Well, that was much better. After all the (justified) moaning and gnashing of teeth after last week’s debacle in Kansas City, Morados came out with a new lineup and a slightly different setup and efficiently put Birmingham Legion to the sword on yet another rainy night.
I honestly don’t think Birmingham is a bad team. They’ve got some good pieces. Daniel Johnson gave LouCity problems all night, and only a very, very good goalkeeping performance from Ben Lundt preserved his clean sheet as Chandler Hoffman made the most of his two good scoring chances. Legion are pretty bad defensively, though, as they were forced to start Femi Hollinger-Janzen at centerback in the second half. Femi is a forward and has no business playing CB. Frankly, it’s surprising City didn’t score more than one goal, as he had several gaffes back there.
While I’m still not necessarily convinced Louisville City’s ship is completely righted, the team absolutely looked much more comfortable in most phases of the game with Luke Spencer back in the starting lineup. Also getting his first starting nod in a while was Alexis Souahy, and Napo Matsoso got his first ever start and full 90 for Morados. Both new(ish) introductions to the starting XI, plus Cuatro, paid pretty handsomely for John Hackworth in my book.
While the new-look purple XI was missing Sean Totsch as cover for the centerbacks, Matsoso and Speedy Williams were basically deployed as number eights tasked with occupying the space between the defensive four and linking with the offensive diamond in front of them. I’d say they did pretty well. Williams put on the sort of master class in short passing and possession that we’ve seen from him so often in seasons past. Napo, aside from struggling a bit with some physical play, was generally a pest for Birmingham to deal with. The only reason City’s defense was ever endangered through the whole match was when Daniel Johnson went on a couple tears through the middle of the park, but Paco typically dealt with him in some fashion or another.
I’m five paragraphs in and am just now mentioning MAG RAM’s rocket to open the scoring. Under John Hackworth, Louisville City’s MO is to try and score early to force the opposition to open up and try to equalize, which generally just works like quicksand: the harder you try to get out of the hole, the deeper in it you get. That plan finally worked to near perfection against Birmingham for the first time all season. Maggie’s seventh-minute ballistic missile to the top of the back post set the stage for the rest of the match. The early tally helped Oscar and Franno find so much joy going up the wings at a cut-open Legion defense, which we already mentioned is pretty bad.
Let’s talk numbers. Louisville City yet again enjoyed the bulk of possession, though it wasn’t quite as lopsided as you might think, 54-46 (was my number). Duels were just about even between the two sides, though City did win nearly 60% of the aerial battles. Again, probably down to bad defense by the Hammers. City also only sent in eleven crosses all night, which speaks to the fact that City was able to compete for and hold the ball much better in the middle of the park on attacks than usual. One interesting statistic that I’ve noticed this season is how few corners City takes these days. It wasn’t so long ago that we were all bemoaning literally everything how poor our corner conversion rate was. Granted, it’s still bad, but we aren’t taking twenty a game anymore so no one really notices.
While most of the aggregate numbers in this game don’t belie the scoreline, the shooting numbers underline them. City had ten shots in the game, though just one in the second half, and five of them were on frame. 50% is good. Legion had just eight shots, two on target. The Kobayashi shot that hit the post was probably unfortunate for them, but other than that one and Chandler’s top corner attempt in the first half, Legion rarely gave Lundt much to do.
Louisville City had over 400 passes in this match. Normally, defenders like Paco and Alexis will have somewhere near 60 of those passes each, but in this match, they only had 80 between the two of them. Their combined accuracy wasn’t as good as we’re used to, but it didn’t cause any real problems, thankfully. Alexis seven of his eight duels, and was six of seven in the air as he was largely tasked with handling the much smaller Chandler Hoffman. The Frenchman also had a shot on target. Neither of the centerbacks committed a single foul in the game. So boring!
Duncan’s match recap gave Franno his Man of the Match, and it’s hard to argue against him. Neither Fight Club nor Oscar had great games passing, but Francis had his opposite number on skates for much of the match and won eight of thirteen duels and five successful tackles to go with his two chances created and assist on Lucky’s goal. Oscar had an assist of his own on Rasmussen’s afore-mentioned rocket, to go with three chances created.
Napo and Speedy had a performance in central midfield that I would argue City’s been missing ever since Paolo delPiccolo went out injured. The midfield duo both passed for over 86%, and over 75% in Legion’s half. Napo went 50% in his 16 duels, which is a lot, and not bad at all for your first start as a pro at holding midfielder when you’re barely 5’6″ and 140 lbs. The former Kentucky Wildcat also had four tackles and three interceptions.
Magnus was also busy at the number ten spot, completing 75% of his 32 passes, and nearly 79% in the opposing half. He won ten of 21 duels, again, a lot, and scored the opener. He didn’t do a whole lot else statistically in the match, but did register three tackles and generally frustrated Birmingham’s defense. Cuatro is almost back to 100% and had a great passing game to prove it, going over 80% and winning five of eleven duels. Lucky didn’t pass the ball particularly well, but also didn’t have a lot of touches. He put himself in good spots and picked up a goal for his trouble.
Spencer went eight for 15 in duels, won all five aerial balls he contested, had a goal, and created two chances. He generally made the Birmingham defense’s lives miserable all match. So glad he’s back.
This was a good “get right” game, and on the road, to boot. City finally put their opponents on their heels early, converted their easy chances, and really did a great job defending front to back. More of that, please. Next up is the Open Cup.
