Tomorrow the Boys in Purple will take on the defending USL Champions the Rochester Rhinos. The Rhinos haven’t been the same team as last year, but are still a solid team. They currently sit 6th with 35 points, but can finish as high as 4th if they win Saturday.
Rhinos Keys:
The Rhinos defense has not been as solid as last year, but it still does a job. Rochester have 19 goals conceded and their keepers have a 0.86 goals against average. This team is also consistently scoring goals with 26 on the season, but they are a perfect 13 and 13 in each half.
The first key for the Rhinos is to get their number 9 (Christian Volesky) and 10 (Steevan dos Santos) to continue to play like in their roles. These two have been solid all season with 12 goals and 6 assists between them.
The second key is for the defense to remain consistent. Neither of the Rochester goalkeepers have a goal against average over 1.0. That is impressive considering they have played 134 and 9 games respectively.
The final key is play to their strength: defense. Rochester’s highest scoring game on the year is 3 goals against Montreal. The Rhinos win on defense, not offense. We’ve all heard the old adage “offense sells tickets, and defense wins championships” and Rochester is a perfect example.
Louisville City Keys:
Calling Louisville City’s season up to this point a “Jekyll and Hyde” act would be correct. The season started out in great form. City were cruising. Then, our Dirty River rivals took the air out of our balloons. Ever since, it’s not been the LCFC we saw early in the season. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as many teams have slumps and we’ve been getting decent results minus the 2 losses. However, the Harrisburg game hurt our chances of putting our boot on the throat on the baby bulls and spread the lead out.
For Louisville, the key is the offense yet again. The attacking side of the ball is lacking of late. The whole midfield and front line was subbed out in the second half against Harrisburg to try to get something going. This inconsistent form by our midfield is killing our game; we should have put the Islanders and never looked back. James O’Connor needs to find an answer in the midfield quick or risk losing a regular season title. O’Connor is trying to find a solution to a run of bad games. The offense needs to get back to the high octane scoring we had earlier this season if we want to play for the USL championship.
Prediction:
I’m leaning more toward Rochester in this game. Subbing off of the whole midfield shows me we are still searching for that consistency we had earlier in the season. Moreover, the Rochester defense is still solid again this year and LCFC has had a difficult time playing against it. However, if the midfield comes out and immediately takes control, I see LCFC taking the win if they finish the ball. We will just have to see what LCFC teams shows up!
COME ON CITY SCORE A GOAL!!!
