In the playoffs, emotions run high.
Just look at last week for Louisville City FC. It was a wild, 3-2 come-from-behind victory over Miami FC.
After the winning goal hit the back of the net, LouCity’s players celebrated in a dogpile while 10,148 fans at Lynn Family Stadium went into a purple pandemonium.
This week, as the No. 4-seed LouCity turns its attention to the No. 2-seed Charleston Battery in the USL Championship Eastern Conference Final, the task at hand is taking that emotion, bottling it, and settling down.
“I think part of our job as a staff is to make sure that we manage those emotions,” LouCity interim head coach Simon Bird said. “It’s about now getting back to work. It was obviously a highly charged game at the weekend, lots of emotions, a great game and some great memories from there, but it’s about being grounded again and going again. That’s what we’ve done all week.”
Both teams, LouCity and Charleston, will be working to control the emotions this week — the Battery overcame a three-goal deficit against Hartford last week in nearly equally dramatic fashion.
“They’re a team that, like us, I feel that never say die and they want to you know doesn’t matter if they’re down, they’re going to continue to push and they certainly showed that at the weekend,” Bird said of Charleston. “They showed their character and strength.”
Adding to the mix of emotions is three seasons of rivalry-building history between the clubs.
Charleston knocked LouCity out in the Conference Final in 2023. In 2024 and 2025, Louisville and Charleston battled for regular season supremacy, finishing first and second respectively in the Players’ Shield race both seasons.
Now, in 2026, one of the two will emerge as Eastern Conference champion.
“I think we’re we’re we’re confident in our abilities and we all know what we’re good at and how we drive together as a team at this stage of the season. We’re focused on one opponent at a time at this point,” said forward Chris Donovan, who scored the equalizer last week. “So, it’s all focused on Charleston.”
Kickoff is set for 6 p.m. Saturday at Patriots Point Soccer Complex in South Carolina.
Follow Along
• The game will air locally on MyTV 58, with local radio coverage on ESPN Louisville’s 680 AM and 105.7 FM. SiriusXM FC will (Ch. 188) will carry national radio coverage.
• For streaming, log on to WDRB+WAVE, ESPN+ or YouTubeTV.
• 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.
Storylines…
10 in 12: This will be LouCity’s 10th appearance in the Eastern Conference Final in the club’s 12-year history. Should LouCity win Saturday, it would be the club’s fifth appearance in the USL Championship Final. LouCity won the title in 2017 and 2018, and reached the title game again in 2019 and 2022.
Streaking: LouCity comes in on a nine-game unbeaten run in all competitions. That’s the longest run without a loss for LouCity since an 18-game streak from June to November 2025.
All-League: The United Soccer League named LouCity midfielder Taylor Davila to its USL Championship All-League Second Team this week. Davila led LouCity with nine assists in league play, the fourth-most in the USL Championship. This marked the fourth-straight season Davila earned All-League honors. He made the All-League First Team in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Award Finalist: On Friday, LouCity’s Brandon Dayes was named a finalist for the USL Championship’s Young Player of the Year award. The 17-year-old recorded 18 appearances and logged 1,398 minutes on LouCity’s back line, winning 91 duels at a 58.7% success rate and notching 63 recoveries, 20 interceptions and 81 clearances.
Comeback kings: LouCity has claimed two of the five largest comeback wins in USL Championship Playoffs history, including last week’s win over Miami. The other was the 2022 Eastern Conference Semifinals, when LouCity overcame a two-goal deficit to advance past the Pittsburgh Riverhounds in a penalty shootout on Oct. 29, 2022. Overall, LouCity has come from behind to advance from six playoff games in club history.
Playoff legend: Tola Showunmi scored the winning goal in both of LouCity’s playoff victories. He is the third player in club history to score winning goals in back-to-back playoff games, joining Luke Spencer (2018) and Cameron Lancaster (2020), and the fourth player to score two winners in the same postseason run, joining Spencer, Lancaster and Magnus Rasmussen (2019).
Winning when it counts: LouCity’s 22 playoff victories are the most of any club in the USL Championship’s history, and account for more wins than postseason games played by any team other than Charleston (h/t Nicholas Murray).
Series history: LouCity leads the all-time series against the Charleston Battery 12-7-5, across competitions. In Charleston, the series is all square at 4-4-4, including a 2-2-2 series at the Battery’s current home, Patriots Point Soccer Complex. Saturday will mark the third playoff matchup between Charleston and LouCity. Louisville knocked off the Battery 2-0 in extra time in the club’s playoff debut in 2015. Charleston won the 2023 conference final matchup, 2-1.
Shootout: LouCity has participated in 10 penalty shootouts in club history, winning eight. That includes three shootout wins in this season’s Prinx Tires USL Cup: at Detroit City FC in the group stage, at the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the quarterfinal and at San Antonio FC in the semifinal.
