Well that was fun. 5-0 to Louisville City over FC Cincinnati. Plus Charlotte lost to Ottawa and Charleston drew so Louisville gained points on the lead. Back into second with two games in hand.

 

I'll have to watch the replays tomorrow to see about the red card but it looked pretty clear from where I was sitting.

 

Still a pretty good chance of these two meeting for a fifth time this year in a playoff game.

 

The red was deserved imo. The complaint of FCC was that Berry got hacked really bad about two seconds before the red card offense and there was no call. Their argument was that if the ref would've got that call, the red card doesn't happen.

Don't quite understand Coach Koch at all, unless he is under orders but how do you play such great matches vs. Crew, Fire and Miami FC and then play like a bunch of Rec players is beyond me.

 

No offense Getslow but LouCity isn't the Fire or Crew, so what gives with Koch or for that matter the team, in laying such an egg Saturday. I mean I understand you can have bad days but that bad of a day?

 

FCC played, as if they could have cared less about Saturday match vs. LouCity and were looking forward to a full house of 35,000 + and the NY Red Bulls.

 

If the score was 1-0 or even 2-0 okay you lost a match but 5-0? Tells me more about the Coach and the Player's heart/pride than I want to know about.

Don't quite understand Coach Koch at all, unless he is under orders but how do you play such great matches vs. Crew, Fire and Miami FC and then play like a bunch of Rec players is beyond me.

 

No offense Getslow but LouCity isn't the Fire or Crew, so what gives with Koch or for that matter the team, in laying such an egg Saturday. I mean I understand you can have bad days but that bad of a day?

 

FCC played, as if they could have cared less about Saturday match vs. LouCity and were looking forward to a full house of 35,000 + and the NY Red Bulls.

 

If the score was 1-0 or even 2-0 okay you lost a match but 5-0? Tells me more about the Coach and the Player's heart/pride than I want to know about.

 

FCC was a complete shambles defensively. I thought they'd hunker down and do some defending when they went down a man with 55 minutes to play, but Louisville had loads of space to work in through the entire game.

 

That leads right into the comparisons between last night's match and the Open Cup success. I watched the Open Cup match they played against Chicago and they did exactly what they should've done: parked the defense back, played tough defense, and pushed the game as far as they could. Penalties are always an unknown proposition but FCC has a keeper you can trust to come up big and he did. It's a very different proposition than playing an open game and going for goal.

 

Louisville definitely played well and earned the win with how well they played from the opening whistle, but Cincinnati could've done a much better job of controlling the pace of this game. Once the red card happened, FCC was very unlikely to keep Louisville from winning, but that 5-0 score line was the result of some really poor defending by a team that didn't seem all that interested in playing the second half.

Why does Koch rotate his team so much? Has he started the same 11 in back to back games yet? I get it last night with Tuesday looming, but it creates a disjointed group

We're around 2/3 of the way through the season at this point, so here are some updated points per game standings through this past weekend to give us some idea of the table, taking the disparities in total games played into account:

 

Team/Games Played/Points/PPG

1) Louisville City FC 20/38/1.90

2) Charlotte Independence 22/40/1.82

3) Rochester Rhinos 21/35/1.67

4) Charleston Battery 23/38/1.65

5) Tampa Bay Rowdies 23/37/1.61

6) Bethlehem Steel 21/33/1.57

7) FC Cincinnati 23/31/1.35

7) Ottawa Fury 20/27/1.35

9) Orlando City B 22/28/1.27

10) Saint Louis FC 21/26/1.23

 

Really curious to see if FCC can get their league form together once Cup play ends and they can get a more consisten top group on the field. They still have probably the most pure talent of any team in the league save Tampa Bay.

 

Unlike the West, which is being absolutely dominated by Real Monarchs and the second tier is basically just two teams, Swope Park Rangers and San Antonio, the East is still pretty wide open for a team to go on a tear and rocket up the table to gain some home field advantage for the playoffs.

5-0 this weekend was embarrassing.

Why does Koch rotate his team so much? Has he started the same 11 in back to back games yet? I get it last night with Tuesday looming, but it creates a disjointed group

 

 

Meant to ask this yesterday: I assume he held Konig out for the Open Cup but does Djiby normally not play in the center of that front three? He was on the left side at the start of the game.

Meant to ask this yesterday: I assume he held Konig out for the Open Cup but does Djiby normally not play in the center of that front three? He was on the left side at the start of the game.

 

Yes. Djiby seemed to be given a very free role on Saturday to get away from markers. FCC is at best with him as a point man and Kadim and Jimmy running the channels off of him. They both sat. Weideman is not a wing.

Yes. Djiby seemed to be given a very free role on Saturday to get away from markers. FCC is at best with him as a point man and Kadim and Jimmy running the channels off of him. They both sat. Weideman is not a wing.

 

A wonky lineup is to be expected ahead of a massive Cup game like FCC is facing, but that front three definitely stood out to me.

 

I'm ultimately somewhat accustomed to is as I've never seen a coach constantly tinker with his lineup the way James O'Connor does in Louisville. I can only think of maybe two occasions where he's played the same eleven guys one week that he had the week before.

 

That said, replace Niall McCabe on that right side of the front with Brian Ownby once he's back to 100 percent healthy, he probably had the best eleven out there. FCC definitely got Louisville's best on Saturday night and an opponent with a whole bunch of changes struggled from the opening whistle. Guess that's not as surprising as it looks on first glance.

 

If FCC can find some consistency in the league following the Cup run, they're more than capable of making a big push in the playoffs.

Also, if you weren't paying attention last week, the league made a boatload of expansion announcements.

 

In addition to the previously announced Nashville FC, Las Vegas and Fresno were both announced to begin play in 2018.

 

Austin and Birmingham will join the league in 2019.

 

Announcements are not expected to be finished yet and I think they'll add at least one more for the 2019 group before the year is out.

Also, if you weren't paying attention last week, the league made a boatload of expansion announcements.

 

In addition to the previously announced Nashville FC, Las Vegas and Fresno were both announced to begin play in 2018.

 

Austin and Birmingham will join the league in 2019.

 

Announcements are not expected to be finished yet and I think they'll add at least one more for the 2019 group before the year is out.

 

Seems like they are trying to get an economy of scale to squeeze out the NASL

Seems like they are trying to get an economy of scale to squeeze out the NASL

 

I agree. And with San Francisco Deltas on the ropes financially and FC Edmonton having major doubts about continued travel expenditures, I think it's probably going to work sooner rather than later.

 

They need at least a couple new teams to keep the thing afloat and I don't know where they'll come from. AFC Cleveland and Detroit City FC would seem two prime candidates to go pro, but I don't know if the cash is there.

 

If North Carolina and Indy XI jump ship like the rumors suggest, the league is probably toast. If USL gets to San Diego, Baltimore, Milwaukee before NASL, then the league is probably toast.

It's like one step forward and another back for the folks running NASL. Two expansion teams announced to try and keep the league afloat.

 

First, a smart move to get a team into San Diego starting next season. USL and NASL were both trying to get a foothold there.

 

But second, a team in Orange County, Calif., where there is ALREADY a USL team and they're really close to TWO MLS teams in Los Angeles. Who came up with that plan?

 

That right there is why NASL can't keep its head above water for long.

@Getslow, have you heard much about this lawsuit the Miami team that FCC beat in the US Cup is filing?

 

I don't know enough about it to informatively speak about it very much, but my co-worker's husband was telling me that it could really shake things up in the US in regards to our soccer leagues. Something about the bottom couple of teams being forced out of the MLS and the top couple of teams from lower leagues moving into their spots because all leagues are technically required to run this way according to the International Federation.

 

That's obviously the very dumb down version. It sounded fascinating and could really change some things.

@Getslow, have you heard much about this lawsuit the Miami team that FCC beat in the US Cup is filing?

 

I don't know enough about it to informatively speak about it very much, but my co-worker's husband was telling me that it could really shake things up in the US in regards to our soccer leagues. Something about the bottom couple of teams being forced out of the MLS and the top couple of teams from lower leagues moving into their spots because all leagues are technically required to run this way according to the International Federation.

 

That's obviously the very dumb down version. It sounded fascinating and could really change some things.

 

Let me start by saying that I don't think much is going to come of it... but here's my best quick take at what's going on.

 

So it's not technically a lawsuit. It's a referral by Miami FC (of NASL) and Kingston FC (of NPSL) to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland. FIFA voluntarily played itself within the jurisdiction of that court years ago, primarily as an avenue of settling disputes between team owners or between owners and players (over things like wages or transfers).

 

Short version: FIFA bylaws suggest that teams must gain promotion through their federation's league pyramid "through play on the field", which is the system of promotion/relegation we see elsewhere in the world. Win the English Championship (Div. II), you get a spot in the Premier League the next year.

 

That's obviously very different from the system we have here in which closed leagues manage membership and the only way to get in is to be granted an expansion franchise (usually for a massive fee).

 

So Miami and Kingston are going to argue that the US Soccer Federation has a closed league pyramid and that the lack of ability for promotion is a violation of FIFA rules.

 

The problem they're going to face is that the FIFA bylaws aren't as simple as all that. There's a separate clause that suggests national federations may also manage their leagues in a way to promote financial health or other necessities that the particular federation faces.

 

So the FIFA rules say "Yes, it's against the rules to have a closed league and grant promotion based on who can pay expansion fees and not on play on the field." But they also say "We're going to give federations a lot of leeway in deciding how best to run their leagues, even if it's not strictly in line with what we expect."