Steel Square Off against LouCity

Match: Bethlehem Steel FC vs Louisville City FC

Date: Sunday, August 20, 2017

Time: 5:00 pm EST

Venue: Murray H Goodman Stadium (Campus of Lehigh University) Bethlehem, PA

Refs: REF: Luis Arroyo AR1: Ryan Dos Reis AR2: Michael Grello 4TH: Melvin Holmes II

Stream:

What LouCity should look like: After a convincing (5-0) drubbing of FC Cincinnati, Louisville visits Goodman. Louisville has been consistent all year, getting solid output from the likes of Brian Ownby, Cameron Lancaster and Oscar Jimenez, LouCity have maintained a top three spot virtually all year. Recently their form is indicative of how they’ll hope to fair in the playoffs. Beating Cincy and potential playoff hopefuls Saint Louis and Red Bull II are encouraging, put a slip up against Charlotte shows that Louisville is at least beatable. They also have a loss to Harrisburg so they aren’t immune to trap games either. If they can control possession and come out swinging tomorrow night, this could get ugly.

What Steel should look like: I suppose you want me to talk about why Mo is in the lead image right? Well, and stop me if you’ve heard this before, he’s back. After a rehab stint around this time last year, former professional soccer player Maurice Edu is available to play again. That’s not meant as a slight or anything, and hey, look at Oguchi Onyewu producing in 2017, anything is possible. That being said, this throws a wrinkle into some plans. I love the James Chambers and Adam Najem pairing, I love the James Chambers and Derrick Jones holding midfield. While I’m really intrigued by Maurice Edu and James Chambers, my issue is Mo being back takes away from the kids. I don’t think he gets the start so I’d expect a Chambers-Jones holding pair with Fontana up at CAM, but we’ll see tomorrow what happens.

To contradict myself, Mo does bring a big veteran presence to this side that wouldn’t mind having another one around before playing a playoff bound club. Cory Burke is back available after serving his yellow card suspension and if Steel are going to get anything here, he’s going to have to be sharp out of the gate. The back line and Tomas Romero have been in sync recently, and I’d expect the full force of Auston Trusty and Hugh Roberts in this one. That being said, I’m really good at bringing up situations that don’t play out so take my opinions as that. What I do know is that Steel need the talents of Santi Moar and Chris Nanco to shine through again. They’ve somehow managed to fly under the radar although they’ve been two of the biggest reasons Steel FC are in sixth in the standings.

We’ll see you out at Goodman. Here’s hoping Mo can stay healthy this time around.