That was a soccer game. LouCity accomplished one and a half of the goals I set out for them in the March to the Match yesterday, which were 1) contain Tyler Pasher and Andrew Carleton, and 2) score two goals. Turns out, when Pasher is bottled up, Indy struggles to score, and that was a huge reason why Louisville City won the football game.
Hackworth came out with the lineup we’d expect, except Luke Spencer started in place of Cam Lancaster at the nine. I was a little surprised at that. Perhaps, given the short turn around for City’s first road match since March coming up on Saturday in St. Louis, the technical staff had an eye on making sure Cam was fit for that match, while also trusting Spencer to do the job against IXI.
He was up to the task. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Luke Spencer used as more of a battering ram to soften up an opponent’s central defense so that some pace can come on later and exploit tired legs. The 2017 USL Cup final immediately comes to mind. In this match, Luke played more of a false nine role than a line leader, dropping deep into midfield to help either break up transitions or send passes to Matsoso or Hoppenot on the wings. However, he played his part as opposition center back destroyer to a tee, because, per Antoine Hoppenot:
“Luke put in 60 minutes before I went in up there and kind of gave that center back a lot of work and a lot of physical work, so once I came in there, he wasn’t quite prepared for what I was going to bring. He was somewhat unprepared and caught off guard from me making those runs and having to battle Luke for 60 minutes. He made it easy for me to just be able to get into the channels and have him chase me around instead of having a physical battle.
Antoine Hoppenot post-match press interview, 8.26.20
Spencer came off right before Paolo DelPiccolo calmly deposited Hoppenot’s cross past Evan Newton, but the work he did before taking a seat is what made that goal happen.
It was a team goal, too. At that point in the match, Luke had beaten up his central marker, Mitchell Osmond, pretty well, who had been tracking him for most of the match. Spencer didn’t get much in the form of chances or shots, but he still demanded attention and energy. Once Hoppenot moved to the center and Ownby took his wing spot, Osmond had a whole different set of problems to solve, but with less energy to solve them.
The play leading to the goal started with an outlet pass to Napo Matsoso near midfield. Napo had the ball in space but saw that Antoine was sitting in the channel between Neveal Hackworth and Osmond with room to run behind. Napo hit a sweet ball into that space, Hoppenot caught up with it, beat Osmond to the end line, and recovered back with just enough time to send the ball to the middle of the six yard line where DelPiccolo’s late run was able to finish it off.
And that’s all City needed. Andrew Carleton caused some problems for City in midfield, but hats must come off to the truly fabulous efforts that Alexis Souahy and Sean Totsch turned in to keep the Indy attack at bay all night. Pasher did have a couple of chances, but none of them were exactly clear, and he wasn’t able to convert them. It was a really impressive defensive performance against one of the more consistent attacks in the Championship so far this season.
Just to lay that out in numbers, Tyler Pasher only had 34 touches the entire game, two of which were kickoffs. He only touched the ball twice inside the 18 yard box, neither being in front of goal. He lost all three of his duels, only created one scoring chance, and both of his shots in the match were off-target.
Yes, another goal or two from the home team would have been nice. In truth, the chances were there – City created eight chances in the match. Corben Bone and Antoine Hoppenot both could have scored at certain moments in the match but were denied by a pretty solid goalkeeping performance from Newton. Morados had nine shots in the game, five on target, while Indy only put one of their seven shots on frame.
That’s a performance to be proud of. Now, City have to get some rest and reprogramming for a road trip to St. Louis, a team with nothing to lose. Let’s go make them lose, anyway. VAMOS MORADOS.
