New team came within point of the Premier’s Plate but are still gunning for the championship, writes Taryn Heddo in the final part of a series going deep into the Liberty A-League finalists.
No one expected Western United to do big things. Even when big things started happening, no one expected big things to keep happening.
Sure, they beat defending champions Melbourne Victory in Round 1, but that was one game. Victory weren’t at their best, it was said.
Sure, Western accounted for Wellington Phoenix comfortably the week after, but that’s Wellington – last year’s wooden spooners. Too early to read anything into one result.
Round three against Adelaide was where reality was – surely – going to intrude. Adelaide were tipped to do big things. They finished third last season. They had defeated defending premiers Sydney FC in round one. And, as the fourth official’s board lifted into the air in the 90th minute to indicate six minutes of stoppage time, it was Adelaide who were one goal to the good.
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Stacey Papadopoulos had been subbed off the field with concussion in distressing circumstances early in the game. Chloe Logarzo entered the game at half time, a trump card, but unable to do it all on her own. There were tired legs, tired minds, and a tired first defeat looked imminent.
Enter unheralded Guyanese international signing Sydney Cummings. After a long throw from Jess McDonald, the centre back found space on the edge of the area and smashed it home through a disorganised Adelaide defence.
Some teams would sit back, content with a point won in stoppage time. Not Western United.
They kept pushing. A run from McDonald won a corner. Adelaide failed to clear. Again, on the edge of the area, a Western United shot – this time from Emma Robers. Deflection. Goal. Pandemonium.
It was the third win in what would become a seven-game winning streak. United had arrived.
The intangibles
Western United, finishing second by one point, have had a fantastic first season by any measure.
Eleven of their squad had never played in the Liberty A-League before, and five more had fewer than 10 appearances. Even among the more experienced players, there were caveats – Melissa and Adriana Taranto, who have been ever-present in Western United’s midfield, hadn’t played in the league since 2016/17. Chloe Logarzo, by far the biggest Australian name in the team, was coming into the season off the back of an ACL injury.
With the notable exception of the World Cup-winning 34-year-old Jess McDonald, their internationals were largely unknown. Hannah Keane was a 29-year-old journeywoman. Hillary Beall was a third-choice goalkeeper at Racing Louisville. Jaclyn Sawicki hadn’t played professional club football since 2019. Sydney Cummings hadn’t managed a single appearance for San Diego in 2022.
There are certain intangibles to Western United’s success this season. The culture of the club, the spine of which was taken from NPLW Victoria club Calder United, is something that players and pundits alike have pointed to.
The recruitment of Jess McDonald also played a huge part in creating a sturdy off-field culture.
Her goal was to “come here and help create a winning environment,” she explained after her final game for the club, and it’s hard to argue against her success.
This mentality has helped them through the hard times as well, particularly in the second half of the season.
“We made a promise to each other to believe in ourselves, even if things aren’t going well,” Golden boot winner Hannah Keane revealed on the final DubZone of the season.
The second half of the season – in numbers
The bad news is the way their form significantly tailed off towards the end of the season: nine games, five wins, four losses, and one of those wins was on a technicality thanks to an ineligible Brisbane player.
The headline narrative is that this faltering form coincided with the loss of Jess McDonald and Chloe Logarzo. But the data shows this is a simplistic take.
Expected goals, otherwise known as xG, is a measure that calculates how many goals you can expect a team to score given their scoring opportunities. Put simply, it is a measure of the quality of the chances that a team has created in a game.
Statisticians and analysts use xG in order to illustrate how effective a team is in attack or defence in a way that goes deeper than the scoresheet.
Usually, over the course of a season, xG evens out. The very best strikers in the world consistently perform above their xG, but that is what makes them the best. Most of the time, players in the professional game will perform around their xG.
In the first half of the season, Western United had scored 19 goals, with an xG of 11.66. Meanwhile, they had conceded eight goals, with an xG of 10.9.
That means they were being clinical – they had the highest differential between goals and xG in the league at that point, at 7.34. They also conceded fewer than they should have, the second-highest positive differential in the competition, thanks to a combination of Beall’s performances in goals and profligate finishing from their opponents.
The second half of the season paints a different story. They still outperformed their xG, but by nowhere near the same level. In their final nine games, they scored 16 goals to an xG of 14.14. They conceded 15 goals to an xG of 14.1.
It’s notable that in the second half of the season, without Jess McDonald and Chloe Logarzo, they actually created better opportunities on average than the first half. However, the numbers between goals scored and conceded – and what would be expected on average – are much closer. That has been the primary reason for the dip in form.
Finals Hopes
In knock-out games, it is often the intangible factors – spirit, togetherness, and no shortage of luck – that are the difference between success and disappointment.
Western United will take hope from the fact that, at different points throughout the season, they have defeated all three of their top four opponents.
If they can find a way to tap into their form from the first half of the season – particularly Hannah Keane’s sensational goal-scoring prowess – they will back themselves against anyone.
Buoyed by the unexpected return of Chloe Logarzo for the finals, the women in green could yet have one more chapter to write in a sensational season.
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Taryn Heddo is a commentator on the Liberty A-League for Paramount+ and the 10 Network.
