When Louisville City FC hit the road last weekend for the first time since the USL Championship restarted play, coach John Hackworth found it to be “a very different world.”
Speaking Monday following a 1-1 draw at Saint Louis FC, Hackworth noted that hotel life has changed, for instance, with team meals prepped and packaged for players.
“COVID-19 has thrown everything that we do,” Hackworth said. “It’s very new and strange.”
It’s something the boys in purple will grow used to with another away game Saturday. LouCity (5-3-2, 17 points) kicks off with first-place Indy Eleven (6-3-1, 19 points) at 7 p.m. inside Lucas Oil Stadium, where a win would propel them to the top of the USL’s Group E table with five games left to play.
Here’s what we learned from Hackworth’s meeting with the media…
Group E’s especially competitive
Just six points separate first-place Indy Eleven and last-place Sporting KC II in the division standings, with the top-two finishers receiving the pod’s playoff spots. That’s the tightest top-to-bottom margin of any USL group.
“All four teams are still very much involved,” Hackworth said. “I said it earlier since we restarted that we’re probably going to beat each other up. Lo and behold that’s turned out to be true.”
Showing the strength of Group E, which also includes Saint Louis FC, its clubs are 9-4-1 in games against opponents from outside the division.
“It’s not getting easier,” Hackworth said of this season’s home stretch. “It’s just getting more difficult. I like our team in these moments because we tend to build. We tend to grow. We have a mindset where we analyze things and improve on that. That’s an excellent opportunity for us.”
An added challenge at Indy
As home of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts, Lucas Oil Stadium continues to be lined for both soccer and football, creating an array of distractions for a visiting team not used to the surface. The markings outside the football field, which include coach and player boxes, only “complicate things,” Hackworth said.
In terms of size, the pitch is 120 yards long, same as LouCity’s Lynn Family Stadium. But it’s more narrow, something the boys in purple will simulate ahead of Saturday.
“We’ll practice with that same kind of width all week long,” Hackworth said.
Scoring’s getting diversified
LouCity had played six games this season before a player other than forward Cameron Lancaster or midfielder Devon “Speedy” Williams scored a goal. Other threats revealed themselves during a month of August in which the boys in purple were unbeaten in five games.
Midfielders Napo Matsoso, Corben Bone and Paolo DelPiccolo found the back of the net before defender Sean Totsch registered his first goal on a header Saturday against Saint Louis FC.
“We see that a lot during training,” Hackworth said of multiple scorers. “It’s taken a while to show it during games.
“…We call it total football when you’re doing that — a term stolen from Dutch soccer.”
Looking back on the draw
Hackworth initially considered Saturday’s result an even game that felt more like a loss given LouCity led 1-0 before allowing a second half equalizer. Having reviewed the film since then, the coach is agreeable to the outcome.
“Saint Louis has a good team,” Hackworth said. “They were highly motivated on the night — made it really difficult on us. It was a hard, hard game. I look at both sides of it.
“We didn’t play as well as we should or could, and Saint Louis was definitely having a good day for them. It probably means that in the end, it’s a fair result.”
