That was one of the more insane soccer games you’re ever going to see, boys and girls. Eleven goals. Three from the visitors to start, and then a damn bonanza from the home side. Given the atmosphere at what was probably the last ever match at Slugger Field, I don’t think Louisville City could have asked for a better sendoff for to their home for the last five seasons.
Thanks to this being the third match in eight days for his team, plus international duty and Paco Craig’s dubious award for Most Yellow Cards Evar, John Hackworth had to get creative with the roster for this match. Alexis Souahy and Taylor Peay started at center back, the first ever pairing between those two. I think. Oscar returned to his left back spot, while Akil Watts filled in on the right. Paolo DelPiccolo picked up his second start in four days and was flanked by Napo Matsoso and Magnus Rasmussen, while Brian Ownby started up top next to Antoine Hoppenot and Niall McCabe.
The lineup tweet had guys a couple guys switched, and I’m not sure I buy anyone else’s description of the formation, either. That’s especially because things got moved around pretty quickly after about the first half hour when City found themselves down by three goals to the worst team in the league. Formations don’t really matter anyway.
City’s makeshift back line got shredded early and often in the opening half hour. Granted, Ze Pedro’s opener was more of an own goal by Hubbard than anything the SPR man did, but it was a sign of things to come early on. Swope had seven shots in the first 33 minutes and three of them went in, while LouCity was held to just four attempts and only one on target in the same time frame.
Taylor Peay went out in the 32′, and, because there weren’t any other available center backs in the 18, Luke Spencer came on. That caused Akil Watts to move over to center back, where I’m not sure he’s ever played, and pulled Niall McCabe from his left attacking spot back to basically right back. Brian Ownby moved over to take over Niall’s spot.
City was only down 0-2 at that point, but Swope Park was quick to take advantage of the assuredly awkward defensive lineup from Morados and put one more goal home before the tide changed.
Ethan Vanacore-Decker’s goal to make it 0-3 came at 33:50 into the match. Less than ten minutes later, the game was tied 3-3. City took seven shots from the 35′ to the 55′ and scored four of them. Napo started things out to make it 1-3 at 35:28 when he converted on a play he and Hoppenot have combined for a few times now, a first-time shot on a cutback ball at about the top of the D. Alexis kind of awkwardly converted really poorly defended free kick less than five minutes later to make it 2-3, and Antoine Hoppenot finally got City back on level terms when he coolly finished a fabulous Brian Ownby through ball less than two minutes after that. Ownby himself perhaps should have scored to put City up going into the break, but it was easy to see that Morados weren’t done scoring on the night.
They weren’t. Ownby notched just his second goal of the season less than ten minutes into the second half, and the rest of the game City was scoring just for fun. Magnus got his brace, Richard Ballard did what he does and scored in his first appearance in forever, and then Cuatro subbed on and scored five minutes later.
It was nuts. Swope Park have some decent players, Gianluca Busio being one of them, but they were an absolute train wreck defensively. The final shot tally on the night was 15-11, and Morados had nine on target. Swope had seven, to be fair, as City’s defense wasn’t exactly a brick wall in the back, either. The good news was the midfield really picked up once Spencer subbed on so the back line didn’t have quite as much to do as they did in the opening 30′.
LouCity completed 79.7% of their 538 passes, 71.7% in SPR’s half. They had almost 60% of the possession. They won nearly 60% of their duels, a very good number, and 75% in the air. They won 87% of their tackles, which has to be a season high.
Alexis won every duel he challenged for. 100%. He also passed pretty well and created a couple of chances in addition to his goal and assist on Magnus’s second. Watts didn’t fare quite as well but it’s a credit that things didn’t go from bad to much worse when he slid over to play center back after Peay went off.
Niall did what he does, which is “whatever the coach asks.” He created three chances even after moving over to the right behind Hoppenot, had two assists, plus two tackles and two interceptions. What a player.
Oscar wasn’t quite as productive but he had his hands full defensively as Swope tried to run their entire offense through his side. Napo completed 93.3% of his 45 passes, had a goal, won 12 of 14 duels, won three fouls, and had seven tackles. Another whale of a performance from the smallest guy on the team.
The game changed when Luke Spencer came on. He didn’t get a ton of touches but had two assists and created two chances. Ownby got a goal, created two chances, and had an assist. Hoppenot had a goal, created two chances, and had an assist.
It was a fun way to close out Slugger, and really exemplary of Louisville City soccer (maybe minus the “going down 0-3” part). One more regular season match to go. Let’s do it.
