Saturday night’s match against Bethlehem Steel was a microcosm of Louisville City’s entire 2019 season. Dominate the ball. Create most of the chances. Give up a first half goal. Drop points to a supposedly lesser team. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I’m still pretty upset over how the game went so I’ll forgo any narrative or tactical diagnosis and dive into the numbers. Louisville City created 28 scoring chances, took 34 shots, put eleven on target, had 60% of the ball, completed nearly 80% of their passes, and lost the damn game. Didn’t score a single goal in 28 chances. Steel put two shots on target all night and won the game. I’m not smart enough and don’t have the time or energy to put together an Expected Goals figure to delineate how good any of those chances were, but if you have twenty eight of them, you’d think more than one would go in. Tomas Romero is a good goalkeeper but he’s not Nightcrawler. The finishing was just that bad. I don’t even like blaming things on “lack of finishing” because some chances are better quality than others, but with 28 of them you’ve got a wide variety to choose from, except zero of them came off.
This is not a new problem for our Morados in 2019. They’ve outplayed every opponent in nearly every league game, save NYRB2, and yet they’ve conceded 24 goals in 20 games and scored just 28. They’ve taken 353 shots (2nd in the entire league) and converted just 28 goals. LouCity’s 10.2% conversion rate ranks 2nd worst in the Eastern Conference and 33rd in the league, just ahead of such luminaries as Tacoma Defiance, Colorado Springs Switchbacks, and A T L U T D 2. That’s behind Hartford, behind Memphis, and behind Birmingham. City got blanked at Slugger Field by Bethlehem freaking Steel, a team that has given up 38 goals on the season, or about two per game. City couldn’t get one.
At this point, Louisville City is what it is. Save some massive, and extremely unlikely, roster reconstruction moves in the next week or so, Louisville City in 2019 is a team that plays some nice looking soccer but can’t score or defend particularly well. If that sounds counterintuitive, it’s because it is.
TL;DR: LouCity peppered the Steel’s goal with a gazillion shots, none of them went in, Steel got a goal on one of the only two shots the put on frame all night, and took three points back with them to Chester. Vamos Morados.
