That was fun, y’all.
Louisville City opened its championship defense campaign with a pretty convincing 2-0 victory over newcomers Nashville FC on a beautiful Saturday afternoon a Slugger Field. The field itself left even more to be desired than usual, but it couldn’t distract from a big win for Los Morados.
The team Twitter account announced a 4-1-4-1 lineup, which, when I looked at it, made me laugh and laugh. Because it wasn’t a 4-1-4-1, you see. Ranjitsingh and his clean boots started in goal, of course, with Paco Craig, Sean Totsch, and Pat McMahon in front of him. Paolo DelPiccolo retains the captain’s arm band for 2018 and started next to Kyle Smith in central midfield, flanked by Shaun Francis and Oscar Jimenez on the wings. Luke Spencer got the nod up top, joined by Cuatro and Niall McCabe.
City started out the match pretty brightly, trying to take advantage of Nashville’s inexperience on the precarious Slugger Field pitch, but didn’t generate many chances in the first half, aside from a really nice free kick in the first ten minutes off Spencer’s head that was well-saved by Matt Pickens for Nashville. City had four shots in the first half to none for Nashville.
City managed to turn it up in the second frame pretty early. In the 56th minute, Niall McCabe sent in a nice cross from the left wing that found Spencer’s head, and the forward directed the ball past Pickens to the far post, where it ricocheted into the net. Ten minutes later, Morados doubled their advantage with a fabulous piece of attacking team play. Luke Spencer capitalized on a midfield turnover and hit a seeing eye ball to Oscar just outside the right side of the box. Oscar hit a great cross behind the defense to a wide open McCabe, who just had to tap the ball in by the back post.
Nashville ended up countering with a couple of chances of their own from Lebo Maloto in between City’s two goals, and then a late Tucker Hume header off a corner near to when time expired, but otherwise Greg Ranjitsingh didn’t have a whole lot to do during this match. NSC looks to have some talented pieces on their roster, but they looked like what they are: a team that hadn’t played together very much yet. I do, however, think they’ll round in to form as the season wears on.
City weren’t exactly perfect, either, and there were some signs that things weren’t as crisp as the players would probably like them to be. That said, the game never really felt in doubt, and a 2-0 win with a clean sheet is absolutely the optimal way to start the season.
Again, that was fun. Let’s do it again next week.
VAMOS, VAMOS LOS MORADOS
