WHO: Pittsburgh Riverhounds 7-6-4, 25 points, 5th in the Eastern Conference

WHAT: Louisville City’s first league road match since a 2-0 loss to Rochester about a month ago.

WHEN: Saturday, July 18, 2015, 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: Highmark Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA

WATCH: With us, down at Against the Grain! Make new friends! Drink better beers! Yell obscenities (within reason) without a whole lot of stink-eye in return! But if you can’t make it for some really serious reason, you cant watch the YouTube broadcast here:

WHO, AGAIN?: I’ve already made plenty of jokes about the Hounds’s name, their ClipArt logo and typeface, their flirtation with debtor’s prison, their carpet-covered field, and the fact that their uniforms haven’t changed since 2001. I think that if your home kit is gonna be a sporty take on Bananas in Pajamas, you probably also have a duty to knock on every door in a mile and a half radius to tell your neighbors that’s what you’re about.

Pittsburgh actually has a pretty dangerous team, though, as City found out in its last trip to the Three Rivers. The Hounds are second in the league in goals, goals per game, and assists. They have played three games this season where they’ve scored five or more goals. Their style against Louisville in the first part of this matchup was fairly direct, but the Riverhounds obviously have a knack for delivering that killer (bounce) pass to set up a goal. Pittsburgh lives and dies by the same sword, giving up 28 goals on the season, close to the bottom of the league. Always dangerous for the Hounds are Englishmen Rob Vincent and Kevin Kerr, known by some as the “Best English Midfield Pairing since Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard in the MLS All-Star Game Sponsored by AT&T™.” Kerr and Vincent have 19 goals and 10 assists between them. Danny Earls occasionally tries to get into the action, but is also fond of the yellow card, picking up six in fifteen matches. Keeper has been a bit of a revolving door for them, which is weird because Matt Lampson, who nearly shut out City in the last game against Charlotte, was a one game starter for Pittsburgh.

The Hounds have only played one team that you’d call quality over its last five games, and lost that game to Richmond. Their most recent match was a 2-4 loss to sudden goal-scoring monster FC Montreal, whose recent habit is to either score four goals or zero goals.

STATISTICAL COMPARISONS OF DUBIOUS VALIDITY:

WILL WE WIN? Hard to say. Pittsburgh plays well at home, mainly because they’re the only ones who know how to play on that rubber mat they call a pitch. And they’re pretty good. If the LC defense holds up, City might squeak out a win, but I’m inclined to say a point is a good result in Steel City.