WHO:
Long Island Rough Riders
WHAT:
A Second Round U.S. Open Cup match
WHEN:
TODAY, JUNIOR. 7:00 p.m.
WHERE:
Lynn Stadium, 339 Byrne Avenue, Louisville, KY 40209
WATCH:
With your eyeballs. I think tickets are still on sale, which is a little nuts – go buy some! As far as I know, there isn’t a sanctioned broadcast of the game. Watch out on Twitter, though, as there are always some enterprising souls with a Periscope account and a healthy disregard for U.S. copyright laws willing to bring us short, shaky, but much appreciated internet streams of the game.
MARCH:
The Tailgaters are setting up in the Bronze Lot at Cardinal Stadium with an assortment of ground meats in tube form (hotdogs and bratwurst) a few hours before the game. The lot opens at 2:00, so you should go if you’re looking to knock off work suuuuper early. The march to the match will happen around 6:30. We’ll be set up in the east, triangle end of the stadium, and Scouse will be on the west. Join us!
WHO, AGAIN?
The Long Island Novelty Prophylactics. I can’t find a good way to wedge a DMX joke in here but here’s a link to the Ruff Ryders Anthem because there should be one.
The soccer team, though, is a PDL team playing in Mid-Atlantic Division of that league’s Eastern Conference. The Rough Riders have been around since 1994, starting off as an indoor team and then playing in the old A-League for a while before self-relegating down to PDL around the time the ASL En-Ay split happened. Some players from that era include Chris Armas, Tony Meola, and Gio Savarese. Not a bad list. My favorite one is O’Neil Peart, a Jamaican whose parents had either an incredible sense of humor or delusions of percussive grandeur, either of which I’m 100% on board for.
LIRR is actually a complete club, with a complete youth development program and rec setup starting at age two. They also field a women’s team in the United Women’s Soccer League, which is very cool. These days, they’re playing PDL ball as an affiliate for NYCFC, and are rumored to be a USL D3 club going into 2019. Their active roster is ??? but it’s very, very lengthy, with a lot of names on it. Granted, you can have as many players as you want when you don’t have to pay them anything, but that isn’t making me any less jealous.
These guys are all trying to get looks at a very good MLS club, and New York is not NOT known for being a talent-rich soccer metropolis. They beat the Red Bulls 3-1 in their opening league match last week, won a crazy 6-3 game in their first round match against Kingston Stockade, and former Kentucky Wildcat Noah Hutchins plays for them. What I’m trying to say is this won’t be a walk in the park for Louisville City. Of course, if City plays their game, they should win. Let’s just try not to get anyone else hurt out there, mmmkay?
