If someone were to have told you Louisville City would score four goals in a playoff game after the month of April, you most likely would have thought that person didn’t know much about soccer.
Their seven goals in just seven games – including three shutouts – led many to believe the Louisville City defense would be the answer to the club’s potential success, not a scoring outburst that saw every field player record a goal on the year.
“I think for us, where we do a great job with the guys, is that we have a process and we stick to it,” said head coach James O’Connor.
“When we start the week, we’ll do individual analysis and clips, we’ll start to drop things in at training,” he added. “It just doesn’t change for us.”
Louisville City’s four goals from three different players in the postseason opener against Bethlehem Steel FC is the perfect summary to how the rest of the year played out.
Lead by Luke Spencer’s 11 goals, the boys in purple found a way to put the ball in the back of the net no matter who was on the pitch.
With 12 players scoring more than one goal in the year including postseason play, offensive explosiveness is no longer a question for the number one seed in the Eastern Conference.
“No matter who starts, week in and week out, we have trust that they’re going to come in and do the same job as the guy next to them,” said defender Tarek Morad, whose first goal of the year came in the season finale against the Richmond Kickers.
Though their four goals against Bethlehem were the most the club has tallied in a single postseason game, Louisville City believe there is still room for improvement.
“We think we can be better,” said midfielder Oscar Jimenez. “Moving forward, since everyone wants it and has high expectations, we’re going to go into next week trying to be sharper in everything we do.”
Here’s more from the match…
- Louisville City outshot their opponent for the third game in a row, with its twelve shots on target outnumbering Steel FC 12-1. Of their 17 total shots on the night, 10 of them came from 10 different players with 9 players hitting the target.
- As mentioned before, Tarek Morad was held scoreless until the final regular season game of the year against the Kickers. His three goals in the previous two games are a team-best heading into the conference semifinals.
- After their 2-1 win over the Charlotte Independence, the fourth-seed Rochester Rhinos head to Slugger Field with the winner advancing to the Eastern Conference championship. Their last outing with the Rhinos ended in a 0-0 draw, though the boys in purple won the last home match against the Rochester side 2-1.
