It wasn’t pretty, but it was enough to advance to Round 4 of the US Open Cup last night as LouCity beat the visiting Birmingham Legion 1-0 on a late penalty scored by none other than central defender Sean Totsch. The guy you’d least expect to step up and take a pen, other than probably Chris Hubbard.
Louisville City put out what I’d call a “fun” lineup full of guys that don’t feature regularly in league games, including starts for Richard Ballard, Pat McMahon and Geoffrey Dee. Niall played the false nine, as Hackworth is probably saving Luke Spencer for the weekend’s league match against Charleston. City started the match fairly brightly. As the game wore on, though, it became fairly apparent that Niall wasn’t going to be able to win balls against Birmingham’s physical back line, and the offense sort of sputtered along until Paolo DelPiccolo and Brian Ownby were subbed on about an hour in. Richard Ballard actually enjoyed quite a bit of space on the right wing during his appearance, but wasn’t able to get much in the way of service from McMahon or anyone else.
Statistically, the game was a lot more even than you might expect. City held a narrow 4-5% advantage in possession, but pass attempts were reasonably close, and Legion actually had more of the ball in the second half. Both teams attempted ten shots, City with three on target and Birmingham with one. City created seven chances and Legion had five, which sounds about right. There weren’t a lot of good scoring opportunities, and the best ones occurred late in the first half when Birmingham’s Gael Mabiala sent a gorgeous ball juuuuust off the back post. City had some decent looking chances once Ownby subbed on, one for Brian and another apparent sitter for Cuatro that he didn’t get enough on. By and large, though, this is a game where, after McCabe started dropping deeper about 20 minutes in, neither team really found a grip on the midfield until DelPiccolo came on. Daniel Johnson didn’t start for Legion, surprisingly, which certainly helped Napo and Dee out.
While Birmingham definitely had a size advantage in the game, they did very poorly in 1v1s and tackles, with Morados winning over 60% of their duels in the match. Legion also picked up 19 fouls, and I was surprised that at least one of their guys didn’t pick up a yellow for persistent infringement.
Individually, none of the starters really stood out, but everyone played solid. Pat McMahon had his hands full all night with Mabiala, but put in five successful tackles, created a scoring chance, and was otherwise pretty efficient with the ball in possession. He wasn’t able to connect with Ballard on the wing as well as I would have liked, but he did solid McMahon defensive things and that was good enough on the night. Geoff Dee did okay, passed the ball well, but didn’t offer much in the attack, which is part of why Niall started playing deeper. Napo was his usual furiously active self, Franno had a solid match on the left and combined well with Cuatro. The centerbacks hardly put a foot wrong, and I was very pleased with both of them essentially rendering Chandler Hoffman a non-factor in the match.
Totsch’s penalty take speaks for itself. Hulk is not the guy I or most anyone else would have picked to take a game-deciding penalty, but he was not to be denied. It’s the essence of who he is: a very confident and effective guy, which is something to be celebrated. Good for him.
Again, not the best soccer you’ll see out of Louisville City this year, but a win for a heavily rotated side against a league opponent is a good thing. On-field contributions from Brian Ownby and Paolo is even better. Let’s hope we get to start seeing more of them again soon. Saturday against Charleston would be nice.
