This game was drunk. It was the kind of game that fans, especially American fans relatively new to the game, love, and coaches and some purists hate. Any time you score six goals against one opponent over 90 minutes, you did a lot of things right. Any time you concede four times in that same span, you did a lot of things wrong. You’re just sitting in something if you didn’t think that was fun, though.

After the brief experiment with the four-man back line yielded fair to middling results, City reverted to the 3-4-3 in this game with Kyle Smith playing on the right. George Davis IV ostensibly was there to play right wing, which he did some, but his average position was much closer to the middle of the field. Ilija Ilic played attacking mid/supporting striker and had a field day offensively. Both teams had 17 shots in the game, which is a lot. City had nine on target to New York’s seven, and fifteen shots inside the 18 yard box to RB2’s paltry eight. LOL, eight shots in the box is paltry.

Louisville City was out-possessed in this game, which is fairly typical of away matches to RB2. They’re a good team that likes to do similar things to Morados, but usually with some slightly better players. Because Morados had less of the ball, they passed it less, and less accurately than usual, just 55% in the attacking half of the field. City out-dueled Red Bulls, though, which is a bit surprising, and by a fairly healthy margin, 57-43%.

Neither team was able to keep the other out of their 18 yard box. City had 26 touches in the Red Bulls penalty area, and RB2 had 24 touches in Ranjitisingh’s box. It’s a good thing he cut his hair over the offseason because he’d have been pulling most of it out dealing with the flood of red and white attackers in this game.

Things were fairly even defensively, though City had probably its best game I can ever remember seeing in tackles, winning over 80% of their attempts. That probably has a lot to do with why their duels percentage was so high.

Niall McCabe was the only attacking mid not to score a goal in this game, which was too bad. He completed over 80% of his passes and won four of six duels. Ilija had two goals of his own on three shots, and also had an assist and a chance. Cam won six of ten and passed for almost 90% in the attacking half. Oh yeah, he also scored on three of his four shots, had an assist, won four fouls, created four big chances of his own, and leads the Golden Boot race. Not bad. If he doesn’t make Player of the Week, we riot.

Paolo and Speedy’s numbers don’t look amazing, but they put in some hard work on the evening. Paolo won five of six duels, had five interceptions, created a chance, and had an assist. Cuatro and Oscar played very well, in my book. They created seven chances between the two of them, both had an assist, and Cuatro scored his 51st goal,

Central defense didn’t fare quite so well, as you might imagine. Collectively the back three had one of the worst passing performances I can remember. That said, they defended very well in the air, and didn’t do too badly in 1v1s in general, going 20-14 overall. Kyle Smith had four tackles and five clearances, as well as a scoring chance.

I’m sure none of the guys were happy about letting in four goals, but it hurts a lot less when you score six. I’m proud of the guys, for all the extra work they’ve done over this interregnum period, how much belief they’ve showed in themselves, and how much they’ve had to come together and work out how to handle such an unusual predicament. A lesser group of guys would have folded like a tent in the same circumstances. They acquitted themselves with class, and picked up fourteen of a possible eighteen points in the process. That’s incredible. Now we get to see how things change (or don’t) in the Hackworth era. If they stay on the current trajectory, things should be juuuuuust fine. Let’s go.