WHO:

Nashville SC, inaugural season, inaugural match, inaugural loss

WHAT:

Louisville City’s first match of the 2018 USL regular season! Yay!

WHEN:

Saturday, March 17, 2018, 3:00 p.m. EDT

WHERE:

Louisville Slugger Field, 401 E. Main Street, Louisville, KY 40202

WATCH:

TV: WBNA-21

Radio: 840 WHAS

YouTube: LINK

MARCH:

The Coopers, LouCity Tailgaters, the Black Sheep, Scouse’s House, City Dads, and a whole lot of other folks will be tailgating at the north end of the parking lot on Preston Street starting at 11 a.m. The Heretics’ Insanity Mindwarp Fun Fest will be at Against the Grain whenever. The tailgate crowd will start gearing up for the actual march about 40 minutes from kickoff.

WHO, AGAIN?

I’ve spent a good chunk of my week trying to figure out how this game was going to go, how Nashville might play. We’ve got some hints from their preseason matches and what we know about some of the players they’ve signed. But the truth is, we don’t really know how they look in a real game when they play in a real game. Which they haven’t, until Saturday.

Names to know are #3 Ropapah Mensa, #10 Lebo Moloto, and #9 Michael Cox. You might remember Cox for a couple ridiculous goals he scored for Orlando City B last time they visited Slugger Field. He’s a handful.

Nashville play physical. They seem to like to try and play up the gut, but how they handle a narrow converted baseball field like Slugger for the first time is anyone’s guess. Not well, if history is any indication. It sounds like a pretty good number of NSC supporters are making the trip up I-65 to the match this weekend, so that should be fun. Thus far, they’ve been a fairly amiable bunch. OF LOSERS! J/K they’re fine. Until they’re not.

From a LouCity perspective, I have no idea what lineup we’ll see. I’m not even 100% certain they’ll come out with a three man back line. I can almost guarantee we see Greg Ranjitsingh, Sean Totsch, Paco Craig, Shaun Francis, Speedy Williams, and Luke Spencer start. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. What I do know is we can expect the same sense of immediacy and solidarity we’ve come to expect from O’Connor’s teams. We can expect a fun match. And we can expect to have a hell of a good time.

I feel pretty good about this year’s group, though. Yes, I’d still like to see one more defender on the roster, but I think we’ll manage with what we have just fine. I also think we’ll win.

VAMOS MORADOS