WHO: Ottawa Fury, 2W-1D-1L, 7 points, 12th place Eastern Conference
WHAT: A regular season USL Championship (The Pinnacle of Competition) match
WHEN: Saturday, April 20, 2019, 7:00 post-meridian, eastern daylight time
WHERE: The old railyards at 401 E. Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202
WATCH: At the game is obviously preferable. Weather, schmeather. Be there. But if you can’t because you’re busy washing your hair, you can still watch on WBKI-58, listen on 790 WKRD, and stream it 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?
Look, it’s hard to tell much about Ottawa. They’ve only played four games. They drew at Charleston, beat Birmingham 0-1, got crushed at home by Nashville, and beat Loudoun. It’s hard to look at that schedule and those results and say “something definitive about Ottawa Fury.” They’ve scored four goals and surrendered four goals, three of them to Nashville. They’ve got a pair of clean sheets. They’ve only managed 35 shots across four games, which isn’t a lot, but they also have the ball 55% of the time.
Callum Irving, a former University of Kentucky goalkeeper, is pretty solid. Kevin Oliveira is a dangerous attacker. Wal Fall has been a thorn in Louisville City’s side every time they’ve ever matched wits. Nico Popovic is a pretty good coach.
Ottawa’s been playing a 4-3-3, but don’t be surprised to see them trying to play compact and muck up the midfield in this game. City is going to have to be patient and capitalize on scoring opportunities, because the Fury aren’t particularly generous with those.
At this point in the season, our Morados can’t afford to take any opponent for granted, much less a largely unknown quantity like Ottawa. I expect we’ll see a pretty similar lineup to what we saw last week against Tampa. That’s mainly because the bench is getting shorter all the time. We might see Sunny Jane play on the wing opposite McCabe, otherwise I get the feeling it’s gonna be the same look. Then again, I’m often wrong.
Let’s go get three points. VAMOS MORADOS!
