Upon This Rock I Will Build My… Soccer Team?

The Boston Legacy, first impressions, and its first player

(via @bostonlegacyfc.com)

When the new NWSL team in Boston first introduced itself, it was in a different, much stranger, form: BOS NATION FC was the name, and the initial campaign was certainly a thing that happened in women’s soccer history.

“It’s been a learning process and we had a hiccup when we launched the first pieces of our brand, as you know and everyone else knows,” owner and controlling manager Jennifer Epstein

Since that first pitch whiff, Boston have hit nearly a perfect 1.000, starting with a sweeping rebrand and clean crest.

Loook (via The Athletic)

Then on the football operations and coaching side, Boston welcomed Domènec Guasch, former Barcelona Head of Management of Women’s Football, as General Manager and 5 time league title winner at Benfica, Filippa Patão, as head coach. With this rebuilt, firmer foundation, the Boston Legacy have gotten to work, putting together an intriguing cast of players, the first one being today’s subject.

Being the Boston Legacy’s first ever player puts Annie Karich in the club’s history books regardless of what else ends up being written there, but she certainly has the résumé of a player ready to make her entry worthwhile.

“sign the contract big boyyyyy” (via @bostonlegacyfc.com)

The 22 year old Karich, from Surfside, California— who represented the United States in the 2022 U20 World Cup, and has worn the red, white and blue at U15, U17, U20, and U23 levels — had an impressive pair of seasons at Santa Clara, following in the footsteps of her parents who both spent their college careers representing the Broncos. Karich began hers as 2022 West Coast Conference Freshman of the Year, making the All-Freshman team, as well as being First Team All-WCC. She capped things off in 2023 by earning another First Team All-WCC selection and winning WCC Defender of the Year.

(Don Jedlovec, Santa Clara Athletics)

2023 was also the year she made the long journey from the West Coast Conference to Frauen-Bundesliga, signing for SC Feiburg. She spent the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons there, making 36 appearances in total before signing for the Legacy and going on loan to Club América in Mexico for the 2025 Apertura.

(@AmericaFemenil)

She logged 22 starts as América went to the Gran Final, barely missing out on the title due to a second leg loss to Tigres.

Even though Karich brings a fairly eclectic set of experiences to the table, there is an even larger range of required skills to make her time at the Legacy a success.

Prerequisites

At Karich’s most recent stop in Mexico, she played primarily as a defensive midfielder at the base of what was often a 4 — 4 — 2 diamond, with a few games at center back.

Karich (star) at the base of the diamond midfield with 2 strikers ahead of her and 4 defenders behind her

Karich’s Apertura heatmap (via Sofascore)

She is listed by the Legacy as a midfielder, so the expectation will be that she slots in to a deeper midfield role, which is a very important one.

There are two key facets to a top NWSL defensive midfielder: protecting the back line, and platforming more advanced teammates.

Ground coverage, tracking runners, anticipation, and duel winning are key parts of the first facet, protecting the back line. And to grade well in the second facet, one has to have awareness and composure to pair with consistently clean technique to keep the ball moving. Bonus points are also available for players who can carry, disguise passes, and have the vision and range to consistently play incisive passes of differing angles and distances.

Security Blanket

Annie Karich is a strong and intelligent defender, but there is still much room to grow. She is quite a good reader of offensive intentions, and as a result can step in ahead of time to break up combination plays, through balls, and keep opponents trapped when pressing.

She also uses her anticipation to win challenges, where she is able to cut off opponent ball carrier’s paths and stand her ground.

When this isn’t the case and she has to chase back, she is fairly clean tackling from behind, reaching with good timing to get the ball without going through the player.

Karich tracks runners with a fair amount of diligence, and sticks close to her mark when she defending more man-to-man.

Karich tracks the attacking midfielder her so well that the ball carrier, who was obviously looking for that pass or one to the striker who is also well tracked, just passes it to nobody.

Karich again tracks a run very well, stays in passing lane, gets her interception to stop a dangerous attack.

She also covers for her back line when they are out of position. From inside the back line, her ability to follow attacking moves and pick the right moment to insert herself is also evident.

As a result of her ability to track runners and cover her back line, she has several good moments as a transition defender. Despite being slower to accelerate, over longer distances she can build the necessary head of steam to be at the right place at the right time.

good tracking back! and also you know the match commentators now nice.

(in some of these she is at CB. Yea we cheated, don’t worry about it.)

Since Karich is a slow accelerator and at times heavy-footed, her quickness and reactions are weaker points. So when she is defending, concentration and awareness is required to properly assess the appropriate distances she has to be from opponents to contain them, and where to position herself to win loose balls and intercept passes. In some situations she can get it wrong and cracks appear.

As a 1 on 1 defender these she can struggle to keep up with quicker players and overplay feints and fakes.

okay

overplayed the feint. sad!

The silver lining for her 1 on 1 defending is when she doesn’t rush, misjudge distance, and bite on fakes, she has the patience and physical strength to keep attackers contained, step in when they show their hand, and use her body to separate player from ball.

big emphasis on patience here, but once the attacker made their move to get by, there is Karich to wall them off and clear the danger.

knew where the attacker was going the entire time, stayed focused on it, attacked as soon as the opportunity came. easy work

interesting clip to include because she gets beat, persists, and then again uses her body (and arms) to overpower the attacker, take away that step the attacker has on her, and break the attack up.

In team defensive settings, there are also cracks; she can end up closing down opponents late and indecisively, and not following runners as closely as she needs to in order to prevent opponent progression.

she tries to go where the ball “will be” but is beat to the spot. Maybe gave herself too far of a distance to close.

This opens up opportunities for opponents to play around her.

again not as diligent following Ordonez’s movements as in some of the clips above when tracking runners in front of the back line, leaves a gap for Ordonez to receive and get past both her and the CB.

When she is defending more zonally, this becomes an issue when opponent attackers are floating in and out of her space to try and pull her around. When man-to-man, she can lose her assignment and struggle to recover. Her urgency tracking back can be questionable in these situations.

She kind of is indecisive when it comes to which of the two players in her space to close (striker drops off to create that dilemma), ultimately picks wrong (it worked).

save! but Karich is watching the ball and her mark just slips behind her (more detail in the image below).

Yea

talk about arriving late (America just about did not concede here fun fact)

Karich’s concentration, ability to close down opponents and cover the pitch will certainly be tested at NWSL level. While struggles are inevitable, her ability to read opponent plays should help her as she adjusts, and she should develop her anticipation and sharpness as the season goes along to mitigate for her weaker points.

Pivots are Platforms

Karich has a lot of encouraging habits in possession as a deep lying midfielder. She is able to receive and pass at a good level, and find players in various key areas on the pitch.

Pre-Reception

One of the strengths of Karich’s ability on the ball is her process before the reception. She is attentive to where teammates and defenders are, and scans meticulously.

She scans before she comes over to ask for it, then scans again as she is about to receive

she uses that info when she scans to make a nice getaway and switch. How about that?

She also does well without the ball using the information she gathers from scanning to shift defenders, open up space for her teammates, and set up passing combinations.

off the throw in she keeps moving to be an option, and moves up to be the third player in the second combo play. Intelligent stuff.

Notices she’s in the shadow of the pressing attacker, comes out, and sets up a nice triangle to play out

The Reception

When receiving the ball, Karich is clean and clever. Since she scans beforehand, she knows where defenders are coming from, and can position her body well to protect the ball as it comes.

She is also evasive under pressure and can come up with inventive ways to escape onrushing defenders.

Karich is apparently confident in her ability to receive the ball in most situations. Her confidence, and the actual ability that inspires it, is most visible in moments when she asks for it in tighter traffic and still executes.

The Pass (and occasional moments of “arm arrogance”)

Karich as a passer has good vision and range and can complete passes to several areas of the pitch from her vantage point as a defensive midfielder.

She usually had two more advanced central midfielders ahead of her as well as two strikers at América. Throughout her season, she showed the capability to slip passes into the left and right inside channels, and through the center to find them and advance attacks.

(see we cheated again don’t worry about it the pass is nice)

She also has a good range of pass and completed switches of play and diagonals out to teammates on the wings.

But beyond just pass location, pass execution is important, and there are more than a few notable details regarding Karich’s pass execution:

The first note on the execution of the passes is her attention to pass placement and weight, playing passes that are in running attackers’ paths and placed away from defenders.

The weight and placement of this pass leads the runner away from the defender that is tracking them

The next is her use of body language to disguise where she is passing, a tool she uses fairly often to open up windows to progress the ball.

The final note is on Karich’s “arm arrogance.” In football, arm arrogance is when quarterbacks make riskier throws into tighter windows due to confidence in their ability to pass. In moments Karich has the soccer equivalent, willing to bend passes through defenders and into tighter corridors to break lines.

The willingness to take risks in both football and fútbol, though, also means turnovers.

She is intelligent enough with her decision making to avoid critical turnovers that put her team in position to fail on most occasions.

In an unfortunate twist of fate, though, her most backbreaking turnover, that ultimately lost the Gran Final, was actually a miscommunication on a pass that should’ve been “safe.”

ah man her best through ball some say

But Karich’s execution of pass is of good quality and that bodes well for her future with the Legacy.

Jump Around

As a stout 5’9” player, Karich performed well with both free and contested headers while at Club América.

free header to establish she can jump and make that header

A contested header win +clearance

Contested header against Jenni Hermoso, who is not little. Jenni might’ve got the last touch but it went to an America player so convoluted win.

But she didn’t necessarily parlay that success heading, generally defensive headers in the middle of the pitch, to the box in set piece situations.

Just so You Know…

This is Annie Karich’s radar with her percentile rankings compared to other Liga MX central and defensive midfielders (min. 300 mins played) in each category.

It confirms most of the details already discussed, but a numerical value to tie to some of these aspects described above can help.

Annie Karich has done a lot of the hard part already; She’s gone from Santa Clara to the professional ranks, and proved herself in Germany and Mexico. But as the Legacy prepare to kick off their first season, she will have a lot to prove again.