This match was a tale of two halves. Indy fairly dominated the first 45′, and Louisville City owned the second frame. You could argue that both teams probably should have scored more goals. That’s a common refrain in Louisville this season, but against a defense as good as Indy’s, it’s more of a compliment than usual.
City came out with a slightly different lineup in this match, playing a back three of Paco Craig, Alexis Souahy and Taylor Peay. Paolo delPiccolo and Napo Matsoso started in central midfield, flanked on either side by Oscar and George Davis IV. Up front Brian Ownby was supposed to play center forward with Magnus Rasmussen on his left and Niall McCabe on his right. That plan didn’t exactly play out as well as John Hackworth might have hoped, though, as Indy played five in their midfield and often overwhelmed Paolo and Napo as a result. More importantly, it made it hard for City to track runners through the gaps in the back three, which Tyler Pasher exploited several times early in the game before crushing the ball into the back of the net off some excellent service from Enovoldsen in the 9th minute.
Indy was pretty unlucky not to add to their tally for the remainder of the opening stanza, at which point Hackworth was able to change things up a bit and get back to his preferred back four. Luke Spencer came on for Cuatro at half and went to the center forward spot, Magnus dropped back into midfield with Napo and Paolo, Ownby moved left, and Peay splayed out further right to play right back. The change reaped some good benefits as Luke’s presence forward kept Neveal Hackshaw from marauding forward as much as he’d been doing previously and slowed down Enovoldsen enough to where he could at least be contained a bit more.
To wit, Indy had seven chances created and eight shots in the first half, three on target, including Pasher’s early goal. In the second, they had two chances created, three shots, and just one on target.
In total, the cumulative stats are about as even as the scoreline. Possession was almost split down the middle, only slightly favoring Morados. City fared better in duels, 56.9% to 43.1%, and were actually dominant in the air, winning nearly two of every three aerials. Both teams attempted about the same number of passes, with Morados completing a few more, and actually having more success in Indy’s half than vice versa. Indy had one more shot than City’s eleven attempts, but both teams had four on target.
As I mentioned and you likely observed, City was much better in the second frame. Morados created four chances in the first, mostly from crosses, and had four shots with just one on goal. In the second period, they had seven shots with three on target, including Paolo’s expert free kick goal that evened up the match.
Yes, there may have been a penalty shout or two off of Luke’s solid play in the second half, Taylor Peay and Paco Craig missed some open headers off set plays, and new acquisition Antoine Hoppenot put one over the bar. But in the end, the scoreline was probably a fair representation of how the match played out. It would be nice, though, if City could start finishing more of those good looking chances.
Speaking of which, Hoppenot made it plain fairly quickly why he was brought into the team. Ownby is typically unstoppable when he’s on his game, and when No. 29 stepped on the field for No. 10 at the 77′, he kept up the task of wearing out the right side of Indy’s defense. Hoppenot adds that element of creativity on the wing that will keep defenders from keying on runs from Oscar or Francis when he returns. The Frenchman can create space that will serve to open up space between central defenders so maybe Luke can eat a little more in those areas.
Individually, Chris Hubbard deserves a lot of credit for playing another great game between the sticks. His distribution perhaps could have been better, but 22 of his 29 passes were long ones and his three saves were all solid.
Alexis and Paco frankly had some poor days from a passing standpoint, but both of them were quite good in duels and aerials. Paco won eleven of sixteen 1v1s, and also had three tackles and six clearances.
Oscar and Peay both played fairly solid games and both did well in 1v1s. Oscar had four chances created in the match.
Napo, Magnus and Paolo all passes the ball quite well actually, in spite of being outnumbered in the first half. Napo won seven of nine duels and had three interceptions, Magnus created a couple of scoring chances, and Paolo had two shots on target plus the equalizer.
I liked the idea of playing Ownby as a center forward or maybe false nine in theory, but I’m not sure Indy was the team to try it against. He didn’t create any scoring chances and only took one shot in the match. Luke didn’t fare a whole lot better but definitely commanded more attention from the Indy central defense and probably deserved better.
Nobody loves draws but this was a pretty decent result considering it was away at the top team in the conference and City arguably could have won the game. It’s not exactly what we want, but it wasn’t bad either. That second half was certainly something to build on. Let’s see if we can do that against Nashville on Saturday.
