Welcome back to “I’m Curious!”

It’s good to be back, because it has been kind of a rough stretch for the author, admittedly.

Last Friday, I was laid off from my job. It has been a real challenge and has pushed me to focus a lot on finding a new job and potential freelance opportunities.

If you have any leads on any writing, producing, content, PR, communications or marketing work, they will all be appreciated. I also have much more space to freelance beyond this newsletter, so if you are or know an editor with space to commission a freelance piece, please reach out.

In the meantime, this newsletter presses on!

As always, feel free to either read through or flip around as you see fit.

Here’s the Table of Contents.

Table of Contents

• Welcome back to “I’m Curious!”

  • The Most Curious Thing This Week: The NWSL Is Back!

  • The Photo Bay

    • Andi Sullivan's Little Inspiration

    • Bubbles!

    • Mail Time! Young Fan's Letter for Hal Hershfelt

    • Look Over There: A Bright (And Faasse) Spot

    • Just A Moment: Rosemonde Kouassi's Penalty Kick

    • Smile, You're on Candid Camera! Sofia Cantore's Game Face

  • Something Good I Ate: Ken's Artisan Pizza's Caesar Salad

And here’s Peach!

The Most Curious Thing This Week

It’s the NWSL, being back!

The World Cup has been a blast, in spite of everything other than what’s on the field going wrong. Stars have met the occasion and lifted their teams. New stars have been born, often carrying underdogs against some of the game’s giants. 

And in its return this weekend, the NWSL’s stars took the challenge and responded in kind.

Kansas City Current came back on all cylinders in a 3-0 win. In North Carolina, Ashley Sanchez saw that Chelsea poached the Courage’s other star Manaka Matsukubo and filled the gap all on her own with a brace to lift them past Seattle 3-1. Teen phenom Melanie Barcenas scored a brilliant goal for San Diego Wave and found a way to honor her hero and former teammate Alex Morgan with a sipping tea celebration on the 4^th of July.

@nwslsoccer

MELANIE BARCENAS FROM WAY OUT 🚀 And an ode to her idol, Alex Morgan! 🫖 #NWSL #goal #Morgan #Barcenas #Golazo

And in Washington, it was Trinity Rodman meeting the moment as only she can, scoring two goals of her own, including a stoppage time stunner, to eke out a 2-1 win for the Spirit against the Houston Dash.

Nearly four minutes into a scheduled five beyond the end of the full 90, Rodman approached the box on the right-hand side. From just outside the far-right corner of the box, she snaked one over the middle, toward her teammates Rosemonde Kouassi and Gift Monday. Both of them had defenders on them, creating a bit of a crowd.

Monday lifted her foot up, letting the ball skip past her. It caught Houston goalkeeper Jane Campbell off guard when the ball suddenly emerged from the crowd, allowing it to creep beyond Campbell’s reach and into the net for a game winner.

The fact that the ball found the back of the net shocked even Rodman herself.

“I’m realizing what I was saying a lot now,” Rodman said in reflecting on it postgame. Her teammate Andi Sullivan was sitting next to her at the table and noted, “I didn’t hear you.” Rodman pantomimed a hand up to cover her mouth, leaned in towards Sullivan and whispered, “I was just like, what the—” and then dipped her head even further.

The broadcast camera caught her saying something pretty similar to that to teammates out on the field. Lip readers, take note!

Let’s talk more about that game, shall we?

With the mercury pushing close to triple digits even at the 8 pm kickoff, the combination of heat and a month away created a sluggish first half-hour.

To the extent that there were chances for both teams, they were rife with missed connections, disjointed play, and a bit of zip taken off the ball.

The Spirit found some chances to knock on the door late in the first half, with the biggest coming after Rodman drew a foul from Avery Patterson inside the box.

Ahead of the resulting penalty kick, Sullivan, the captain, held the ball, either ready to take the penalty kick or capably deceiving Houston ahead of a last-minute switch.

“A penalty is a set piece we prepare for, so I knew who was taking the penalty, and the whole team knows who is taking the penalty. And we know if that person’s not on the field, we know who the next person in line is,” Sullivan said postgame.

And when the dust cleared and the whistle blew, it was not Sullivan but Kouassi a few yards back from the ball.

The Ivoirienne hit a sharp strike to the left side of the goal. But Houston goalkeeper Jane Campbell anticipated it, guessing correctly and diving to her right to block it.

Despite a few more opportunities in the final third, the Spirit were unable to find the final connection through the Dash’s tight low block and headed into halftime scoreless.

“The first half, we knew that they were narrow and they were closing the center, so we prepared the game to the wings, to put a lot of crosses,” Spirit forward Sofia Cantore told reporters after the game. “Of course it’s difficult when you face a team in a low block.”

Out of the break, Washington found a big chance in short order. In the 50^th minute, midfielder Leicy Santos had not even crossed midfield on the right side of the pitch, but skied a long ball deep forward and across the field to Rodman, who had nothing but clear field in front of her before getting the ball over a diving Campbell and into the net. 

“I know when I have the ball, I’ll try to find her,” Santos said, with the Colombian star answering most questions postgame in her clearly improving English for the first time. “It’s just contact, visual, and she makes it magic.”

Houston had a few chances in the second half, with both shots on target stopped by Spirit keeper Sandy MacIver, but in the 89^th minute, Houston’s Kate Faasse slipped away from Washington defender Rebeca Bernal, allowing Linda Ullmark to find Faasse on a breakaway.

From there, it was largely academic. MacIver kept the left side of the net blocked, but Faasse hit one on the run that snaked to the right side of the net to crack the Dash’s goose egg and level it 1-1 late.

“Obviously, it felt really good to put another one back in the net. We got a lot of momentum going into that second half. We had our opportunities throughout the game so it was good to finally get to put one in and tie up the game,” Faasse said in her postgame remarks.

As the clock ticked away, the game posed the Spirit a question. Do you hang on in frustration and take the draw? Or do you keep pushing hard for a win?

With Rodman’s winner, it added yet another late highlight to the long list of clutch moments the Spirit have written into Audi Field’s history. 

Tara Rudd’s late equalizer in the 2024 quarterfinal against Bay FC. Hal Hershfelt’s stoppage-time header a week later in the semifinal against Gotham. Casey Krueger, a whopping 12 minutes into stoppage time to earn a draw against Utah last May. Trinity Rodman, returning from months away, with a stoppage-time winner in August against Portland. Rosemonde Kouassi’s game-saver to pull out a draw against Louisville a couple of weeks later. Kouassi again in October with a winner against San Diego.

And now, Rodman again just ahead of July 4^th against Houston.

After Friday’s win, Hershfelt said it was a big confidence booster to be able to pull this off time and again. 

“It fires the girls up and I feel like we’re pumped,” Hershfelt said. “Obviously, we don’t want to let it go down to the wire like that again, but I think it pumps us up that we can kind of take control of any situation if we put our minds to it.”

Washington heads on to North Carolina on Saturday to start a three-game road trip with a trio of games in an eight-day span.

Houston, meanwhile, still sits just a win away from the playoff line, with two more road games to come, the next one being a showdown a mile up with Denver Summit on Sunday evening.

The Photo Bay

Andi Sullivan’s Little Inspiration

Andi Sullivan has been working her way back for the Spirit after both an ACL tear and giving birth.

Friday marked a big milestone for the Virginia native, as she made not only her first start since her return, but led the team out as captain. 

Sullivan has played her entire career with her hometown club since being drafted to them 1^st overall in 2018.

When she talked to press after the game, she mentioned that she drew a lot of inspiration from an unlikely source: the child mascot who she walked out onto the field with before the game.

“She was so happy that she was just, kind of, laughing just to be out there, and I feel like that moment made me feel like, that this was all kind of, it just felt really natural and happy and blissful, and it’s also a good reminder of the perspective that was needed. So I think she really helped me kind of get into that space for this game.”

And judging from the pictures I got of that moment, it’s pretty clear that the joy that youngster had was infectious.

Bubbles!

Postgame in the Spirit Squadron supporters section, several dozen fans hung around, with Squadron leaders preparing to hand out their postgame awards to players and mostly young fans hanging around for autographs and chances to meet their heroes.

One fan got a hold of a little bubble blowing machine and floated a bunch around the stand where the capos, the fans who orchestrate the supporters section’s cheers, stand.

I caught a snap of one of the capos, Rashi, finding a bit of joy in the bubbles as they took over all the space around her.

Mail Time!

When young fans come to meet players after the game, the kids often have things for them to sign, but sometimes they come bearing gifts. 

Friendship bracelets, little plushies, and other tchotchkes abound, but one young fan had a bit more of an old-school gift for Hal Hershfelt: a letter.

The young fan had a letter with her name and address on it, as well as a note that she was 8 years old, but instead of sticking a stamp on it and mailing it, she wrote no delivery address and instead just noted that it was for “Hal Hershfelt, #17.” 

So when #17 herself made it over to the stands, she was alerted to the fact that the fan had a letter for her.

There was clear shock and delight on the midfielder’s face.

And she was able to spend a few moments with the young author of the letter, having a joyful conversation before posing with her for a picture.

Look Over There!

I’m not 100% sure what Houston Dash players Kate Faasse and Messiah Bright spotted in the distance before the game.

It may have been a sign or something else to draw their attention, but the two of them definitely found something smile-worthy as they headed out onto the field.

Faasse in particular must have seen something that entertained her, as she bounced around and offered a little dance move and a funny face before heading over to the bench.

Just A Moment

Penalty kicks are game-breaking moment. Just a shooter and nothing standing in between them and a goal other than a goalkeeper.

They become less of a battle of physical skill as much as a psychological showdown. Who can get into the other’s head? Who can make somebody jump too early, rethink their decision, or make the other person blink? 

Here, we have one of those moments frozen in time. The Spirit’s Rosemonde Kouassi, lining her foot up, with maybe just a millisecond to adjust where the ball is heading. 

Does she have confidence in where it’s heading? Almost certainly.

Is it the right choice? In this moment, it’s still to be determined.

But ultimately, it was Jane Campbell on the other end, making just the right move to stop her from scoring.

Smile, You’re on Candid Camera!

When she’s on the field, a smile is Sofia Cantore’s default facial expression.

Even in tough moments, even with the net calling, the edges of her lips are almost always turned upward. A smile is, in effect, her game face.

During pregame warmups, players will often run forward and cut in a sharp u-turn. They move in quick succession, so whether you catch a face correctly involves quite a bit of luck along with a combo of good timing and proper lens focus.

Here, most of the rest of the shot is blurred, but the Italian striker gets caught just right. We catch Cantore with her game face on.

Something Good I Ate

In our last edition, we highlighted the Balkan presence in the World Cup, with underdogs Bosnia and Herzegovina pairing their trip to the World Cup with an infectious earworm of a song: “I Am From Bosnia, Take Me to America.”

The Bosnians advanced out of the group stage, falling to the United States in a testy showdown in the round of 32.

Fresh off that interview, in our household, we decided to kick off our World Cup experience a few weeks back with some Balkan food. 

We ordered an assortment of dishes from Ambar, the pan-Balkan restaurant that sits down the street from us.

Everything from cevapi to chicken to cauliflower to corn ribs, ringed so that you eat kernels off the “rib” that is the cob, dotted the plate.

It was a mix of rich flavors—some pickled, some citrusy, some carried by Mediterranean spices. A mix of cultures on one plate, and a perfect way to kick off a global party like the World Cup.