Louisville v Kansas City Challenge Cup Pre-Match Thoughts

Courtesy Connor Cunningham

I love cup competitions. I know that isn’t a view shared by everyone, but almost none of my views are. The reason I like cup competitions is that if you aren’t doing great in the league, it’s a chance to still win some silverware. Alternatively, if you don’t make it out of the group stage you can act like you don’t care or say that you don’t take the competition seriously. It’s a win-win! The Challenge Cup also has an increased prize money pool this year as an incentive to help combat the “don’t care” excuse. That is strictly my perspective as a fan as Abby Erceg commented today that the players take every match seriously, but that it is up to the coaching staff to determine how the match is played from a tactics and player selection perspective. Since half of the matches will occur during the World Cup break, there is another factor the complicates a team's performance in the cup this season if you have too many of your starters away on international duty. I for one will be happy to still have club soccer going on during the World Cup.

For Louisville, it will be their first Challenge Cup match but Kansas City has already played a match against Houston in which they rolled out a pretty strong lineup. Every single player who started for the Current that day had started a match prior to that one and most of their regular starters were included in that match’s starting lineup. However, former head coach Matt Potter was desperate to find any kind of form as the Current were sitting on zero league points when that match occurred. Since Louisville and Kansas City turn right around and have a league match in Kansas this upcoming Saturday there is a possibility for both sides to be rather cagey when it comes to the midweek matchup. Caroline Sjöblom pretry much confirmed that the Current will rotate some, but we will see how much. She also commented that she doesn't plan to play in the exact same manner on Wednesday and Saturday. The Current do rotate between 3, 4, and 5 at the back from time to time. She also said that she does expect Louisville to set up the same way in both matches. ***LOUD THROAT CLEAR***

Coach Björkegren stated today that his intentions are to win every competition his team enters, which I like to hear. He all but officially confirmed that there would be some rotation for Wednesday and then some planned substitutes during the match. Björkegren did mix up his lineups during the Challenge Cup last year, but he really hadn’t settled on a Starting XI yet and those matches occurred in the preseason. I am sure he will be tempted to keep the momentum going after the first win, but he surely won’t want to play all of his starters 90 minutes 3 times in 9 days. I suspect the players most likely to get a midweek rest are Erceg, Milliet and Pickett as they have each played the full 90 minutes seven times already this season. No other player has played a full seven matches other than Lund, so relatively speaking the rest of the team should have semi-fresh legs. I do expect Chidiac to get a start either Wednesday or Saturday. Pikkujämsä seems like a prime candidate to start on Wednesday and put in 45 to 60 minutes before being subbed off. Baggett could easily see more time too. Personally, I would start Goins. If McDonald is back, she should start. There are plenty of options. Here is a list of players’ minutes so far this season.

Lund, Erceg, Milliet, Pickett-630

Borges,DeMelo-between 515 and 540

Howell, Wang-between 465 and 475

Monaghan, Davis, Holloway-between 330 and 350

Kanu, Pikkujämsä, McDonald, Lester-between 250 and 270

Fischer-175

Everone else has less than 90.

Saturday’s match is more important in the grand scheme of things, so win, lose, or draw, Louisville will have one eye on the upcoming league battle. Louisville played very well on Friday night against Chicago, but still needs to show that they can win consistently. Erceg and Björkegren both said the team naturally got a lift from getting 3 points on Friday, but also that spirits were high even prior to that.

Björkegren told reporters that Davis and Ekic fully participated in practice on Tuesday and that Davis could see action on Wednesday, but could also need a few more days. Ekic is still building up match stamina and therefore is probably still a week or so away from game action.