Morados win the Wasatch Winter Cup!

Louisville City picked up its first piece of hardware for 2020 on Saturday afternoon, beating Real Monarchs 3-1 to clinch the Wasatch Winter Cup in Herriman, Utah. If you didn’t catch the live stream, you can still go back and watch the match here.

Abdou Thiam, Cam Lancaster, and Brian Ownby all scored for Louisville City during the opening half hour of the match. Monarchs got one back at 35′ when Louisville City failed to clear their lines and gave up a quick cross, and Alexis Souahy got beat on the header to concede the lone goal of the tournament.

My quick observations:

  • City still struggled with transitions from offense to defense in the opening few minutes of the match, but settled down after that and really owned the first half.
  • The second half was more contrite but no one got hurt and Monarchs didn’t score, so job done.
  • Jimmy Ockford is quite good
  • Speedy Williams did a great job directing traffic in the center in possession
  • I was most impressed with Pat McMahon and Abdou Thiam’s interplay on the right wing. Thiam was used sparingly on the left in 2019, which made me think he could really only play as a central striker. However, he did some very good work to keep the ball against the right touchline on Saturday, and McMahon’s movement gave him some pressure release valves so he could then run into space ahead of him. It was not a partnership I was expecting to do well, but they did.

And so City won the Cup! Not the one we really want, but it’s nice to start off a season with some hardware!

Other bits:

  • Forward Madison is hosting a happy hour at The Hall on Washington Street tonight at 8pm. Tomorrow’s friendly against the Flamingoes is closed to the public, but they wanted a chance to make an impression on us nonetheless. What better way to do that than with beer?
  • Lynn Family Stadium is hosting UK and UofL’s “spring season” match on April 18, the same day as Thunder Over Louisville. Tickets will go on sale later this week, so watch your inboxes if you’re a season ticket member because these could be hard to get.

Have a great week! VAMOS MORADOS!