Prince was second in scoring and assists for the Dash last year, with five goals and three assists. Unfortunately, Prince tore her Achilles in the offseason during a Canadian women’s national team friendly and will be unavailable this season. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Nichelle Prince in this discussion of the Dash attack. Heartbreaking for both players, but very good for Houston. Both Sánchez and Ordóñez will be available for the Dash through the 2023 World Cup window, considering Mexico failed to qualify last summer. We should expect her to do that again this season, especially now that one of her targets will be 5’11” Ordóñez, who also happens to be her Mexican women’s national teammate. Sánchez, who is known for her signature footwork on the flanks, led the team in crosses into the penalty area in 2022. Sánchez also recorded two goals and four assists last season, which was her first full season in the NWSL. Sánchez was second on the entire Dash roster in passing goals added in 2022, though the player ahead of her (Julia Ashley, CB) only played 172 minutes. María Sánchez will also be a player to watch in Houston’s attacking third. We should expect some regression to the mean for these players, which might translate to fewer goals scored. Unfortunately for Houston, Ordóñez was ranked third in that overperformance measure, having scored 0.71 goals on 0.24 xG per 96’ mark. That translated to 0.83 goals on 0.46 xG per 96’ for Salmon, which was the highest goals minus expected goals value in the league (read: overperformance). Ordóñez scored 11 goals on 7.27 xG, and Salmon scored 9 goals on 5.38 xG. There’s no doubt that Ordóñez will be headlining the Houston attack this year, paired with Ebony Salmon. North Carolina’s loss is Houston’s huge gain. Those 11 goals even broke the league record for goals scored in a rookie season. Ordóñez also finished fourth in the NWSL Golden Boot race with 11 goals, only behind Debinha on the Courage roster. It was an interesting move for the Courage, considering Ordóñez made 17 starts in 19 appearances in North Carolina, but head coach Sean Nahas said the team wanted to honor her requests to be closer to home. 8 overall pick, which North Carolina used to draft defender Sydney Collins. 30 overall pick to Houston in return for the No. Ordóñez requested the trade in the offseason, and North Carolina clearly made it happen. Speaking of additions, Diana Ordóñez’ trade was one of the biggest stories to come out of the 2023 NWSL Draft this year. That might indicate that he’s hand-picking his roster additions, and rounding out his roster with players that best fit his coaching style. That will help Laity this season, but he also brought in a huge squad–made of up 34 players–for preseason. Houston’s actually returning players that accounted for a huge portion of their 2022 minutes (80%), and those players were obviously successful last season. This will be Laity’s first head-coaching gig, so it remains to be seen if he’s up for that challenge. He’s now the head coach at NJ/NY Gotham FC, and longtime OL Reign assistant Sam Laity has taken the reins at the Dash. Despite those successes, Amorós left the Dash almost immediately in the offseason. He also led the Dash to their first playoff berth in their nine-year history, and hosted that match-up to boot. In fact, he became the first head coach in history to win their first three games. Amorós saw immediate success in the NWSL as a first-timer. Juan Carlos Amorós was hired as the interim head coach in June 2022. Of course, it goes without saying here that the sample size was quite small, but it’s important to acknowledge Lowdon’s successes. The first four games of Lowdon’s short tenure saw those principles translate on the field after Houston improved in goals conceded per game for the Dash: on average, they were conceding 1.7 fewer goals per game (0.5 goals conceded/game vs. Lowdon went on the record preaching the importance of defensive organization off-the-ball movement. Once Clarkson was dismissed, the Dash started turning around their 2022 ship. Former head coach James Clarkson was suspended in April 2022, and first assistant Sarah Lowdon stepped in as the acting head coach while the Dash searched for a new person to fill the role. Last season saw three head coaches for the Dash. So, what should we look forward to this season? A new head coach The Dash ended up losing to Kansas City in the 90+10th minute in the first round of the playoffs, and they’ll undoubtedly be on a mission to avenge that loss in 2023. They finished 2022 in fourth place but tied for 36 points with two other teams (San Diego Wave and Kansas City). The Houston Dash made the playoffs for the first time last season.
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