WHO:
North Carolina FC, 4-2-7, 14 points, 13th place Eastern Conference
WHAT:
A regular season USL match
WHEN:
Saturday, June 23, 2018, 7:00 p.m.
WHERE:
WakeMed Soccer Park, 201 Soccer Park Drive, Cary, NC 27511
WATCH:
This is a trip I’d like to make one day because I hear the Raleigh area is nice, I have some friends down there, and WakeMed is supposedly a really nice place for soccer. Saturday, however, is not that day.
TV: WBNA 21 RADIO: 1080 KJK STREAM: ESPN+
No official watch party this week, but you’re bound to find some fellow City fans catching the game at Against the Grain, Saints, Falls City Taphouse, or Hometown Pizza on Preston.
WHO, AGAIN?
North Carolina. Louisville City’s first date with the former RailHawks got cancelled due to some pretty bad weather back in March. At the time, I’d lamented the cancellation because NCFC was blooding in new players, wouldn’t be particularly sharp, and City might not get a better chance to take advantage of that. Now, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have mattered, because North Carolina is bad.
As you may recall, this season marks North Carolina’s return to the USL after leaving for the NASL, only for that league to shutter once again last winter. They’re led by manager Colin Clarke, whom their fans really want to see fired as soon as possible. I’m not making that up. Carolina has scored 18 goals and surrendered 18 goals this season. They have four wins in thirteen games. They’ve kept a clean sheet just four times.
Daniel Ríos, on loan from CD Guadalajara, leads the Failhawks in scoring with six goals on the season. He’s also the team’s leading chance creator, with 19. Kyle Bekker is an MLS veteran and another consistent chance creator in the midfield for North Carolina, as is Steven Miller, who you should boo just because of his name at this point. Austin Da Luz has been with NCFC for a long time, and is a fixture in their lineup again this season.
NCFC don’t necessarily play ugly soccer, they just can’t put a game together. North Carolina passes the ball pretty well, and does a pretty decent job converting their shots on goal into goals at a clip of 14.5%. That may not sound very good, but Louisville City’s conversion rate is around 12% if that tells you anything. Interestingly, all but one of NCFC’s goals have been scored inside the box, mostly from the right foot. They haven’t scored one set piece goal all season, which is wild.
All that said, just because North Carolina isn’t good doesn’t mean Louisville City can’t drop points to them. Just look at the last two league results, draws against Bethlehem and Penn. Morados need to pick up some points or they risk sliding down the league table. City will probably have some fairly tired legs going into this game thanks to the Open Cup. Richard Ballard and Luke Spencer are out, and Cameron Lancaster is questionable with a partially attached left arm. I hope to see a lot more of Shaun Francis on Saturday, partially to spell some other guys in the midfield that desperately need it, and partially because if he can get going, he can truly be unstoppable when Louisville City has the ball.
Let’s go get three points. VAMOS MORADOS, VAMOS A GANAR!
