WHO: Bethlehem Steel FC, 2-2-1, 7 points, 9th place Eastern Conference
WHAT: Louisville City’s third USL match in eight days, with one more coming midweek against Torontwo.
WHEN: TODAY! Sunday, May 1, 2016, 3:00 p.m. EDT
WHERE: Goodman Stadium, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
WATCH: This one’s back on YouTube (whew!) so everyone can watch it at home. Assuming you have no friends, of course. But if you want to watch the game with your friends, then you should watch it with the Coopers at Against the Grain at Slugger Field! They’re selling Ball Control to us! It’s pretty good stuff. We’ll see you there. Unless, again, you have no friends, in which case you can watch the game here:
WHO, AGAIN? Here’s our preseason preview of the Steel, and here’s Taylor Hamblin’s match preview from yesterday. EDUCATE YOURSELVES ACCORDINGLY! So the Steel aren’t terrible, they just aren’t very good. They’ve scored four goals on the season and given up seven. If Cincinnati can beat them at home, so can Louisville. I expect to see some more squad rotation just based on the compression of games over a ten or twelve day stand, so it’s not going to be the machine we might hope for, but I think JO’C will have the guys ready to go. Keep in mind that Scotty’s on a red card, so Greg Ranjitsingh and his man-bun will get his first ever start in a league match for the Kings of the Dirty River. Let’s just, um, avoid giving up an early goal for like the fifth game in a row and everything should be fine.
STATISTICAL COMPARISONS OF DUBIOUS VALIDITY: Louisville City has almost as many shots on goal through six games (30) as Bethlehem Steel have shots (39) through five games.
AIRTIGHT PREDICTIONS: I’d love to see a clean sheet but Team Purple seems to give up two goals a game these days. Let’s try and limit that to 1 today, score 2, and get the hell out of there with three points.
COME ON, CITY!