That was awful, folks. It really was. Yes, the reintroduction of Luke Spencer to the lineup at halftime was a good spark that the team needed to get back level. But giving up two goals in the first half to a team that a) hadn’t beaten anyone all season and b) had only managed 8 goals on the year isn’t something that a championship team does.
The real story in this game was Brian Holt, unfortunately. I quipped a week or so ago when he was signed that I hoped I never saw him in net for LouCity because Ben Lundt was fine and Chris Hubbard and Tim Dobrowolski would soon be back to game fitness. I was very wrong. Lundt was a game-time scratch, and so Holt, City’s fourth string goalkeeper in reality, got the start in a game with guys that he’d been playing with for a week.
Before I get to Holt’s unfortunate performance, the question has to be asked: what the hell are the goalkeepers doing in training or warmups that has caused THREE of them to be so injured they can’t play in a game? THREE. Goalkeeper is usually the one position on the field that you can expect NOT to be at risk for injury because they move so little and suffer so little contact. Most of the time, for most teams in professional leagues around the world, if your number one keeper is playing well, that guy (or gal) plays every minute of every league game. But somehow Louisville City has managed to injure first Chris Hubbard in practice last season to such an extent that he still hasn’t recovered. Then Dobro also goes down in practice, and now Lundt, likely also in practice or maybe during warmups. It’s absolutely incredible. There’s got to be some kind of explanation other than bad luck. One or two down might be a coincidence. Three is a trend, and trends typically have explanations. I’d like one.
Getting back to the game. Aside from Holt, John Hackworth rolled out the same starting lineup that we’ve seen the last three matches, which seemed to be fine. Swope Park, however, noted the same thing many of us also have noted, which is that City doesn’t really have a central midfield that can possess the ball particularly well or for very long. However, it hadn’t really burned us, so I was still okay with it at kickoff. Rangers, however, play on a much bigger field than Slugger. While City’s MO in possession lately has been to play the ball wide and then try and cross it back in, Swope sent pressure to the wings and forced turnovers, then sent the ball to the middle of the park and up the gut where City’s defense is, frankly, the weakest. It was effective.
Louisville City had 63% of the ball in this game, won 55% of their duels, and had 13 interceptions. That’s a lot of interceptions, to be fair. But, because Swope crowded the midfield, City ended up hitting a lot of long passes (105), which doesn’t really suit Morados’ playing style. Luke handled them much better than Abdou Mbacke Thiam did, but it wasn’t enough to really open the floodgates. City also crossed the ball very well, a 39% clip, but only managed to finish one of them.
Offensively, City outshot Swope Park 19-10, and had seven on target to Rangers’s five. Swope, impressively, won over 80% of their tackles, the bulk of which were in the midfield. Left back Alexsander Andrade had six all on his own.
Let’s talk about goals. In the sequence before Swope Park scored their first, they pressed City’s back four almost into a line. City, trying to play the ball out of the back, couldn’t escape the pressure and dumped about three or four passes back to the keeper. Holt looked increasingly uncomfortable dealing with his limited options, but for some reason opted against relieving that pressure after the third pass back with a long ball to reset Swope Park. Instead, he tried a through ball to an oncoming Speedy Williams. But a) he missed, b) he telegraphed the pass, and c) Felipe Hernandez picked up that telegraph, the ball, and the opening goal. There was nothing anyone else on the field could do.
The second goal, by Rassambek Akhmatov, wasn’t Holt’s fault, but instead Magnus’s inability to get in front of Mark Segbers and poor marking on Akhmatov. The attacking midfielder had an easy free run in the gap between centerbacks for a second goal.
The third was probably the most disappointing. I’m not of the opinion that Niall McCabe’s tackle from behind on Andrade was worthy of a red card, but it certainly was a yellow. The problem was McCabe had been barking at the referee all game, and some element of human nature likely played its way into referee Rosendo Mendoza’s decision to go straight red. McCabe was booked for violent conduct. Law 12 defines violent conduct as follows:
Violent conduct is when a player uses or attempts to use excessive force or brutality against an opponent when not challenging for the ball, or against a team-mate, team official, match official, spectator or any other person, regardless of whether contact is made.
Law 12 – Fouls and Misconduct
In addition, a player who, when not challenging for the ball, deliberately strikes an opponent or any other person on the head or face with the hand or arm, is guilty of violent conduct unless the force used was negligible.
I don’t think Niall used excessive force or brutality, but he definitely wasn’t going for the ball on that tackle. You could also give the ref some benefit because the tackle was from behind, which are often categorically considered to be seriously dangerous. It was a cynical challenge, and I think McCabe thought he’d get a yellow and that was it. Now City is down another midfielder, one who’s played every minute this season, going into another away match on Saturday.
The ensuing free kick goal is probably also on Holt. If he’s on his line, he easily saves the ball. It’s not clear to my why Holt thought he could punch the ball away when the wall was outside the area. There was also no way he was going to beat Abdul Rwatubyaye to it, who easily had three yards on him. So he got caught in no-man’s land, and the ball sailed over his head into the back of the net. Game over.
I know I’ve piled on Brian Holt quite a bit here. But we might not be talking about him so much if City had done anything with its own twelve (TWELVE) scoring chances. That’s becoming too common a theme. I’m also growing concerned why Hackworth elected not to use any other substitutes in the game when City needed a) a goal and b) to wrest away some more control of the midfield. Launching hopeful balls to Luke Spencer or Lucky Mkosana is a low-percentage play.
I also don’t really understand the Spencer substitution. I’m glad he came on, of course, and he absolutely had a positive effect on the game. But I wonder why it was Peay that he replaced and not a midfielder. Spencer is a big body with good feet who is good a keeping the ball, but it seemed to me that he was deployed as more of a center forward. That moved Thiam over to the left wing, where he’s improving but still not very comfortable, and quickly became a non-factor after having a good first half.
Also, as I’d mentioned before, Niall had been in at least two or three altercations with the referee and some Swope Park players before he got sent off. I know Niall is important, but why not sub on Sunny Jane with about 10 or 15 minutes to go just to keep the Irishman from getting a card? Unless Sunny’s still hurt, which is possible. It might also signal that Hackworth is still uncomfortable with the players on his bench, which leads to some deeper and more probing questions about roster construction. I won’t get into those now, but this isn’t the first time those doubts have appeared this season.
Individually, Magnus’s free kick goal was a thing of beauty, for sure. Paco and Peay actually played quite well this game, and Totsch did fine when he had to slide back to take Peay’s spot once Luke entered the game. He didn’t offer anything going forward when he was playing central midfield, but otherwise had a decent performance. The midfield three of Magnus, Speedy, and Niall passed the ball pretty well but fared only so-so in 1v1 situations, largely because of Swope’s numbers advantage there. The three of them also created two scoring chances each, which is good. Lucky and Abdou struggled a bit and bobbled a couple of scoring chances. Luke got the equalizer but couldn’t do much after that.
This is obviously a very disappointing result. That’s two bad teams that Louisville City has given opening wins to this season when going into the match it seemed that the direct opposite should have been true. Nine matches into the season, City finds itself batting .500 and, frankly, lucky to be 8th in the table. Unless fitness somehow miraculously improves or Morados attackers find some finishing form, one could reasonably expect this is where we’ll find ourselves for most of the season. I’m not always the most positive person, but I’m becoming more right all the time that this season is going to be a struggle for our boys in purple. Buckle in, friends, because this is where we find out what we’re all truly made of.
