WHO: Indy Eleven, 5-0-2, 15 points, 1st place Group E
WHAT: A regular season USL Championship Group E match
WHEN: Saturday, August 8, 2020, 8:00 p.m.
WHERE: Lynn Family Stadium, 350 Adams St., Louisville, KY 40206
WATCH:
TV: WBKI/The CW
Radio: 790 WKRD
Stream: WDRB Now/ESPN+
MARCH: It’s COVID, so no
WHO, AGAIN? Indy is top of the group and has the league’s leading goal scorer in Tyler Pasher. They’re just one off the pace for the league lead with 13 goals (LouCity has four), and have taken about 25 more shots than anyone else in the Championship. This is not your traditional low-scoring, conservative Indy Eleven. This also isn’t the LouCity we’re used to, either. It’s not a great combination if you lean purple!
This is going to be a hard game. They’re all hard games, we’re finding out, as St. Louis is improved under new manager Steve Trittschuh and Sporting KC II is much better than originally anticipated. This is a much more difficult group than we might have thought a month ago.
Louisville City finds itself at the bottom of that group through five games with a negative goal difference and four points away from a playoff spot. There are eleven games remaining in the season. While four points is certainly not insurmountable, City’s struggle so far to get any kind of results from its group matches is a concern.
The good news is Morados have had about ten days to figure out what the hell is going on. New signee Jason Johnson has had a couple weeks to blood into the team. Maybe John Hackworth has figured out a way to deal with a numbers disadvantage in midfield, a way to fill in the space between the back line and the midfield block, and a way to get Cam Lancaster the ball at his feet rather than making him fight taller center backs for crosses, the only offense City’s managed in the past four games aside from set plays. I hope that’s what’s happened.
Indy, suddenly an offensive powerhouse, is going to demand strong leadership and communication from LouCity defensively. They’re going to demand a mistake-free performance when Eleven have the ball. That would be a first in 2020.
It’s incredibly frustrating to enter a match like this, or any match, really, feeling like the underdog. That’s not a position LouCity has ever been in aside from US Open Cup games against MLS teams. It’s not something I’m comfortable with, and I have to believe it’s not something anyone at LouCity’s training ground or front office are comfortable with, either. A match like this is going to require a commanding performance from our boys in purple.
So let’s do that. There couldn’t be a better time. VAMOS MORADOS.
