Utah Royals turn page on bizarre loss with North Carolina looming

HERRIMAN — The Utah Royals didn’t spend much time dissecting Sunday’s loss to Angel City.

In fact, they didn’t spend any.

“The game’s done. We didn’t review the game,” head coach Jimmy Coenraets said. “We didn’t do any analysis of the 10 minutes we were 11 against 11.”

There wasn’t much normal soccer to analyze after that.

Utah lost Paige Cronin and Ana Tejada to red cards in the opening 24 minutes and played nearly 70 minutes with nine players in a 3-0 loss. Coenraets said the useful takeaways were limited to what his team could still control after the dismissals.

“It was effort, it was intensity and just wanting to do something, and I think that’s what we’ve shown,” Coenraets said. “When you get a few touches in the box in the 83rd minute, I think you show that you were still wanting something out of that game. I think that’s a piece you take home. Besides that, it was not a lot to take home from it.”

Defender Kate Del Fava said the unusual loss hasn’t shaken the Royals’ belief in one another as they try to secure their place in the NWSL playoffs.

“We’re a unit, we’re a team, and there’s no blame put on anybody,” Del Fava said. “We’re gonna bounce back and show up against North Carolina and be a unified group.”

The stakes are significant Sunday at America First Field.

Utah enters the weekend fourth in the NWSL with 42 points, level with fifth-place Portland. North Carolina sits seventh with 39 points, meaning the Courage can pull level with the Royals with a win while Utah has an opportunity to create a six-point cushion between the teams with four regular-season matches remaining.

A familiar opponent, a different challenge

Utah produced the highest-scoring match in club history in a 4-1 road victory over the Courage on July 25, with three goals coming from set pieces and another from the penalty spot.

Nuria Rábano assisted the first two, delivering a corner for Del Fava’s opening header before providing the service that eventually found Tatumn Milazzo for Utah’s second. Cloé Lacasse later supplied Mina Tanaka from another set piece before converting a stoppage-time penalty herself.

“North Carolina’s not different than another team when it comes to set play,” Coenraets said. “It’s just executing your roles and making sure all the small details are done well.”

Del Fava was more direct about their importance.

“Set pieces are always something we focus on,” she said. “It’s definitely a priority for this team and a key piece of how we score goals a lot of the time.”

Utah has also spent the week working on its buildup and creating opportunities from open play, something it had little chance to demonstrate while playing two players down against Angel City.

North Carolina, meanwhile, has lost three of its last four matches but boasts the most productive attack in the NWSL. The Courage have scored a league-high 48 goals this season, including 12 over their last five matches and six in a shutout win at Chicago.

And nobody has been more dangerous than Ashley Sanchez.

Sanchez leads the NWSL with 19 goals, one shy of Temwa Chawinga’s single-season record of 20, set with Kansas City in 2024. Sanchez entered the league in 2020 and scored 19 regular-season goals over her first six seasons combined before matching that total in 2026 alone.

She thought she’d scored her 20th goal in North Carolina’s match last Saturday against Gotham FC, but it was chalked off following a VAR review for offsides by a teammate in the buildup.

Coenraets said containing her requires the type of specialized approach Utah uses for some of the league’s most dangerous attackers.

“She’s getting very close to the category of Banda, of Chawinga, players that you know you have to do something slightly different for them to not be successful in the game,” Coenraets said.

Containing Sanchez means more than just defending her when she has the ball.

“We know very well how they try to get to Ashley Sanchez,” Coenraets said. “How do we cut off the delivery and the supply to that player? And then, two, how do we deal with the player herself?”

A question of consistency

Sunday’s matchup also provides an unusual connection to the two red cards that effectively ended Utah’s chances against Angel City.

Coenraets accepted both dismissals after the match, including Tejada’s red for pulling Ary Borges’ hair, but questioned whether similar incidents were being handled consistently around the league.

One day earlier, North Carolina defender Feli Rauch appeared to pull Gotham forward Jordynn Dudley’s hair during the Courage’s 2-1 loss. The incident occurred in the 53rd minute and was reviewed by VAR, but the referee was not sent to the monitor and no red card was issued.

“If today this was a red card, then yesterday was a red card twice,” Coenraets said following Utah’s loss, “and that needs to be looked at.”

Coenraets was referring to two separate incidents involving Dudley during the North Carolina-Gotham match, one involving Rauch and another involving Dani Weatherholt later in the second half.

For Utah, however, the focus this week hasn’t been on relitigating what happened against Angel City.

“Just win the day today and then move forward,” Del Fava said, “and then hopefully three points on the weekend.”

How to watch

Who: North Carolina Courage at Utah Royals
Where: America First Field, Sandy
When: Sunday, Sept. 27, 5:00 p.m. MT
TV/Streaming: The Roku Channel

Listen: KSL Radio (102.7 FM / 1160 AM)