That was what you’d call a gut-punch draw, City fans. Our Morados had a two goal lead after 79 minutes of play and saw both of them melt away before the final whistle blew, even with the Rowdies down a man.

A draw isn’t a terrible result against Tampa Bay in the grand scheme of things. The problem is City dropped points against bad teams from Birmingham, Chester, Swope Park, and Loudoun County, Maryland this season. They needed to take points off of good teams to try and balance the scales.

They almost got it done against a very good Rowdies squad, but Lucky Mkosana, who had a few very vocal supporters in the stands, I noticed, made sure it didn’t happen.

John Hackworth played the same XI as last week against Red Bulls 2. Unfortunately, things got upended fairly quickly when Pat McMahon went out with an injury in the 14′ and was replaced by Shaun Francis. Franno had a good work rate in his performance, but switching Oscar to the right so Francis could play left back meant the game plan was kind of out the window.

The heat map in the first half:

Fortunately, City got a couple of tough goals, including an Oscar to Paco, plus another notch in Napo’s recent scoring tear. Brian Ownby had six shots, four on target, but somehow none went in. Then we gave up a meh penalty, took off central midfielder Magnus and put on a central forward, which arguably left a big hole in the midfield that the Rowdies immediately recognized.

I don’t know if we can really blame that last goal on substitutions or not, but it’s certainly a point worth discussing. Putting on Luke Spencer for Magnus Rasmussen after giving up a penalty was definitely an aggressive move. In fairness to Luke, he set up the play that led to Napo’s goal, so it’s hard to make the argument that he didn’t positively impact the game.

However, putting Taylor Peay in at halfback and moving Sean Totsch up to help Speedy out in midfield might have been a good option. I’d say just sub on another central defensive midfielder, but putting Paolo on might have been risky from a fitness standpoint, even if he was in the 18. I’m not sure whether Geoff Dee is even on the team anymore, as he hasn’t made a team sheet since July, I don’t think. Maybe there just weren’t better options. Or maybe there was George Davis. I don’t know. It might not have even mattered. No one shut down the cross in the box from Shawn Barry, and Lucky beat Paco Craig to the header, and everything melted and we drew.

In the end, it was a really chippy game of soccer between two teams fighting for playoff positioning. Neither side got what they wanted out of the match. Tampa Bay can probably take some solace that it managed to right the ship after going down two goals against the run of play. City’s got a bit less to be positive about emotionally. However, the numbers say it was actually a fairly even game, if even more offensively impressive than I might have previously thought:

As I said, most of the comparative stats say it was a pretty even game. Numbers I liked or was surprised by would be shots and shots on target, and shooting accuracy. City really struggled in both categories for a lot of the season, so seeing those figures improve is good, as is a two goal game against a team that’s often so similar in TBR.

Morados are now six points back of fifth place with four games to play. It doesn’t look like a home playoff game is in the cards unless some weird stuff happens before October is out. I suppose it’s possible, so all Hackworth & Co. can do is keep plugging. Vamos Morados.