UNC Women’s Soccer 2025-2026

[UltimateHeel]

I still can’t believe that happened - clock error, last second goal of corner, and 2 of our best seasoned veterans sailing balls over and wide in PK’s. Just nauseating. Really hate it for the girls.

Hopefully the majority of players will be back and Damon finds a way to get the girls to be more dangerous in final 3rd. Need more width, more dribbles around corner/endline with crosses into box, not everything through the middle.

Proud of the ladies, they fought hard.

 

[JohnnyYen]

I've been pretty critical of this team this year and I could write a very long post on a few issues. But since it's over, no sense in heaping on at this point. Objectively, it was a pretty good season and I think they did well getting this far into the tournament. If we use their worst performances as the bar, then losing in the third round on PK's was over-performing. They outplayed all 3 opponents, but this team wasn't going to make it to the cup. I saw some really good, young talent on the field this year that I hope we can retain. I also see some spots that need attention and I hope that those are addressed in the off-season. I don't think it'll take much to make this team a title contender.

 

[OBXheel81]

Corner kick was a comedy of errors. Faasse and Kennedy both left their assignments to drift centrally for no reason, resulting in a header by a stationary player to an opened corner. Kennedy was then slow in recovery, blocking the goalie from coming across and grabbing the rebound off the post. That will be a teaching video for next year. Every club team on up knows how you should cover that corner. We just had two players make bad momentary decisions. I felt the game was lost by our inability to finish up front, a problem we had shown most of the year. Still enjoyed the effort most of the game.

 

[JohnnyYen]

One (costly) mistake by Kennedy in an otherwise very solid performance that earned her a start in the second half. That was the best that I've seen from her all year.

 

[UNCBullMarket]

Corner kick was a comedy of errors. Faasse and Kennedy both left their assignments to drift centrally for no reason, resulting in a header by a stationary player to an opened corner. Kennedy was then slow in recovery, blocking the goalie from coming across and grabbing the rebound off the post. That will be a teaching video for next year. Every club team on up knows how you should cover that corner. We just had two players make bad momentary decisions. I felt the game was lost by our inability to finish up front, a problem we had shown most of the year. Still enjoyed the effort most of the game.

Kennedy was not supposed to be marking anyone, please see my post about this on the prior page. She was doing her job standing on the far post. She did exactly what she was coached to do. If anyone lost their mark on that play, it was Faasse. And I don’t even think she lost her mark as much as she misjudged the flight of the ball, and it turned out to be an absolutely perfectly placed cross and header.

 

[UNCBullMarket]

One (costly) mistake by Kennedy in an otherwise very solid performance that earned her a start in the second half. That was the best that I've seen from her all year.

AGAIN, Kennedy did exactly what she was coached to do…stand beside the back post. It was not her job to mark anyone. We also put a player on the near post who also doesn’t mark people. I (respectfully) think we have a lot of people on here throwing criticism that have little or no experience playing or coaching this game sometimes. I will happily criticize when it’s deserved, but singling out Kennedy for that corner kick goal is just flat out wrong. She was exactly where Damon coaches her to be and it’s not her job to track any other player, but to stand beside that post and hopefully deflect anything that the GK can’t reach…unfortunately the header was placed in the tiniest of windows. Faasse was who apparently should have been tracking that girl and she just tried to aggressively high-point the ball, misjudged it’s flight, and it went right over her head and was perfectly placed right on their back post attacker, who to her credit finished it.

There were 110 minutes (plus a shootout) of decisions that determined the outcome of that game. And that’s the danger when you concede a free kick around your goal at the end…sometimes the other team just makes a great play. I was more disappointed that we didn’t finish the game strongly with possession instead of bunkering in, and there was one or two players I won’t name that were loafing in that last minute or two that could have put more pressure on them defensively…we should have never given them the chance to take that corner kick to begin with. You do everything you can not to concede a free kick in your defensive third from a foul, or a corner kick when you are trying to close out a game. But we had so many chances to score another goal and just could not get it done. That’s way bigger of a reason for why we lost than anything that happened in the last minute.

 

[UNCBullMarket]

So does anyone know when players have to decide if they are staying or leaving (to go pro or to transfer)? I imagine it will be a while before we know now that there is no NWSL draft anymore, and those teams can pick up players any time they want. I remember it being pretty late when we found out Evelyn Shores wasn’t going to be back earlier this year.

We all know there are going to be moving pieces that we didn’t anticipate, that’s just the unfortunate reality for us fans these days as NIL offers will certainly come in from other schools and pro teams will also be on the prowl….when you have the talent we are fortunate to have, there will always be no shortage of suitors looking to poach them away. This is where Damon is really going to have to earn his money and sell these girls on the idea that they could be part of something special (that will ultimately raise their profiles) if they come back and form a title contending team.

 

[UNCH]

Getting rid of Anson hasn't made us a lot better. This season was worse than any year he produced.

Playing no bench players, riding our starters to the ground. Didn't make us play any prettier.

I don't even know what we're trying to accomplish. We don't play good possession soccer; we don't play good direct soccer.

 

[JohnnyYen]

AGAIN, Kennedy did exactly what she was coached to do…stand beside the back post. It was not her job to mark anyone. We also put a player on the near post who also doesn’t mark people. I (respectfully) think we have a lot of people on here throwing criticism that have little or no experience playing or coaching this game sometimes. I will happily criticize when it’s deserved, but singling out Kennedy for that corner kick goal is just flat out wrong. She was exactly where Damon coaches her to be and it’s not her job to track any other player, but to stand beside that post and hopefully deflect anything that the GK can’t reach…unfortunately the header was placed in the tiniest of windows. Faasse was who apparently should have been tracking that girl and she just tried to aggressively high-point the ball, misjudged it’s flight, and it went right over her head and was perfectly placed right on their back post attacker, who to her credit finished it.

There were 110 minutes (plus a shootout) of decisions that determined the outcome of that game. And that’s the danger when you concede a free kick around your goal at the end…sometimes the other team just makes a great play. I was more disappointed that we didn’t finish the game strongly with possession instead of bunkering in, and there was one or two players I won’t name that were loafing in that last minute or two that could have put more pressure on them defensively…we should have never given them the chance to take that corner kick to begin with. You do everything you can not to concede a free kick in your defensive third from a foul, or a corner kick when you are trying to close out a game. But we had so many chances to score another goal and just could not get it done. That’s way bigger of a reason for why we lost than anything that happened in the last minute.

ok.

 

[JohnnyYen]

 

[OBXheel81]

I doubt that Kennedy was coached to shift left away from the right post almost to the keeper position on that play. Bad mistake to allow a wide open back post, regardless of whether you are playing zone or W2W.

 

[bradarb08]

Getting rid of Anson hasn't made us a lot better. This season was worse than any year he produced.

Playing no bench players, riding our starters to the ground. Didn't make us play any prettier.

I don't even know what we're trying to accomplish. We don't play good possession soccer; we don't play good direct soccer.

We didn't "get rid" of Anson. He retired. His choice. Also, just being fair... we did have the most losses ever (by 1), but in 2021 we also didn't make the ACC Tournament and lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. So, I think you could argue the 2021 season (under Anson) was a worse year than this year since this team at least made it to the Sweet 16.

Also, respectfully, given the roster limits now (that did not exist when Anson was here) as well as no NWSL Draft and allowing NWSL to sign players at any time (that did not exist when Anson was here), you could argue that 2021 was worse than this year.

 

[Jriv23]

Well it does not matter now since we lost and our season is over. There is no mystery why those two players were loafing during that critical moment, they were tired and they needed a break. This year's team just did not have any depth. This was the problem the whole season. We had at least 8 players playing 90 minutes a game and at some point they are going to wear down as the season goes on. We had all agreed that Damon had little faith in our players who were on the bench. We also stated that those players were just not ready yet to play. IMO, we over achieved based on what Damon had to work with. We lost two key players after the summer who decided to go pro. There was little time to replace those two important pieces. We should have more depth next year with the recruits coming in. Hopefully all of the underclassman will come back and not transfer out. We must hope that the players that have signed won't go pro.

 

[UNCBullMarket]

I doubt that Kennedy was coached to shift left away from the right post almost to the keeper position on that play. Bad mistake to allow a wide open back post, regardless of whether you are playing zone or W2W.

Agree with that. She still wasn’t supposed to mark anyone and I pointed out in a prior post that her part of fault was not staying tight to the post caused her to get beat near post as you never get beat near post. Still she didn’t impede Johann from anything that was obvious watching the play. Johann had zero chance to get that ball. And Pennie was doing the same thing on the near post (although not drifting in quite as far), which does makes me wonder if this is how they’ve been coached to play the post defender roles. If you want your GK unimpeded, you can’t have post defenders a d you need to mark man-to-man. It is what it is…Kennedy is a true freshman, Johann didn’t even play for half of the season or more. Considering the amount of incredibly young/new players we had to rely on, things like this unfortunately can happen.

The other thing that sticks out to me is the TWO clearly unmarked TCU players on the back post, and seeing our two tallest players (Thomas / Mara) completely impeding each other in the middle. There was a lot of disorganization that took place there. This is why I have never liked total zone marking on corners. You need someone responsible for each opposing player running through and that clearly wasn’t the case here and there’s no reason for it on the last play of the game…literally everyone should be back to defend at that point. If anyone deserves blame, it’s our coaching staff…this is literally their only job, they spend almost every day with this team, have all of the video and training resources you could ask for….little details like being on your post and being organized on corners are things our team should be well versed in by the end of the season. But in fairness…you can coach your whole life and things still happen in the heat of the battle…it’s impossible to cover every contingency. It’s easy to criticize after the fact but anyone who has been in that role knows how humbling it can be. I go back to the fact that this was a 110 minute game and one play did not decide the game. We had plenty of chances to put it away and the blame should always be collectively shared by all. Learn from it and move on.

 

[OBXheel81]

Based on the current roster and incoming freshman, are there any player types that the staff should target in the transfer portal? I’d like to see two players with more size and aerial skills, one in the midfield and the other up front. But I think they have a good base if most come back.

 

[Jriv23]

I am in total agreement with you.

 

[3397char]

Based on the current roster and incoming freshman, are there any player types that the staff should target in the transfer portal? I’d like to see two players with more size and aerial skills, one in the midfield and the other up front. But I think they have a good base if most come back.

Roster limit is 28.

we had 27 on the roster last season after Shores went pro suddenly.

We have just 5 players we know have exhausted their eligibility by my count:

1. Faasse - key starter
2. Dellarose - key starter
3. Bretzer - f/Mf or 4th off bench, don in most games
4. Brown - defensive 2nd off bench, don in most games
5. Shorrock - GK DNP

so that is 6 spots open.

there are not too many players on this team with immediate pro clout, but we could lose somebody obviously.

we have 10 or 11 coming in, so we are already have 5 players that need to leave the team through attrition. I am not going to speculate at all, we will know soon enough.

I may have a math error somewhere above, but you get the point: that likely will give very little room for bringing in portal players. I don’t see any obvious holes on this teamm as if tight now, but that expected attrition could create some.

 

[OBXheel81]

Thanks for the info! I didn’t know we had 10+ committed for next year. Roster management is tough!

 

[Jriv23]

Yes, it is. Roster management is very important.