The comeback was fun, but OL Reign’s struggles in the 2-2 home draw were not.

It was always going to be a difficult task. OL Reign was asked to play three matches in seven days — two of them on the road — in their first week without seven World Cup-bound players. The Reign were back at home for the final match of that series and scored two goals in the final 10 minutes to rescue a point in a 2-2 draw with Racing Louisville.

Veronica Latsko and Elyse Bennett scored the goals for OL Reign, which came in a five-minute span.

It wasn’t a pretty match, but with the point — and favorable results in other games — OL Reign remains in 3rd place and is just two points out of first.

Here are three stats from the match.

66%

The Reign only connected 66% of their passes, and it sure was noticeable. Coming into this match, Louisville was known as a team that pressured opponents into mistakes — they were second behind the Reign in interceptions, for example — but they didn’t consistently deploy a high, intense press. In fact, their 11.5 PPDA — opponent passes allowed per defensive action, which measures the intensity of a team’s press — was the 10th lowest in the league. (A higher number indicates a less-intense press.)

Louisville’s press was much more intense against OL Reign on Saturday. Their PPDA throughout the match was 5.3.

“They pressed us and they collapsed on us the moment we played into the middle,” Veronica Latsko said in the post-match press conference. “Credit to them, I think they did really well with getting pressure on the ball and making it actual pressure, not passive. And I also think they tried to shut us down when we got into their attacking third and tried to prevent us from getting a lot of crosses off.”

As Latsko noted, Louisville didn’t necessarily press high — often keeping just two players high when they pressed. Instead, they collapsed instantly in the midfield as the Reign tried to build. This limited Jess Fishlock’s impact over the 65 minutes she featured in her first game back from injury. She went just 9/14 on passes.

The Reign giveaways were also due to sloppy passing, which can be attributed to tired legs and lots of rotation. Still, credit to Louisville for their disruption.

18

In addition to forcing OL Reign into mistakes, Louisville was whistled for 18 fouls (the Reign had 14). Collectively, that limited the Reign’s rhythm — and strangely, despite calling the match tight, head official Alexandra Billeter appears to have missed what appeared to be some clear fouls.

Seven of those fouls came from Louisville’s midfield, and another eight from their frontline — another sign of the pressure they put on the Reign in the middle of the pitch.

Latsko, who came on with fresh legs in the 65th minute, was fouled the most (3 times). She was a real difference-maker for OL Reign, and getting fouled three times in 25 minutes shows how much pressure she put on Louisville’s defense.

“I thought Veronica (Latsko) was excellent when she came on — all the subs who came on changed the game, and those that played on Wednesday and then had to put a shift in today were fantastic,” OL Reign head coach Laura Harvey said after the match.

69

(Nice)

According to FotMob, OL Reign won 69 of their duels — compared to 54 for Louisville.

That includes 47 ground duels (56% success rate) and 22 aerial duels (56%).

On top of that, the Reign won 83% of their tackles and had 14 interceptions, compared to 8 for Louisville.

The Reign weren’t finding success in the attack for the first 80 minutes of the match, but they didn’t give up. They continued to win their duels, and it paid off at the end.

“I said to the players at the end, with the week we’ve had — two games on the road, coming back, very limited rest — a lot of teams would have, when that second goal goes in, sort of given up and let the game die, but we have a different mentality here,” Harvey said. “Not just the regular starters, it’s everybody.”

The Reign have a little more rest this week, but they will have to travel. OL Reign will fly across the country to take on the Orlando Pride next Friday, July 7. That match kicks off at 4 PM PT and will air on FOX 13+ and stream on Paramount+.