Legacy get a victory in Foxborough finale

FOXBOROUGH — A pair of NWSL bottom-feeders long eliminated from the playoffs, Boston Legacy FC and Racing Louisville played Friday night with just pride on the line — and a chance to consider the future of their clubs.

Boston’s final home match of the inaugural season gave Legacy general manager Domè Guasch another opportunity to consider what the roster needs as an offseason full of contract decisions nears.

It allowed the team to work toward defensive consistency, a goal coach Filipa Patão said this week she thinks the players can make some headway on over the final three games of the season.

And it gave team brass a chance to thank the club’s loyal fans as the executives focus on driving fan engagement and building infrastructure that will allow the Legacy to be a staple of the Boston sports culture for generations.

So while it looked on paper like Boston had little to play for in a 2-1 win over Louisville Friday night at Gillette Stadium, the club would say otherwise.

“They are working together [for] more and more time, and this makes a difference,” Patão said. “That was what I said since the first day. We need time. When we start to have time, we will start to see . . . the players performing better and better because now they understand each other and they understand the collective game that we want to play.”

Amanda Gutierres scored in the ninth minute, and defender Deja Davis netted the go-ahead goal — her first in the NWSL — in the 51st, heading home a cross from Sarah Schupansky to help the Legacy (9-14-5, 32 points) close out their home slate with a win in front of 13,892 fans.

To set up Gutierres’s opening goal, Alba Caño sent a knuckleball into the corner for Bianca St-Georges, who crossed into the box. Gutierres rose up with her left leg outstretched in front of a Louisville defender and redirected it with her instep into the low corner of the net for an early lead.

It was the 10th goal of the season for Guttieres, who has been a star off the bench lately. And while she got the start Friday, her first since Aug. 22, she had to wait through an hourlong weather delay before hitting the field — a feeling not unlike coming off the bench in the second half.

A defensive error 13 minutes later handed Louisville (7-18-3, 24 points) the equalizer.

When Laís Araújo played what looked like a routine ball back to Laurel Ivory, the Legacy’s second-string goalkeeper mishandled the ball and sent it right to the feet of Racing forward Kayla Fischer for an easy finish.

A fifth-year NWSL veteran, Ivory was making just her third start of the season after Casey Murphy, the regular starter, was added to the season-ending injury/illness list with a partial tear of the posterior cruciate ligament in her right knee.

Ivory nearly conceded a similar goal in the opening minutes of the game when Davis sent a dangerous pass back, but the keeper got a foot on it just as it reached the front of the goal line to keep it out.

Those lapses are pieces of the defensive consistency Patão is hoping her squad can clean up before next season. With two games remaining on their schedule, the Legacy will have plenty of offseason work ahead of them.

“Now we are getting to the place that we want,” Patão said. “[We were] consistent defensively, we had a lot of possession that allowed us to create more chances and be more patient. . . . It makes a lot of difference inside the game and for the things that we want for the future.”