Accept and embrace failure.

That was North Carolina Courage Head Coach Sean Nahas’ unconventional pregame message to his team ahead of Saturday’s match against then-undefeated Kansas City Current.

“We’ve had failure, but those moments allow us to have the moments we had tonight,” the fifth-year head coach said postgame.

Nahas hasn’t been shy in recent weeks about the team-building process. It takes time, especially with a young roster, new pieces, and an intricate style of play. The coaching staff threw an extra wrinkle into the mix with a formation change late in the week, but a willingness to accept the possibility of failure, and thus take more risks, helped the Courage claim their first win of the season in thrilling fashion.

The Courage switched to a 3-4-3, allowing Ryan Williams and Feli Rauch more attacking freedom in the wide areas, while opening up Jaedyn Shaw, Ashley Sanchez, and Manaka Matsukubo to all operate in their preferred central spaces. The shape puts the Courage’s most dangerous players in spots that best suit their talents.

“We just didn’t have players in their best spots, so we weren’t able to utilize their qualities. We felt we had to flip it. We still wanted to keep our structure and have the same principals, nothing changed there, but this put players in spots where they can utilize their strengths and qualities,” Nahas said.

The team had good training sessions leading into the match but had limited time to get comfortable in the new formation. Nahas said the team only got one full training session with the new look, which may have contributed to a slow start that saw the Courage trail, 1-0, at half.

“I think that was part of the hesitation in the first half. The second half, they just let loose. It was pretty cool to see,” Nahas said.

The idea of embracing failure was reiterated in the halftime talk, and it clearly resonated. Williams scored her first professional goal and assisted Ashley Sanchez’s match winner. Nahas said Williams was more reserved in the first half, dropping back to get on the ball rather than making forward runs. And Williams’ credits the affirmation at the break for opening things up.

“Sean said, ‘Don’t be afraid to take risks. We have to go. We are down a goal. We have nothing to lose.’ We took that into the second half, we were much more willing to go forward,” Williams said.

The substitutes brought crucial energy off the bench to help energize the players going the full 90’. Nahas credited Tyler Lussi, Hannah Betfort, Shinomi Koyama, and Brianna Pinto each for their role to play in that.

“Their energy lifted the spirits of the group. It gave us a second wind,” Nahas said.

While Nahas wouldn’t commit to the system going forward, keeping his tactics board close to his chest as he always does, he admitted, “any time you get a result, it’s hard to make changes.”

The Courage are on the road this week, facing off against the Utah Royals on Saturday, May 3. The match will be broadcast live on ION.