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USL Charleston Battery

Louisville City FC Preview: Six-Point Match on Saturday

August 21, 2015 - United Soccer League Championship (USL)
Charleston Battery News Release


Bryan Burke and Matt Fondy of Louisville City FC
Bryan Burke and Matt Fondy of Louisville City FC
(Louisville City FC, Credit: CMH Photography/Chris Humphrey)

The Battery's stretch run to the playoffs took a sudden lurch toward the ditch Thursday night in St. Louis when Charleston surrendered a 2-0 lead and three goals for the first time this season. On Saturday night they'll face a far tougher challenge in Louisville, Ky.

Two games into the team's final seven USL matches, Coach Mike Anhaeuser can't be satisfied with the results so far. His men outplayed Saint Louis FC at home on Aug. 15 but were forced to settle for a single point. On Thursday they faced a Saint Louis roster depleted by five suspensions and three injuries and gave up two goals after the 82nd minute to depart Missouri empty-handed thanks to a 3-2 loss.

They'll have a chance to make up some of that disappointment Saturday night at Slugger Field against Louisville City FC (7:30 p.m., on YouTube here), the USL Eastern Conference team led by breakout forward Matt Fondy. But if Saint Louis was a handful on Thursday, preparing for Louisville -- and the rest of the schedule -- looks brutal by comparison.

Louisville (12-4-6, 7-2-2 at home) is coached by former Orlando City Lions midfielder James O'Connor. The team surged out of the middle of the Eastern Conference pack this summer to overtake Charleston for the coveted second-place playoff seed. After opening with a solid 5-3-5 record, they gone 7-1-1 over their last nine, outscoring opponents 25-13. Louisville (22 games, 42 points) trails only Rochester (22 games, 47 points) for the regular season championship.

SCOUTING THE BATTERY

Of the five games the Battery have lost this season (the first four were 1-0 at Montreal, 2-1 at Charlotte, 1-0 at Toronto and 1-0 at Rochester), none were as emotionally gutting as Thursday's defeat. The team in now winless in its last five, 0-3-2, and hasn't won since July 18.

How the team responds Saturday will go a long way toward determining where it will finish in the Eastern Conference.

Anhaeuser was in a much better personnel position on Thursday than he'd been on Aug. 15, but in retrospect clearly missed iron man center back Shawn Ferguson, who sat out the match with a yellow card suspension. The key to the team's defensive success this season has been rock-solid play from its central defenders, Ferguson and fellow center back Taylor Mueller, with interchanging support from central midfielders Justin Portillo and Jarad van Schaik. Ferguson had not only played in all 22 previous matches, he had started all 22.

Kevin Corby got the start and turned in a yeoman's shift, with seven saves, including a stop on the second penalty kick. Usual starter Odisnel Cooper is the likely candidate to get the nod on Saturday.

Anhaeuser shook up the attack in St. Louis, putting Heviel Cordoves in the lone forward spot in place us usual starter Dane Kelly, yet once again, outside of Cordoves' nice conversion of Ricky Garbanzo's cross in the 10th minute, the Battery's offense sputtered. This time the unit lost the shots battle (17-9), too.

SCOUTING LOUISVILLE CITY FC

While Rochester is about to become the first team to qualify for the post season, and seems unlikely to descend from the No. 1 spot any time soon, the Rhinos aren't exactly fun to watch. After 22 matches they've scored just 28 goals -- 16th in the league, tied with FC Montreal.

Louisville, on the other hand, has scored 45 times in 22 games. Only Pittsburgh and Tulsa (46) are better, and they're nowhere near LCFC's defensive prowess.

Louisville is second in the league in shots, third in points, assists and goals and third in goals-allowed average. They've pitched seven shutouts, and they generate a ridiculous number of corner kicks -- 6.73 per game. The No. 2 team for corners, Tulsa, averages just 5.45. They basically earn twice as many corners per game as the Battery.

Are they dirty? On the contrary. Louisville has the fewest yellow cards in USL, and ranks 18th in fouls.

So how do they do it? One answer is consistency. Seven of the 24 players on the roster have started at least 20 of the team's 22 matches. Compare that to the Battery, where despite playing 23 games, only four players (Ferguson, Mueller, Jarad van Schaik and Emmanuel Adjetey) have at least 20 starts.

Goalkeeper Scott Goodwin went to the Carolina Railhawks as a sometimes-starter in 2014 after a stellar career at the University of North Carolina. Now in his first season as a full-time starter, he has started every Louisville match this season, producing a .728 save percentage.

Twenty-six-year-old fullback Bryan Burke, a former Orlando City starter whose 2013 season ended with a broken leg at MUSC Health Stadium, has 21 starts, a goal and an astounding seven assists. Midfielder/defender Conor Shanosky, a 23-year-old former D.C. United prospect with multiple stops around the lower divisions, has 20 starts and three goals.

Second-year pro Tarek Morad, 23, spent his first professional season with Oklahoma City. O'Connor installed him as the team's defensive mid, and he's produced 20 starts and two goals. His 26-year-old midfield partner, former Charlotte Eagle Juan Guzman, has 21 starts, a goal and an assist

The purple team plucked a find from Arizona United when it signed 23-year-old, second-year forward Kadeem Dacres this offseason. Playing in a complimentary role in the Louisville scheme, Dacres has produced six goals and two assists in 21 starts.

But the key to the Louisville engine is one man: 26-year-old forward Matt Fondy. Undrafted by MLS coming out of UC Santa Cruz in 2011, Fondy started his professional journey in Harrisburg, moved home to the Orange County Blues in 2012-13, and moved up to Chivas USA of MLS in 2013. He left the failing club in 2014 for a stint with Chicago, then dropped back to USL for this season.

Already one of the most intriguing strikers in U.S. Soccer, the enigmatic and explosive Fondy has been an MVP candidate in Louisville, scoring 16 goals with five assists while starting all 22 of the team's matches.

They are, in short, one of the elite teams in the league, without an obvious weakness to exploit, playing in front of a home crowd at converted baseball park Louisville Slugger Stadium, where they average 6,431 fans per game and have gone 7-2-2 in their first season.

It's a tall order. But Mike Anhaeuser and the Battery have faced down long odds before in their 22-year history -- and won.

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Images from this story

Bryan Burke and Matt Fondy of Louisville City FC
Bryan Burke and Matt Fondy of Louisville City FC
(CMH Photography/Chris Humphrey)		   



United Soccer League Championship Stories from August 21, 2015


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