NWSL Week 8 in review: The often mocked Western New York Flash sit tied for 1st

The Western New York Flash spent the NWSL offseason, as well as the beginning of the regular season, being the butt of jokes. Eight games into the year, they’re tied for first place.

Go back to all of the preview pieces written before the season started and you’ll be hard pressed to find anyone predicting that the Flash would finish in the top half. They traded Sydney Leroux and Whitney Engen in the offseason, receiving no United States women’s national team allocated players in return. The Flash also didn’t sign any high-profile international players.

The men’s team that plays in and operates their stadium, the Rochester Rhinos, was evicted by the city in January after failing to live up to promises made when they first entered into a partnership. USL, America’s men’s third division, was forced to take over the team and find new ownership that the city would work with to improve the turf, overall fan experience at the stadium and infrastructure around it.

Amazingly, the Flash didn’t have a head coach in place during the draft, a big deal in a league where every team has a bare-bones scouting and front office staff, and coaches are asked to be a big part of player acquisition strategies. A month later, they hired Paul Riley, who was heavily criticized for his bizarre lineup choices as Portland Thorns manager last season. When the Flash lost three of their first five matches, no one batted an eyelash.

Notably, the live streams of those games featured intro music blaring over the commentary for the first half of one, and a strange Law and Order sound effect over the first half of another. The Flash are often the last team to upload highlights to NWSL’s YouTube page.

While a spokesperson for the Western New York Flash tells SB Nation that their attendance numbers are based on tickets scanned at the gate, not tickets distributed, their stadium often appears empty and they’re regularly accused of juking their stats -- even by opposing players.

All of this is to say that the Flash, from the outside, appear to be cheap and disorganized. This may be an unfair characterization, but it’s one supported by a lot of evidence. It’s also how they’re perceived by fans, and perception usually matters more than reality -- unless you’re winning games, that is.

And while the Flash’s run to the top of the table is a big surprise, there’s a logical explanation for all of their success. Sam Mewis and Jaelene Hinkle are among the youngest players in the USWNT and have made a natural-looking improvement from their rookie to sophomore seasons in the league. Same goes for 23-year-old Canadian goalkeeper Sabrina D’Angelo, while rookie goalkeeper Britt Eckerstrom has been good in her starts as well. Jessica McDonald has been a consistently effective NWSL player and was a good trade pickup.

Those trades also let the Flash stock up on draft picks, and they used them well to fill out their roster. An early contender for best value pick in the 2016 draft is Makenzy Doniak, who entered her senior season at Virginia as a top prospect, but dropped to No. 11 overall due to concerns about her lack of pace, drop in goals and probably some unimportant things unrelated to soccer, because we expect 22-year-olds to be perfect and never make mistakes for some reason. By ignoring all of the excessively stupid conventional draft wisdom, the Flash got one of the best players in the country, and she scored the winner against Orlando this weekend.

The Flash only beat the Pride 1-0, but it would have been more if goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris wasn’t on top of her game. WNY had a half-dozen clear chances in the match. They looked competent and organized in all phases of play.

Riley’s lineups have made sense all season, and why shouldn’t they? He’s always been a bit experimental, but his disastrous 2015 was the aberration, not the norm. He took the Philadelphia Independence to two WPS finals and finished third in NWSL in 2014, with a positive goal differential. There’s little reason to believe that Riley isn’t a competent coach.

The Flash’s early season success is a reminder that you don’t need to have big money and a culture that fans fawn over to be a success in NWSL. Just ignore bogus “red flags” on good prospects, hire proven coaches, sign proven players and trust that your promising rookies will be better in their second years. Being the best team in the world might be hard, but being decent sure isn’t -- even if you can’t figure out how to turn off that damn Law and Order sound effect.

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Highlights of all the games can be found on NWSL’s YouTube page.