By Andrew Bell
Louisville City FC fell 5-2 against Rhode Island FC at Lynn Family Stadium Saturday night in a game where the scoresheet didn’t represent City’s performance with the ball.
Rhode Island scored its first goal in the 30th minute when midfielder Clay Holstad received the ball from 25-= yards out and hit a USL Championship goal of the season contender, lasering his attempt top left where it careened off the upright and into the back of the net.
Rhode Island doubled its lead against the run of play into first half stoppage time when forward Jojea Kwizera skipped into LouCity’s box and was forced to the end line, yet still squeezed his attempt past City goalkeeper Damian Las.
In the 67th minute, the visitors caught LouCity with a blazing counter attack, playing Rhode Island striker JJ Williams through on goal where he finished the chance.
City pulled one back in the 85th minute when Taylor Davila played a brilliant chip over top of Rhode Island’s defense to Dylan Mares, who dropped a defender with a fake shot and slotted the ball into the bottom corner.
Rhode Island scored its fourth goal in the 91st minute when Noah Fuson drove into the box and tried to slip his shot past Las, who got a big left hand to the ball, slowing the attempt down enough for Sean Totsch to clear the ball. The referee, however, deemed the ball over the line before Totsch got to it.
LouCity’s Jake Morris scored a fantastic free kick in the 95th minute when he hammered the set piece into the bottom right corner from outside the box. Just a minute later, though, Rhode Island scored its fifth goal after forward Isaac Angking received the ball at the top of LouCity’s box and fired low.
“I think there’s obviously a lot of frustration in the result,” head coach Danny Cruz said after the game. “I felt we certainly created a lot of opportunities, I’m pretty sure the data is going to support that. It’s one we’re going to take on the chin. But, there were some really good moments, a lot of bright spots from the players. We created a ton of chances, but we needed a little bit better execution in a few moments. I’m proud that through 90-plus, the players left it all out on the field.”
The loss is LouCity’s first at home this season, and it comes at the tail end of three games in eight days for the boys in purple. LouCity remains the top seed in the USL Championship’s Eastern Conference with a five-point cushion, as second-place Charleston Battery dropped points on the night with a draw to Phoenix Rising FC.
How it happened
Within the 29 minutes before Rhode Island’s opening goal, LouCity recorded five shots to the visitors’ two. When Rhode Island did find its first goal, it was a firecracker from 30 yards out that couldn’t have been more top-left. Nothing needed to be adjusted tactically after going down a goal, especially as LouCity had played perfect defense to keep Rhode Island out of the box.
For Rhode Island’s second goal on the brink of halftime, City defenders did well to push the ball-carrier to the endline while also being wary of not fouling as he drove into the box. From an extremely tight angle, the scorer had a tiny window to capitalize, and did. By halftime, LouCity was leading the visitors in nearly every offensive metric yet found itself down 2-0.
Coming out of the break, it was clear that Cruz made tactical changes to try to salvage at least a point from the game, which meant sending more forward on offense and playing a higher line to generate more chances. This adjustment left City more vulnerable on defense, but it was a tradeoff any manager would make to up offensive production. Rhode Island combatted City’s changes well, however, and utilized swift counter attacks to solidify their lead.
“At the end of the day, I take responsibility when we were down the way that we were down,” Cruz said. “I pushed. I changed the tactics to throw everything we could at them, and that leaves you vulnerable for sure. I genuinely believed we would come back and win this game up until the final whistle blew. I knew that the game could get ugly because of the way that I was going about trying to get back into it.”
Cruz’s tactical changes after the first half were justified, and the fourth-year head coach’s changes are routinely spot-on as LouCity have scored six goals from substitutes this season, only behind Sacramento (seven goals) in the metric.
On the night, most of LouCity’s statistical averages on offense were hugely increased. City’s average of six shots on goal was upped to 10, and its 18.7 average crosses per game was taken all the way to 38 on Saturday. The quantity of chances couldn’t find a quality finish early enough in the match.
In the ninth minute, Jansen Wilson played a fantastic through ball to Sam Gleadle, whose attempt from the right side of the box was dragged just wide of goal. An 18th minute build-up play led to Wilson finding himself at the top of the box with space. The wingback hit a thunderbolt but missed just high of the target.
In the 20th minute, Ray Serrano seemed to get tripped up in the box, with claims of a penalty from his teammates, but the head official waved the incident off. In the 36th minute, City’s top goal scorer Wilson Harris had a chance he’d like back when Wilson skipped past a defender on the right flank and crossed the ball to Harris in the middle of the box, where his attempt went just high of the bar.
City’s ability to stretch Rhode Island across the field was more limited in the second half, as the visiting team opted to play a low block and preserve its lead. If LouCity cashed in on its chances in the first half, it would have forced Rhode Island out of its own defensive third, giving the boys in purple more to work with offensively.
The bigger picture
A result like Saturday’s should not cause major alarm within or outside of LouCity. In both 2017 and 2018, City’s title-winning years, the boys in purple also lost by a margin of three goals in a regular season game. Additionally, LouCity held a regular season win percentage of 56% in 2017 and 55% in 2018. This season, City has won 68% of its games this season and is on track to perhaps beat the USL Championship’s single-season points record of 78 held by Phoenix Rising.
LouCity will get a full week to rest and train before traveling to play Eastern Conference foe Birmingham Legion FC on the road. Each time City has lost a game this season, it has followed up with a win—a pattern it will look to continue next Saturday.
