It’s a busy week for the club and a busy week for me. As I write this, I’m in a Zoom meeting getting continuing legal education credits for learning about deposing corporate designees, so you’ll excuse me if I drop some jargon into what should be a brief decomposition of Louisville City’s third straight win over Indy XI last night at Lucas Oil Stadium. Wow, that was a long sentence.
In spite of having just played a pivotal group match last Saturday and in spite of having another match this coming Saturday, John Hackworth took no chances in the last LIPAFC of the 2020 regular season and sent out his Best XI in a 4-3-3 last night in Indianapolis. For whatever reason, Indy elected not to start Tyler Pasher or Andrew Carleton. By the time Rennie introduced his super-weapon in the 60’ish minute, it was too late.
Both teams started off the match in a cagey fashion, with few chances or even attacks in the opening 20 minutes of the game. Indy attempted five shots in the first half, but only one of those was even inside the 18 yard box, and it was off-target. Indy only generated one shot on target, which was easily saved by Ben Lundt in the 19′. The first shot of any kind that Louisville City attempted in the game was Cam’s 38′ goal, which was completely unexpected.
City had just taken a corner kick that was customarily cleared out by Indy’s Paddy Barrett, but only as far as Antoine Hoppenot, who was sitting about 35 yards away from the byline. He stepped into what you could argue was a one-time shot that missed left badly, but was cannily jumped on by two City players. Paolo dove to head the errant shot away to Oscar Jimenez and recycle possession, but fortunately he missed and Lancaster stuck his foot in the way, directing the shot past a helpless Kyle Morton and into the top corner. It was kind of a lucky, crazy goal, but no one’s going to take it back.
Indy tried ramping up the pressure after the opener, but that just led to more City counter attacks, one of which probably should have featured a goal from Corben Bone that sailed just wide of the back post. The half ending 0-1 good guys.
Louisville City came out strong in the second half and put two dangerous shots in before Martin Rennie had seen enough, subbing off Jeremy Raffinello for Tyler Pasher. Unfortunately for him, and fortunately for City, Pasher was fairly starved for service over the last half hour, Indy’s long balls generally being gobbled up by Oscar or Sean Totsch. The one-time league scoring leader didn’t even register a shot in his appearance.
LouCity, meanwhile, was fairly methodical holding their lead, keeping possession and not necessarily wasting it on shots, though sometimes it seemed like Indy’s high back line was begging for them. Indy put together a couple of nice plays as the half wore on however. Carl Haworth got way too free inside the box only to send his shot to the moon in the 61′. Karl Ouimette’s 63′ header wide of the post was especially scary.
Play started getting chippy at that point, too, as Morados picked up three yellow cards after the hour mark. Antoine Hoppenot got his in the 72′ minute, and being that he a) had played over an hour last Saturday and b) tends to run a little hot anyway, Hackworth subbed him out for Bryan Ownby.
The substitution worked a charm as Ownby picked up his second assist in as many matches just minutes later. City picked up a turnover in midfield and after a few nifty passes, Napo Matsoso ended up with the ball under pressure on the right touch line just past midfield. He evaded his defender and sent what looked to be a pretty hopeful pass to Ownby in the middle of the field. Ownby calmly redirected the ball to split two centerbacks and find the end of Corben Bone’s run, leaving No. 13 one on one with Kyle Morton. Bone calmly finished past the keeper, and City was up 0-2, and that’s the way the scoring would finish.
City slightly won the possession battle, but it was a very different game than we saw a few days ago. Both teams combined to complete fewer than 600 passes combined, and neither team completed a good number of those. Part of that has to do with the quality of the passes attempted, with both teams hitting over 70 long balls apiece.
Indy attempted eleven shots but just two were on target. City was a bit more economical with eight attempts and three on frame. Both teams created eight chances apiece and two big chances.
No one individual performance really stands out, which really is a good thing. City played a little conservative, but took advantage of the chances they had, and won going away. It was a tidy match for Morados, and just what they need with another game coming in just two days.
City now sit atop Group E with 26 points, four points clear of Indy and eight ahead of St. Louis. Indy’s run in is slightly more daunting, as they face group opponents three times to finish the season, while City gets a slight “break”, playing a foundering Memphis 901 side on Saturday. More on them tomorrow. For now, let’s enjoy a really nice win. VAMOS.
