Long time followers of this site know that I’m a sucker for statistics. Now that the USL has partnered with Opta, I have actual numbers and charts I can look at to dissect the game, rather than just rely on my eyes, which get blurrier as the game goes on. Opta/USL unfortunately won’t let me copypasta their data into this page. Let’s have a look at the numbers against last week’s opponent, Cincinnati:
This was a pretty intense game of soccer, and the numbers bear that out. Cincy barely edged Louisville City in possession, the teams were equal on duels and interceptions. City passed the ball a little better than the Knifey Soccer Lion Kings, while FCC pumped nearly 30 crosses into the box, the lion’s share of which were not successful. Louisville City, strangely, had a pretty good percentage on successful crosses, over 50%.
Louisville City likes to play in open space, but Cincinnati’s press didn’t let them do that very much until the last few minutes of the game when Luke Spencer came on. The full-game heat map looks pretty even, but if you isolate it down to the last 20 minutes or so, the ball spent most of the time in Cincy’s half. Unfortunately, that’s the same time period when Aodhan Quinn equalized for the Hannibal Lecters, so it goes to show possession doesn’t mean everything.
The touchmap lends credence to the idea that City should have scored at least one more goal. Team Purple had 21 touches inside Cincinnati’s penalty area to their 14. City had 14 shots to Cincinnati’s 11, 8 coming from inside the box, and 4 on target. 4 of 11 isn’t a great number, down quite a bit from the 50% clip Louisville City has taken on the season so far.
Individually, Brian Ownby had another very good game. His goal was a really good individual effort, though Paolo DelPiccolo’s pass to spring him was almost as good. Let’s hope the knock that Ownby took to take him off the field isn’t a long term issue.
PdP had his best game yet in purple. Paolo led the team in pass completions in total (nearly 90%!) and in the opposing half, won five of his eight duels, and created three scoring chances. Great, great game from our deep lying playmaker.
Defensively, Guy Abend put a really good shift in midfield, but Tarek Morad shone as a defense-first left back. TMo, as I will call him until he says he doesn’t like it, won six of his eight duels, passed the ball expertly at better than 85%, had five tackles, and seven interceptions. Sean Totsch and Kyle Smith did a great job defensively, and the centerbacks deserve a lot of credit for keeping Djiby Fall in check all night. My favorite duel of the night, though, was this one by Tim Dobrowolski:
All in all, a pretty good performance by our boys. I think they’re right to be disappointed with a draw, but I, myself, can shrug off taking a point on the road against those goons. Let’s get three this weekend against the hapless Tworontos.
