Bay FC at midseason mark: What needs to change for NWSL playoff push?

SAN JOSE – Bay FC has lost nine of its 13 games and has given up a league-worst 25 goals. But at the midway point of the season, it’s still only three points out of the eighth and final playoff spot and is in a far better position than fellow expansion team Utah, which sits at the bottom of the table despite a 1-0 win at Bay FC Sunday night.

While Utah decided to build through the draft and play its first season without an established star, Bay FC (4-9-0, 12 points) adopted more of a win-now mentality, signing six international players. That includes Zambian striker Racheal Kundananji, who was acquired from Madrid CFF for a record transfer fee of nearly $800,000, and six-time African Women’s Footballer of the Year Asisat Oshoala of Nigeria, who came from FC Barcelona.

The results have been mixed, but Bay FC is one of seven teams within five points of sixth place.

“I actually think we’re in a really good spot, all things considered,” said Bay FC defender Emily Menges, who won two NWSL titles with Portland. “I’m optimistic for the rest of the season, and the table is so tight in the NSWL anything can happen. You can go win two games in a row and pop ahead of four teams. So we just stay the course and hope to be higher in the table later in the season.”

Here is what needs to happen for Bay FC to become the third expansion team to make the playoffs in its inaugural season, following the North Carolina Courage in 2017 and the San Diego Wave in 2022.

DEFEND SET PIECES

Perhaps it’s not surprising that Bay FC gave up multiple goals in seven of its first eight games. The players were getting acclimated to each other, and injuries didn’t help. Expected starting keeper Melissa Lowder tore her ACL in the preseason and central midfielder Alex Loera, the first player the club acquired, suffered a season-ending knee injury in the fourth game.

But Bay FC has held four of its last five opponents to one goal or less.

“As an expansion team it’s hard to get everything right in the beginning,” defender Alyssa Malonson said. “But defensively we’ve been focused on getting organized and trying to communicate as much as we can. I think we definitely have gotten better.”

The team no longer gives us goals by the handful, but it still struggles to defend set pieces, including Utah’s 89th-minute header off a free kick Sunday night.

“All season we’ve been trending in the right direction,” Menges said. “Set pieces we‘ve been giving up goals in the last few games. It’s really encouraging that we’re not giving up goals in the run of play. But set pieces is something we have to clean up.”

UNLOCK KUNDANANJI

Bay FC has had 10 different goal scorers, the second-most in the NWSL. But no one has hit the back of the net more than twice.

That includes Kundananji, the most expensive women’s soccer player in the world, who missed the first three games while recovering from a knee injury she suffered in an Olympic qualifier for Zambia. She scored in her NWSL debut but has had just one goal in nine starts since then – far off her pace of 33 goals in 43 matches with Madrid CFF over the past two seasons.

She entered the weekend eighth in shots (24) and fifth in duels won (67) among all NWSL forwards, and fourth in touches in the opponent’s box (71). But she commanded a record transfer fee because of her finishing touch, which must be displayed if Bay FC hopes to make a playoff run.

MAINTAIN MOMENTUM

Bay FC beat Chicago in front of an NWSL-record crowd of 35,038 at Wrigley Field, and just needed to come home Sunday and beat a Utah team that was on a 10-match winless streak in order to move into a tie for eighth place. But after a strong first half, Bay FC was outplayed in the second half and lost 1-0, maintaining its streak of failing to record points in back-to-back games this season.

“We need to do a better job following one good performance to another to another,” coach Albertin Montoya said. “We’re struggling with that right now.”

Bay FC hasn’t taken advantage of home field, with five losses in seven games at PayPal Park. Four of those losses – and 11 of its 13 games overall – have been decided by one goal.

“It could be better,” Montoya said of the team’s position at midseason. “We’ve progressed and we’ve definitely improved in areas that we wanted to, which was defensively. Now it’s putting it all together. We’re so close. We’re so close. But let’s see if we can do it.”