Let’s go ahead and pull the bandaid off: that was a hard loss. I won’t say it’s a bad loss because Nashville is a quality (boring) team and because City had some disadvantages from a fitness standpoint going in. But giving up a late game-winner off a free kick from the defensive half is unexpected. The foul that led to the goal was based off a LouCity mistake, not anything Nashville necessarily did. And Nashville goalkeeper Matt Pickens had to stand on his head to keep City out of the net as many times as he did.
John Hackworth knew what he had to do last night – win. He did everything he could to make that happen. The starting lineup featured four changes from the previous game against St. Louis. Hubbard was in goal, with Totsch and Craig in front of him. Taylor Peay lined up at right back, and Sean Francis on the left. Paolo DelPiccolo got his first start in midfield with Speedy Williams and Magnus Rasmussen in months, a welcome return. Ownby was joined by George Davis and Niall McCabe on top.
Missing from the team sheet were Pat Mc Mahon and Oscar Jimenez, which was a little concerning, as was the fullback pairing in general. However, this setup was more interesting in that it allowed for some different looks offensively, where Paolo and Speedy could play in front of the center backs so Magnus could play the 10 and feed balls to the three forwards. In other looks, one of the two central midfielders could drop all the way back and send the other two forward on runs into the box.
All three of Hackworth’s substitutions were for forwards and an eye for scoring goals. Luke Spencer eventually obliged him. Formation changes pushed more men forward, and things sort of changed to a 3-4-3, 3-5-2 look with Paco Craig playing right back at points and Niall McCabe almost playing as a center back. The team definitely put in a commendable effort.
But it wasn’t enough. Nashville’s Ropapa Mensah turned Shaun Francis inside-out in the first ten minutes which led to a very broken play when his cross missed everything, bounced to a wide-open Taylor Washington whose first touch of the entire game was the opening goal, his first of the season. City had several good chances to go level, but none of them worked until Luke Spencer headed home a rebound in the 79′.
City continued to keep up the pressure for a game winner, but a bad pass attempt from Sean Totsch forced Speedy Williams into a foul in stoppage time, and Nashville pulled off an improbable free kick play to former UofL Cardinal Jimmy Ockford, who pulled out a game winner and kept Nashville’s hopes of a first place finish alive. He also shut the door on LouCity’s hopes of hosting a home playoff game this season, and opened the door to having to play a play-in game.
The game itself wasn’t pretty. The referee got too involved, though in some cases that was necessary. Lukasz Szpala issued eight yellow cards on the night. It’s pretty clear these two teams don’t like each other much. Challenges were physical, and pushes and shoves thereafter were the norm. Nashville is a big team, but Morados weren’t into the idea of being pushed around all night.
Let’s talk numbers:
LouCity had 66.4% of the possession, but lost most of their duels on the night, including just 43% in the air. They doubled Nashville’s number of pass attempts and completed over 80% of them, including nearly 70% in Nashville’s half. They out-shot the Big Birds 14-11, and 5-4 on target.
The problem with those number is Nashville is more efficient, and has been for most of the season. They like to have the ball, but are perfectly comfortable without it. They don’t need a lot of chances to score. They had a few in this match, and two of them went in. City has definitely improved in the efficiency/conversion rate metric recently, but not enough.
