WHO: Chester Bethlehem Steel, 3W-3D-5L, 12 points, 10th place Eastern Conference
WHAT: A regular season USL Championship match
WHEN: Sunday Funday, March 26, 2019, 2:00 p.m. EDT
WHERE: Talen Energy Stadium, 1 Stadium Drive, Chester, Not Bethlehem, PA 19013
WATCH: There’s a watch party at Falls City Taproom on Liberty Street in NuLu that I highly recommend. Good place to drink beer and watch soccer, plus there’s good outdoor seating. And beer. TV is on WBKI-58, stream on ESPN+ and listen on one of the iHeart AM stations in town (790, 840, or 1080).
WHO, AGAIN? Bethlehem, the team we struggle with during the regular season and then beat in the playoffs. Bethlehem, who don’t even play in Bethlehem anymore. Bethlehem, who let their best player, Santi Moar, go because he wasn’t going to play for their senior Union team, and is now absolutely wrecking shop for New Mexico United out west.
In spite of losing quite a bit of talent last offseason due to top-down management decisions, the Steel are still hanging around the playoff line eleven games into the season. They’ve only won once at Talen Energy Stadium in Chester. They lost to the godawful Charlotte Independence this season. They’re on a three game losing streak. They’re mostly just meh.
Brendan Burke is still a good coach, though, and James Chambers is still trying to murder people with his eyes, so it’s a team worth watching out for.
Maybe. They’ve already given up 20 goals this season, and only have one clean sheet. They’re decent enough in the passing game, but seem to have taken a more direct approach to offense this season and keep the ball less than 50% of the time. It’s been working fairly well, though, as the Steel have scored 16 goals and have a 17.2% conversion rate at the moment, which is very, very high. They don’t generate a ton of shots, less than ten per game, but the shots they get they make use of, with well over a third on target.
Players to watch for on Sunday in navy will be… you know what, I’m not even going to try to spell these guys’ names.
Ngalina and Zachary Zandi are the club’s leading chance creators with 12 apiece, followed closely by the aforementioned Token Angry Irishman James Chambers.
For Louisville City, it’s a roster slowly getting back to where we started. However, Morados are soon to be without the services of Speedy Williams and Shaun Francis. If John Hackworth gets a comfortable lead early in this match, I wouldn’t hate to see some rotation at fullback and central midfield just to figure out what we’ll do in their absence.
Of course, this assumes City get a lead at all, and I don’t want to get ahead of myself. Morados have struggled on the road a bit this season, especially against 2 teams, and shouldn’t take this one lightly at all. But seriously, let’s go get three points.
VAMOS MORADOS.