It’s always nice to start out the season with a win, especially away! Louisville City’s 0-1 win at North Carolina puts Morados at 4th in the table after St. Louis, of all teams, pantsed Miami and Indy XI came back from a 2-0 deficit in Memphis to win by two goals.
City set up in a somewhat conservative 4-1-4-1 to start this match with Ben Lundt in goal, Wes Charpie and Jimmy Ockford in front of him, Oscar Jimenez on the left, and Pat McMahon on the right, a midfield three with Speedy Williams sitting deep behind Napo Matsoso and Corben Bone, and Brian Ownby, Cam Lancaster and Niall McCabe up top. In defense, Niall and Ownby would tuck back in to make a bank of four and leave Cam alone up top. In the attack, Oscar moved higher up the field as usual and Niall tried to stay wide on the other touch line to give room to Cam, Ownby, and sometimes a late runner from midfield. Sometimes that late runner was also Niall.
In the postgame presser, both John Hackworth and Cam Lancaster said that the team’s press wasn’t very effective in the first half. That may have been because Oscar was carrying a groin injury that got to the point he had to be subbed out at half. When Akil Watts came on in his place, he was able to get up field more and join the midfield while Pat McMahon tended to stay deeper in defense. Speedy, Napo and Bone kind of interchanged positionally, though Speedy was usually deeper than the other two.
City did a much better job with more numbers in midfield keeping North Carolina at bay on counters in this match. NCFC’s best chance came in the first half off a nice cross to Robert Kristo, whose header was only saved by Lundt’s go-go-gadget arms and the crossbar. Once Watts came on in the second half and City reorganized their press, Carolina was essentially starved for offense.
NCFC did win the possession battle in this match 52-48%, so not by much. Morados outshot their opponents 14-7, and put five shots on target. That’s a much better number than last year against a pretty good defense away. North Carolina didn’t record a single shot on frame in the second half. Carolina kind of packed it in defensively and so City had to resort to sending in more crosses than I’d like to see, but connecting on about 20% of those is an okay number.
Charpie and Ockford were solid if unspectacular in defense. Pat McMahon had a very nice day in the back, hitting over 80% of his passes in the opposition half. Ockford won nine of twelve duels, including four of five in the air.
As I said earlier, Oscar was definitely not himself in the first half. I do hope he gets back to full fitness soon. Watts passed for under 50% in NCFC’s half when he came on, but still managed to create a scoring chance and was efficient in his own half.
Even though Matsoso and Bone are supposed to be more attack-minded midfielders, they combined for seven tackles on the day. Napo also completed over 90% of his 47 passes, had four interceptions, won 9 of 12 duels, and won two in the air. I still can’t tell you how he does that at 5’8″. Speedy was a metronome in the middle and won all five of his duels plus created a scoring chance. Bone created a chance of his own and completed two of his five crosses.
Brian Ownby had one of those games he tends to have where he gets in space to beat the keeper and just can’t get it done. A lot of credit has to go to Alex Tambakis, but if Ownby keeps knocking on doors like that he’ll be scoring a lot more goals this season. He also created two scoring chances. Lancaster led the team with three of his own, plus the goal. Niall had just a solid game playing two ways. He wasn’t as involved in the direct attack but kept Carolina busy and opened up space for other attackers to come inside and make life difficult.
It’s a very good opening weekend result, and there’s a lot here to build on. It wasn’t the prettiest game to watch thanks to the conditions and both coaches’ tendencies toward pragmatism to start the season. However, there’s no complaining about a win! Now, it’s on to Kennesaw and Atlanta Twonited. VAMOS MORADOS!
