Simon Bird believed. Tola Showunmi believed. Ray Serrano believed. Lynn Family Stadium believed.
Louisville City FC’s stunning 3-2 come-from-behind playoff victory over Miami FC started with one thing: belief.
“We never stopped believing, and that’s huge in this time of year,” Bird, the interim head coach, said. He later added, “We always felt we were going to win it in the 90 (minutes), and if we weren’t going to win it in the 90, we were going to win it in 120.”
Their belief wasn’t just a Ted Lasso-style talking point. It was backed by history, and the players knew it.
Including Saturday’s win, LouCity has now advanced from six playoff games in which it has trailed, a fact Showunmi pointed to after the win.
“This has happened, even before I’m here,” Showunmi, who scored the winning goal, said. “This team has been down two goals and we’ve come back. So there is that belief that the game’s not done and it wasn’t done.”
Saturday’s instant classic was the latest installment in memorable LouCity playoff comebacks.
In the club’s fated run to the USL Championship Final in 2019, there was late drama in victories at the Pittsburgh Riverhounds and Indy Eleven.
In 2022, LouCity scored twice in the span of two minutes — in the 83rd and 85th minutes, no less — to overcome a two-goal deficit and eventually down Pittsburgh in a penalty kick shootout in Butchertown.
On the road to open the 2023 playoffs, Louisville trailed just 32 seconds after the opening whistle, but came back to advance on penalties at Memphis 901 FC.
And in 2024, LouCity trailed North Carolina FC 11 minutes in to the playoff opener at home before storming back with three unanswered goals, winning 3-2 after North Carolina tacked on a late second tally.
Maybe the echoes of those games were lingering around Lynn Family Stadium Saturday.
“We went down early. Guys believed. Guys knew we were going to come back,” Ray Serrano said. The 24-year-old forward scored LouCity’s 90th-minute equalizer, setting the stage for Showunmi’s show-stopping, stoppage-time strike.
Now, boosted by this most recent comeback, LouCity hopes Saturday’s Eastern Conference Final at the Charleston Battery (6 p.m., Patriots Point Soccer Complex) goes from beyond belief into the reality of lifting the Eastern Conference trophy.
“You saw in the second half when we believe in ourselves and we take the game by the scruff of the neck and get after it, a lot of good things can happen,” Bird said.
