for this historic fifth season of the NWSL. The Game of the Week on Lifetime went off, as far as anyone could tell, without a hitch. It was absolutely a success and hopefully, even with the time (3 pm) and holiday weekend, the ratings will demonstrate that our fans show up. We show up.

When we can.

And that’s really the reason the streaming elements need to be worked out as soon as possible. For all its progress, the NWSL is still nowhere near stable. It’s done well, it has succeeded in ways every previous iteration failed, and now the front office of the league is thinking and planning in terms of years rather than one season to the next. They’ve built a fanbase, they’ve built an audience–they built it and we came, to paraphrase one of the greatest sports movies of all-time–but we have to be able to continue to show up, in person whenever possible and virtually whenever not, to help this league continue to grow.

So, as a fan, as a member of the media, I’m asking the powers that be: please, fix this.

Because, for a league trying to make its case for being the premiere professional women’s soccer league in the world, the NWSL came out looking like amateurs this weekend. And we deserve better–all of us. From the front office to the locker-room to the fans in the stands.

We deserve–and we can do–better.