Happy belated Easter, for those that celebrate, and happy return from Spring Break, if you’re one of those that decided to brave the wilds of interstate travel and certain states’ indifference to COVID-19 precautions for the first time in about a year! Hope you were safe and returned with no nasty bugs, because soccer at Lynn Family Stadium is COMING IN HOT.

It’s a packed Purple Press today because I didn’t do one last week. Hope you’re ready for a smorgasbord of news, because I’m about to dish:

Metro Louisville FC wins PASL National Championship!

Let’s start with games that actually count for something! Metro Louisville FC qualified for the Premier Arena Soccer League’s national competition in Houston, Texas the weekend before last and WON. THAT. SUCKER. It was a bit of a Cinderella story for a lot of reasons: first year club, lost their first match, squeaked through the elimination match only to face and beat the team that they lost to 6-5 in the Championship game. A huge congratulations to Derek Davis and all of his awesome guys for a job well done!

If you want to learn more about Metro Louisville FC, check them out on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. They’ll be playing outdoor matches all over the city in the NPSL this coming season.

Preseason Friendly: Chattanooga FC 2, Louisville City 3

We’ll begin with the most recent friendly news before we get to the less-successful (score-wise, anyway) Texas versions. Cam Lancaster scored a late (and pretty) game winner to put City on top of the Chattanoogans, who were probably more game than Hackworth & Co. realized in this matchup. Jimmy McLaughlin also hit the scoresheet for the first time this preseason with an equalizer, while Paolo opened the scoring for Morados in the second half.

Fans were allowed at this game but I haven’t run across anything (yet) that talked about formations or tactics or anything like that. A win is good.

Racing Louisville announces technical staff

Coaches include top assistant Gary Curneen, Goalkeepers Coach Sergio Gonzalez, Head of High Performance Brianne Brown and Assistant Coach Kiley Polk.

Support staff consists of Director of Player Experience and Operations Brynn Sebring, Head Athletic Trainer Megan Fernandez, Head Equipment Manager Alyssa Delsanter and Assistant Athletic Trainer Sam Klein.

I don’t know much about any of these folks other than Kiley Polk, who also happens to coach my 8 year old at Louisville City Academy. It’s also cool to learn that Tim Dobrowolski has been filling in for Sergio Gonzalez as goalkeeper coach. I’m glad to see Dobro still kicking around Louisville – he’s a stellar guy.

I’m pleased to see a good number of women on the staff, though I’d have liked to see one as the top assistant. I’m confident that Racing and Soccer Holdings made every effort to put together the best staff they could, so I’ll withhold any further judgment. Best of luck to the staff in Racing’s inaugural season!

Preseason Friendly: Austin FC 2, Louisville City 0 (x2)

City opened their Texas Swing (golf term) with two shortened, back-to-back matches against Matthew McConnaughey’s favorite soccer team. Purple Prose has more than I can offer, I’m just telling you the match happened and City got scored on a lot without returning the favor.

Preseason Friendly: Houston Dynamo 2, Louisville City 0

Again, I got nothing because there’s not much to get. Purple Prose again tries to extrapolate more, and God bless him/her for that.

NEW PLAYER ALERT: LouCity picks up season-long loanee in Jorge Gonzalez

Morados are getting another attack-oriented winger/midfielder for 2021 on loan from Portland Timbers in Jorge Gonzalez! Jorge was a very good college player under now-LC/RL Academy Director Mario Sanchez at SIU Edwardsville, and got drafted in the late rounds of the 2019 MLS SuperDraft by LAFC. He ended up in Portland with T2 in 2020 and came on strong late in the season to score eight goals in 14 appearances.

Gonzalez, as I alluded to earlier, is more of an attack-minded midfielder, which isn’t exactly a position of need at Louisville City right now (cough cough defensive midfield plz cough). However, City’s participating in two competitions this summer and games will be suuuuper thick at points, so depth is definitely going to be Hackworth’s friend. This kid seems like a the genuine article even if he’s a bit of a luxury at this point, but here’s hoping it pays off.

The only other question that needs to be resolved is whether he and Jonathan Gonzalez have to arm-wrestle for the JoGo nickname during training every week. STAY TUNED.

Morados make the cut for 2021 U.S. Open Cup

It really should be called the US Soccer Invitational this year because that’s essentially what it is. Only 16 teams are playing in this truncated competition, and Louisville City is one of them. That’s good! However, a lot of other deserving teams didn’t get invited, because US Soccer is very bad at logistics even under the best of circumstances. That’s not good!

What will be interesting is how much effort John Hackworth expends in this edition of the Cup. It’s probably more gettable for a lower league team this year than it’s been since the turn of the millennium. We don’t yet know who the MLS entrants are yet, because the Open Cup Committee’s Spinny Choice Wheel landed on the craziest/dumbest possible selection criteria, Points Per Game earned by May 3, when some teams haven’t even played three games yet. WTF.

Anyway, the teams that wash out of that process may or may not be any good, which means that Louisville City’s path to the Lamar Hunt Trophy might be a little easier than usual. Tack that on to what turns out to be a very busy USL Championship schedule, and tough choices are going to have to be made. Good luck to Hack & Co. on that.

The schedule is out!

It has opponents and dates and everything! Notable are three out-of-conference games against Landon Donovan’s San Diego Loyal, Colorado Springs Switchbacks, and Hartford Athletic, the latter two being away matches.

City starts the season with four straight home games, but finish with just five tilts at Lynn after July 31, while the season finale is on October 30 away to Birmingham. Part of that stretch includes five straight away games from September 3 to October 3. I presume NWSL scheduling and the International Women’s Cup plays some part in all of that, but don’t actually know for sure because NWSL hasn’t released a schedule yet. The July slate is particularly rough, featuring seven matches in 28 days.

Still, it’s soccer, and we’re here for it. A little adversity will hopefully be good for us, as though 2020 wasn’t test enough. VAMOS!