CARY, NC — Louisville City FC fell 4-1 in disappointing fashion on the road Saturday at North Carolina FC.
“First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate to North Carolina and Dave Sarachan,” Louisville City FC coach John Hackworth said. “Their gameplan was obviously very effective and they did what they had to in the boxes and unfortunately we didn’t do that so it was a tough night for us.”
Despite controlling possession for most of the game, LouCity got behind 4-0 on the strength of NC FC’s effective counter attacks.
Louisville City captain Paolo DelPiccolo: “I think it was an extremely disappointing night from front to back. I thought we had chances to score early in the game and we didn’t take them. How we gave up four counter attacks and let them score four goals is disappointing. It was embarrassing for us to lose a game in this fashion. I think everyone has to step it up, all of us, because this was completely unacceptable.”
North Carolina FC, under new coach Dave Sarachan, had a joyful home opener, with four goals scored against the defending USL Cup champions. Louisville City outshot NC FC 6-1 in the first half, but North Carolina’s one shot, a low burner by Marios Lomis, found the back of the net.
In the second half Louisville City had more trouble finding the net. The Boys in Purple had 21 shots on the day, but only forced North Carolina goalkeeper Alex Tambakis to have one save.
“When you had the ball as much as we did and when you had opportunities as much as we did in that first 30 minutes you would think we would have put them under a little bit more pressure with our attack,” Hackworth said. “Unfortunately we didn’t really make them ask too many questions of themselves the rest of the day.”
City finally found the back of the net in stoppage time when Sunny Jane got a nifty goal to prevent North Carolina from earning a shutout.
Louisville City has one more game on the road, next Friday night at Atlanta United 2, before returning home for the home opener on March 23 vs. Hartford Athletic.
