{"id":1071,"date":"2016-09-29T15:30:10","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T19:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsoccer.com\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2016-09-29T15:43:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T19:43:26","slug":"nwsl-semifinal-preview-washington-spirit-vs-chicago-red-stars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2016\/09\/29\/nwsl-semifinal-preview-washington-spirit-vs-chicago-red-stars\/","title":{"rendered":"NWSL Semifinal Preview: Washington Spirit vs. Chicago Red Stars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>NWSL SEMIFINAL<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Washington Spirit vs. Chicago Red Stars<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Maryland SoccerPlex: Germantown, Maryland<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>8:00 pm\u00a0EST<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Fox Sports One<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Referee: Danielle Chasky<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>NWSL Semifinal Preview: Washington Spirit vs. Chicago Red Stars<\/h2>\n<p>The <strong>Washington Spirit<\/strong> is playing in the semifinals with some injury bugs. <strong>Shelina Zadorsky<\/strong> and <strong>Estefina Banini<\/strong> are listed as probable for the match. The Spirit has reached the semifinals in three straight years yet failed to pass this stage.<\/p>\n<p>Estefina\u2019s\u00a0 goal scoring surge late this season has made her the hot player at the moment. The Spirit; however, are less dependent on Estefina and more relying of manager<strong> James Gabarra\u2019<\/strong>s possession style of soccer.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/lineupbuilder.com\/2014\/custom\/354x526.php?p=11&amp;a=40303&amp;t=&amp;c=dc0000&amp;1=GK___388_174&amp;2=DLL_Kleiner__293_56&amp;3=DCL_Oyster__327_138&amp;4=DCR_Zadorsky__327_211&amp;5=DRR_Krieger__293_292&amp;6=DMC_Lohman__258_174&amp;7=MCRR_Nairn__218_226&amp;8=MCAL_Matheson__186_138&amp;9=WL_Banini%28Williams%29__116_64&amp;10=WR_Dunn__116_284&amp;11=FCA_Stengel__80_174&amp;c2=ffffff&amp;c3=ffffff&amp;output=embed\" width=\"354\" height=\"526\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Three of Washington\u2019s leading goal scorers are the starting midfielders consisting of <strong>Diana Matheson<\/strong>,<strong> Joanna Lohman,<\/strong> and <strong>Christine Nairn<\/strong>. Gabarra\u2019s philosophy of maintaining possession has eased the burden of the forwards&#8217; lack of scoring this season. Shelina\u2019s injury may be the problem for the Spirit defense can be shaky.<\/p>\n<p>When the Washington Spirit win, they score multiple goals doing so. The Spirit has won ten games scoring two or more goals according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.soccerpunter.com\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">www.soccerpunter.com<\/a> The <strong>Chicago Red Stars<\/strong> has only three victories when they scored two or more goals.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago was physical in last week\u2019s victory against Washington, but the Spirit has the advantage of knowing what to expect. Washington has been dodging opponents\u2019 physical game plan to slow them down all season. They just learn to pass at the right time to avoid the contact.<\/p>\n<p>The Red Stars query is that can they hold on to a 1-0 or 2-1 leading against an attacking Washington squad? Chicago had the lead by halftime five times yet was tied at the half in four victories. They can\u2019t chase the game playing their trademark hustling defense while forgetting their attacking duties.<\/p>\n<p>Washington can score two goals to defeat Chicago. They did when they beat the Red Stars at the SoccerPlex in July, and Chicago\u2019s losses were multi-scoring affairs. This game may be over if the Spirit get a comfortable 2-0 lead. It can also get interesting if it remains scoreless or 1-1 as the 90<sup>th<\/sup> minute gets closer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NWSL SEMIFINAL Washington Spirit vs. Chicago Red Stars Maryland SoccerPlex: Germantown, Maryland 8:00 pm\u00a0EST Fox Sports One Referee: Danielle Chasky NWSL Semifinal Preview: Washington Spirit vs. Chicago Red Stars The Washington Spirit is playing in the semifinals with some injury bugs. Shelina Zadorsky and Estefina Banini are listed as probable for the match. The Spirit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1668,"featured_media":1081,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[353],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nwsl"],"modified_by":"Joe Hojnacki","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}