This week’s Purple Press tries to quickly distill Louisville City’s season opener victory and give some shine to a new Racing Louisville defender!

FAST(ISH) MATCH RECAP: Louisville City 2, Atlanta United 2 0

Teams with numbers at the ends of their names always make writing and saying scores difficult. The gist is the visiting team didn’t score any goals on Saturday. Chris Hubbard was only forced into one (very good) save the entire match, while City’s back line proved up to the task of some emergency defending in a high line for much of the match.

That line is understandable, as it took Morados nearly 70 minutes to finally break the 0-0 stalemate in a game that they statistically dominated. City’s long preseason found them not rusty in defense or possession in this game, but finding and taking quality shots was laborious. City out-shot ATLUTD2 18-3 with five shots on target. ATL’s goalkeeper Vicente Reyes, who plays in Atlanta’s academy setup, made four saves of his own, a couple in the first half being very good, but had little chance at stopping Paolo DelPiccolo’s header off an Oscar corner to open the scoring, or his tap-in from George Davis IV in the 87′.

City passed for 82% in this game, most of those attempts and completions being in Atlanta’s half. While those numbers sound good, the ball movement could have been even better, but ATL was so toothless and disorganized that Morados weren’t punished for it.

Akil Watts and Jonathan Gomez got their first starts in 2021 for City and both performed pretty well. Watts played mostly in a central defensive midfield role while Gomez played left back and often dazzled with his pace and technique. I was pretty pleased with Watts’ performance at the six, where he completed nearly 90% of his passes, 88% in Atlanta’s half. It was somewhat surprising to see him subbed off with 30 minutes to play, but with City a bit glacial in attacking moments, Jimmy McLaughlin’s addition to the field was intended to help get the offense going a bit more quickly.

It was a good, solid win for a home opener that left Hackworth with plenty to work on at training this week. Win-win!

Racing Louisville adds former Manchester City defender Gemma Bonner

Welcome to Louisville, Gemma! From the press release:

The center back Bonner has played the balance of her career in England. Highlights include winning the league cup in 2010 with hometown side Leeds United, an FA Cup Final appearance in 2012 with Chelsea and becoming the only player to captain her club to consecutive Women’s Super League titles with Liverpool in 2013 and 2014.

Since 2018, Bonner has played for Manchester City, which has finished second in the WSL in each of her seasons there and won the FA Cup in both 2019 and 2020. Along with living up to her reputation as a versatile defender comfortable in possession, Bonner tallied 10 goals and 3 assists in sky blue.

On the International level, Bonner was part of a U-19 team that won England the European Championship. She made her senior team debut in 2013, with her most recent call up for the 2019 SheBelieves Cup also won by England.

Bonner fills a need for Racing right now, which is depth at center back. Martin and Hendrix have been very good in their two starts but if one of them gets injured, Holly was going to be in a real pinch. This somewhat alleviates that. It’s always good to have an experienced and decorated central defender in your team, and this is nothing but a big positive for our women in lavender.