By Andrew Bell
Louisville City FC defeated Detroit City FC in a scrappy 1-0 road win Saturday night that featured two red cards for the boys in purple.
LouCity center back Sean Totsch broke the deadlock in the 66th minute, dispatching a Ray Serrano-won penalty for Totsch’s seventh goal of the season. Just two minutes later, Wes Charpie was served a red card for appearing to push Detroit forward and former LouCity player Antoine Hoppenot who was in on goal.
Playing with a man down and 20 minutes to go, LouCity coach Danny Cruz made a pair of defensive substitutions to finish out the game with a clean sheet. In the last seconds of the game, Wilson Harris was shown his second yellow card for time wasting.
The win widened City’s lead atop the USL Championship’s Eastern conference with Memphis 901 now trailing by four points. Combined with a San Antonio FC draw Saturday night, the boys in purple are two points back of the league’s best overall record and hold a game in hand over the Western Conference leader.
Overall, it’s 10 games unbeaten for LouCity, matching the club’s undefeated streak to open the season.
“I was really proud of how our group handled going up a goal,” Cruz said. “I was also really proud of how our group handled the red cards we received. It was a collective effort from the group, and I couldn’t be more proud. The players were fantastic from the minute the whistle blew. I felt that defensively, the group was excellent.”
Bagels galore
It’s a league-best and LouCity’s 13th clean sheet of the season, yet it didn’t come with ease. This season, Detroit City has scored in 92% of its home games. Against LouCity, the hosts used a smaller home field pitch to their advantage, spraying long balls forward and wide, covering most of the field’s ground and resulting in 95 final-third entries. Detroit used the ball in wide areas 82% of the time it was in possession. Le Rouge as a result outnumbered the boys in purple 28-12 in crosses and 7-4 in corner kicks on the night.
However, LouCity’s continued defensive dominance was key in stifling any attack made by Detroit. LouCity’s back line, consisting of Totsch, Manny Perez, Wes Charpie and Amadou Dia combined for 11 aerial duels won, 26 recoveries and 19 clearances.
Complacency isn’t an option for Cruz’s defense. The boys in purple have now gone 14-1-0 overall and 7-1-0 away from home when scoring the opening goal. Importantly, Detroit City on average has scored 45% of ts goals in the final 30 minutes of matches. But in Saturday night’s second half, Le Rouge had no big chances on LouCity’s goal.
LouCity goalkeeper and preseason signing Kyle Morton has paid dividends for his team thus far. The 28-year-old has 11 clean sheets despite missing a stretch of games with a concussion. Morton also has an 80% save percentage, higher than any goalkeeper from teams in USL Championship playoff positions.
What we learned
The matchup against Detroit certainly asked for flexibility in LouCity’s play style. Lynn Family Stadium allows the boys in purple to play expansive soccer — getting the ball wide, possessing, and feeding the ball through channels.
However, Detroit’s Keyworth Stadium is just 65 yards wide, around 10 yards narrower than the average professional soccer field. LouCity had to adopt a more direct approach against Le Rouge with deep players like Tyler Gibson, Corben Bone and Sean Totsch playing long balls across the field for Harris, Serrano and Enoch Mushagalusa to latch onto.
“I felt like we were relentless,” Cruz said. “It’s not about playing soccer here at this stadium, it’s about being resilient and having the right mentality and understanding that at this stadium, the ball is going to spend half of the time in the air. I felt that, given what the game asked for, we answered the call.”
When LouCity went up a goal and down a man, the small pitch benefitted Cruz’s side defensively as his team wouldn’t have to cover as much ground, ultimately resulting in the shutout.
Cruz talked about the importance of winning away from home by saying, “The message to the group was that these games are extremely important to getting to where we want to be. We want to make sure that we progress week in and week out. I thought that the players handled the crowd really, really well.”
Flexibility and resiliency will remain important as LouCity’s next two matches are on the road — a solid Miami FC side next Saturday followed by a midweek trip to play rival Indy Eleven.
