It wasn’t a pretty win, but I’ll take a forgettable three points over a memorable zero just about any day. Louisville City started a very different lineup from what we’ve seen thus far in 2019. FCC loanee Ben Lündt got the start in goal, Paco and Alexis kept their spots in the center, Franno to the left, Oscar to the right. Paolo, Speedy and Niall all began the match in midfield, with Luke, Ownby, and Sunny Jane in front.
The look was still 4-2-3-1 to begin but with some notable differences from last week. Francis and Oscar both stayed home quite a bit more on the wings. Paolo also stayed a bit deeper. That helped to stave off much in the way of counterattacking offense, but it also served to disconnect the defense from the midfield in possession and transition at at times.
The good news was City managed to create some really good looking chances in possession this week. The bad news was they struggled to finish them. Brian Ownby’s fabulous cross to substitute Abdou Mbacke Thiam for the game winner was poetic, but City probably should have scored two more prior to that. Atlanta’s Alec Kann is a very good goalkeeper for USL, but the two chances Luke and Brian had in the first half felt like they’d have daunted vintage Gianluigi Buffon or Manuel Neuer.
Numbers don’t really tell use much about this game, but let’s talk about them anyway. AU2 had 58% of the ball in this game and took 12 shots but only two were on frame. Eight of Atlanta’s shots were from outside the box, never a good thing. City took 7, three were on frame (slight improvement) and one went in. Morados didn’t pass the ball very well at all in Atlanta’s half, just 57.4%. That lack of connectivity between Paolo sitting in front of the centerbacks and the two(ish) number 8s explains that, I think.
City crossed the ball 20 times at a 25% accuracy rate, far better than last week. Atlanta attempted 30 crosses but only connected on two of them. City was much more sound defensively, winning 55% of their duels, including over 60% in the air, plus 22 tackles and 37 clearances.
From an individual standpoint, no one really stands out. The defensive stats looked pretty good while passing was decidedly subpar from most of the midfield and attack.
My take on this team at this point in the season, without having spoken to anyone who actually knows, is that Hackworth is trying to implement several different game plans or systems and the team is still struggling to digest it all. O’Connor’s teams really only played one way, and while that generally worked very well, when a team could actually execute a game plan against the O’Connor plan, a la Bob Lilley, there was almost never a plan B. Hackworth, to me, appears to have plans A-G or something like it.
That’s certainly not uncommon among high-level professional teams. It’s probably a bit less so in USL. The players, I think, might be struggling at present to process a lot of the new information or ideas being flung at them. That’s okay. When you go from playing just one way to trying to play three or five different ways, that’s a lot to think about. Once you’re comfortable with each of the styles or plans, the hesitancy goes away. But right now, it seems like guys are just thinking too much.
That, to me, explains why thing still look so disjointed. Communication is a bit off. It’s hard to digest for us fans, given what we’re accustomed to. But I think, in the end, this is going to make City super, super dangerous, unpredictable, and hard to develop a game plan for. If we can execute well, this is really going to pay off. The problem is we haven’t seen it executed particularly well yet. Either that, or the guys who won a second straight USL title five months ago have all the sudden gotten a lot worse at soccer. I think the former makes better sense than the latter.
