WHO: San Diego Loyal, 0-0-3, 0 points, 7th place Pacific Division, Western Conference

WHAT: A regular season USL Championship match

WHEN: Saturday, May 22, 2021, 7:30 p.m. EDT

WHERE: Lynn Family Stadium

WATCH:

• For Starting XI and in-game updates, follow @loucityfc on Twitter and Louisville City FC on Facebook. Also find us at louisvillecityfc on Instagram. Live stats can be found at LouCity.com/match-center.

• On the WBKI-TV (The CW)/ESPN+ streaming call: Mike Watts (play by play) and Lloyd Sam (color).

• And for ESPN 680/105.7 on the radio: Jeff Greer and Casey Whitfield.

MARCH: The Coopers (and many others) appear to have taken to pregaming over at Ten20 Brewing Co., which you should definitely check out. The Tailgaters have apparently taken over the Gold Lot, so join up with them if that’s your scene. Outside of that, the world’s your oyster. Hogfather’s, Big Al’s, Mellwood Tavern, they’re all great. Eat up, enjoy a beverage, and get ready to DOMINATE THE STANDS.

WHO, AGAIN? This season is San Diego’s second. I can’t imagine trying to play your inaugural season under the cloud of the worst global pandemic in a century is easy, but Loyal, to their credit, ended up doing quite well in 2020. Loyal vey nearly made the playoffs last year, but ran out of games and abandoned a couple of matches due in protest due to a homophobic slur directed at Loyal defender Colin Martin by Junior Flemmings while he was still with Phoenix Rising in the last match of the regular season, and another abandoned match the week prior when LA Galaxy II’s Omar Ontiveros said some racist slur to Elijah Martin during the game. Ridiculous behavior, and Landon Donovan’s decisions for both matches was the right one, even if it meant missing the playoffs.

This season, people had high expectations for San Diego, but thus far they’ve been sorely short. Phoenix pasted Loyal 4-1 in the season opener, RGV beat them 1-0, and then last week Tacoma Defiance beat them 3-1. Loyal’s first four matches of 2021 are on the road, the one on Saturday being the end of that span. Let’s keep a bad thing going, then, shall we?

San Diego shoots, a LOT, just not very well. They’re a high-possession team. Particularly against Phoenix, Loyal had all of the ball and still got crushed. It seems as though they want the ball and do a good job keeping it, but can’t do much else.

We Louisville City fans have watched our boys in purple suffer through similar spells, but let’s hope Danny Cruz has the team primed and ready to break through the scoring doldrums early and put another half dozen on Landon Donovan’s charges before they fly back to southern California. Cruz will have his work cut out for him, unfortunately, as he’ll be missing Bryan Ownby due to suspension, and Oscar, Abdou, Jorge Gonzales, and Elijah Wynder due to injury. He did add veteran USL striker Kyle Grieg to the squad on Thursday, which is good. But a new toy doesn’t always perform in these circumstances. Then again, maybe it will!

Guys to watch on San Diego include former LouCity player Charlie Adams, former IU goalkeeper Trey Muse, former Riverhounds defender Thomas Vancayezeele, and former Real Monarchs midfielder and captain Jack Blake. Given the personnel, it’s a little surprising San Diego’s had the rocky start to their season that they’ve had. But let’s keep it going for now; they’ve got the rest of their season to right the ship.

VAMOS MORADOS!