Soccer

Chioma Ubogagu moves Orlando Pride closer to a playoff spot

Chioma Ubogagu may not have the name recognition of some of her Orlando teammates, but that doesn’t mean she’s not making a big impact for the Pride.

by Lauren Barker

Sep 5, 2017, 2:53 PM UTC

via @ORLPride

In the early part of the season, there wasn’t much that was going well for the Orlando Pride.

Alex Morgan was still in France, getting a taste of Europe and the Champions League with Olympique Lyon. The Pride had added veteran USWNT’er and former Washington Spirit outside back Ali Krieger and Brazil’s Camila to its defensive corps, and still, the team was struggling to keep opponents from getting dangerous chances. Ashlyn Harris, she of the (sometimes unnecessarily) poster-worthy save, was forced into making more than a few dramatic stops, eventually calling out her teammates after a 3-1 loss to North Carolina in which she had to make 10 saves to keep things even that close.

Orlando started the season with a four-game winless streak, and won just three times in its first 10 games. And then Harris got hurt, suffering a quad injury that would ultimately sideline her for 11 games.

Early on, it seemed like even Marta, who made her debut in the second game of the season, wouldn’t be able to save the Pride — or even make a dent in solving the team’s problems. Mostly, Orlando, in its second year of existence, seemed destined for another season languishing near the bottom of the table, the heir to an expansion curse that Houston had started, and four years later still doesn’t seem able to climb out from.

From the beginning, there was one bright spot in Orlando. More and more, there was a name called over and over, either for registering an assist, a goal, or just creating a dangerous chance. That name: Chioma Ubogagu.

Ubogagu, born in England and raised in Texas, was originally drafted by Sky Blue FC as the 28th overall pick in the 2015 college draft. Ubogagu never made it to New Jersey though, opting to spend the 2015 season with Arsenal instead. It wasn’t until the following year, 2016, that Ubogagu made her NWSL debut, though it was for Houston, not Sky Blue. The Dash had acquired Ubogagu’s rights after her contract with Arsenal ended in late 2015, sending draft picks in both 2016 and 2017 to New Jersey in return. The following January, Houston officially signed her, and Ubogagu played her first NWSL game at the start of the 2016 season.

Ubogagu, who’s also been a part of the U.S. U-20 and U-23 teams, had been fairly productive at Arsenal, scoring seven goals in 21 appearances. In Houston, Ubogagu made 15 appearances, nine of them starts, registering a goal and an assist.

In late January of 2017, Ubogagu was traded to Orlando in exchange for a 2018 draft pick. And with the Pride, Ubogagu’s gone from utility piece to player on a team mired in bad results to a key part of one now looking very much like its headed to the postseason.

More broadly, it’s been Morgan’s return and Marta finding her form in Florida that have elevated the Pride from a bottom-of-the-table team to one firmly in the playoff conversation. But even with two of the game’s biggest names now mainstays on the Pride’s front line, Ubogagu has continued to contribute.

On Saturday, Ubogagu registered a goal and assist in the Pride’s 4-2 win over Boston. Orlando, winners of five straight and unbeaten in six, is now also pretty comfortably in the top four, with five points separating the Pride from fifth place Seattle and just three games to play.

Even when Ubogagu wasn’t on the scoresheet on Saturday, she was still making an impact on the game. Orlando’s first goal, which came from Rachel Hill in the eighth minute, was on a play Ubogagu started. Running onto the end of a ball from Steph Catley on the wing, Ubogagu took a touch to avoid her defender, and then played a give-and-go with Catley, receiving the ball again and sending a low, skipping cross that was deflected by Boston goalkeeper Abby Smith right to Hill.

Hill would score again in the 15th minute, and again, though Ubogagu wasn’t directly involved in the goal, it was work she did earlier in the sequence — this time holding up the ball in the midfield — that made the goal possible. Immediately before that play, Ubogagu almost registered an assist, playing a through ball for Marta that was just a step too far on the very wet grass.

In the 23rd minute, Ubogagu and Hill came close to making it 3-0, with Ubogagu intercepting a bad clearance and dribbling through the Boston defense before playing a ball that rolled across the goalmouth and just inches out of Hill’s reach.

With the score 2-1 after Rosie White got one back for the Breakers, Ubogagu did eventually get on the scoresheet, connecting with Marta in the 67th minute. The assist, a perfect diagonal ball between two Boston defenders, was good for Ubogagu’s second assist of the season.

Ten minutes later, with the Pride now leading 3-1, Ubogagu capped off her night with a goal of her own. Orlando, taking advantage of Boston’s shaky defense, started pressuring the Breakers higher and higher up the field, repeatedly forcing turnovers in dangerous areas. In the 77th minute, it was again a poor clearance from Boston that led to the Orlando goal. Ubogagu was again able to dribble through the Boston defense, wrong-footing Megan Oyster before sending a low shot out of Smith’s reach and into the bottom corner. The goal was Ubogagu’s fourth of the season.

Though Julie King did score for Boston in the game’s dying minutes, the Pride was still able to win comfortably, the final score 4-2.

For Orlando, the win was just one more step towards to the postseason, something that seemed impossible as recently as July and something that’s now very much within reach. That, along with the rookie Hill’s two-goal performance and another contribution from Marta, are perhaps the biggest headlines from Saturday’s win. But from an early-season bright spot in a place that didn’t have many to becoming a key contributor on team that’s one of the league’s best, Ubogagu has continued to shine in Orlando.