For what I will argue was the first time all season, John Hackworth’s game plan worked. Louisville City scored an early first half goal against Atlanta United 2 on Sunday, kept up the pressure on the Kennesawans, and came away with a very convincing, multi-goal victory when the final whistle blew. There were run-of-play goals, set piece goals, all kinds of goals. City put up a five spot for the first time since the demolition of New York Red Bulls II in last year’s Eastern Conference Final.
Partially by necessity, but probably also thanks to some interesting personnel choices by Atlanta, Hackworth started an interesting lineup on Sunday. Sean Totsch and Pat McMahon got their second consecutive starts on the right side of the back four, with Alexis and Oscar manning the left side. Speedy played at the base of the three man midfield triangle behind Niall McCabe and Magnus Rasmussen. Up top, Abdou played the seven, Ownby the nine and Hoppenot the eleven.
Atlanta set up with a three man back line that had Abdou licking his chops. I’ve been critical of Thiam’s performances as a wide left wing/forward this season, but he turned in his best game of the season on Sunday. I’ll get deeper into player performances shortly, but this was probably the first LouCity game I’ve watched all season where the team looked both comfortable and aggressive. They ran absolutely roughshod over the visitors, a brief spell around the 70′ mark notwithstanding, and were largely reminiscent of the Morados we’re used to seeing out there. City’s only moment of uncertainty came just after Stephen Glass used all three of his subs at once and got a well taken goal out of it from Jackson Conway, who almost had another just after that.
Some numbers. City had 63.1% of the possession, won 56.2% of their duels, 63.6% of their aerials, had eight corners and surrendered just one. They completed 84.1% of their passes and 77.3% in Twonited’s half, largely thanks to a very spread-out Atlanta defense. More to the point, City connected on half of their 16 crosses. That’s not a lot of crosses, but a lot of completions, two things that have been polar opposites all season. That’s good!
City took 21 shots with 11 on target, and five went in. That’s the best shooting day City’s had on the season by a large margin. Atlanta took seven shots with two on target; they only took one shot in the first half.
Everyone in purple played great, but the standout performances for me were from Sean Totsch, Pat McMahon, and Niall McCabe. I was impressed and glad that the fans voted McMahon man of the match, and I think it was completely deserved. He scored his first goal of the season, probably could’ve had a second, was absolutely rock solid defensively but showed some predilection to get forward occasionally, and especially caused problems on set plays. He completed 92% of his 48 passes, and really was all you wanted from a right back in this system.
Totsch was disciplined in the back and passed the ball fairly well, but his hockey assist on Ownby’s opening goal was absolutely inch perfect. Stuff like that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet but his ability to stretch an already hole-y defense really helped out the team on Sunday. He had and all-around solid performance and I hope he continues to keep his starting spot in the back.
McCabe, fresh off his nuptials, was his usual terrier-like self out there. He scored on a screamer of a free kick for the second time this season, led the team in chances created with four, completed about 75% of his passes, and won nine of his ten duels (!!!). He helped Speedy out in defense but obviously was very involved in the attack. The resident Irishman also won five fouls and had four successful tackles. You won’t see a much better performance from a number 8 in the USL Championship this season.
That was the kind of game City fans have been waiting for. Let’s hope we see a continuation of that kind of play this weekend against an always-cagey Charleston Battery. VAMOS MORADOS.
