In case you missed it, Louisville City played a TOP SECRET preseason friendly against Memphis 901 yesterday. The match took place in Nashville, for some reason. Based on Evan Floyd’s fabulous photos I can deduce they played on the women’s lacrosse practice field on Vanderbilt’s campus near Natchez Trace. I’m guessing they played there because the grass practice fields nearby, which are typically in very good shape, were too waterlogged to use.

City rolled out a starting lineup that I think we can pencil in for their season opener in a few weeks: Dobro in goal, Paco and Alexis at centerback, Oscar at left back, Totsch at right back, a midfield three of Paolo, Niall and Speedy, and a front three of Ownby, Luke and Cuatro. It’s obviously very reminiscent of the teams that won the last two USL championship games. The only mystery to me is who played the eight and ten between Niall and Speedy, or if they even played those kinds of roles at all.

The final score was 4-2 to the good guys. Luke Spencer had a brace in the first half, one of which was a penalty. More interesting (to me, anyway) was the team that started the second half:

I don’t think those are actually like-for-like subs, but they certainly are interesting. I’d envision a back line of Peay and Dee as centerbacks, Fight Club and McMahon at fullback, Carranza at the six, Napo at the eight, and MAG RAM at the ten, with a front three of Sunny, Lucky, and Abdou.

Lucky Mkosana scored in the second half on an assist from Sunny Jane, and Napo Matsoso added a fourth later to round out the scoring in the game. Also, we’ve heard about Geoffrey Dee spending training camp in Florida with the squad, but I get the feeling the former Cardinal defender’s continued presence on friendly rosters just means he’s likely to be announced as new singing for Louisville City pretty soon.

Our first real chance to see these guys in person is coming up on Sunday in Lexington, and I’ll talk a bit more about that tomorrow. THERE IS REAL SOCCER HAPPENING NOW! Well, almost real, and that’s better than nothing. It’s so exciting!

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