Louisville City lost. They didn’t play badly, but they didn’t play well, either. City did a pretty good job possessing the ball early in the game but an early mistake in the midfield left the defense exposed and the Battery capitalized on it. It was crystal clear they were going to park the bus and hold on to the lead for dear life. Morados didn’t have an answer, and gave up the points for it.

City had 71% possession, but Charleston almost never let them get into the final third. Case in point, Morados only earned two corner kicks all night. They took only three shots inside the Battery eighteen. They sent in 25 crosses and connected on just four of them. The Battery ostensibly set up with three in the back, but it they really were set up in two lines of five in front of the goalkeeper every time City got the ball past midfield.

The heat map tells the story:

City actually passed the ball pretty well in the Battery’s half, 71%. The problem, again, was the lack of any kind of penetration in the Charleston box. Lancaster, Magnus, and Niall had 119 touches between the three of them, and 80 passes. Speedy had 109 touches and 97 passes. For all City’s possession, very little was threatening. The pass chart is basically empty around the Battery box. City had no successful dribbles inside the penalty area, either. Cam Lancaster was bracketed by Charleston defenders all night, and had three touches in the 18 in about 100 minutes of action.

All that means is City’s possession didn’t turn into offense. Morados had 11 shots but just 3 on target. Charleston, with 29% of the ball, had seven shots, five were in the box and on target. That’s called making excellent use of your opportunities. Morados were a profile in the opposite. For all their possession, Louisville had just seven scoring chances all night. Charleston had five with a looooot less of the ball.

The numbers just serve to tell us what we already knew. City kept the ball. Charleston was fine with that. The Battery’s defensive organization and physicality in the box meant Louisville City wasn’t getting much of anything in terms of scoring chances. They never got particularly far forward unless it was on a corner kick. Morados made two or three mistakes, and the Battery capitalized on both. Game over.

We don’t have a lot of time to fret about it, because there’s an Open Cup game on Wednesday. There’s a lot to fix; let’s hope it gets fixed.