Louisville City FC 0, Nashville SC 0

For Lou City fanatics looking for a sign from the heavens to portend the personable new head coach’s tenure, a rainbow off to the east was their greeting at Slugger Field.

You were just rooting for John Hackworth in his much awaited debut to get off to a flying start. Unfortunately, in terms of memorability, the game itself flew pretty much below the radar.

Net total of goals in LCFC’s games in 2018 is 66, in NSC’s games the figure is 37, and in spite of City coming straight off of last week’s enthralling 10 bell Thrilla in Noo Jilla, it would be the Tennessee sour mashers, not the Kentucky Bourbonites whose will would prevail.

With the aggressive two-pronged unit of Cameron and Luke starting together for the first time this season, Hack City was looking from the outset to take the game to Nashville and indeed enjoyed a sizable chunk of the early possession. The visitors soaked up the pressure effectively, however, whilst allowing very little of consequence to get through to former Fire, Rapids and Rowdies ‘keeper Matt Pickens.

There were sniffs here and there on headers from Luke and Niall (coming in for the infirmed Magnus – knee), and Kyle and Oscar trying their luck from distance, but as the half progressed the Volunteer Staters were stepping up and finding their game.

Taylor Washington raiding down the left wing was making life difficult for Kyle and line leader and man mountain Tucker Hume and cohorts were growing to be quite a handful for Paco and particularly Sean.

Boasting robustness and height throughout their lineup, Nashville was relying on the strategy of aerial supremacy, but the Morados were holding their ground firmly, with Greg in goal being called to cut out a number of probing crosses.

Captain Paulo, who had been sitting back in order to add presence and support to his central defense, was implored by his coach to attend more to creative matters.

Up front, Cameron had ceded most of the forward running to Luke and was dropping deeper and sometimes wider, seeking the space and time on the ball that he needed.

At the half, the teams departed rightfully deadlocked and the announced crowd of 9,684 wondered if their brand new gaffer would be able to conjure up the sort of enterprise the erstwhile Triumvirate had demonstrated over their 6 weeks in charge.

The second stanza began with a George lV half-chance getting blocked, but the yellow canaries soon returned to their rigid organization and resolve, and opportunities remained few and far between.

Against the Red Bulls the attacking duo of Cameron and Ilija (confined to the bench for this game with a groin strain incurred in training) had meshed seamlessly but that was during an end to end game with all sorts of room to exploit.

This was a very different game indeed and Cameron and Luke were finding it much more difficult to link up and find any gaps.

With his partner still feeling the effects of his multiple weeks of injury downtime, Cameron was getting forward more and displaying flashes of his exquisite skills on the ball. He almost burst through on a couple of occasions only to be thwarted by stout and timely defending, particularly on the part of his fellow USL Team of the Weeker, Liam Doyle, the former Isle of Mann international (yes, there is such an entity).

During the 2nd half, nominal Player of the Match, Greg pulled off two important saves, the first a good positional stop from Hume who had badly slipped Sean near the goal line, cut back and unleashed a powerful effort, the second a brilliant game-saver from close range by substitute Ropapa Mensah who had been fed by FC Dallas and Revolution vet London Woodberry, also a 2nd half sub.

It had still been a relief to see the twin physical threats of Hume and Brandon Allen depart, even if it meant dealing with the more familiar pair of Mensah and Lebo Moloto.

Sean collected a caution, trying to contain Hume and a nice lump above the eye courtesy of a Mensah elbow which was the one instance matters may have got out of hand but it was well handled with a card by referee Touchan.

Shaun Francis came on for Luke as the only Louisville change, his sole statistical contribution a yellow card for delay of game.

So, the debut match for the new broom ends in a similar way that the JOC era did – with a hard-battled-for home point, but an opportunity for a victory that would put pressure on the teams immediately above spurned – Charleston and Pittsburgh having both dropped points in their respective matches.

Niall worked tirelessly all night, including some useful crosses, George lV likewise. Oscar couldn’t gain a lot of traction most of the evening. The holding midfield of Speedy and PDP were solid again. Due to the tight nature of the match 18 year old NYFC loaner James Sands unfortunately wasn’t afforded an opportunity.

De facto POTM goes to [🎵 I wanna be…like] Paco [Craig 🎵 ] who the whole way through was responsible and virtually error free.

~~~ Fun Fact Footnote ~~~

From the online profile for Nashville No.5 Liam Doyle:
Liam holds the USL record for largest head, last measured at 69cm in circumference, and growing.

I kid you not.
Who even knew the USL surveys these things?!?