Louisville City FC has seven regular season games left to improve its USL Championship Playoffs seeding, but there’s no better opportunity to make up ground than through its upcoming series against the Tampa Bay Rowdies.
LouCity travels this weekend to meet the Rowdies for the first time since defeating them in last year’s Eastern Conference Final, with kickoff scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg.
City (12-8-7, 43 points) sits fourth on the table. The Rowdies (15-6-5, 50 points) are second, only a point off the first-place Pittsburgh Riverhounds.
Both teams enter Saturday in fine form, with the boys in purple winning most recently at Colorado Springs Switchbacks SC to mark a second straight victory. They’ve taken points from six of their last seven games.
Tampa Bay has continued to excel despite a midseason coaching change, seeing Neill Collins depart for League One side Barnsley in England. Former player Nicky Law took over at the end of July and had the Rowdies on a four-game winning steak until a midweek away defeat to Memphis 901 FC, which rallied to level in the 88th minute before scoring a 97th-minute winner.
LouCity and the Rowdies play their return game on Saturday, Oct. 14, in a final regular season fixture that could impact final positions on the table. Top-eight finishers in both conferences advance to the playoffs, with the top-four hosting postseason openers.
Follow along
• The game will air live locally on MyTV 58 and ESPN Louisville’s 680/105.7.
• If streaming, download the free WDRB+ app to watch the local feed in Louisville. ESPN+ also streams the home feed of all USL Championship games not selected for national TV.
• For Starting XI and in-game updates, follow @loucityfc on Twitter. Also find the club at louisvillecityfc on Instagram and Louisville City FC on Facebook.
Player availability report
Owen Damm (questionable)
Amadou Dia (out)
Oscar Jimenez (questionable)
Kyle Morton (out)
Ramzi Qawasmy (out)
Jordan Scarlett (out)
Story lines…
Beasts of the East: In recent years, the Eastern Conference title has run exclusively through LouCity and Tampa Bay. The boys in purple got the better of the Rowdies in 2022’s conference final after Tampa Bay won the clubs’ national semifinal meetings in 2020 and 2021. Regular season clashes have also been competitive with last year’s results both 1-0 in favor of the home side.
Top form: With 14 points taken from its last seven games, LouCity is on its best such stretch of the year. Paired with the victory at Colorado Springs, the boys in purple also won two weekends back over Oakland Roots SC to mark consecutive victories for the fourth time this season. Against the Switchbacks, they also scored three goals in a game for the third time in 2023, pushing their goal differential back to even through 27 of 34 games.
The skipper: LouCity captain Paolo DelPiccolo could become the seventh player to hit 250 USL Championship regular season appearances Saturday. DelPiccolo also ranks second in league history in regular season appearances for a single club, having played 195 regular season games for City, five behind the 200 made by former Charleston Battery standout Taylor Mueller.
Delivery boy: Making his second consecutive start, LouCity Academy product Carlos Moguel Jr. serviced both of LouCity’s first two goals at Colorado Springs, playing in corner kicks to Jorge Gonzalez (22nd minute) and Elijah Wynder (49th). They marked the first assists for Moguel Jr., a 20-year-old midfielder out of Martha Layne Collins High School in Shelbyville, Kentucky.
Gonzalez’s goal: A flicked header to the back post made for a big moment for the Spaniard in Colorado Springs. The midfielder had last scored on May 24, before a midseason injury forced Gonzalez into surgery and a recovery keeping him sidelined through most of the summer. Gonzalez returned Aug. 19 as a substitute and made Saturday’s win over the Switchbacks his second straight start.
A tall task: Maarten Pouwels had a breakthrough of his own at Colorado Springs, scoring his first goal in purple seconds after subbing on in the 87th minute. The Switchbacks quickly answered, making Pouwels’ third goal in a 3-2 victory the game winner. The 6-foot-7 striker from the Netherlands joined City in the spring. He’s the club’s tallest field player ever.
Ownby’s impact: Also a sub against the Switchbacks — Ownby continues to gain fitness on the comeback from injury — he played Pouwels in for the 88th-minute goal. Pouwels got a tackle in to force the ball loose, it bounded to Ownby, and the winger quickly sent a pass forward to the big man. It marked Ownby’s 36th assist, continuing to rank him first on LouCity’s all-time list.
Golden Glove: Oliver Semmle is without a clean sheet since Aug. 4, but his solid play between the posts this year still has him within reach of two milestones. Semmle is already the USL Championship’s rookie clean sheet record holder with 11. The LouCity single-season record is 13, set last year by Kyle Morton, and the league’s overall high shutout total of 15 was last matched in 2022 by San Antonio FC’s Jordan Farr.
