I didn’t initially have a lot of deep thoughts about this match. It felt like shades of the Toronto FC game last year. Instead of Angel Cavaluzzo standing on his head and keeping umpteen City shots from crossing the goal line, this time it was Trevor Spangenberg. And this time Richmond had a lead on a really well taken shot from about 30 yards out by Brian Shriver.

I don’t think the Purple defense expected him to shoot it. It was set up really well, the only good piece of attacking play Richo had all night. Kyle Smith kind of lost him when he cut in toward the middle of the field, no one picked him up, and while Paco did step to Gonzales to cut him off, the layoff back to Shriver, who continued his run, was probably what the Kickers had in mind all along.

I was psyched to see Kyle take the penalty, and I’d bet he demanded to do it to make up for losing Shriver earlier. Maybe he didn’t do that, but he seems like the kind of guy who would. I love that.

Cuatro’s game winner was identical to an earlier chance that he just tripped over. The Turf Monster was not our friend last night.

Let’s talk numbers:

  • Possession can be and often is overrated, but 67% to 33% is definitely noteworthy.
  • City had double the number of pass attempts as Richmond, to add a period to the prior point.
  • 28 shots with nine on target isn’t great, but nine shots on target on their own is…a lot. Richmond only had two.
  • 18 shots inside the box is also an insane number. Richmond only had three touches inside Ranjitsingh’s 18 yard box.
  • City also had 23 tackles in the game, which seems like a lot given how much possession they had.

And players:

  • I was a little surprised to see Kyle Smith starting at right centerback. Pat McMahon wasn’t on the bench, so I’m going to assume he’s injured. We still haven’t seen a hair of Alexis Souahy, and I’m sure there are reasons for that, but at least he’s making game day squads. That said, aside from the Shriver goal, Kyle’s play was excellent. He had over 100 passes and completed 86% of them. He was also 5-1 on duels, made his penalty to equalize, and created two scoring chances.
  • The entire back line played very well, just to be clear – defending is a lot easier when the other team barely has the ball.
  • Speedy and Paolo were their usual sterling selves.
  • Oscar was the busier of the two wingbacks on the night, but both created three chances apiece. Francis had five tackles and completed more than 90% of his passes.
  • Richmond’s defense bottled up Cam Lancaster pretty well, as he struggled to get service between Conor Shanosky and Mekeil Williams. He had ten or so touches in the 18 and definitely earned the penalty from Yomby, so Cam did manage to have an impact on the score, which is good. Magnus passed the ball well and created a couple scoring chances, but as a whole, the attacking three were mostly frustrated by Richo’s defense plus a great goalkeeping performance from Spangenberg.
  • It was awesome to see Brian Ownby back on the field doing what he does. He’s probably not ready to start yet, but he created three scoring chances, passed for 86% in Richmond’s half, and took two shots in his busy 30 minutes.
  • Cuatro’s goal was well-earned, as I said before.
  • Ilija Ilic had three key passes in his substitute appearance! Keep an eye on that.

The attack was missing Luke Spencer a bit, in my view. Cam put in a really good shift, but when you’re dealing with the style of defense Richmond play, a hold-up player like Spencer is pretty useful. Cam does a lot of thing well, but being a target isn’t his forte.

We can also be concerned about injuries. Something’s wrong with Luke, Richard Ballard has a stress fracture and is out for the foreseeable future, Pat McMahon has some kind of knock, Ownby’s still recovering from a number of things. O’Connor and company are doing a good job filling holes, but this kind of situation is what worried me at the start of the season. Let’s hope some more guys get healthy in the coming weeks and not the other way around.

In any event, we fans have to be pretty happy with how the game ended up, and other results over the weekend mean we’re in first place now! Let’s stay there and beat unknown quantity Atlanta Twonited this week.

VAMOS MORADOS!