WHO: Birmingham Legion FC, 0-0-2, 0 points, 17th place Eastern Conference
WHAT: A regular season USL Championship match
WHEN: Saturday, March 30, 2019, 7:00 p.m. Anybody else find it odd that almost all of our home games got pushed up a half hour this season? It’s not necessarily a bad thing, just wondering why there’s a difference.
WHERE: Louisville Slugger Field, 401 E. Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202
WATCH: At the match! Tickets are still available! The weather will be FABULOUS! SEE YOU THERE! But if you can’t make it, it’ll be on WBKI-58 on TV, 790 KRD on the radio (probably), and streaming on ESPN+.
MARCH:
PRE-MATCH TAILGATE
Join us and the Lou City Tailgaters for all your pre-match festivity needs! Tailgating typically starts around four (4) hours prior to kickoff but you may find a few die-hards out there earlier. The tailgate is supporter run and supporter funded. We recommend BYOB and food contributions. If you do partake we ask that you contribute to the general fund. The main tailgate is located at the corner of N Preston St and E Witherspoon St in the Riverside Parking Cobalt Lot. The Coopers are joined here by several other SGs, so come say hello to everyone!PRE-MATCH MARCH
About 30-40 minutes prior to kickoff we’ll start the March to the Match. Join us as we march around the tailgate lot, up Preston St, and into the east entrance. Flags will be waving, smoke will be popping, and we’ll be chanting and singing the whole way!
POST-MATCH CELEBRATION
After the match concludes, we have beers at Against the Grain which is conveniently located right outside the Slugger Field gate. Make sure you ask for a pint of the Coopers rotating charity tap! $0.50 from every pour (on home match days) goes to Shirley’s Way, a most excellent local charity helping families of those afflicted with cancer.
WHO, AGAIN? Two weeks in a row Louisville City is facing an expansion side with almost no history or tape to speak of. What there is of Birmingham hasn’t been good. Birmingham started their season with two games at home and failed to score a goal in either one, dropping their opener to Bethlehem 0-2, and the next week losing to Ottawa 0-1.
Legion had a bye last week to try and work things out, picking up a loanee from Columbus Crew, forward Edward Opoku, in the process. They are coached by Tom Soehn and their talisman is hometown kid/man Chandler Hoffman, with whom we’re all familiar. Soehn played in the early days of MLS and has mostly held assistant coaching roles in the top division, his two head stints at DC and Vancouver being mostly anonymous. Birmingham some good pieces, too, including former Revs forward Femi Hollinger-Janzen and former Orlando City centerback Tyler Turner.
Birmingham have attempted to be a possession-oriented team thus far, winning those battles in the two games they’ve played. Their passing stats are quite good, over 70% in the opposing half on the season. The problem has been turning possession into shots, and they’ve only managed six on target over two games. When you look at USL’s website for B-Ham player statistics, it says “no data found,” which is not good.
They’re not too bad defensively, really, only giving up seven shots on frame. Their dribble success rate is high, too, though I’m not sure how meaningful that statistic is.
So, in other words, we’re dealing with a side that hasn’t quite gotten it all together yet playing their first ever road game against the USL Champions at the quirkiest field in the entire league in front of what should be approaching a packed house. Less than ideal for Chandler’s first return here since 2016, I’d say.
From the purple perspective, it’s another week of playing “guess who’s gonna start.” We don’t know anything about the status of Paolo DelPiccolo’s injury, or what kind of shape Shaun Francis, Speedy Williams, or Sunny Jane are in after dealing with a bunch of international flights getting back to Louisville this week.
The good news is City has some depth, the bad news is it’s somewhat lacking at defensive midfielder. I thought Niall McCabe did an admirable playing that role for the first time in his LouCity career last week, but I can’t imagine that’s a long-term solution for John Hackworth. We also don’t necessarily know what kind of lineup we’ll see, either. Legion have deployed a 4-2-3-1 and a 4-4-2 so far. The fullbacks definitely push up the field for them but they don’t seem to try attacking too much from wide areas. I’d be licking my chops if I’m a LouCity wide attacker or wing/fullback.
I won’t try to project a lineup or formation today because I’m persistently taken by surprise since the North Carolina game, and that’s okay. I will predict a hard-fought victory of some magnitude, however.
VAMOS MORADOS! VAMOS A GANAR!
