The San Diego Wave have looked more comfortable on the road this season. Five of their nine wins have come away from Snapdragon Stadium, and they\u2019ve lost only two matches as the visitors.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good thing, too, as the Wave will face the first-place Washington Spirit (11-3-3) on the road Sunday in the latest test for San Diego\u2019s National Women\u2019s Soccer League team.<\/p>\n
San Diego (9-6-2) is coming off a 2-0 home loss to the Seattle Reign, who entered last Sunday\u2019s match near the bottom of the NWSL standings.<\/p>\n
The month of July was not kind to the Wave, who went 1-2-1 during that stretch. They were outscored 4-2 at home and were held scoreless in back-to-back matches at Snapdragon Stadium.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been less efficient with our chances at home than we\u2019ve been away,\u201d Wave coach Jonas Eidevall said. \u201cSo, for away games, that has to continue. We need to be efficient with our chances tomorrow against Washington, and for our home games, that\u2019s what we need to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
San Diego sits fourth in the NWSL standings with 29 points. Washington, meanwhile, is playing its best soccer of the season.<\/p>\n
The Wave earned a 2-1 victory the last time these two teams met, but the Spirit have been on a tear since then. Washington has won six of its last seven matches, with its only loss coming against Gotham FC.<\/p>\n
Overall, the Spirit have won 11 of their last 13 NWSL matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more likely that what they see from that game that they will make adjustments than the need for us to make adjustments, so it\u2019s just for us to be cautious about,\u201d Eidevall said.<\/p>\n
The Spirit are led by superstar Trinity Rodman, who ranks fourth in the NWSL in both goals (eight) and assists (five). Her movement off the ball was on full display in Washington\u2019s 1-0 victory over the Utah Royals.<\/p>\n
In the 28th minute, right midfielder Paige Metayer raced down the right flank and delivered a cross to the back post, where a sliding Rodman finished for the game\u2019s only goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s a world-class player who\u2019s in really good form,\u201d Eidevall said. \u201cHer off-the-ball movement is so sharp, it is so dangerous. It doesn\u2019t only happen once. She runs two times, three times with different angles in the same attack. She\u2019s constantly threatening the backline. She\u2019s definitely a big part of why Washington is producing so good results at the moment because she\u2019s in such good form.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodman and teammates Leicy Santos and Sofia Cantore have combined for 17 of the Spirit\u2019s 26 goals this season.<\/p>\n
Defensively, Washington is tied with Gotham FC for the fewest goals allowed in the NWSL, conceding just 12 through 17 matches.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we do a really good job of getting in the final third, and I think it\u2019s about cleaning up a final pass,\u201d Wave forward Adriana Leon said. \u201cI think if we do that, we\u2019ll be a lot more successful with these next few games ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wave\u2019s offense will need to find its finishing touch. San Diego has scored just four goals over its last four matches, with three coming from Trinity Byars and one from Melanie Barcenas.<\/p>\n
The Wave must generate more consistent offense if they hope to remain near the top of the NWSL standings.<\/p>\n
The top four teams secure a home playoff match.<\/p>\n
\u201cFortunately for us, we have a good team and an exciting team, and we do a lot of good things out there on the pitch,\u201d Leon said. \u201cBut for us, it\u2019s just about cleaning up here and there. I think we\u2019ll be a lot more successful moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Wave have looked more comfortable on the road this season. Five of their nine wins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,74,76,75,1083,127],"class_list":["post-421180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}