Louisville City hosts Charlotte Independence tonight at Slugger Field in an Eastern Conference battle. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. with the game televised locally on WBKI, nationally on ESPN+ and broadcast on radio on 840 WHAS.
After a tough week last week with three games in 7 days including a 120-minute midweek tilt vs. FC Cincinnati from the MLS, Louisville City (7-3-5, W-D-L) had a lighter week this week with six days to prepare for Charlotte Independence (2-6-7).
“We watched them in the hotel on Saturday night when we were in New York,” Louisville City coach John Hackworth said. “They fired their coach and their general manager was their previous head coach. There’s continuity there, certainly, but I think you look at the way they played Saturday against Birmingham, they had an excellent performance and won 4-1. I think we’ll see a new version of them.”
Charlotte has struggled to start the season, losing four of its first five matches and notching just one win through the first 14 matches. But Coach John Hackworth said it won’t be an easy week. The Independence made a coaching change last week and promptly beat Birmingham Legion 4-1 Saturday night.
“I think if fans look at the table and see where they are, it is deceiving,” Hackworth said. “Charlotte is a team that has a good roster, and if they play the way they played on Saturday night then we are going to have a very difficult matchup on our hands.”
Louisville City’s road last week was tough, a 2-1 extra time loss to FC Cincinnati in the Open Cup and then a dramatic 1-0 loss to NY Red Bulls II in New Jersey Sunday. Hackworth said he wants his team to take lessons from both games.
“We played an MLS team and took them into extra time,” Hackworth explained. “We put a lot of effort into that, but unfortunately came out on the losing end. We really had a tough time trying to recover, especially being on the road. And then the game vs. Red Bulls, we didn’t play very well in the first half. It was always going to be a tough game in a hard situation, but I was really proud of our response coming out after halftime. We felt like we had the momentum for a good stretch of the second half, and we thought we were going to get a goal. Sean Totsch took an elbow to the mouth and had to come off the field. At that moment he was off the field we conceded a goal late in the game. It was really just tough in all ways.”
“The lesson we learned was that we have to be able to deal with it, that stuff happens. You have back-to-back games against tough opponents or short turn-around or you got a man down due to injury… you have to be able to deal with it. We can’t accept the results that we took last week, we have to learn from them and move on.”
After Sunday, Louisville City is 6th in the Eastern Conference with 24 points. Charlotte is currently 15th with 12 points. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. Tonight’s matchup is sponsored by Subway.
