Three Stats: OL Reign vs. Gotham FC

Heading into Sunday afternoon, OL Reign had only lost once at Lumen Field. Unfortunately, the Reign doubled that total with a 4-1 loss against NJ/NY Gotham FC. The two teams were even on points before kickoff, but the win propelled Gotham to the top of the NWSL table, while the Reign fell to fifth.

If you only looked at the expected goals (xG) numbers for the match, you might think the game was fairly close. OL Reign finished with 1.31 xG compared to 1.99 for Gotham. But the Reign never took control of the game in the first half — falling into Gotham’s pressing traps and giving up three goals in the first 45 minutes.

That deficit was too much to come back from in the second half, and while…