Some Purple Soccer Updates -- SUNDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

Louisville City FC

I thought I'd take a minute today to step away from UofL Athletics and get an update on other Louisville Athletics action.

The boys in purple, Louisville City FC are having another fantastic year, and are looking to repeat their USL championship from last year.  LouCity is currently sitting in 2nd place in the USL Eastern Conference 5 points back of their fierce rival FC Cincinnati.  The ones in purple do have two games in hand, and with a 7-2-4 record, a reasonable chance of making up those points in the extra two games.  We're only about halfway through the season, so there's plenty of time to make up those 5 points in any case, but the extra two games in hand certainly give Lou City an extra leg up.

Outside of league play, Lou City is competing in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, commonly called just The US Open Cup, or even just The Open Cup.  Louisville City is the only USL team to advance to the round of 8, after knocking off fellow USL representative Nashville SC on June 20th.

By being the USL team to advance the furthest in the tournament, Louisville City FC receives a $25,000 bonus.  Louisville has, to this point, played all of its Open Cup games at home, and this year, all of those Open Cup games have been held at UofL's Lynn Stadium, an arrangement that seems to be working out well for the hometown team.  They will be heading out on the road for the next Open Cup game, heading up to Chicago, to play the Chicago Fire July 18th, a middle-of-the-pack Eastern Conference MLS team.  For comparison, the New England Revolution, who Lou City defeated at Lynn stadium in the 4th round stand with 24 points, while the Fire stand with 20.  Based on that, I'd say that this is a very winnable game for City.  Knocking off two MLS teams in the Open Cup would be a coup, particularly when combined with 2 wins over FC Cincinnati who announced in May that they would be joining the MLS.

Personally, I'm glad to see UofL taking a bit more collaborative approach with Lou City.  We
effectively have 3 quality teams representing the city between the UofL Men's and Women's teams and Louisville City FC.  While soccer is the most popular sport in the world, it's not quite so popular in the US.  Working together to grow the size of the overall game is a benefit to everyone.  While I understand the wear and tear that extra games during the summer visits to the turf at Lynn Stadium, presumably UofL is getting some remuneration to help offset the costs of the TLC given to the field during a time when the field would still need upkeep, but would otherwise not see all that much use.

If you're not keeping up with Louisville City FC, I would encourage you to do so.  They are a great team, representing the city with excellence and class.

CCRH

As always on Sunday mornings, if you didn't get a chance to check it out live, do please go catch the Facebook Live recording of The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour.

It is available at https://www.facebook.com/WCHQfm/videos/2079170958772843/.

Jared was off changing 20s into 5s and 10s, but in his spot we had the ever-awesome Daryl Foust join Case, Paulie, and I.  We didn't talk much about UofL women's sports, alas, but we had a lot of fun and I think the conversation was engaging and entertaining.  See how you do in the quiz about UofL facilities.

We gratefully acknowledge our hosts at WCHQ 100.9 FM for their continued hosting of The Cardinal Couple Radio Hour and a very special "Thank You!" to Kathy Weisbach, station manager, for foregoing a couple of extra hours of Saturday sleep to engineer our broadcast and Facebook Live.


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JMcA