As they have many times this season, Louisville City saw the other team score first and score early. Luckily, this time it was into the wrong goal.
Louisville City continued their dominance of Canada with a 2-0 win over Toronto FC II on Wednesday night. The club, which has won all three of its matches on foreign soil, continued its dominance of the Eastern Conference, winning for the 5th time in 8 matches this season.
Greg Ranjitsingh started in goal for this match after registiring a clean sheet last match. Sean Reynolds was kept on the bench likely for rest, allowing Conor Shanosky and Tarek Morad to pair up once again this match. Kadeem Dacres also started the match on the bench, as LCFC played their second match in just five days.
Truth be told, this was a somewhat boring game. Toronto called in nearly an entire startling side from their MLS parent club, as they took advantage of the wonderful rules the USL has about players being able to join the “two” teams to add eight new faces to the roster.
However, it wouldn’t help the hosts, as just five minutes in they trailed 1-0 courtesy of an own goal from Wesley Charpie. The goal has officially (as of now) been credited to Conor Shanosky after he headed it down off the corner kick from George Davis IV, but replays clearly show Charpie kick the ball past his own keeper. Either way, it was a goal and for once, City were the side out in front early.
The next half hour saw little action at either end, as play was often contained to the midfield. However, a handball just outside the box gave TFCII a great chance to score in the 35th minute. The free kick from Mo Babouli and his hair from about 25 yards out was a curler, but goalie Greg Ranjitsingh made a terrific diving stop, snatching it out of the air and preventing the equalizer.
The second half would see only a few scoring chances, but the standout moment of the half occurred courtesy of a moment of absolute hilarity. The TFCII keeper Quillan Roberts decided to try to be Manuel Neuer and came way out of his box to try to clear a ball from the wide area. Unfortunately for him, he’s not Manuel Neuer, because Neuer usually clears the ball down the pitch, whereas this guy simply kicked it to a defender who was unable to control it. The ball fell to Niall McCabe, who calmly curled it into the goal from about 30 yards out for the easy 2-0 lead.
Outside of substitutions, the rest of the match was pretty quiet until stoppage time, when Ben Newnam played hero to keep the clean sheet. He made a terrific block and then cleared the ball off of the line, preventing a sure goal. It was one of only a few chances that the hosts got all night, and it was thwarted by a terrific play.
City now gets ten days off to rest, before hosting those guys from Saint Louis next weekend.
