Louisville City FC is on the precipice of securing its coveted third star, with a much-anticipated 8:30 p.m. Sunday meeting against San Antonio FC in the USL Championship Final at Toyota Field in southeast Texas.
The game will cap off a memorable season for City after the boys in purple set a new club record in amassing 72 points and winning more than 20 games in the regular season. They can end it with a new mark: A victory Sunday would make LouCity the first team in league history to win three titles.
To get there, City must go through San Antonio, the top seed in the USL Championship playoffs that rang up 77 points in the 34-game regular season. The Western Conference champions tied league records with 24 wins and 17 shutouts.
Sunday’s USL Championship matchup will be a first for the league: No previous title game featured the No. 1 seeds from the Eastern and Western conferences.
Both teams secured clean sheets in their conference final wins, with City topping Eastern Conference rival Tampa Bay Rowdies, 1-0, this past Saturday before San Antonio beat Colorado Springs, 2-0, last Sunday night.
City is no stranger to the USL Championship Final. Sunday’s game is the club’s fourth appearance in the title match. LouCity won trophies the first two times it reached the league’s biggest stage, in 2017 and 2018, but fell short in the 2019 edition.
Follow along
- The game will air live nationally on ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and Sirius XM FC, with local radio coverage on ESPN Louisville’s 680/105.7.
- For Starting XI and in-game updates, follow @loucityfc on Twitter and Louisville City FC on Facebook. Also find the club at louisvillecityfc on Instagram.
Availability report
- Corben Bone (Out)
- Jorge Gonzalez (Out)
- Jan-Erik Leinhos (Out)
- Cameron Lancaster (Questionable)
- Niall McCabe (Out)
- Kyle Morton (Questionable)
- Brian Ownby (Questionable)
- Ian Soler (Out)
Story lines…
Postseason dominance: LouCity is the best postseason team in USL Championship history, winning 18 matches over the past eight playoffs. With a record of 18-4-3 in its 25 prior postseason matches, LouCity has a 72 percent winning percentage.
Conference consistency: LouCity’s introduction into the USL Championship also coincided with the adoption of conferences, and the boys in purple have advanced to the conference final in each of its eight seasons. LouCity has now won half of the Eastern Conference Finals in league history.
What’re the odds: For the first time this postseason, FiveThirtyEight.com doesn’t favor LouCity. The statistical analysis website gives the boys in purple a 40% chance of winning against San Antonio FC. That appears to be based on the game’s location given that FiveThirtyEight rates LouCity higher in the Soccer Power Index than San Antonio by 2.9 points. With both teams at an even 1.7 defensive rating, LouCity boasts a higher offensive number by 0.2 points.
On the road: Sunday will mark LouCity’s first USL Championship Final played outside of Louisville. The 2017 Final was at Louisville Slugger Field, while the 2018 and 2019 matches were at the University of Louisville’s Lynn Stadium. Historically, away teams are 2-9 in the final, with the last two championships won by the road team.
About the venue: San Antonio FC plays at Toyota Field, a soccer-specific stadium that opened in 2013. Toyota Field has a capacity of about 8,300 fans — some 600 or so that are expected to be wearing purple on Sunday with a sizable contingent of LouCity fans expected to travel.
Know the foe: The top overall seed in the playoffs, San Antonio was the best team in the regular season with 77 points. The club features both the Goalkeeper of the Year in Jordan Farr and the Defender of the Year in Mitchell Taintor, beating out Louisville City’s finalists for both awards in Kyle Morton and Sean Totsch, respectively.
The opener: Scoring first is a key to victory Sunday for LouCity. San Antonio has won 45 straight games when it was the first team to score. The streak began at the beginning of last season, when San Antonio beat Colorado Springs, 3-0, at Toyota Field to open the 2021 campaign.
Cruz control: At 32 years old, LouCity’s Danny Cruz will on Sunday become the youngest head coach to manage a USL Championship Final. Orange County’s Richard Chaplow, who won last year’s title at age 36, is the youngest coach to have lifted the league trophy.
Hometown hero: Louisville native Elijah Wynder, who scored the extra-time game winner in the conference final, continues a long road back from an injury that kept the 19-year-old out for all of 2021. Wynder spent half of this year on loan to USL League One side FC Tucson, where he logged limited minutes, and has returned to Louisville to make 12 appearances with two goals.
Academy impact: Along with Wynder, two other LouCity Academy products came off the bench in the conference final to help the boys in purple advance: Wynder’s brother, Josh, and Carlos Moguel Jr. Going back to the conference semifinal round, both Josh Wynder and Moguel Jr. converted in a penalty shootout victory over Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC.
Clean Sheet Danny: Danny Faundez, who filled in for injured No. 1 goalkeeper Kyle Morton, has stepped up for LouCity in the playoffs. Faundez recorded a clean sheet in the Eastern Conference Final and made a pivotal stop in the penalty shootout in the Eastern Conference Semifinal. The 29-year-old Faundez made LouCity’s roster from open tryouts before the season, having been the backup choice at each of his previous clubs.